A Research Proposal Submitted for the Registration of Ph.D Degree in Psychology

VIPASANA MEDITATION ON MENTAL HEALTH AND LIFE STRESS

By

CHANDRAKANT SRIMANT

Guide

Prof. S.P. MELKERI

Department of Psychology

Gulbarga University, Gulbarga

DEPARTMENT OF STUDIES AND RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY GULBARGA UNIVESITY, GULBARGA

2012

Introduction :

Modern societies are constantly changing all over t eh world. People go

through various changes and social problems everywhere. The rapid

developments in science and technology brought us convenient living, but that

lifestyle does not give us comfort. Every minute, there are many kinds of crimes,

accidents, and natural disasters in the world. People never know what will happen

in the near future. In these living circumstances, people have to compete for

surviving and it causes stress, anxiety, worry and emotional problems. These

negative feelings can create toxin which might be harmful for our body. For

instance, over-stress can create different problems such as insomnia, asthma,

depression, drug addiction, smoking, alcohol abuse, and other illnesses.

Thus, it is quite necessary to learn how to cope with stress and negative

feelings. This study introduces meditation, one of the effective techniques for

handling those problems. From doing meditation, our mind can be calm and

peaceful, and we can find true happiness in the end. Meditation can also bring

personal insight and self-understanding. It is doorway into an enlightened way of

knowing ourselves better so that we can overcome many stressful situations by

our inner sources. Many studies have already demonstrate that meditation has a

healing effect on various kinds of disease.

Meditation was already introduced as a powerful technique for well-being

five thousand years ago in Asia. However, it was spread to Western society

thousands of years after it was adopted in the East and it finally started to gain

popularity in the mid- 20th century. (Meditation : History , 2008). Western people

have started to practice meditation and have adapted it to medical, health care,

scientific, and psychotherapeutic purposes. Nowadays meditation is already

popular in many Western countries.

In India, meditation became very popular a hundred year ago. It has been used for

many purpose such as managing stress, obtaining better health, healing various

kinds of diseases.

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2. CONEPTS OF MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS

The key concepts of relation to meditation are explained in the following

2.1 Concept of Meditation

“Meditation means being meditative, silent, peaceful, with no thoughts in

the mind and it is consciousness without content. When a mirror is not reflecting

anything, it is meditation”, said Gautam Buddha (Beckett 2008).The word

meditation is derived from two Latin words: Meditari (to think, to dwell upon, and

to exercise the mind) and the mederi ( to heal). It is originally from Sanskrit word

“medha” which means wisdom. Buddha is one of the biggest proponents in the

meditation history. Buddha has been also known as one of the biggest meditation

representation around since 500 B.C (Jones 2008). It has also been said that

meditation has originated from Shamtha, which is the Sanskrit term for the basic

foundation of calm and relaxed bare attention. Such calm acknowledging is the

essential and fundamental step, a “letting go” that allows the meditator to access

the next stages (Austin 2006, 11). In other words, meditation is a systematic way

of making our minds quite so that we can contact our true identity - self, which is

the source of constant joy, bliss and peace. (Meditation Corner, 2004).

In addition, meditation can help us to understand our own mind. We are

able to learn how to transform our mind from negative to positive, from disturbed

to peaceful from unhappy to happy. The aim of meditation is overcoming negative

minds and cultivating productive thoughts (Gyatsa 2007). The attitudes needed for

meditation are non-judging, patience, beginners; mind, trust, acceptance, and

letting go (Kabat- Zinn 2007).

2.2 Concept of mindfulness

Meditation has been recently used as way to manage stress and gain the

state of mindfulness. In other words, meditation is a practice of cultivating

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mindfulness. It is about being aware of where your mind is from and trying to be

‘here and now, at the moment’. Various thoughts can disturb the procedure while

mediating, but one can releases the thoughts freely and let them go. By doing this,

people can realize that the thoughts may not be an entity of absolute truth. When

your mind is clear of distracting thoughts, you can obtain new perspective and

new ways of handling stress and other problems.

The concept of mindfulness had roots in Buddhism and other

contemplative traditions where conscious attention and awareness are actively

enriched. It is most commonly defined as the state of being attentive to and aware

of what is happening in the present. (Brown & Ryan 2003).

Basically, there is nothing particularly Buddhist about it. People are all

mindful to one degree or another, moment by moment. Meditation is an essential

human capacity. The contribution of Buddhist traditions has been in part to

emphasize simple and effective ways to refine this capacity and bring it to all

aspects of life (Kabat - Zinn 2003, 146).There are several definitions of

mindfulness, Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as our capacity for awareness and

self-knowing. It is the practice of paying closer attention not only to the world

around us, but to the cultivation of our own minds and bodies (Kabat - Zinn 2005,

75). In this other journal, mindfulness is often spoken as insight meditation, which

means a deep non-conceptual seeing into the nature of mind and world. This

seeing requires a spirit of perpetual and persistent exploration as in, “What is

this?” toward whatever arises in awareness, and toward “Who is attending”, “Who

is seeing”, “Who is meditating”/ (Kabat -Zinn 2003, 146).

In addition, mindfulness is a skill that allow us to be less reactive to what is

happening in the moment. It is a way of relating to all experience - positive,

negative, and neutral - such that our overall level of suffering is reduced and our

sense of well-being increases. We are easily caught up in various distracting

thoughts which are mindlessness. In contrast, when we are mindful, out attention,

is not involved in the past or future, and we are not judging or rejecting what is

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occurring at the moment. We are present. This kind of attention generated energy,

clear mind, and joy. It is a skill that can be cultivated by anyone (Germer 2005,

241-253).

