1. WELCOME
Welcome to the Global Vipassana Pagoda, a monument to peace and harmony, with the world’s largest unsupported stone dome. It’s neither a temple nor a mosque, nor is it a church or synagogue. But people from every religion, from every walk of life, and from every caste and creed come here to practice meditation – Vipassana meditation.
Vipassana is a Pali word, and it means to see things as they really are. The meditation technique was rediscovered by Gautama Buddha more than 2,500 years ago, and was taught by him as a way to ease universal suffering. Vipassana meditation offers a tangible means of transformation through observation.
The Global Vipassana Pagoda was the vision of Satya Narayan Goenka, who was born and raised in Myanmar. He learned this ancient technique of meditation from his Burmese teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin, and reintroduced the technique to India, the land of its origin. As the principal teacher of Vipassana, Goenkaji describes Vipassana as a technique of truth realisation.
S. N. GOENKA:
Vipassana is a process of self-realisation, truth realisation, realisation of the truth pertaining to oneself, within oneself, by oneself at the experiential level.
The teaching of Buddha is not to convert people from one organised religion to another organised religion. Conversion is there. But conversion from misery to happiness. Conversion from bondage to liberation. Conversion from cruelty to compassion. And to become a very good human being, enjoying peace and harmony for oneself, and generating nothing but peace and harmony for others.
We’ll now head up the stairs and discover this amazing pagoda, which was built by donations, both big and small, made by meditators from every corner of the globe.
āo logon jagata ke, calen dharama ke pantha ।
isa patha calate jñānī jana, isa patha calate santa ॥
Come, O people of the world,
Let us walk on the path of Dhamma, let us walk on the path of Dhamma.
This is the path on which the wise ones have walked,
This is the path on which the saints have walked—the path of Dhamma.
