I’ve been doing Vipassana via Goenka for over 10 years, have gone to courses at a few of the NA centers, have done a satipatthana sutta course and other shorter old student courses. I can confirm the comments by Luke_Grecki and eternaltourist.
There is no big secret behind how they are run. It’s exactly the same whether you are just starting it or have been doing it forever. There’s no pressure to donate. They mention it at the end of each 10 day course and that’s pretty much it. At some of the short old student courses they don’t even bring it up at all.
The centers are safe, the people volunteering are there to make sure your basic needs are met so you can meditiate without distraction. The centers are run by normal people who volunteer. The center trust meetings I’ve attended are just like practical, run of the mill board meetings.
Regarding the specific concerns, you can actually sleep up to 9 hours easily if you skip the sittings before breakfast. The first required sitting is after breakfast. The sleep thing is really a non-issue. When I’m at a course, I pretty consistently sleep a full 8 hours from 9:30 to 5:30.
The assistant teachers are mostly there to try to nudge you in the right direction. All you are doing is focusing on breath or body sensation, so there simply isn’t much to teach outside of goenka’s instructions. It’s more a matter of just doing it. I suspect that some people have difficultly with the lack of human interaction and try to use the assistant teachers as an outlet for it, but it’s counterproductive since it breaks deep concentration and distracts the mind.
As for leaving, eternaltourist’s comments are spot on.
I’ve been doing Vipassana via Goenka for over 10 years, have gone to courses at a few of the NA centers, have done a satipatthana sutta course and other shorter old student courses. I can confirm the comments by Luke_Grecki and eternaltourist.
There is no big secret behind how they are run. It’s exactly the same whether you are just starting it or have been doing it forever. There’s no pressure to donate. They mention it at the end of each 10 day course and that’s pretty much it. At some of the short old student courses they don’t even bring it up at all.
The centers are safe, the people volunteering are there to make sure your basic needs are met so you can meditiate without distraction. The centers are run by normal people who volunteer. The center trust meetings I’ve attended are just like practical, run of the mill board meetings.
Regarding the specific concerns, you can actually sleep up to 9 hours easily if you skip the sittings before breakfast. The first required sitting is after breakfast. The sleep thing is really a non-issue. When I’m at a course, I pretty consistently sleep a full 8 hours from 9:30 to 5:30.
The assistant teachers are mostly there to try to nudge you in the right direction. All you are doing is focusing on breath or body sensation, so there simply isn’t much to teach outside of goenka’s instructions. It’s more a matter of just doing it. I suspect that some people have difficultly with the lack of human interaction and try to use the assistant teachers as an outlet for it, but it’s counterproductive since it breaks deep concentration and distracts the mind.
As for leaving, eternaltourist’s comments are spot on.