Sila in Vipassana

By Zach Bell

I have sat through three ten day vipassana courses; the first in march-april 2013 in MA,
and two others here in hawaii. ...And I have served two ten day courses, on da island
as well...
In summary, you go to one of these retreats, either in hawaii or at many centers around
the world. You meditate in silence for the first 9 days basically, and absorb video and
tape recordings of SN goenka as he explains how the meditation is to be done each
day, etc.
This technique, which I will call :vipassana meditation in the tradition of SN goenka:, is a
very useful skill to learn and practice. If you would like more general information about
this technique you can check out dhamma.org . This posting is not really about
generating interest for this technique or about explaining what it is. The main focus of
this posting is to explain what I personally enjoy about the technique, and why it is such
a great technique, and also to explain what I personally dont enjoy about the technique,
and how this un enjoyment can be overcome, eliminated, minimized etc.
So you will see, this posting is much more directed towards people who are already
involved with vipassana ( dhamma.org ) organization, and towards people who are
already involved with hawaii vipassana organization in particular.
some of you , like myself, are more or less on a high fruit diet. I know ive recommended
this course to a few people who have been extremely hesitant to go due to unabundant
fruit situation. Perfectly understandable. There are ways around it. If youre really
determined to learn this technique- where theres a will, theres a way. Eating some
bland cooked food for 10 days not going to do you any favors but its not a big deal
either. This technique is a very useful tool and i feel absolutely blessed to have found it.
Now, for those who dont know, when you sit the course youre supposed to agree to five
precepts.
NO killing
NO stealing
NO intoxicants
NO sexual misconduct ( during the course no sexual conduct is really permitted )
NO lying ( this is pretty easy for the first 9 days since youre not really allowed to talk )

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Now as a free, thinking, rational person who is somewhat identified with the label of
VEGAN...
I can tell you, from my perspective, in my opinion, based on my personal
experiences...:::
Stealing milk from a cow is stealing. That cow really wants to give her milk to her baby (
which has already conveniently been murdered ). Cows milk isnt for humans to drink. i
dont know where we got this crazy idea. i have a special ability , basically its like cow
telepathy. I can tell you for 100% sure, the cow really doesnt want you to have its milk.
its a bad deal for the cow, and a bad deal for the human. cows milk is really really
unhealthy... check out notmilk.com or cowspiracy or earthlings or forks over knives...
read the china study campbell , mans higher consciousness hotema, 80 10 10 diet by
doug graham, arnold ehrets mucousless diet is great... if youre interested of course...
theres tons of resources out there IF youre willing to give up all of your beliefs and come
start fresh with an open mind and really give this issue fair consideration. If you come
and think oh my TV told me my body needs XYZ 1000G of animal protein per day or i
will die.... then of course you wont be able to really appreciate the (correct, minority ,
people go mad in herds... and wake up one by one very slowly) perspective in this
case.
Now, as you can see, this leaves me in quite an awkward position. This meditation
course that I have come to is serving stolen food. To me this is a clear breakage of
morality ( sila ).
Most people simply do not see eye to eye with me on this issue. Ive brought this issue
to multiple assistant teachers, and while they are understanding.... their hands are tied...
what can they really do? This organization serves the same food , the same menu, the
same day, the same schedule to most or all of the meditation centers in the USA. Its
very consistent- you have a pretty reasonable idea of what food will be presented to
you.
One teacher told me that even gautama the buddha would eat flesh. Ive heard stories
that this enlightened one in fact died from food poisonining due to eating spoiled pig
flesh. I can completely appreciate that any food is good and a blessing. Theres a lot of
people who cant afford any food at all. I personally really loathe to take this unhealthy
food, but I completely understand how addictive it is . And I cant really say I have eaten
meat in X years or I wont eat meat again in the future. Because realistically this world is
just so fucked up, and the USA is filled with tons and tons of abundant corpse and
chicken ovulations and pus and such...
you go in the store and flesh is 99c a pound and bananas are 1.75 a pound...
people are poor... sometimes u just take the most calorie dense, numbing option... just
out of ignorance... just out of wanting to feel full... wanting to give your stomach some
really challenging thing .... wanting food coma....( is there something i can take because
im tired of being awake? yup, its called spam...) This teacher told me to take the

