---
title: "Vipassana Films, Books and Talks — Resources | Vipassana.Life"
description: "Documentaries, books, talks and first-course accounts about Vipassana in the tradition of S. N. Goenka, each with a line on what it is and where to find it."
url: https://vipassana.life/resources/
lang: en
author: Ocean DYNN
site: Vipassana.Life
modified: 2026-09-23
---

# Films, books and talks

Some of the clearest pictures of Vipassana are other people’s: a film shot inside a prison, a book written from a teacher’s talks, a blog written the week after a first course. Here they are, with a plain line on each and a note where there is one.

## Films

- [Doing Time, Doing Vipassana](https://www.karunafilms.com/dtdvabout), Ayelet Menahemi, Eilona Ariel, 1997. A documentary about the ten-day Vipassana courses brought into Tihar Jail in New Delhi under Kiran Bedi, and the prisoners who sat them.
- [The Dhamma Brothers](https://bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/dbros.html), Jenny Phillips, Andrew Kukura, Anne Marie Stein, 2007. A documentary about a ten-day Vipassana course in a maximum-security prison in Alabama, and the four men it follows most closely.

## Books

- [The Art of Living](https://store.pariyatti.org/products/3196), William Hart, 1987. William Hart's book of S. N. Goenka's teaching, made from the talks of the ten-day Vipassana course for readers who may never have sat one.
- [The Discourse Summaries](https://www.vridhamma.org/node/4722), S. N. Goenka, William Hart, 1987. S. N. Goenka's eleven talks from a ten-day Vipassana course, one each evening and a last one on the closing morning, condensed by William Hart.
- [Satipatthana Sutta Discourses](https://store.pariyatti.org/products/1814), S. N. Goenka, Patrick Given-Wilson, 1998. S. N. Goenka's evening talks on the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta from the eight-day course for students who have sat three ten-day courses, condensed by Patrick Given-Wilson.
- [Altered Traits](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533719/altered-traits-by-daniel-goleman-and-richard-j-davidson/), Daniel Goleman, Richard J. Davidson, 2017. Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson sift the research on meditation and separate the passing states of a sitting from the traits that last.

## Talks and podcasts

- [Universal Spirituality for Peace](https://www.dhamma.org/en/about/peace), S. N. Goenka, 2000. S. N. Goenka's address to the Millennium World Peace Summit in the UN General Assembly Hall on 29 August 2000, on the core all religions share and on peace that starts in each person.
- [Meditation Now Tour with S.N. Goenka](https://pariyatti.org/pages/podcasts), S. N. Goenka, Pariyatti, 2002. Free recordings of the public talks S. N. Goenka gave in 35 cities of the United States and Canada in 2002, each followed by the audience's questions.
- [Interview with Yuval Harari](https://store.pariyatti.org/products/6474), Yuval Noah Harari, Kory Goldberg, 2022. Yuval Noah Harari talks to Kory Goldberg for Pariyatti about his daily sittings, his yearly long course and why he stopped stretching the one-hour sitting.

## First courses, in other people's words

- [Insomnia, Anxiety, and Spiders: 10 Days at a Vipassana Meditation Course](https://www.legalnomads.com/vipassana-meditation/), Jodi Ettenberg, 2016. Jodi Ettenberg's account of her first ten-day Vipassana course near Auckland, sat with insomnia, back pain and a fear of spiders, and later updates on what it did not fix.
- [A Little Reflection… Vipassana Meditation: Was it Worth It?](https://alittleadrift.com/vipassana-meditation-course-nepal/), Shannon O'Donnell, 2009. Shannon O'Donnell looks back on the ten-day course she sat at Begnas Lake near Pokhara in 2009, the day she wanted to leave, and how her view of it changed over the years.

[Open the course →](https://vipassana.life/)