Dear philltee
Welcome to the forums and to being a meditator. The first thing I will point out is that you have learned
one of many approaches to "Vipassana" meditation. The S.N. Goenka system has no trademark on the word Vipassana, however many meditators who study with them are not aware that their take on Vipassana is one of many.
It is an approach that I find problematic for a number of reasons.
The first reason relates to this section of your post:
Now that I have returned home, I am meditating once or twice a day, and my concentration is good, but as I am moving through every part of the body, the sensations I have are all fairly similar and subtle, thus not producing any real reaction in any case. So I feel like I have nothing to work on, no requirement not to react, as I am not reacting anyway, and feel like I can be objective pretty easily to such sensations. This makes me feel like I am either missing something in the practice, or the practice may not work for me as it is not going to bring up any sankharas. Can anyone recommend what I should be doing at this point - should I just continue to scan the body, and not expect anything to come up?
At the Goenka retreat you will have taken three days of meditation described as "Anapana", focussing at your nostrils to develop concentration. Anapana is a form of Shamatha or "calm-abiding" meditation.
For westerners who are very goal oriented, often stuck in their rational brain and disconnected from the body this can be problematic. Firstly it is against the teachings of the Buddha who described the proper approach to Shamatha meditation in the meditation Sutta's thus:
"There is the case where an aspirant -- having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building -- sits down cross-legged, holding the body erect and setting her (4) awareness before her. Always aware, one breathes in; aware one breathes out aware.
"Breathing in long, one discerns that one is breathing in long; or breathing out long, one discerns that one is breathing out long. Or breathing in short, one discerns that one is breathing in short; or breathing out short, one discerns that one is breathing out short. One trains himself to breathe in sensitive to the entire body and to breathe out sensitive to the entire body. One trains herself to breathe in calming the entire body and to breathe out calming the entire body."
In
this post I describe the detailed neurological basis as to why Anapana may, if combined with strong desire to progress and the forceful quieting of the mind, be a problem for meditators.
Briefly, meditation is in the first stage about: breath(ing) in sensitive to the entire body and breath(ing) out sensitive to the entire body. Training yourself to breathe in calming the entire body and to breathe out calming the entire body. Nothing about noses.
By trying to develop concentration as a first goal - rather than sensitivity to the whole body and calmness in the entire body - one is skipping step 1 on the path to awakening. Step 1 is very important. Sitting breathing in aware of the whole body and the breath entering and leaving, allowing thoughts, feelings and perceptions to rise and fall, neither attaching to nor pushing them away, the mind and body come into harmony and the mind quietens
naturally.
By working with Anapana at the nostrils one is actually quite at risk of forcing the mind into quiet acquiescence. This is a form of fabricated quiet or self-hypnosis and many meditators spend years trying to work with this state of mind, fruitlessly. Those years are fruitless because it truly is
only the mind that comes to quiet through slow acceptance of what is and a deep reconditioning of the entire bodymind that will give up it's secrets.
Working with Shamatha of the kind described above, as the Buddha taught it, the body and mind relax. One learns not to attach to mental objects through repeatedly noticing one has attached to them and letting go. This is best done with a sense of compassion and laughter at one's own "tiger mind", running wildly here and there.
An example of attachment to thought and indulging it rather than letting it go would be that one starts with the thought, "I'm hungry". One might continue "What shall I have for dinner. MMM think I fancy an omelette. Damn we have no eggs. I'll have to drop in to Tesco on the way home. Oh hell it's going to be busy ... school chuck out time". You will do this a lot as a beginning meditator unless the quiet of your mind and the concentration have come through force and not relaxation. This is fine. It's why meditation practice is called practice. We get better and better at spotting thoughts arise and not attaching to them, keeping the focus gently on the breath as it enters and leaves the whole body whilst not ignoring nor aattching to thoughts. Each time we get caught in a train of thoughts we notice that has happened, make a mental note of it and return the focus to the breath.
This form of Shamatha will take from days to months or longer to perfect, depending on your time and commitment to it, pre-existing condition and your following of the other elements of the eightfold path - which are all conducive to good meditation. The first fruit of this long practice is truly one-pointed mind. A mind able to concentrate totally on anything, without suppressing anything else - mainly because this process progressively winds down the clockspring of restless thought through sheer persistence and boredom. Eventually the mind runs out of junk to say to you, and try and draw you away from your meditation with, and there is nothing to supress - just mind quietly dwelling in pace and awareness.
Also, I realise that I should be able to take my practice into daily life, and stay equanimous in daily situations, good or bad. However, if I find myself in a situation where I am reacting, should I then try to scan the body as I do in my practice, or should I just look at the general sensations arising? Is the idea just to think about the impermanence of the situation, or to look at the physical sensations arising from the situation which will in turn help my mental balance?
Awareness is the key to taking meditation off the cushion. When you feel anger or other unwholesome states arising take deep relaxed breaths. Once one has established, through good practice, an awareness of the state of your bodymind from moment to moment you will find it much easier to take the calm and concentration, compassion and wisdom that arise in meditation into everyday life. These things will never arise through forced effort, however, but very much through you
returning to your true nature by letting the proper calming process of Shamatha meditation work it's magic (it's not magic really, it's common sense, but I like the word in the context).
.... That's why I am so skeptic to hear that you expect to be able to use such techniques after 10-day retreat. If you do want to reach these states in visible future, it is better for you to focus on basic technique -- breathing through whole body.
I completely agree with Mik1e here. Three days of Anapana in the stressed situation of a first meditation retreat is insufficient to have actually calmed the mind and body through relaxation. Others were "having Sankharas arise" and you weren't - this could have lead to a desire to achieve the same "progress" as others. Much of this progress will have been unreal anyway and will have been ego reactions to the stress of undertaking a first intensive meditation retreat, and perhaps made worse by the techniques employed.
If the bodyscans are doing nothing for you it may well be down to one of the issues I have described here. You can certainly experiment with just sitting and breathing, forcing nothing, "FABRICATING NOTHING", just letting yourself be, and noticing what you be through anchoring awareness in your whole body, breathing and calming.
In the Dhamma,
Matthew