According to Olendzki (2005), in western countries, most therapists

consider meditation as a relaxation technique. Some meditation may be relaxing,

but the style and the purpose of meditation decide its effect in part. (Germer

2005). Mindfulness in contemporary psychology has been adopted as an approach

for increasing awareness and responding effectively to mental process that

contribute to emotional distress and maladaptive behavior (Bishop 2004, 230).

People may misunderstand what mindfulness meditation does. Mindfulness

meditation is not a relaxation exercise and it is not a way to avoid difficulties in

life. We confront our difficulties before the eliminate them. Moreover,

mindfulness meditation is about settling into our current experience in an alert and

objective way, not about achieving a different state of mind (Germer 2005, 16).

In this busy modern society, we just run forward. However we should stop

running and try to be in the present so that we could realize and see deeply that

there are many conditions we can be happy about. Washing dishes is usually any

annoying job, but it can be a pleasant job after mindfulness meditation. The

following chapter discuss how this mindfulness process can occur in our mind.

History of Meditation

Meditation has been extensively practices in many civilization for

thousands of years. It is, however, difficult to trace the history of meditation

without considering the religious context within which it was practiced and

because the term meditation refers to so many different practices (see above). It is

thus not clear when meditation firs arose, yet research suggests that primitive

hunting and gathering societies already used repetitive, rhythmic chants to

appease the gods, thereby inducing different states of consciousness that may be

considered as meditative states.

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Most of the neuron scientific research on meditation reviewed in this thesis

involves Buddhist contemplative traditions or practices that are derived from early

Buddhist traditions. Furthermore, Buddhist history and philosophy are important

features that are intertwined in the context of most Buddhist meditation traditions.

Therefore, a short overview of the history of Buddhist meditation is in place.

Siddhartha Gautama, born around 500 BCE in ancient India (Nepal), was

the founder of Buddhism. Different meditative techniques were already being

practices at that time on Siddhartha was known as the Buddha and he would spend

the rest of life sharing his experiences of enlightenment in teachings known as

‘dharma’. He also founded the monastic way of life, with meditation as a central

component. The central goal of Buddhist meditation is the elimination of suffering

by exercising control of one’s own mind and senses. To achieve, this, the Buddha

taught two types of meditation, samatha meditation and vipassana meditation.

Samatha literally translates to “quiescence” and its practice refers to inducing a

state in which the particular maintains focus on an object for a theoretically

unlimited amount of time. Vipassana translated to “insight” and vipassana

meditation involves a type of meta-awareness that enables the practitioner to gain

insight into one’s assumptions about identity and emotions resulting in a

realization of “selflessness”. These two types of meditation from the basis for the

wide variety of meditative practices that have been developed since and are

integrated in most practices where the cultivation of samatha and vipassana

respectively enable the stability and clarity of the meditative state.

After the Buddha died, the original unity of Buddhism began to fragment

with the most significant split occurring around the 4 th century BCE. This split

resulted in two forms, one now known as the Mahayana tradition of northern Asia

and the other tradition now known as Thervada spreading all over India and

southeast Asia. In the 3rd century BCE Buddhism was spread all over India and

beyond to other countries as far as Sri Lanka, Egypt and Greece. From Sri Lanka

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it was spread to Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos where it was

named Theravada Buddhism. Around the 1st century CE, Mahayana Buddhism

arrived in China, where it flourished around the 6th - 8th century CE and evolved

into other forms of Buddhism such as Pure Land Buddhism and Chan or Zen

Buddhism. These forms of Buddhism were then spread to Japan.

It was only in the middle of the 19th century that Buddhism first came to be

known in the west when the European colonial empires brought the cultures of

India and China to our attention and Chinese immigrants were coming to the west

coast of the United States. Following the turbulences of World War II in the 20 th

century, Buddhism gained more popularity, with Zen Buddhism becoming

particularly popular in United States. Asian masters and westerners who had

studies in Asia were now able to found monasteries and spread the Buddhist

lifestyle and practices even more. Today it is estimated that there are around 350

million Buddhist in the world, with estimates between 2 and 10 million followers

in the west.

Different types of meditation

The common feature across the many divergent meditative practices is the

regulation of attention. Depending on how the attention processes are directed,

meditative practices have been classified into two categories concentrative (also

referred to as focused attention (FA) meditation and mindfulness (also referred to

as open monitoring (OM) mediation. These two styles of meditation roughly refer

to samatha and vipasanna and are often combined, either within a single practice

session or over the course of a practitioners training, and are found in many

contemplative traditions including, Zen, Vipassana and Tibetan Buddhism.

Focused attention meditation entails focusing and sustaining selective

attention on a specific mental or sensory activity such as repeated sound, as

imagined image or a bodily sensation caused for instance by respiration.

Sustaining selective attention involves the constant monitoring of the quality of

this attention. With distractions arise and attention wanders away from the chosen

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activity, a practitioner is generally instructed to recognize this mind wandering

and to subsequently disengage the attention from the distraction and redirect

attention to the intended activity. When progressing in this form of meditation,

attention rests more readily and stable on the chosen activity and thus the ability

to sustain focus becomes more and more ‘effortless’. In advanced practitioners,

FA meditation is reported to create a sense of physical lightness and energy and

the need for sleep is said to be reduced.

