The centre holds traditional ten-day silent retreats - just as the Buddha suggested. The course offers a non-denominational alternative to the other main means of learning the technique of meditation: staying at a Buddhist monastery.

Vipassana was the simple and scientific means by which the Buddha achieved enlightenment. It requires a devotion to the practice, but demands belief in nothing else save that which the meditator discovers for themselves. It involves no visualisations or mantra repititions and is concentrated on direct self examination, in order to discover our true natures.

Mr Satya Narayan Goenka, a sometime Indian businessman who was saved from crippling migraines by the discovery of the technique, realised that Vipassana practice could give people a vital means to change their own lives, and made it his life's mission to bring it back to India and then to take it to the rest of the world. So far he's doing pretty well...

There are now Vipassana Centres all over the world, running the ten-day residential retreats of "Noble Silence": participants should not talk or even exchange eye contact with anyone. The teaching is done through recordings and videos made by Goenka, with time put aside for personal practice. Assistant teachers are on hand for personal queries and discussions.