A free of cost residential meditation course, based on Vipassana technique, will be held at Buddha Smriti Park for ten days in August.

Except Mondays, hourly sessions of Anapana Sati (in-and-out breathing) are held every day at the Buddha Smriti Park. Chief minister Nitish Kumar will take part in the session on the occasion of Buddha Purnima on May 21. Nitish will take part in a 40-minute session with several other school students after offering prayers to Lord Buddha on Saturday morning.

At Buddha Smriti Park, 70 people will be enrolled each day during the course. Vipassana International Academy (Igatpuri, Maharashtra) teacher Shyam Sundar Taparia, who will be leading the meditation session at Buddha Smriti Park, said: "Just 10 minutes of Anapana Sati in the morning and evening for a couple of days gives extraordinary results to people of all ages to overcome problems such as anxiety, aggression and psychological stress among others."

Several educational institutions have also incorporated the course in their curriculum or campus activities. Many prestigious institutions in India, including IIT-Delhi, IIT-Mumbai, IIM-Calcutta, IIM-Lucknow, Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development and MGM's Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College (Aurangabad) have introduced Vipassana meditation courses in their curriculum. Shyam said the Maharashtra government provides paid leaves to all its officials and staff for 14 days to undergo the residential course.

Deliberating on the course, Om Prakash Manrov, a trustee at Dhamma Bodhi - Bodhgaya International Vipassana Meditation Centre, said: "Students are required to take up a schedule that includes observing complete silence for 10 days with no form of communication with fellow students, including hand signs. They are required to meditate for around 10 hours a day."

Dhamma Bodhi - Bodhgaya International Vipassana Meditation Centre will manage the event at Buddha Smriti Park. "Seventy rooms in the meditation block will be used to accommodate people who take up the course. They will be provided food free of cost," said Shyam. "A website is being developed for online registration. Anyone willing to participate in the course can register either through the website or by visiting the centre."

Although Vipassana is beneficial for most people, it's not a substitute for medical or psychiatric treatment and isn't recommended for people with serious psychiatric disorders.