OM meditation entails non-reactive and non-judgmental monitoring of the

content of ongoing experiences, without focusing on any explicit object or

activity. OM meditation is characterized by an open presence and the cultivation

of the ‘reflexive’ awareness associated with a more vivid conscious access to the

rich features of each experience, such as ongoing emotional or cognitive

processes. Even though there is no contrasting foreground, this awareness remains

in the background. A central aim of OM meditation is to gain more insight into

the usually implicit features of one’s mental life and it is said to enable the

practitioner to more readily transform emotional and cognitive habits. In advanced

practitioners, OM meditation allegedly leads to enhanced sensitivity to bodily and

environmental feathers while it reduces of the form that creates mental distress.

Zen Meditation

Zen Meditation knew two major forms, Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen. Both

forms of practice usually start with focusing the attention on the breath as a means

to develop the basic level of concentration required for more advanced of

meditation. In Rinzai Zen, practitioners are instructed to concentrate on Koans

konas are riddles that cannot be solved with knowledge or thinking. Koans are

ways to help the practitioners get rid of the thought processes common to ordinary

consciousness and to instead access pure awareness of the present moment. Soto

zen is a practice based on mindfulness and open awareness. Practitioners are

instructed to observe their thoughts and emotions without clinging to them but to

let them go and to bring their attention back to the present moment.

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Mantra Meditation

Mantra or prayer meditation is one of the most widespread and popular

forms of meditation and is present in Tibetan Buddhism, as well as in Sufism,

Hinduism and many other traditions. Practitioners are instructed to recite a

mantra, either aloud or sub vocally, thereby focusing their full attention on the

recitation or on the meaning of the manta. A mantra can be religious or mystical

sound, a word, a sentence, or a poem. The particular bodily sensation that are

induced by the recitation or a mantra believed to clam an focus the mind and

body.

Transcendental meditation

Transcendental meditation is aimed at quieting and ultimately transcending

the ordinary stream of internal mental dialogue by means of reciting a mantra.

However unlike mantra mediation, mantras used in transcendental practice have

no meaning but are used for their sound, which is such that attention easily and

automatically attends to it. Transcendental meditation thus places a primary

emphasis on the absence of concentrative effort and instead aims at developing a

witnessing, thought-free, unbounded awareness in which the mantra becomes

more secondary and ultimately disappear. The sensation induced by the sound of

the mantra are believed to clam the mind and body without the need for intense

concentrative efforts and are believed to result in profound relaxation, marked by

breath quiescence, and reduced conceptual content.

Compassion meditation

Loving- kindness or compassion meditation aims at the generation of non-

referential feelings of loving - kindness or compassion toward all living beings

and is also a common practice in Tibetan Buddhism. This kind of meditation

begins with the visualization of a respected, a beloved and a neutral person in

order to evoke feelings of compassion to each of these persons separately.

Practitioners are then instructed to gradually broaden their focus from this one

particular person towards a combination of these persons and finally towards all 8

living beings and everyday life, thereby developing a non-referential, reflexive

state of compassion. The cultivation of compassion is believed to create a general

sense of well-being and to aid in prevention of feelings of anger or irritation.

Vipassana Meditation

In Insight or Vipassana meditation, practitioners also begin by observing

their breath and the sensations it evokes around the nostril area to help develop a

focused and sustained attention. Practitioners are then instructed to mentally scan

each and every part of their body carefully and feel the sensations in each of those

parts. The aim of this practice is to keep the attention moving and to objectively

observe the experienced sensations, thereby avoiding the development of feelings

of aversion or desire for specific sensations.

Vipassana is not just a technique. It is a way of being in this world,

although initially one has to employ a method or make preparations for the

required change to occur. It is a return to our true, real nature, which we have

forgotten. It is observation of the contents of our mind as they appear and

disappear without reacting to them. The typical reactions that arise are those of

craving for, or aversion to, things. Detached observation, with suspended

evaluations and mental reactions, does not encourage the suppression or

expression of emotions but sees with impartiality, making it possible for us to deal

with these emotional reactions appropriately.

It may seem an almost impossible task to eradicate all cravings and

aversions (and one might question the desirability of such an Endeavour when one

sets out on this path) but what one can hope for initially is freedom from one’s

fears and addictions to one’s desires, which can be a hindrance to the real goals of

life. Vipassana enables us to transform our reactions (which are conditioned) into

actions that are based on a free choice. The Theoretical StanceVipassana practice

is based on the individual’s inner experiences. No theoretical framework is used

to explain or analyze intrapsychic phenomena. It is assumed that the meanings

hidden inside the experiences will be revealed to the individual as the inner

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unfolding takes place. No attempt is made to impose meaning from outside. The

individual is encouraged to face anything that comes up in the mind, no matter

how distressing, without any desire to distort it.

Vipassana meditation is unique in many ways. As the meditation that was

practiced by the Buddha and that led to his liberation, it is the cause underlying

his subsequent historical role—it is the second womb through which he was

reborn enlightened. No other person,or system of self-development, has

influenced so many hundreds of millions of people, across so many historical

eras, among so many nations and cultures, in such an unambiguous manifestation

of compassion, harmony and peace. Historically, before the Buddha, all religions

were a mixture of moral injunction, propitiation of gods, magic, superstition, and

ethnocentrism. The Buddha brought forth the idea of a limitless community, not

based on language, ethnicity, locality, not even upon species! His teaching was

the first to emphasize the commonality of all living beings as the basis of

relatedness, and was the first to encourage spiritual development that was

psychological and social, and that did not rest upon placating some fantasized

god. The Buddha realized that liberation lies in our own hearts, rather than in

aligning with a powerful external Other whom we may be able to cajole or coerce

into saving us.

