S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight (Lives of the Masters)

Using a tone that is neither devotional/cheerleading nor critical, Stuart provides an excellent set of observations on circumstances that influenced Goenka's own journey and how his teachings evolved. What struck me the most was the plainspeak used to describe the various inner tensions that Goenka leveraged to distil the meditation concepts - tension between his Hindu upbringing and Buddhism, being an Indian-origin immigrant bringing back Dharma to its homeland, the urge to expand the message and limiting commercialization, etc. Whether opportunistic rationalizations, pragmatic acclimitizations or savvy navigational abilities - the author doesnt conclude or judge. The very pithy discussion on whether Gita was influenced by Buddha or vice-a-versa was also illuminative; even more instructive was how Goenka resolved that conflict without necessarily concluding either way. While the personal growth of Goenka is a topic worth reading in itself, Stuart also reports on the various schisms that developed in this meditation school; two kinds of divisions (Goenka and his gurus, Goenka and his disciples) provide an interesting (and not so flattering) view of the Buddhist thought leaders (at least on a superficial level, the reporting comes across as even gurus are fairly obstinate about their views and each considers themselves to have the truest interpretation of yet another guru or concept).The second part of the book is a collection of various poems, essays and lectures by Goenka. It is a wonderful sampling for those whose only exposure may be via William Hart's "Art of Living" - one of the most known books on vipassana as taught by Goenka. A very detailed set of notes and citations will help a more curious reader.Overall, an excellent resource for anyone more interested in understanding the evolution of thought (Goenka's) and a side story of how various schools of thought splinter and become offshoots.

It’s very disappointing that the author gave himself license to spread misinformation by starting his book with “ Its a Difficult task to write a historical and critical book about one’s own meditation teacher”. If he had any knowledge at all about the history of the discourses he would know that the original 10day discourses were very heavy with Satipathanna explanations, so the new set of discourses were much lighter with a lot more humour giving especially the new students some relief from the heavy workload. Any Serious student knows how much deeper you go in the environment of a Satipathanna course surrounded by just old students, He also forgot to mention that in the last couple of years Goenka  suffered Diabetes induced dementia And his grandson tried his best to perform a coup on the organisation, This coup was eventually extinguished but it took about two years to play out. I have never heard the claim that states among serious old students, that Goenka is a reincarnation of Ledi Sayadaw, whenever Goenka was asked about his status or his meditation achievements, he would always reply that he was more advanced on the path than the questioner and was able to guide someone on the path as a more experienced meditator but not as a Guru. In fact I know Joah McGee was asked this question by a curious old student because Joah promotes himself as some kind of expert on Goenka and the Vipassana organisation, he is a friend of the author of this book and now it turns up in this book on the first page,  And the claim made by the author that Sayagyi U Ba Khin broke his own rules about not teaching people from other traditions is more misinformation no dates are given to prove his claim, actually after the experience of both his teacher Sayathetgyi and himself they came to that conclusion not to teach people from other traditions because some students from other traditions experienced confusion about the practice, this book should have been called A Book of Rumours