Chapter 1—What is Vipassana?
If you would like to get the meaning of Vipassana, it can be answered in various ways. But if you ask what Vipassana is and would like to get an answer directly probing at the mind, it must be that Vipassana is ‘seeing things as they truly are.’
Just try to think about the phrase ‘seeing things as they truly are.’ What is your gut reaction? What were you thinking of from reading the phrase, ‘seeing things as they truly are’?
This book was translated into English. You can read English. This is the fact that nobody can deny. Therefore, by saying that you are ‘thinking in English,’ it would be correct. Congratulations to anyone who considered oneself thinking in English. You understand it correctly. You are seeing things as they truly are already.
Yet by asking ‘Are you an American?,’ it may start to get more complex than the previous question, as it depends on your perspective of what nationality you belong to. If someone forces you to accept that you are an American, while your mind still wants to think that you are not, as you may have a stronger heritage from a certain ethnicity, this means that you need to further discuss the issue. And no matter how much you can come up with reasons or supporting evidence to confront and back up your own concept, the bottom line is that whatever you believe in will be equivalent to how much reality you would get.
The question is if the fact is linked to the concept, then there would not be any real seeing of things as they truly are, isn’t it? Doesn’t it mean that we have been living in a self-created virtual reality all along? Each person is living in each own particular world of virtual-reality, without ever coming across each other.
An argument, without any objective, in what is real and what is unreal would never be conclusive. Therefore, as one refers to the effort being put into one’s practice to see things as they truly are, one needs to pursue with the next question, ‘What is the purpose of such seeing?’ Certain facts, like ethnicity may simply make one feel that ‘I am different from you’ or ‘I am much better than you.’ Beyond that, things may get carried away to the point of ethnic cleansing, or it may just simply result in racism and the desire to harm them as happening nowadays.
The purpose of Vipassana is to see things as they truly are, in order to free oneself from all sorts of mind-luring attachment, and be liberated from being imprisoned by the dark force of delusion. We may not realize how dangerous it is this delusion that we are involving with, until we have to struggle through some of the consequence that we have created. Is it better off if we can realize the truth of life? For example, we do not need to go to war based on the difference in our beliefs, or we do not have to suffer because of our thoughts. This filters down to the common daily problems. For example, by simply leaving all the work behind at the office, one does not have to bring the stress back home.
Now that we get a rough idea that Vipassana is to see things as they truly are in order to free oneself from clinging. And by freeing oneself from clinging, one does not have to suffer because of insubstantial matters. Here comes a crucial question on what can one use as the goal in seeing things as they truly are? It is analogous to knowing that we are going to war to free ourselves from slavery, but who are the enemies? Where are they? When will we meet them?
The answer for those who consider practicing Vipassana at home is that the goal of seeing things as they truly are, basically, is everything that we cling to unnecessarily. What is such unnecessary thing, yet turns around and hurts us as if it is an enemy? Try to ask yourself whether you have experienced some of these situations.
Have you ever been cheated by someone for a couple bucks, yet it kept you thinking about it repeatedly? It can be said that not only you were cheated, but your own thought also stole your happiness.
Have you ever agreed to end your relationship with someone, but you were still jealous of your ex-lover, thinking about the past with regret, concerning how happy he or she is with others?
Have you ever cheered a team, but the other team won, which means you have become a loser as well? But if you look at it carefully you have not lost or gained anything along with the loser at all.
The above questions are just examples to demonstrate how unbelievable people suffer a great deal from clinging to an insubstantial matter. But the frightening fact is that each day we may cling to as much as 9 unessential issues out of 10.
Occasionally you may admit to yourself or complain to others that you were so stupid to be obsessed with insubstantial or trivial matters. Despite knowing that it was stupid, you could not stop thinking about it. You were unable to control it, and could not be mindful about it.
Just only truly understand Vipassana. To truly understand the meaning of Vipassana is the initial step. And the first step is to accept it truthfully through investigation with a simple thought that anything that is not controllable according to our wish cannot be called ours. For example, when we accept that thought is not ours, we would feel as if we have withdrawn over half of ourselves from suffering rooted in the thought, resulting in weakening of such thought instantaneously.
It is like a single strand of hair obscuring the view of the whole mountain, and it is like a funny story that we do not understand and cannot follow the theme. As we cannot follow it, we become easy victims of this world. Most people breathe in and out to serve defilement which is the cause of various degrees of suffering, and may not be able to die peacefully because of the lifelong suffering that erodes one heart. Until one understands the meaning of Vipassana, and sees that by simply having a different perspective of life, one does not need to go anywhere, and does not need to perform any ritual, yet happiness has already replaced suffering, while one is still breathing, before dying with ignorance, not knowing the source of every new suffering.
Conclusion
Vipassana is to see things as they truly are that everything outside and inside ourselves is impermanent, uncontrollable according to our wish, so we would let go of inconceivable clinging, freeing ourselves from clinging, which overwhelmingly causes us to suffer mentally in things that should not have concerned us. The job of a Vipassana practitioner is simply to transform oneself into a new perspective, from a demander, a desire-worshipping warrior, and an egoist, to an observer, a knower, and a truth-worshipping warrior in what one is facing instead.
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