I admit I felt good reading Saunder’s comments on A critique of Vipassana Meditation as taught by Goenka.
I haven’t write my thoughts to the critique yet – I have some things to say, from my own experience – but I will put here Sander’s comments, as he is also a part of the professionals who are backing up the technique with factual from medical research.
The fight or flight mechanism causes the body to contract due to stressors in our environment.
Over years these contractions remain as tension or tone in all the body muscles, which are not released.
When muscles are tense they send signals back to the brain and the greater the tone, the higher the frequency of the signals.
If the body has a great deal of tension, then the brain becomes overwhelmed with signals and starts having less stamina to deal with the day to day requirements of dealing with life.
The Goenka technique requires us to concentrate on these tensions and the brain then starts to release the tension. Over time we start to reprogramme all the muscles to remove the tension built up over many years. This has the affect of making the body more flexible, lighter and less painful. In addition, it removes a great deal of load off the brain and gives the brain extra stamina to deal with the needs of life.
The brain feels refreshed and at easy which enables sound judgments and clear thinking.
The technique is based on sound physiology of the body.
If you read the article “The physiology of boredom depression and senile dementia” by M.N. Saunders, you will find out the processes that occur in the brain which bring about the changes and results in a mind that is free of clutter and is sharp and clear.
I searched for the paper ““The physiology of boredom depression and senile dementia” by M.N. Saunders” he is referring, I guess it is written by himself, I only found the abstract as it is under research communities repositories.
and…
My final comments on the matter.
You remove a little tension from the body and you get a little peace.
You remove a lot of tension from the body and you get a lot of peace.
You remove ALL the tension from the body and you get TOTAL PEACE AND TRANQUILITY IN BOTH THE BODY AND MIND.Isn’t that something worth striving for?