While other religions or cultures had praised virtue, the liberating role of

ethics had been previously circumscribed by ritual and by other attempts to

manipulate events. The

Buddha brought to the attention of humankind the identity of virtue and

exaltation. His teaching fused into one what had previously seemed like two

aspects of existence—empathic ways of living, and gratifying personal feeling

states. Through the practice of Vipassana, the Buddha raised into the

consciousness of the human community a sunrise of universal, non-tribal,

psychological, ethical, non-superstitious relatedness towards all,that advances its

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practitioner and his or her environment towards becoming vehicles oflove and

liberty.

Vipassana is not only what the Buddha practiced, but it is what he

preached. He encouraged Vipassana practice as universally relevant and

beneficent for kings, merchants, housewives and murderers. While he emphasized

that not everyone could use Vipassana to become a Buddha within this lifetime,

he claimed that everyone could grow on the path. The same sunlight falls on all of

us. While we all view different scenes, when we awaken, we all see by the same

morning light. Not everyone can benefit to the same degree but everyone can

benefit from the equanimity and loving-kindness that form the foundation of

Vipassana.

The uniqueness of Vipassana also rests upon its basis in empiricism. The

Buddha discerned the technique by observing what functioned effectively for him.

Like any carefully tested observation of nature, Vipassana is a description of

natural law that is reliable across time and culture. It is free of antecedent beliefs

or assumptions, and contains the same timeless factuality as knowing the ocean is

wet and the land is solid. It is more accurately described as an ethical psychology

than as a religion. Even to the modern listener, it rings true, not because of ethno

scriptural authority, nor even because of the Buddha’s historical apotheosis, but

because it harnesses reason and observation to explicate personal experience. It

carries us to the edge of the ocean of existence, where our life is bared to

realizations that are obvious and inevitable, like the fact that we are temporary

visitors in an ancient, ongoing, vast universe.

The definition of Vipassana meditation is: The method by which a person

may attain total purification. Total purification means the absence of hate, fear,

greed, and delusion, and the presence of love, compassion, and equanimity.

Through the practice of Vipassana, a person became the Buddha, that is, he

became unshakably anchored in goodness, incapable of harm, and able to explain

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his methodology to others so that, if their attainments were not as absolute as his,

at least their direction would be the same.

Vipassana is merely the careful delineation of common sense. It captures

what is common to all civilized communities, and extracts the essence: to avoid

harming others, to help others, and to cultivate thoughts and emotions with those

same patterns. Even this simple definition encompasses the social, interpersonal,

emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development of the individual.

Vipassana is the only path we can take with the conviction that we are

following the historical guidance of the most powerful, enduring, and authentic

first-person testimonial about personal transformation into absolute goodness.

We are all mammals who identify with the sensations of our own bodies.

We protect them at all costs and often grab immediate palliation and pleasure at

the expense of virtues we like to believe we have embraced, but which in fact

we place second to continuous self-mollification. We crave pleasure and fear

pain. Our journey down the path beyond pleasure and pain can easily be diverted.

We need to be grounded in a meditation that roots us in the bigger picture of what

ennobles our life. We require a reminder, a discipline, a practice that helps us to

draw away from shortsighted reactions to our sensations. We need restorative

guidance to activate the life of love and reason in the real texture of our daily

adventures. When we anchor ourselves in the perspective of Vipassana

meditation, every thought and breath can be incorporated into a path of awareness.

Then our smallest choices become the forces that shape our relationship to our

bodies, our emotions, our neighbors and the world. We become travelers of the

Path, people who live with conscious intention (though varying success) to

activate wisdom in every moment.

Vipassana is unique as the path to total purification, the method of the

Buddha, the source of his attainments, the outflow of his realization, and a

practical, moment by moment psychology that is ethical, behavioral, emotional,

cognitive and spiritual. But “unique” doesn’t mean exclusive. Occasionally

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everyone is spontaneously practicing the same thing: observing how their

reactions to little signals of bodily comfort gain too much clout in determining the

direction of their lives, and attempting to gain some objective distance from these

petty tugs, so that life can flow in harmony with greater and more numinous

forces of gratitude, service, and joy. Just as exercise is to some degree intrinsic to

human life— though it may be pursued by some people only haphazardly and

minimally— Vipassana is the Buddha’s term for a natural capacity of our minds.

Many people hone it without self-consciously labeling it and many cultures teach

aspects of it under different names. All pure beings, regardless of what terms they

use, have arrived where they are through detachment from narcissistic

preoccupation with the sensations of their own bodies.

All loving, engaged, and generous lives are based upon the same

psychological law: practicing equanimity within the sensations of our own life.

Vipassana is unique not in the sense that is it better than some other path, but in

the sense that it already lies within and flows with any teaching of helpfulness, no

harmfulness, and loving relatedness.

Water—the solvent that enables cells, tissues, life—is a compound that is

ubiquitous and clear. Rather than rarity, universality makes water unique.

