A leading lay teacher of Vipassana meditation, Satya Narayan Goenka has trained more than 800 teachers. He calls Vipassana an experiential scientific practice, through which one can observe the constantly changing nature of the mind and body at the deepest level.
Goenka was born in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). He joined his family business in the1940s and became a pioneering industrialist and a leading figure in Myanmar’s large influential Indian community. In the mid 1950s, he took his first ten-day Vipassana course at the International Meditation Center in Rangoon, under the guidance of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. In 1962 when Goenka’s industries and businesses were taken over by Myanmar’s newly installed military government he began spending more time meditating with his teacher. He soon moved to India and started conducting his ten-day meditation course. In a country steeped in caste and religion, Vipassana became easliy accepted because of its nonsectarian nature.
A prolific writer and poet, Goenka has authored numerous books and is invited to lecture at institutes as diverse as the Dharma Drum Monastery in Taiwan, the World Economic Forum at Davos and the Millennium World Peace Summit at the United Nations. Goenka’s Vipassana Reaserch Institute, a nonprofit organization offers free courses in 163 centers in 90 countries.… More