It Is Well with My Soul: My Departure from the S.N. Goenka Lineage

On September 17, 2019, I made a hard decision. I decided to leave the spiritual organization I called home. For 17-years, I sat <a href="https://www.dhamma.org/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">vipassana meditation</a> courses in the tradition of <a href="https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/goenka" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">S.N. Goenka</a>. During that time, I hardly ever ventured beyond that lineage mainly because it’s wholly discouraged if you want to “develop” on the dhamma (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">dharma is more widely known</a>) path taught by Goenka-ji. I justified it to myself primarily because I didn’t know anything else. The practice resonated with me immediately. I was also moved because all of their courses are solely <a href="https://www.planetdharma.com/what-is-dana/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">dana-based</a>, and other traditions charge for the courses, including a sliding scale. In the Goenka lineage, you can never pay to take a course. It is only after one has completed a 10-day course that you can give dana at an amount that you determine you can afford. Teachers in this tradition are not allowed to accept any <a href="https://www.planetdharma.com/what-is-dana/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">dana</a> from students. All of this fostered unspoken piety of believing that what “we” practiced was superior, pristine, and pure compared to what other Buddhist traditions teach. Based on this, why would I explore different lineages when I was fortunate to learn this technique continuously taught in its pristine purity for over 2500 years? I believed this. <a href="https://medium.com/@AfroLez/it-is-well-with-my-soul-my-departure-from-the-s-n-goenka-lineage-aec5cb3db162">Learn More</a>