Vipassana is unique in its evocation of the general principle. It is unique not in

contrast to, but as the active ingredient within all paths of peace. It is not a

religion, but a religious psychology; it is not psychotherapy, though it is

psychotherapeutic.

Vipassana simply means clarifying human nature at its junction with the

sensations of life. Its uniqueness isn’t that it can be found only in an isolated,

specialized locale, but that the path to Vipassana begins at every front door.

Because Vipassana commences everywhere, belongs to no one, and has neither

esoteric teaching nor priesthood to preserve it, it is itself only when it is purveyed

as common property for the common good. When sold for profit, it is no longer

Vipassana— just as physical or emotional intimacy, by definition, ceases to be

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themselves if they are exchanged for money; just as friendship, by definition, has

no fee. Vipassana is analogous to a supper among friends whom you have invited

to your house, while professional psychotherapy is analogous to a restaurant.

Vipassana is not comparable to professional healing, which is fairly dispensed for

a livelihood by particular healers applying their skills to individual problems in

particular ways at particular times and places. If Vipassana is like water, the

universal solvent, then professional healing is analogous to medication—an elixir

of medicinal use for a specific time, place and person.

A Psychological Systems Definition of Vipassana

Vipassana is an ancient, free, nonprofessional, nonsectarian, ethical, universal,

psychology of spiritual development. It is based upon methodical, continuous,

objective observation of oneself at the level of sensations. This special form of

observation catalyzes a multilevel, systems development throughout the strata of

one’s personality. Part of Vipassana’s unique contribution to mental health

derives from its constellation of psychological actions. Vipassana can be

conceptualized as the creation through meditation of a force field that energizes

new patterns in six levels of personality.

a) Vipassana induces changes at the molecular level of the meditator’s body.

Systematic, increasingly refined and subtle self-observation, without reaction,

alters the flow of stress-related chemicals. The practice of equanimity as a

recurrent and lifelong focus, reduces the frequency and intensity with which

somatic alarm signals release their

Neurotransmitters. Storage, release, amount and type of circulating messenger

neurochemicals are altered by long term practice of harmony and non-reactivity

in the place of anger, fear, or passion. The meditator’s body to some degree will,

over time, come to consist of different substances than formerly.

b) Vipassana changes the biology of the meditator’s body. As reaction patterns

Change, as neurochemical composition changes, and as a self-aware and

compassionate lifestyle increases, sleep, diet, and expressions of distress as well

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as patterns of pleasure may all be affected. Psychosomatic diseases, as well as

basic functions like weight, heart rate, or alertness may be altered. Meditators find

themselves choosing to avoid old habits and choosing to cultivate new personal

options that spring from a keener relationship to their bodies. If over a lifetime

you select a calmer diet and more salubrious relaxations, you become a different

animal. Our tissues have the capacity to remold themselves to some extent in

response to our friendship with them. Attunement to our bodies is automatically

experienced as nurturance of them.

c) Vipassana has a dramatic effect at the psychological level. Old complexes are

relinquished, new attitudes and virtues are cultivated, memories resurface,

relationships are seen and developed in new light, the future is deconstructed and

reopened in new ways, human history and community are known to have different

potentials than was once believed, and event after event in one’s life is

experienced and reexamined in a new perspective. This is the most dramatic and

obvious contribution of meditation and the reason it is attractive to many people.

d) Vipassana is value-based education. The goal of Vipassana is to manifest the

virtues of love, compassion, joy and equanimity, and as a psychology it can be

understood as incorporating direct learning. Virtue is cultivated in privacy, and it

is also interjected from the examples of teachers, who may reside as nuclei of

inspiration in the minds of their students. In this sense, Vipassana incorporates a

cognitive-behavioral psychology that encourages active practice of ideal ways of

solving problems, of interacting with others, or of participating in society.

Vipassana is also something you do. Reverence, respect, gratitude, service are

ways to be in the world that can be learned, just like riding a bicycle, and

meditation is also a discipleship to right action. Character building is a matter of

repetition and effort, not just of sitting still with eyes closed. Vipassana is training

in psychological culture.

e) Vipassana is an environmental psychology that stresses the feedback

loop of harmony. The way we treat the world determines much of the response

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that we will get. This principle is not limited to the human world. The motivations

with which we deal with cats, elephants, and trees are also expressions of our

psyches, and set in motion responses which we will in turn be receiving back from

the recipients of our outgoing messages. For a meditator, respect for life is a

logical extension of self-respect. The air, the earth will reply to us and tell us how

our wishes, fears and concerns are impacting them and therefore recalculating to

us. The world is a sensitive receptor of our inner life.

As our inner world expresses itself through actions, the membrane of our

surroundings vibrates with the destruction or joy that we have generated. To the

meditator, everything around us is a mirror in which we are revealed. Everything

around us is also feeling the sting of our wrath, or humming our hum. Awareness

of our living environment is the psychological sensibility of Vipassana.

f) Vipassana is a path to nibb±na, the transcendence of the material world.

Encoded in the psychology of Vipassana is a faith in the More, an intuition of the

Beyond. Vipassana is a psychology of the numinous, free from any concrete

description, belief, vision, theology, anthropomorphism, fantasy, or reduction of

any kind. Vipassana contains an experiential thrust beyond limits of concept and

speech, to animating, personality impacting faith in absolute good.

