Dear students and friends,

About a month ago, one of the world’s leading lay teacher of Vipassana meditation passed away. Satya Narayan Goenka, who was more famously known as S.N. Goenka, was born in 1924 and led an inspiring life until passing away from natural causes at the age of 90.

S.N. Goenka was an Indian born in Myanmar, and grew up in a very conservative Hindu household. He was a very smart and capable man, and established himself as a successful businessman by the age of 31. As he often experienced severe migraine headaches, he went searching and tried various remedies but was unable to find a cure. One day, his friend suggested for him to meet with a Vipassana teacher named Sayagyi U Ba Khin. From this encounter, his life took a different turn…

S.N. Goenka made requests for Ba Khin to be his teacher, and although reluctant at first, Ba Khin finally took him on as a student. Goenka then studied under his teacher for the next 14 years. He later left his successful business to his family and moved to India… It was during this time that he was given permission from his teacher to teach meditation… so he started teaching Vipassana meditation.

In 1976, Goenka opened his first meditation centre. As people kept experiencing the benefits from meditational practices, the number of centers kept growing! Today, there are over 227 meditation centres worldwide, in 94 countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, UK, Japan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar and Thailand. He trained more than 800 assistant teachers, and each year more than 100,000 people attended his Vipassana courses.

He believed in bringing Dharma to everyone, and taught as a non-sectarian… people of all faiths were invited to listen to his talks. He has spoken at the UN Peace Summit, lectured at the World Economic Forum and has also been conferred the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour in India for social work.

Although he has passed away, millions of people are still benefiting from his life dedication towards bringing an ancient form of meditation to the world. Do read the article below. It gives you a brief about Goenka’s extraordinary life… how a chance meeting with a great meditation master to cure his migraine, turned his life around to benefit millions of people worldwide.

Tsem Rinpoche

Vipassana pioneer Goenka dies at 90

SN Goenka, who pioneered the Vipassana meditation movement and founded centres in several countries, including Thailand, died of old age on Sunday night. He was 90. 

SN Goenka, who pioneered Vipassana meditation, died of natural causes on Sunday night. He was 90.

He died peacefully at 10.40pm (12.10am Monday Thailand time) at his residence in Mumbai, his website, thaidhamma.net, said on Monday.

The funeral will be held on Tuesday at Electric Funeral Ground in Mumbai. In Thailand, the ceremony will be held at the City of Dhamma on Tuesday in Bangkok from 9am – 10am and noon to 1pm.

All followers in Thailand are invited to attend the funeral, the website announcement said.

Goenka, an Indian born and raised in Myanmar, is survived by his wife Mata Elaichidevi and six sons, Indo Asian News Service, another website, said.

The spiritual leader has a strong band of followers in several countries across the world, including Thailand. He set up eight meditation centres in Thailand and a ninth is under construction in Udon Thani. The centres provide regular training in meditation courses from beginner to advanced levels.

He first offered his method of meditation for Buddhists in 1969 and set up the Vipassana International Academy, better known as Dhamma Giri, Igatpuri, a small town about 136 kilometres from Mumbai, in 1974.

He visited Thailand several times to meet his Thai followers.

[Extracted from: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/372233/renowned-vipassana-meditation-pioneer-dies-in-india-aged-90]

S.N Goenka: The Man who Taught the World to Meditate

You may not know the name of S.N. Goenka, who died Saturday at the age of 90. But if you’ve counted your breaths to relax in a hospital, or if you’ve ever tried to eat, walk, or speak “mindfully,” you’ve felt his influence. He might even have changed your life.

Satya Narayan Goenka did not set out to be a meditation guru. He was an Indian businessman who happened to come across the teachings of a then-radical Burmese Buddhist tradition which had adapted Buddhist meditation practices and taught them to laypeople, like me and (probably) you. That may not seem so radical today, but one hundred years ago, it absolutely was. These techniques had been monastic traditions only – imagine what it would have been like had medieval monks suddenly taught peasants to read the Bible.

