by I-mon on Sun Sep 03, 2017 5:16 am
Different body scanning methods are common in many (most? all?) of the Theravada Buddhist meditation traditions. The Satipatthana Sutta and Anapanasati Sutta are the two main textual foundations. There is some dispute amongst different traditions about what is meant by the term "kaya sankhara" and what is meant by "noticing the entire kaya sankhara during inhalation and exhalation", in the Anapanasati Sutta, for example. Some maintain that it is referring to the "body", some are adamant that it means the "breath-body", some state that those essentially mean the same thing since the breath is experienced as a movement through the whole body...in the end it doesn't matter that much either way, IMO/IME - get more and more sensitive to the subtle breath and the links between mind and body, breath, emotions, conditioned responses to bodily sensations and fluctuations of the mind, etc, all gradually reveal themselves more clearly and in more detail.
Goenka's Vipassana is most likely just that, Goenka's take on things based on his studies with his teacher U Bha Kin and his studies of the Pali texts. There is quite a lot of information out there about the many influences on different Buddhist traditions over the last few hundred years, and you shouldn't be surprised to discover that most lineages claimed histories are more like pseudo-histories. Goenka's techniques are as effective as any others though, depending on how they're understood and how they're practiced.