Goenka website - https://www.dhamma.org
Standard 10 day ‘new student’ meditation retreat - called by some - ‘meditation bootcamp’ - 10 days at 10 hours of meditation per day. One watches a video lecture of Goenka every evening. (Goenka has many retreat centers and died 2013) These lectures are currently on YouTube. One gets up early - at 4 am. Only a fruit for dinner for new students, nothing for repeat (old) students. Turn in cell phones, etc at beginning of retreat. Totally free except for donation/dana at end. Costs are kept low by old students volunteering for cooking and serving.
I believe that this is a very valid meditation technique. Some of my teachers or their spouses do Goenka at least some of the time. I have been to one Goenka retreat in Jesup, GA. I thought it was a good retreat. However, I did go back to my standard meditation practice of many years afterward
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness are:
The first 3 days one does Concentration Meditation using the breath as the meditation object. The remainder of the days Goenka meditation is mindfulness of the body.
One criticism is that it leaves out mindfulness of feelings and the mind. I have read in forums that in more advanced retreats mindfulness of feelings and mind are added, but I do not know.
This is still Mindfulness - in the meditation one is still again looking at the 3 Characteristics (Impermanence, Unsatisfactoriness, Selflessness)
Statements from Goenka video lectures fond on YouTube -
Goenka also uses the phrase "moment to moment". A "moment" of perception is pretty much the smallest fraction of a second that you can manage to break your attention into. Every moment of perception is new and different from the last, and to notice this is to notice the Characteristic of impermanence.
Subsequently, feelings are observed through a continuous scanning of the body in the up and downward directions, leading to a penetrative awareness of their changing
nature at increasingly subtler levels. Eventually, such practice leads to an awareness of the entire spectrum of body and mind in a constantly changing flux.
It is hard to find the detailed meditation instructions directly from Goenka but here is a version:
With the same detached observation you apply in breath awareness, focus your attention to the crown of your head. Whatever sensations you feel, do not react. Do not try to feel sensations either. Observe the sensations with the same passive acceptance with which you observe your breath.
From the crown of your head slowly scan your attention over your entire body. Every part of your face and head. Your torso. Your limbs. Every part of your body. Passively observe sensations in each part, feeling no aversion or pleasure no matter what the sensation may be. Just observe equanimously. Scan your entire body until you have returned focus to the crown of your head. Then begin again for a new cycle.
When you are able to objectively observe the sensations throughout your body equanimously and with ease, continue the process of scanning, but allow your awareness to penetrate below the surface of your flesh. You will probably find this happening naturally as you become more focused in body scanning. Allow yourself to passively observe sensations in your muscles and bones. Within your nerves and veins. Within your vital organs. All with the same passive observance you learned to apply to your breath awareness. Allow no sensation to upset you - just understand that it shall logically and inevitably pass.
Allow yourself to be aware of all sensation in your entire body at once. The goal you are focusing towards is the complete awareness of all sensation in your body without the necessity of practicing body scan. Observe this entire body of sensation passively, objectively, not feeling aversion to gross sensations, not feeling desire for pleasant sensations, accepting that all sensation, logically, inevitably, shall pass.