Although no attempt is made to analyze the experience, one does use some

understanding of certain universal principles, which are helpful in freeing oneself

from past mental reactions, false beliefs and false self definitions. All experiences

are understood in terms of the following three principles:

1. Anicca (impermanence): nothing is permanent; everything exists against the

background of no-thingess, which is predominant. This to leads to a state of

unsatisfactoriness, which is at the bottom of human life, and one begins to

question the essence of things.

2. Anatta (agolessness or non-identification): not identifying oneself with what

one encounters during introspection. It is not a denial or disowning parts of

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ourselves but recognition of false identifications and letting go of things that we

are holding on to out of our own insecurities.

3. Dukkha (suffering): this is the corollary of impermanence. One can think of

two different types of suffering, in-built and self-created. In-built suffering is not

related to anything in particular. It is about eventual nothingness or uncertainty

about things. In spite of our best efforts we remain subject to chance and battle

with doubts about the fairness of human life.

It is easier to avoid self-created suffering as it originates from our own mental

reactions, self-definitions and the conclusions we draw about our experiences and

the world in general. There is a link between the two types of sufferings. Our

unwillingness to accept inbuilt suffering makes us react in certain ways leading to

further suffering. Vipassana encourages us to confront the ultimate concerns

pertaining to in-built suffering. The ‘acceptance of suffering’ in Buddhist

psychology is generally misunderstood as a nihilistic approach. The acceptance

should not be viewed as the end point. Rather, it is a means of achieving the goal

of total eradication of suffering. Even in-built suffering dissolves with the

dissolution of one’s ego. It becomes a non-issue as one transcends the human

ways of looking at things.

Benefits of Meditation

Meditation is basically a method for working on the mind. First, we learn

how to identity our different positive and negative mental states, and then the

utilize methods for removing negative states and developing positive ones. As our

mind becomes more positive, we learn how to react well to everyday situations

and our relationships with others. In other words, our actions become positive and

effective, and our overall experience of life becomes more satisfying and useful to

ourselves and others.

Meditation is used to assist in reaching a higher level of spiritual entity and

self awareness. It has been practiced widely in many cultures around the world,

especially the more spiritual cultures of Asia.

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However, in Western countries, meditation is a method to combat stresses

of increasing work pressure resulting in absence because of illness. In

Netherlands, it is reported that employers are so attracted towards the benefits of

meditation that provisions have been made to put meditation into workers

contracts. Also the Dutch Police and Department of Defense have introduced

meditation to training programmes to assist employee’s physical and mental

effectiveness (Beckett 2008).

Recently mindfulness meditation has been applied to many psychological

and health related problems and researchers show successful positive outcomes in

this. A simple technique practices for as few as 10 minutes per day can help to

control stress, decrease anxiety, improve cardiovascular health and achieve a

greater capacity for relaxation (Stoppler 2005).

Meditation relaxes the body and mind as well as help to gain peace without

any side effects. It is easy to practice any time and by anyone. It does not require

any special equipment and can be practiced wherever we want. It is possible to do

while walking, eating, riding a bus or doing laundry. Sitting, walking, Tai Chi,

and yoga are quite popular forms of meditation whereas drawing, painting,

dancing, and listening to music could also be simple methods which could be

practiced on a daily basis.

Meditation makes people more than only feel good and clam. It makes us

perform better and it has an effect on the whole body. It helps to slow down the

heart rate and breathing and also normalizes blood pressure. It decreases the

sweating level and helps us to use oxygen more efficiently. Adrenal glands

produce less cholesterol, our mind ages at a slower rate, and our immune function

improves. It makes our mind clear and increases creativity. People who meditate

regularly find it easy to give up life-damaging habits such as smoking drinking

and drugs. Besides this, meditation had various psychological and physiological

benefits. Firstly, as psychological benefits, meditation reduces stress, anxiety and

depression. It also increases creativity, intelligence, moral reasoning and memory,

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it reduces irritability and moodiness. Moreover, it increases emotional control,

self-esteem and alertness. It also helps to improve relationships and concentration.

Secondly, as physiological benefits, meditation prevents, slows, or controls pain

of chronic diseases. It also boosts the immune system and helps lower blood

pressure and cholesterol levels. In addition, it improves airflow, especially in

those with asthma (Meditation 2008).

Moreover, doing a meditation in a right way can be useful in headaches,

mental stress, symptoms of pre-menstrual syndrome and menopause as well as

many other diseases and blood circulation. It provides stamina, strength and

flexibility to fight every kind of illness, diseases, physical and mental problem.

The important features of meditation are that it works without side-effects and any

medicine. Many studies have demonstrated the board range of positive impact or

meditation on many other kinds of diseases such depression, anxiety disorder,

obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, post traumatic stress disorder.

(Brantley 2005: Kabat-Zinn 2003)For instance, meditation can work for

depression. Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and isolation are symptoms of

depression. Meditation increases self-confidence and feelings of connection to

other people. Many studies have shown that depressed people feel much better

after provoking the relaxation response (Hargreaves & Mason 2001: Segal,

Teasdale & Williams, 2002).

In addition, in medical studies, meditation has been shown to lower blood

pressure and cholesterol levels. Further study continues to measure the impact and

benefit of meditation on the risk factors to cardiac problems, as well. These

include hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, and insulin resistance. In a study

published in the winter 2007 Ethnicity & Disease medial journal, transcendental

meditation positively impacted patients who suffer from congestive heart failures

(Benefits of meditation). Also according to Brantley (2005). Mindful Based Stress

Reduction (MBSR) approach, which was designed by Kabat-Zinn et al. in

Massachusetts Medical Center in MA, was reported in many researchers as a

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magnificent method for treating chronic pain, depression, cancer, eating disorder,

cardiac disease, and stress reduction (Brantley 2005, 139).

