I have been practicing yoga for more than 20 years, and vipassana (Goenka’s tradition) for 6 years. I have attended vipassana 10d retreats 3 times. I did a 200h Yoga TTC on 2020.

I don’t currently practice 2h/d of Vipassana, I practice in an ad-hoc way, 10min here, 30min there, some days I do practice 1h in the morning.

I practice yoga daily: hatha yoga, pranayama, tratak, yamas and niyamas. I read yoga books.

My Vipassana practice consists on essentially two exercises: anapana, to increase my ability to keep my attention where I want it to be, and vipassana, to increase my ability to stop reacting unconsciously to all sorts of stimuli: physical sensations, thoughts, emotions.

Vipassana instructions are clear, there are only two core meditation practices, and there is one person to listen to, Goenka. (CAVEAT: there are more vipassana traditions, vipassana instructions come from Buddha, not Goenka.)

The challenge I find is that practicing vipassana makes me too passive: ok, I am aware of an unpleasant sensation, I’m aware of an unpleasant thought. According to Vipassana, you should observe the sensation and keep moving your attention, but when I used to meditate full hours regularly, I would also regularly spend spend the whole meditation session unable to move my attention away from those sensations, thoughts, emotions.

With yoga, I am more reactive (do pranayama to calm the mind, take a cold shower to quell sexual desire, etc), but I get results faster.

Yoga is less of a “one-size-fits-all” approach and provides you with more tools.

What question am I trying to answer? How can you combine vipassana with yoga?

I’m answering that question with my personal experience.

Yoga: my overarching life blueprint Vipassana: high precision tool to develop equanimity and detachment from emotions which has the impact to affect every decision I make daily.

Ethical / moral level: I take yoga’s yamas and niyamas. They overlap with Vipassana’s very well.

Meditation:

What I struggle with is that I don’t have a firm vipassana practice, and also I’m not happy with my yoga practice, I feel like I’m not doing it right (no shavasana, etc). I also feel like I don’t have yet enough calmness of mind.

Basically, I don’t feel I can genuinely talk yet about an effective mix of both disciplines.

What would need to be true for you to feel like you can talk genuinely about this topic? I have been seriously practicing vipassana for 1h+/d for 6+ months and I have strong evidence that I have been getting benefits. I have been logging my daily yoga practice and I have strong evidence that I have been getting benefits.

What type of benefits? What measuring stick are you using? Endgame? Measuring stick appropriate to my current development level?

Both tools aim to reach enlightenment / to understand who you truly are / to reach liberation.

Connections Yoga Nidra by Satyananda, p14. “People do these things because they lack awareness of their inner tension”