In this episode, we begin by speaking about George’s most recent trip to a Vipassana 10-day meditation retreat. We spoke about the point and purpose of a 10-day silent meditation retreat within the Vipassana tradition, and explore the ideas that surround the motivations for doing so. We also discuss some of the parallels between psychoanalysis and the theory behind the practice of Vipassana meditation, especially on the notion of thinking being less a source of autonomy, but something that is habitually driven by instinctual or unconscious forces. 

The point of Vipassana, as it turns out, is disclosed as a method for dislodging or uprooting these habitual and unconscious ways of conceiving of ourselves, our lives, and the stubbornness of our complexes or “sankharas” of thought and personality. We then discuss what Vipassana is in terms of its aspirations and aims, how it is fundamentally non-denominational, offers a “direct” path to finding transcendent reality through a process of introspection, as well as the concept of dhamma as nature which we are asked to observe and befriend in meditation. We conclude the discussion by noting that the discipline doesn’t offer a “solution” for every human problem, but a tool to make the problems that life is heir to easier to bear and less prone to causing us misery and suffering.