The following sentences are a more detail example of the effect of MBSR

approach. A study conducted by Kutz et al. (1992) investigating the effects of

MBSR on a group of people with long term anxiety and obsessive neuroses as

well as personality disorder. They showed expressive improvements in self-rated

and therapist rated symptoms. Kabat-Zinn et al. (1996) utilized MBSR programs

based on mindfulness meditation for patients with anxiety disorders and found a

reduction in the levels of anxiety and panic during the course and over a 3 moth

follow-up period. Over the last 25 years, mindfulness training has been used in

hospital clinics and community setting offering pain management and stress

reduction programs including MBSR (Melbourne Academic Mindfulness Interest

Group 2006, 286).

In summary, meditation may be an effective treatment option for

conditions such as anxiety, stress, chronic pain and eating and affective disorders

as well as being an adjunctive treatment or other physical health conditions and

behavior change interventions (Melbourne Academic Mindfulness Interest Group

2006, 287).

As a clinical point of view, meditation should not be conducted for some

people such as borderline psychotic or psychotic patients without supervision by

psychotherapist familiar with meditation. This is because those sensitive patients

bring dizziness, feelings of dissociation while they are doing meditation. Also

therapists should provide careful instruction, training, and follow-up observation

(Carrington 1978, according to Shapiro 2008, 8).

Balanced mindful of love and compassion. This scientific law that one’s

thoughts, feelings, judgments and sensations become clear. Through direct

experience, the nature of how owe grows or regresses, how one produces

suffering or frees oneself from suffering is understood life becomes characterized

by increased awareness, non delusion, self control and peace.

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Mental Health

Mental health is a term used to describe either a level of cognitive or

emotional well being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the

discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an

individual’s ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and

efforts to achieve psychological resilience. The World Health Organization (2005)

defines mental health as “a state of well being in which the individual realizes his

or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work

productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution of his or her own

abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and

fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution of his or her community”. It was

previously stated that there as on one “official” or mental health (WHO, 2001).

Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories

all affect how “mental health” is defined.

In the mind 19th century, William Sweetzer was the firs to clearly define

the term “mental hygiene”, which can be seen as the precursor to contemporary

approaches to work on promoting positive mental health. Isane Ray (2007) one of

thirteen founders of the American Psychiatric Association, further defined mental

hygiene as an art to preserve the mind against incidents and influences which

would inhibit or destroy its energy, quality or development. Many mental health

professionals are beginning to or already understand, the importance of

competency is religious diversity and spirituality.

Life stress

The modern world, which is said to be a world of achievements, as also a

world of a stress, on finds stress everywhere. Whether it be within the family,

business organization, enterprise or any other social or economic activity, right

from the time of birth tell the last breath drawn, an individual is invariably

exposed to various stressful situations. Thus, it is not surprising that interest is the

21

issue has been rising with the advancement of the present century which has been

called the “Age of Anxiety and Stress” stress is a subject which is hard to avoid.

The terms is discussed not only in our every day conversations but has become

enough of a public issue to attract widespread media attention whether it be radio,

television, newspapers, of magazines the issues of stress figures everywhere.

Rosch(2008) found that stress is difficult for scientist to define because it is

a subjective sensation associated with varied symptoms that differ with each

individual. In addition, stress is not always a synonym for distress. Increased

stress improves productivity up to appoint, after which things rapidly deteriorate,

and that level also differ for each individual. By finding the happy medium it is

possible to maintain balance and harmony in daily life, being more productive and

less self-destructive. Interestingly Kornfild (2004) finds that to Vipasanais to look

into our lives with interest and kindness and discover how to be wakeful and free.

Vipasana meditation is the development or discovery, depending on your

orientation, of consciousness independent of the visual and verbal symbols that

constitute what we call thought. It is the deliberate cultivation of a mental state of

the body with an attentive focus of the mind. The focus may be on a sound

(mantra), a breathing, an object, a part of the body, a mental image, or a

prayer(Keefe,1986)

Depression. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH ); (2009)

describes the state of depression as persistent sad ,anxious or “empty”

feelings ,feelings of hopelessness and pessimism, feelings of guilt, worthlessness

and helplessness, irritability, restlessness and loss of interest in activities or

hobbies once pleasurable, including sex. Other symptoms may include: fatigue

and decreased energy; difficulty concentrating; remembering details and making

decisions; insomnia, early- morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping;

overcoming or appetite loss; thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts; and

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persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps or digestive problems that do not

ease even with treatment (NIMH,2009).

Review of Literature

The purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of Vipasan Meditation on certain areas of the Meditators life. This chapters a is a survey of some studies conducted in this area.

This is a new area of research, and therefore there is a paucity of research studies.Vipasana Meditation, so far has focused on an Meditators.Therefore,the researcher has reviewed the available literature on Meditation in the few decades.The research studies were from books, classical studies, research journals and PsychINFO,PsychNET,PsychAPA also on line journals.