Goenka was one of many laypeople whose lives were changed by meditation – but he had the widest influence. He was a core teacher for the first generation of “insight” meditation teachers to have an impact in the United States, and through them, to popularizers like Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR) is now taught across the country in hospitals, schools, even prisons.

Indeed, the very notion that meditation may be practiced in a non-religious, non-sectarian way owes much to Goenka himself. Basically a rationalist and a pragmatist, Goenka emphasized that meditation was not spirituality and not religion, but more like a technology – a set of tools for upgrading and optimizing the mind. These are my terms, not his (I discuss this fascinating story of secularization and popularization in my book Evolving Dharma), but the gist is the same. You don’t have to believe anything, wear special clothes, or chant special words in order to calm the mind, improve memory, and attain the various other benefits of meditation.

At the same time, Goenka did work within a specific Buddhist tradition, and created a very rigorous format designed to attain certain levels of mental understanding on ten and twenty day silent retreats. To Westerners, he can indeed seem like the very image of the Indian sage, talking about enlightenment while insisting on a very demanding (and inflexible) set of contemplative exercises. Goenka retreats are austere – not only no speaking, but also no reading or writing, and with arduous schedules of concentration and meditation.

Indeed, rather like Bikram yoga, Goenka’s method has become something of a fixation for his followers. To this day, Goenka-style retreats are taught by Goenka himself – by video, of course – and it was Goenka’s insistence on this point that led some of his leading American students to break from their master and create the forms of mindfulness more familiar to us today. These Americans were ex-hippies, after all. And while Goenka centers (http://www.dhamma.org/) have proliferated around the globe, the more flexible techniques taught by his former students (as well as parallel versions from Zen and Tibetan traditions) have had an even wider impact.

That impact has been enormous. Studies suggest that one million more Americans take up meditation every year – mostly in healthcare contexts. These people are not interested in enlightenment or awakening, and they aren’t about to spend ten days in silence watching videotapes of spiritual teachings. They’re taking up mindfulness (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-michaelson/meditation_b_3741544.html) (basically, paying attention to present-moment experience in a particular, focused way, whether in formal meditation or in other activities) because they’re suffering from chronic pain or post-traumatic stress. Or they’re doing it because they work at Google, or Twitter, or Apple, or one of the dozens of technology companies using mindfulness to improve the performance and well-being of employees. This is how the teachings known as the “dharma” have evolved – beyond religion, beyond spirituality, into every walk of life (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-michaelson/meditation-on-the-run_b_578104.html). And S.N. Goenka is largely responsible for it.

America is on the threshold of a mindfulness revolution (http://www.evolvingdharma.com/). As the data regarding mindfulness’s economic impact becomes better developed and better known, we are going to see mindfulness offered everywhere – not for reasons of spirituality, but for sheer economics. These technologies decrease healthcare costs, improve productivity, and speed processes of healing. The Buddha may have taught them to lead to enlightenment – but they also save a ton of money.

How this experiment will turn out is anyone’s guess. Maybe mindfulness will just be a fad. Maybe it’ll last but, like yoga, be limited only to some. Or maybe it really will transform our society. Whatever comes next, all of us who have used it to relax, get well, or just get through the day owe a debt of gratitude to an Indian businessman who passed away last week. Let’s take a mindful breath to remember him.

[Extracted from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-michaelson/sn-goenka-dead_b_4016374.html]

Images of S.N. Goenka

Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi paying respects to S.N. Goenka.

S.N. Goenka giving a speech at the U.N. Millenium World Peace Summit in late August 2000. There was a gathering of 1000 of the world’s religious and spiritual leaders, held at the United Nations under the auspices of Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

S.N. Goenka with his teacher, Ba Khin (left).

At the Global Vipassana Pagoda in Myanmar which seats 8000 people. An inaugural one-day meditation course was held at the pagoda on December 21 2008, with Mr S.N. Goenka in attendance as the teacher.

S.N. Goenka at one-day old student meditation course in New York.

S.N. Goenka’s ashes placed on top of the red cloth in Mumbai, India. This was before he was flown back to Myanmar for his ashes to be disperse.

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