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Vipassana

 The path and practice of insight through mindfulness meditation
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    Empty Phenomena Rolling On Paid Member

    By Helen Tworkov
    Joseph Goldstein, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (both in Barre, Massachusetts), has been leading retreats in the vipassana tradition of Southeast Asia for nearly twenty years. His teachers include Anagarika Munindra, S. N. Goenka, Dipa Ma, and the Venerable V Pandita Sayadaw of Burma. He is the author of The Experience of Insight: A Simple and Direct Guide to Buddhist Meditation and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation. His new book, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom, was published by Shambhala in the fall. This interview was conducted by editor Helen Tworkov at IMS in October. More »
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    Living Two Traditions Paid Member

    Gil Fronsdal has been a student of Buddhist practice for more than twenty-five years. He trained in the Soto Zen tradition, receiving dharma transmission in 1995, as well as in the Vipassana—or Insight Meditation—lineages of Theravada Buddhism. Since 1990, Fronsdal has served as resident teacher at the Insight Meditation Center of the Mid-Peninsula in Redwood City, California. Only the second urban Insight Meditation center in America, it is funded entirely by dana contributions. Tricycle Editor-in-Chief James Shaheen interviewed Gil Fronsdal at his center in August 2002. It is unusual for someone to be a teacher of both Zen and Vipassana. Since you started out in the Zen tradition, can you describe how you first came to the practice? More »
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    Sitting Still Paid Member

    By Henepola Gunaratana
    ONCE YOU SIT, do not change the position again until the end of the time you determined at the beginning. Suppose you change your original position because it is uncomfortable, and assume another position. What happens after a while is that the new position becomes uncomfortable. Then you want another and after a while it, too, becomes uncomfortable. So you may go on shifting, moving, changing one position to another the whole time you are on your meditation cushion and you may not gain a deep and meaningful level of concentration. Therefore, do not change your original position, no matter how painful it is. More »
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    Take The One Seat Paid Member

    By Jack Kornfield
    WHEN WE TAKE THE ONE SEAT on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness. More »
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    Five Practices to Change Your Mind Paid Member

    By Barry Magid, Gil Fronsdal, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Peter Doobinin and Judith Simmer-Brown
    Leave yourself alone!Zen teacher Barry Magid describes the practice of just sitting. More »
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    The Refuge of Sitting Paid Member

    By Narayan Liebenson Grady
    Developing a disciplined sitting practice is a matter of commitment and patience. For many practitioners, it is not easy, even for those who have been sitting for a while. Sitting every day must become a priority in our daily lives rather than just one more thing we have to do. This requires a great deal of dedication, because meditation is not supported by our culture at large. Watching television is rarely criticized as being selfish, whereas a common question that practitioners bring up is whether one “deserves” to sit, implying that it is selfish to do so. Here are a few tips: More »