About those claiming Vipassana is a "cult"

[CrunchyChocolate555]

Hey guys,

 

I just got back from a 10-day Vipassana retreat and have personally gained great benefits. A guy I met there that did the course with me just sent me this link about some people claiming Vipassana is a cult.

 

http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/forums/showthread.php?t=16830

 

What do you guys think? I think problems will definitely arise if you have hardcore atheists start to blame the technique and not have a proper understanding that things can and do go wrong for certain people but the technique is not to blame.

 

Anyone want to take a shot at refuting some of the claims made in the thread?

 

[Flolfolil]

well, i know you will find the answer you are looking for in this thread

[thelerner]

Cult?? The ideas behind Vipassana and long retreats seem sound to me. The individual who runs that particular retreat might be setting up a cult like atmosphere. Don't know. I'd like to go on such retreats myself some time. Though I doubt I'd have the intensity of the writer who went to 20- 10 day retreats and a 30 day one.

 

Get too hard core with anything and there's regrets about how you could have spent your time. If you take the advertising with a grain of salt, you don't feel as 'burned' when enlightenment doesn't shower on you.

[RongzomFan]

That is an atheist website.

 

Atheists are some of the stupidest and ignorant people around.

 

Very few of them are smart like Richard Dawkins.

[RongzomFan]

Anyone want to take a shot at refuting some of the claims made in the thread?

 

 

Atheists trash every religious idea aggressively. Just ignore them.

 

Ironically, atheism is just a realist (buddhist definition) philosophy just like Islam, Judaism etc.

[Leif]

It wasn't that bad for him, after 400 ! retreat days he actually came to some realizations, LOL :

I've come to doubt whether an historical person called Gautama Buddha ever existed, let alone that all the words attributed to him were spoken by him, collected accurately and preserved for several centuries before being finally written down without any alteration at all

 

Though he seems like an intelligent guy by western education standards.

 

Personal crisis, or just slow learner?

 

As for the mental health of the participants, unless there is some real statistics, there's no point in discussing.

Edited July 15, 2013 by Leif

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Firstly, if someone has no success at all with vipassana it's not the technique that's wrong because the theory is sound and many people have had some success, it's people nowadays not bothering to get a foundation in shamatha and virtue.

 

Secondly, these 'psychotic episodes' are to be expected from people overdoing it. The analogy of the elephant and the cat.

 

They actually prove that moderate practice does dig up crud from the subconscious that can then be dealt with.

 

Thirdly, scholars have a consensus that the Buddha did exist, and who cares if the teachings are word-for-word what he said if the same information is there. Actually, who said it is entirely irrelevant too. What matters is the truth the teaching points to, which you can easily begin to verify for yourself. Sure, it's subjective, but so is your own awareness and nobody doubts that. This is one hypothesis that only internal experiments can test.

[Jetsun]

Plenty of people have gained a lot of benefit from Goenka retreats which is why they grew so quickly and became so popular. For example Tim Parks who is an extreme atheist skeptic wrote a book called "Teach us to Sit Still" about curing his health problems with Vipassana retreat after Western medical science couldn't help him

 

 

The theory side is usually pretty light and the whole point is to find out for yourself if what they say in the theory is true, so to criticise it for being subjective and unempirical is stupid because the whole point is for it to be a subjective investigation into yourself.

 

He might have a few valid criticisms though, for example it isn't always wise to just push on if someone is having a psychotic episode, sometimes these places do need a broader psychological understanding as the process is likely to bring up a lot of our issues and karma. But what might also happen is that people will turn against the technique when it starts to work, if it starts to show that your ego is illusory that can be threatening and scary so people might then get angry and turn against it when it actually starts doing the job its designed to do

[skydog]

My experience was very cultish imo.

 

However my case may very well be very different to others.

 

So it is difficult to generalise.

 

Each to their own I guess, whatever works for you.

[Protector]

Atheistbums watch out