Vipassana: What Kind of Insight Do I Get?

[Rocco]

I read several articles about vipassana and that one gets "insight" from it. But nowhere I found an explanation what kind of insight. Can anyone explain, please? Thank you!

Edited November 18, 2016 by Rocco

[Miffymog]

I have done a similar type of meditation to vipassana. When I do it regularly during my normal life, the insights are just about the life I'm living at the time i.e. how to reinterpret an event so that it no longer frustrates and annoys me as much. When I've done it during a retreat, I've never gained any particular insight, rather I just have experiences.

[awaken]

There are many kinds of insight.

 

烏肝

兔髓

黍米

卍字

金剛鏈

Mandala

Full moon

Yang Shan

Gold body

Etc

 

Some words are too hard to translate.

 

烏肝 means black liver. But it's not a real black liver. It's a light, a kind of light which looks like aurora.

 

It has different colors. Everyone see different colors.

[mostly_empty]

Dear Rocco,

   Mindfulness of breath helps you stabilize consciousness. It has many other effects as well. As you subdue the tendencies of the monkey mind you can use this as a platform to consider the cycle - arising, falling - of thoughts. So while having some clarity of thought and separation from the daily world helps generate insight into how one's life functions, the main insight is into the nature of mind. The many "flavours" of insight noted by "awaken" refer to experiences which, if you practice and stabilize, tell you quite a bit about mind and consciousness.

[Gerard]

I read severalarticles about vipassana and that one gets "insight" from it. But nowhere I found an explanation what kind of insight. Can anyone explain, please? Thank you!

 

Certainly

 

You'll have a clear understanding of the Four Noble Truths. These are 100% true. The accuracy is total and without a doubt.

 

You'll fully understand the conditions that cause your rebirth and that of all sentient beings and how reality operates at that level.

 

But Vipassana requires also Samatha (single-pointed concentration) in order to settle the mind, to 'strengthen' it so to speak.

 

Enjoy your wonderful practice.

 

Best!

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Well firstly, this insight is phenomenological. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
 

Literally, phenomenology is the study of “phenomena”: appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, [...] experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view.

 
Also this insight is about the real nuts-and-bolts of phenomena, on the level of 'things in and of themselves'. Like in the Bahiya sutta: 'in the seen just the seen...'. This is about seeing phenomena as they are in a very objective way.
 
For example, people usually think of impermanence on a macroscopic, conceptual level - 'one day I will die, so I should focus on important things...', which is all well and good and skillful, but not the sort of insight that vipassana brings. Or people might have a much more profound recognition of their mortality, from an accident or something - still not vipassana impermanence insight. Vipassana insight into impermanence comes from directly seeing how phenomena arise and cease on a much more moment-to-moment, 'microscopic' level.
 
Ordinary insights can be described in ways that fit personal narratives, they could make sense written in a biography - 'and this made me realize that I won't live forever so...'. Vipassana-style insights are much more impersonal, on the level of fundamental processes - 'phenomena are impermanent'.
 
If you learn things about your personality and how to deal with problems better and why certain things bother you or anything like that while doing vipassana - great! That stuff is really useful and meaningful and worth actively cultivating. But that's macroscopic, personal-narrative insight, not the microscopic, phenomenology insight vipassana specifically targets. 
 
This is why noting can be really useful. Apply an objective label like 'thought' or 'sadness' or 'memory', etc, to a phenomenon as it arises, and it really helps you stay with things in and of themselves.
 
So, what is it you learn about phenomena exactly? One valid answer is dependent origination - how phenomena arise and cease as part of a causal web with each other. Another is the Four Noble Truths. But a way of looking at this that's really useful in helping you do the practice is the three characteristics:

• Impermanence (look closely at phenomena - are things that looked solid actually made of smaller, arising-and-passing phenomena? How many separate, brief flashes of sensation make up an itch?)
• Dukkha (look at how the mind inclines towards/away from certain phenomena. Why are you doing this stuff anyway? Vipassanize the phenomena involved in that!)
• Anatta (When there's an experience of sight, is there a 'me' at the center who's doing the seeing, or just an experience of sight interacting with other phenomena? Is there a 'self' doing this practice, or is vipassana itself just phenomena?)

Edited November 15, 2016 by Seeker of Wisdom

[doc benway]

I read severalarticles about vipassana and that one gets "insight" from it. But nowhere I found an explanation what kind of insight. Can anyone explain, please? Thank you!

 

You will gain insight into the nature of your own mind and being and that of your environment. 

 

You will never "get it" from words, books, or explanations,  the very essence of the insight is experiential.

 

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj summarizes it well in my signature quotation below but beware, these are just words.

 

"Understanding" the words is like reading the menu, practicing vipassana to fruition is like enjoying the meal.

[SeekerOfHealing]

Insight means seeing nature of reality of seeing the Dao which vipassana triggers at certain point. 

 

For example if I say to you or you read that you do not exist (anatta) you will laugh and that I'm crazy, while doing vipassana you can actually can go to seeing it directly eg. insight. 

[Cheshire Cat]

I read severalarticles about vipassana and that one gets "insight" from it. But nowhere I found an explanation what kind of insight. Can anyone explain, please? Thank you!

