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S.N. Goenka, who died September 29, was my very first meditation teacher. I went to India in 1970, when only 18, specifically to study meditation. Goenka-ji had been living in Burma, raising a family and building a successful business, and for many years also deepening his meditation practice.
- Early Years
- Encounter with Vipassana
- The Golden Years
- To India
- This Is The only Repayment
- The Hill of Dhamma
- From India to The World
- A New Focus
- Last Years
- The Bunch of Keys
Mr. S. N. Goenka in his younger age Goenkaji’s journey to deliver the message started in 1924 in Mandalay, the former royal capital of Myanmar. Less than 50 years before, a king still ruled there but the British had overrun the south. In their wake, a wave of immigrants entered the country from India, and one of them was Goenkaji’s grandfather. Lik...
Mr. S. N. Goenka with Sayagyi U Ba Khin It was then that a friend suggested going to the International Meditation Centre in northern Yangon, established a few years earlier by Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Born into a poor family, U Ba Khin had risen to become a top-level civil servant in the government of Myanmar, renowned for his integrity and effectiveness...
In the end, the threat to his life was dropped and Goenkaji entered what he later called his golden years. Freed from business responsibilities, he spent more and more time with his teacher, immersing himself in the Dhamma, the teaching of liberation. For himself, he wanted nothing more than this. But U Ba Khin had other plans. He recalled the anci...
In June 1969, Goenkaji boarded a plane from Yangon to Kolkata in India. Before they parted, his teacher had said to him, “You are not the one going—I am going, the Dhamma is going!” U Ba Khin himself could not leave Myanmar, but he was sending his pupil as his representative, as a Dhamma-duta (Pali, “emissary of the Dhamma”). Goenkaji was very awar...
Goenkaji kept reporting back to his teacher, and U Ba Khin took great pleasure in his letters. On one course there had been 37 students, and U Ba Khin was delighted: “Thirty-seven for the 37 factors of enlightenment! ” he said, referring to a term in the ancient Pali texts. He was still more pleased when Goenkaji reported that he had conducted a co...
In those first years, the courses were in temporary facilities—ashrams, viharas, churches, schools, pilgrims’ rest houses, hostels, sanatoriums, wherever space might be cheaply available. Each site worked but each had its drawbacks, and always there were the tasks of setting up at the start of a course and dismantling the site at the end. So the se...
Mr. S. N. Goenka with Vipassana students The time had ripened, Goenkaji felt. The ancient prophecy—that the Dhamma would return from Myanmar to India—had come to pass. But the prophecy also said that the Dhamma would spread from India around the world. The task remained to fulfill those words. Before he could take up that task, Goenkaji needed to b...
Goenkaji’s mission had taken a great leap forward, but now he faced a new problem: How could he serve the large numbers of people wanting to learn Vipassana? He taught alone, and even on a large course there was a limit to the number of students he could personally handle. There was only one answer. Starting in late 1981, he began training and appo...
Serving Dhamma till very end of life In the last years of his life, Goenkaji’s health was failing. He was confined to a wheelchair; that rich, thrilling voice became weak; speaking at length became difficult. But even as he experienced the sufferings of sickness and old age, he never set aside his task. To the best of his ability, he continued teac...
Following is a story told by Goenkaji in the closing discourse of a 10-day course. It has been lightly edited for publication. There is a story back in our country. In the last 10 days you have been hearing many stories. Perhaps your teacher is addicted to telling stories, and you are also getting addicted to listening to them. So before we part, o...
Apr 3, 2019 · Instead of teaching monks and nuns, Goenka aimed to teach lay people, like himself. Even more, he was radically inclusive for his day, accepting students regardless of caste or gender. His...
Satya Narayana Goenka (ISO 15919: Satynārāyaṇ Goynkā; Burmese: ဦးဂိုအင်ကာ; MLCTS: u: gui ang ka; 30 January 1924 – 29 September 2013) was an Indian teacher of vipassanā meditation. Born in Burma to an Indian business family, he moved to India in 1969
Dec 30, 2022 · He did extremely well academically, entering the family textile business before the Second World War struck through Asia. The Japanese invasion of Myanmar in 1942 pushed Goenka and his family to seek asylum in southern India, wherein they remained through the war years.
After a double promotion from the 7th to the 9th standard, Goenkaji once again topped the final high school examination in 1940, securing a government scholarship. Yet, familial obligations led him to forsake formal education for the family business in 1940.
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In 1969, Goenka moved to India, where he began teaching vipassana, helping to bring this age-old meditation practice back to the land of its origin. Since then he has taught thousands of people and has established meditation centers in India, America, Europe and Australia. ________________
