Dr Paul Fleischman in Town

The Scientific World View and Vipassana Meditation
A lecture by Dr Paul Fleischman, Psychiatrist and Author.
Tuesday, November 17th @ 6pm - The Morris Center, 10 E Broad, Sav. FREE.

During the 20th century, revolutions in physics and biology transformed our vision of the world and of ourselves, creating increased insight into the scientific basis for Vipassana Meditation practice....a practice for living a balanced life through a technique originally taught by Gotema the Bhudda.

Meditation has gone from unknown, to wildly popular in the Western Hemisphere in only about thirty years. (In contrast, it has been well known in India for about two thousand five hundred years.) This has led to confusion about what meditation really is, how it works, and in what ways it helps people. Vipassana Meditation is an ancient, non-sectarian Indian technique that was designed to guide a realistic and compassionate lifestyle. Western science rocketed forward in the Twentieth Century, describing a testable vision of reality that reaches from minute electron-probability waves, to the Big Bang, from the evolution of DNA as the basis of biological information, to the hubbub of metabolic interactions within each living cell. The new scientific narratives provide increased understanding of the realizations that informed the discovery of Vipassana, why it practiced as it is, and how it helps people. Vipassana focuses on neutral, systematic, evidence-based observation of oneself as a changing process in a lawful universe. It catalyzes realistic experiences from which one can steer both a practical and profound life. Vipassana is not primarily a healing technique, but a window into multiple dimensions within our selves. Meditation is intended to be a mirror of conduct, to lessen attachment to narrow perspectives, and to align our selves with reality as it is, in order to live a more harmonious and contributory life. Based upon the guided curriculum designed by Mr. S.N. Goenka, of Igatpuri, India, Vipassana is taught for free, on a voluntary donation basis, in ten-day residential courses, in scores of meditation centers around the world. Approximately one million students have successfully completed these courses. Vipassana Teachers also teach for free, and the practice is not connected to any profession, or treatment.

Click the 'Dhamma' link on the left to find out more about courses in this area.