‘Oh, I've heard of this teacher called Sri Goenka.’
Grahame White's spiritual journey, sparked in the midst of Australia's Vietnam War draft and described in a recent podcast discussion, took him from the waves of South Africa to the heart of the Ayeyarwady Delta in India, where he became a Buddhist monk. Along the way, he encountered luminaries like Joseph Goldstein and S.N. Goenka, delving into Vipassana and Mahasi meditation. However, as the Goenka tradition expanded, Grahame embarked on a quest for deeper understanding. His encounters with Sayadaw U Janaka and pilgrimages to Bodhgaya enriched his wisdom. Grahame's story is one of spiritual evolution, and his podcast delves into his profound experiences in the world of mindfulness and insight meditation.
“It took me a few days to get up from the rising and falling of the abdomen to the in- and out-breathing at the nostrils, but I do remember that sitting in front of Goenka-ji, who was so powerful, of course, so the practice improved greatly. It was a wonderful retreat.”
“At that time, there were no foreigners in Bodhgaya. The place was absolutely beautiful. It was still a village. No fences around, no security around, no buildings around, just grass. And you'd walk to the Bodhi tree. Every afternoon, I’d go to the Bodhi tree and do my pūja and meditate at the Bodhi tree. I was lucky enough to actually receive my robes underneath the Bodhi tree. But three months passed of the vassa.
At the end of the three months, there was a Vietnamese monk, who is very well known in America. He was staying at the Thai temple at the time. And he said one day to me towards the end of the vassa, ‘Oh, I've heard of this teacher called Sri Goenka.’ I said, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah.’ And he said, ‘He's giving a course in Old Delhi, at the Ladakh Vihara in Old Delhi. Would you like to come with me?’
So, I asked my Abbot. And he was quite a funny guy; he says, ‘Oh, you're always wanting to do meditation, going on retreats.’ He said, ‘What's your hurry? Many lifetimes.’ Anyway. So, off we went. We got the train up to Old Delhi. And I remember this Vietnamese monk was very strict. So, one of the things I remember the most was going on the train and 11 o'clock came for us to have meals, but we didn't have any food. We'd forgotten to arrange food or whatever we had done. So, we didn't have lunch that day. And I still remember that, 70 years later, ‘Oh, we didn’t have lunch on that train to Old Delhi.’
Anyway, we got to Old Delhi and found the Ladakh Vihara. And we did the second-ever Goenka course he’d ever taught, with only 15 people. Very historic.
Well look, when I'm thinking about it now, I can visualize the Ladakh Vihara. It was a Tibetan center, and it was a couple of stories high and built in a very Victorian way, in an U shape. We had the upper floor of one of the wings. A beautiful place with wrought iron fences around, et cetera. There was a small meditation hall. And then there were rooms. I was in a room, being a monk, with four other monks. One from Sri Lanka. There was a Tibetan monk who had been sent by his teacher to do Vipassana, because they considered vipassanā, the Tibetans, to be very important in the practices. There were a couple of retired Indian monks there, who had given up the household life after their retirements; there was a professor. And then there were maybe ten or so Westerners who had heard of Goenka. And that's all there were.
We sat in this room for the ten days, just a small meditation hall. I was sitting - being a monk, you were accorded, you had to be at a certain place in the hall - maybe two or three feet away from Goenka for ten days. Yeah, it was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. They used to do things a little differently in those days. The courses were given slightly differently. They still did the three days of ānāpāna[sati]. I didn't know. Like, this was a different tradition than I had been practicing, than the Mahāsī. I said to Goenka-ji, I said, ‘But Goenka-ji, I have been doing this Mahāsī practice.’ He says, ‘Oh, that doesn't matter. You try this.’ It took me a few days to get up from the rising and falling of the abdomen to the in- and out-breathing at the nostrils, but I do remember that sitting in front of Goenka-ji, who was so powerful, of course, the practice improved greatly. It was a wonderful retreat. If you can imagine what it was like sitting in this small room with 15 people, with Goenka-ji, it's quite amazing.”