middle path. But he also told me, zach, if you believe that taking milk is breaking sila,
then you absolutely cannot take milk, for you would be breaking a precept.
A second teacher I asked told me straight up that basically eating milk or meat isnt a
problem. I have never met a vipassana teacher that I know of that doesnt eat meat. he
also told me that after the cows in india stop producing milk that they are left to roam in
the wild and live out the rest of their lives... its so funny and sad that this powerful
teacher has such a ridiculous fairytale reality of what he believes happys to cows after
theyre done putting out milk... nah bro once that cow dries up u slaughter the poor lady
and ship her off to macdonalds.... its not like oh we bring the cow out in to the
countryside to live out the rest of her days in peace with her husband... nope! NOTHING
DOING!
Just because Goenka ate milk and the buddha ate meat does not mean that we need
to. We have much more intelligence now, we have tons of awesome fruit available from
all around the earth. 90% of world population is vegan... probably even 95% ( most
people want to eat meat so they can be great like USA,,, but realistically they simply
cant afford it, not available, no refrigeration, etc.... but the 5% meat eaters consume
probably 1000 times more resources than the 95% vegans.
B
After the course is over, we are encouraged to practice sila in our daily lives... but the
interpretations of sila are so various and wild and interesting that it becomes almost
comical and irrelevant to me.
I understand this whole issue is based around a huge misunderstanding. Because if
these people were truly AWARE of what they were doing.... truly aware of as ye reap ye
shall also sow... meat would simply drop out of their hands.
Anytime you're practicing renunciation, you're deluded. How about
that! You're deluded. What are you renouncing? Anytime you
renounce something, you are tied forever to the thing you renounce.
There's a guru in India who says, "Every time a prostitute comes to
me, she's talking about nothing but God. She says I 'm sick of this life
that I 'm living. I want God. But every time a priest comes to me he's
talking about nothing but sex". Very well, when you renounce
something, you're stuck to it forever. When you fight something,
you're tied to it forever. As long as you're fighting it, you are giving it
power. You give it as much power as you are using to fight it.
This includes communism and everything else. So you must "receive"
your demons, because when you fight them, you empower them. Has
nobody ever told you this? When you renounce something, you're
tied to it. The only way to get out of this is to see through it. Don't
renounce it, SEE THROUGH IT. Understand its true value and you
won't need to renounce it; it will just drop from your hands. But of

course, if you don't see that, if you're hypnotized into thinking that
you won't be happy without this, that, or the other thing, you're
stuck. What we need to do for you is not what so-called spirituality
attempts to do --namely, to get you to make sacrifices, to renounce
things. That's useless. You're still asleep. What we need to do is to
help you understand, understand, understand, if you understood,
you'd simply drop tine desire for it. This is another way of saying: If
you woke up, you'd simply drop the desire for it.
Even though this is a great technique to learn, I have severe doubts about whether this
technique has truly been maintained in its purity.
By purchasing cows milk, the vipassana organization is directly contributing to the
needless slaughter of billions of animals per year. We need to adapt to our changing
needs and desires of the students here, and also to the population - of the world- of the
animals - of our bodies- etc. I cannot in good consciousness give any more contribution
to this great organization until I see a huge effort and push to make a change and
remain open minded. I really feel quite hesitant to participate, donate, and recommend
this course to anyone. Im not saying I wont take another course again- Im sure Ill do
another course when the opportunity is right.
. This technique is here to serve us- we absolutely need to modify it to meet our needs
better! No technique really can bring you to the final liberation, but this can certainly be
of use on the path.
I would love to hear anyones feedback, particularly from those who have completed one
of this sn goenka course.
1> is stealing milk from a cow stealing? Yes or No
2> is stealing honey from bees stealing? Yes or No
3> is raising cows for milk a right livelihood? Yes or No
4> If you pay someone to kill or steal on your behalf, is it still killing or stealing?
IE if I go in to a supermarket and buy corpse or animal secretions or some of those
yummy chicken menstruations, did I steal or kill? Or its ok because it was already
dead?