Vipasana Meditation:A positive mental Health Measure by Lt.Col.M.B.Pethe and Dr.R.M.Chokhani(2010).Found that Vipasana’s ability to tranquillize the human mind, changing its turbulence to calmness with increased vitality, makes it a positive mental health measure and an excellent human potential development method. The meditator becomes free to live for higher values, richer goals: loving-kindness, compession, sympathetic joy and peacefulness. Vipasana thus leads people from narcissism to mature, social love, to a life of altruiSM3 and this personal transformation becomes the catalyst for social change and development.

In a pilot study Walach et al.(2007) evaluated the potential of Vipasan based stress reduction for management and others. Workers participated in vipasana training for stress – related problems (n=12 ); (control n=12 ). The authors conducted interviews and measured coping and mental health. Qualitative interviews indicated that subjects had attained more awareness of work- related problems contributing to stress and had grown more critical toward their work environment. In the treatment group, positive strategies of coping with stress increased and negative strategies of coping decreased with significant difference at post treatment compared to control. Eighty- two percent of the participants reported having reached their personal goal and good mental health.

Paraissman (2008) found that Vipasana based stress reduction training is an effective treatment for stress and anxiety that accompanies daily life and chronic illness’Vipasana training is also therapeutic for healthcare providers, enhancing their interactions with patients.

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The literature review suggests that further exploration of Vipasana meditation as an effective tool for enhancing mental health, stress, anxiety and depression. Therefore this research analysis was initiated in the hope of developing greater understanding and awareness of ourselves and one another through vipasana meditation in a sprit of compassion and loving-kindness.

Methodology

Statement of the problem

To find out the impact of “Vipasana Meditation on Mental Health and Life

Stress “of newly joined and experienced Vipassana meditators and non Vipasana

meditators. The focal point and differences due to, gender and age.

Objective of the present study :

1. To assess and analyze the Vipasana Meditation on mental health and life

stress.

2. To find out differences between men and women Vipasana meditation

participants and non participants

3. To know the mental health of Vipasana participants and non Vipasana

participants.

4. To find out the life stress of Vipasana participants and non Vipasana

participants

5. To known the relationship between Vipasana meditation, mental health and

life stress

6. To know the impact of Vipasan meditation, mental health and life stress on

aged.

The Variables

Independent variable - Vipasana meditation, gender and age

Dependent variable - Mental health, stress ,Depression and Anxiety

Hypothesis

Following are the major hypothesis for the present study they are

1. There is significant impact of Vipasana mediation on mental health and life

stress.

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2. There is a significant difference between men and women Vipasana

meditation participants and non participants.

3. There is significant difference between mental health of Vipasana

participants and non Vipasana participants.

4. There is significant difference between life stress of Vipasana participants

and non Vipasana participants.

5. There is a significant relationship between Vipasana meditation, mental

health and life stress.

6. There is significant impact of Vipasana meditation, mental health and life

stress on age.

Population of the study

The population of the study consists of participants and non participants of

various Vipasana meditation centers.

Sample

The sample consists of 600 among them 200 newly joined Vipasana

meditators and 200 more than two years experienced meditators and 200 General

group.

Tools

1.The Mental health Inventory (MHI)developed by Dr.Jagdish Dr.A.K.Srivastava (1983)

2.Life stress Inventory by Holems and Rahe (1967 )

3. The depression Anxiety and stress Scales (DASS) Whilst Lovibond and lovibond’s

(1995)

Statistical Analysis

Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, Fishers’s exact test, two-way mixed-design

MANOVA,independent t-test, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and repeated

measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) Effect size has been computed and

Pearson correlation between variables is performed were used to analyze the data,

based on the on the were used to assumptions of statics.

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Result and Discussion.

A significant difference was observed among 3 selected groups in their mean life stress scores, where F- value of 471.69 was found to be highly significant. The mean life stress scores of 3 groups-general, newly joined and experienced are 214.71, 157.51 and 128.27 respectively. Further, Schaffer’s post hoc test indicated that general group experienced maximum stress, followed by newly joined group and those who were put in 2 and more years of experience in Vipasana had least stress scores. All the multiple comparisons of mean differences were found to be significant. Further, between male and female respondents also a significant difference was observed in their mean stress scores (F=87.36; P=.000), where male respondents experienced significantly higher stress (mean 177.96) than female respondents (mean 155.91). Lastly the interaction between group and gender was found to be significant (F=38.147; P=.000), where we find that among newly joined respondents, no difference was observed between male and female respondents, and in rest of the groups male respondents had high stress scores than female respondents.

Conclusion

1. There is significant impact of Vipasana mediation on mental health and life

stress.

2. There is a significant difference between men and women Vipasana

meditation participants and non participants.

3. There is significant difference between mental health of Vipasana

participants and non Vipasana participants.

4. There is significant difference between life stress of Vipasana participants

and non Vipasana participants.

5. There is a significant relationship between Vipasana meditation, mental

health and life stress.

6. There is significant impact of Vipasana meditation, mental health and life

stress on age.

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Note: According to UGC Regulation I am published bellow mentioned two papers

related to my PhD topic.

1.Chandrakant Srimant and Professor S.P.Melkeri (Aug-2010).Impact of

Vipasana Medtation Life stress ‘Orient Journal of Law and Social Sciences,Vol-

iv,issue-9, 87-90.

2. Chandrakant Srimant and Professor S.P.Melkeri (Dec-2010).Effect of Vipasana

Meditation on Mental Health ‘Gorakhpur Social Scientist,Vol-1,No-2,45-50.

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