S. N. Goenka - Chronicles of Dhamma: Selected Articles from the Vipassana Newsletter

In the early 1970s, the clock of Vipassana struck for a small but growing number of young people from Western countries. Like others of their generation, they journeyed to India and had the good fortune to encounter S.N. Goenka, who was beginning his own journey as an envoy of the Dhamma. Many of them decided to accompany him along the path. They followed Goenkaji all over the Indian subcontinent, sitting and serving in course after course.

But for all of them, sooner or later the time came to return to their own country. And then they all faced the questions: How can I continue doing this in everyday life, in my own culture? How can I maintain daily practice of meditation, and how can I interest other people so that they too will want to learn Vipassana?

This is always a big challenge and it was particularly tough in the early 1970s. Goenkajis activities were confined to India, and his passport did not allow him to travel to the West. Even communicating with him was a challenge. There were only three options, each problematic: letters took weeks to arrive and might be lost en route; telegrams were fast but equally uncertain; and phone calls were expensive and the connection was always poor.

But there were hundreds of Goenkajis students in the West, many of them filled with inspiration and enthusiasm. Several of them in different places had the idea for a newsletter that would connect them, enable them to support each other, and help them plan and publicize opportunities for meditation. The result in 1974 was the first issue of the Vipassana Newsletter. It was soon followed by a second issue, then a third, and it finally became a regular publication.

There was a model for it in India, where a Hindi newsletter appeared every month. Regularly Goenkaji would sit down and dictate an article to his secretary, then provide a quotation from the Pali texts and several dohasverses of his own composition. The monthly Vipahyan Patrik often had a very personal tone and became a unique journal in which Goenkaji communicated with his Hindi-speaking students. It still is.

Obviously the International Newsletter could not replicate that tone or format, and in the beginning it was clearly struggling to find its voice. Early issues carried recipes, want ads and advice on making a meditation cushion, among other items. But they also carried words of the Buddha and sometimes articles from Goenkaji. And equally important, they featured lists of group sitting contacts and schedules of activities. People who felt alone suddenly learned that they were not. They also learned that they could join organized activities for the practice of Vipassana as taught by Goenkaji. As one of the earliest Western students says, When I got the first newsletter, I realized there was something I could do, a way to continue practicing.

For that meditator and many others, the Vipassana Newsletter was a lifeline, their only channel for hearing about Vipassana.

Within a short time the Newsletter found that it had a devoted readership because it provided something that was available nowhere else: inspiration and information for the practice of Vipassana meditation in this tradition. Quickly the mailing list expanded beyond North America, and very soon the Newsletter started appearing in other Western languages. In France, for example, students would translate the lead articles from the English Newsletter, and then add local items plus a list of French activities and contacts. The template and much of the content came from the North American editors, but rounding this out was the key information needed by local meditators.

The Newsletter grew in importance as Goenkaji started traveling to the West because once again it was the sole channel for providing information to most of his students. It announced his itinerary and the dates of courses, explained how to apply, and later reported on each years tour. From the early 1980s it performed an equally important function for the winter course program at Dhamma Giri. Hundreds of Westerners came to the center for the two or three months that Goenkaji spent there in that season. Once again they turned to the Newsletter to find out what the program was and how to enroll for the courses they wanted to sit.

In winter of 198182, the Newsletter was the channel through which Goenkaji announced the appointment of the first assistant teachers. From then on, once or twice a year the