Initial Findings from Vipassana Meditation Related Survey

By Ryanshelton7 @LivingVipassana

As I mentioned in some of earlier posts, I am conducting a research to understand the role of Vipassana meditation in enhancing the emotional intelligence. In this post, I would like to share some preliminary findings from survey and personal interviews with Vipassana practitioners.

The survey to test of some of the hypothesis has been open for last one month or so and till the response rate is good. I have received responses from over 330 respondents from 18 countries including Vipassana practitioners and non-practitioners. Almost 60% of the respondents have attended at least one Vipassana meditation course at one of the centers and almost 52% respondents practice Vipassana on regular basis. It was really great to see that such a diverse response and this diversity would surely help in accurately coming up with findings.

 I am looking at least 500 respondents to ensure of 95% accuracy of findings, so all the blog readers, if you still have not taken the survey, then I kindly request to take the survey and help in this noble cause.

 I realized some of things ( though very preliminary observations, lot of statistical analysis is underway).

  1. Reflection is an integral part of Vipassana meditators lives. Analysis and reasoning of past behavior leads to alternation in their future behavior.  
  2. Vipassana meditators are more aware of their strengths and weaknesses and importantly they are less hesitant of discussing their weakness publicly.  
  3. Vipassana meditators are better at understanding and regulating the flow of their thoughts in impulsive situations as tense situations, conflict resolutions, multiple demanding projects.
  4. Vipassana meditators are action oriented i.e. if they recognize a person with certain weaknesses, they take some time out to guide, mentor that person to overcome weakness. So, its not only about empathizing with others but also going one step ahead and offering the help.

 I am still crystallizing all the data and coming up with more insights. Stay tuned for more. Please feel free to reach out to me in case of any clarifications.