 

Basically, it partially depends on the precise technique which your Buddhist school labels as Vipassana (body scan, noting, etc...).

At some point of your practice, you're told to consider impermanence/no-self/suffering and apply those concepts to the objects of your meditation.

 

The development of insight isn't automatic: it's born out of a reflexive thinking on the transient nature of human experience, a deep understanding on the theory of no-self and the ability to consider the secret dolorific side of the pleasurable experiences.

 

In the end, insight turns into wisdom. And wisdom is a very strong sense of detachment from everything.

Detachment is the only palliative available to suspend desire and achieve Nirvana, the end of suffering.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Cheshire Cat

[Rocco]

Certainly

 

You'll have a clear understanding of the Four Noble Truths. These are 100% true. The accuracy is total and without a doubt.

 

You'll fully understand the conditions that cause your rebirth and that of all sentient beings and how reality operates at that level.

 

But Vipassana requires also Samatha (single-pointed concentration) in order to settle the mind, to 'strengthen' it so to speak.

 

Enjoy your wonderful practice.

 

Best!

Is it advisable to to both meditations parallel e.g. Breath Mediaton/Anapanasati in the moorning and in the eveningVipassana? For my practice this would be perfect! Or do these meditations interfer in an unwanted way?

[Rocco]

Basically, it partially depends on the precise technique which your Buddhist school labels as Vipassana (body scan, noting, etc...).

At some point of your practice, you're told to consider impermanence/no-self/suffering and apply those concepts to the objects of your meditation.

 

The development of insight isn't automatic: it's born out of a reflexive thinking on the transient nature of human experience, a deep understanding on the theory of no-self and the ability to consider the secret dolorific side of the pleasurable experiences.

 

In the end, insight turns into wisdom. And wisdom is a very strong sense of detachment from everything.

Detachment is the only palliative available to suspend desire and achieve Nirvana, the end of suffering.

For several weeks I did observing my thoughts and letting them go, as meditation. I think this is a kind of Vipassana meditation, right? I observed myself becoming calmer in a pleasant way, less aggressive and less worrying. But I also feel the need to enhance my concentration abilities,since I get "sucked" into my thoughts too easily.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Rocco

[doc benway]

For several weeks I ovserved my thoughts and let them go as meditation. I think this is a kind of Vipassana meditation, right? I observed myself becoming calmer in a pleasant way, less aggressive and less worrying. But I also feel the need to enhance my concentration abilities,since I get "sucked" into my thoughts too easily.

 

This is precisely why many Buddhist traditions introduce Vipassana only after the student has achieved some degree of mastery in Shamatha. 

[awaken]

Observe your body and breath until chi happen

 

This chi can help you get away from thinking

 

Then you can go inside a state - no thoughts

Edited November 18, 2016 by awaken

[Cheshire Cat]

For several weeks I did observing my thoughts and letting them go, as meditation. I think this is a kind of Vipassana meditation, right?

 

I would say that it depends on what you mean by "letting go".

 

In truth, none really knows for sure what vipassana really was at the time of the Buddha: it's technically a "reconstructed method"... and many people invented (or rediscovered) various forms of meditation inspired by the buddhist sutras, and they called them "vipassana". Many different methods, but a single name.

 

What I personally consider to be the most "authentic" is the one which relies on the three (already mentioned) marks of reality to achieve that "letting go": as long as you apply the consistent understanding of impermanence/no-self/suffering to each thought, that is vipassana.

In the "secret of the golden flower" (which is a daoist treatise), you may find a reference on "how to handle spontaneously arising thoughts" according to chinese buddhism. And this method is precisely to rely on thoughts to prove to yourself that...there's no self (actually, you try to trace the origin of the specific thought). This is also vipassana in my opinion.

 

Vipassana is not about being without thoughts: even if you find yourself in a realm of no-thoughts, the method of vipassana would be to consciously produce the mental question "who's experiencing this stillness?" / "Is this thing permanent?" / "Will this pleasure last forever?" and to proceed from there in your investigations.

[joeblast]

no mental chatter = cranial-nerve-neurology transformed

 

tamp down and tame the olfactory nerve until the signal disappears and then all the 12 cranials transform their resonant mode.

 

idle energy that is not harnessed or put to constructive use (which is why breathwork a/or turning the light around harnesses the base energy and transforms it before it is able to form a bubble in the midbrain and pop out,) rides the neurological chains into higher brain centers and produce random thoughtforms.

 

it was really cool when I was able to first detect the formation of the thoughtform bubble,

 

but even cooler when I was able to turn it around before the bubble "ruptured" and left the midbrain to fly off into the higher brain centers.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Is it advisable to to both meditations parallel e.g. Breath Mediaton/Anapanasati in the moorning and in the eveningVipassana? For my practice this would be perfect! Or do these meditations interfer in an unwanted way?

 

Doing shamatha then vipassana won't cause interference - actually the shamatha will make your mind nicely clear and focused, which greatly benefits vipassana. It's like trying to dig into the truth with a sharper tool. 

 

It'd be ideal to do vipassana directly after shamatha to maximize this, though no need to be too picky about it.

 

Also worth noting - vipassana isn't just for when you're on the cushion or doing walking meditation. It's best to try to keep a current of that mindful investigation all through your day.

 

For several weeks I did observing my thoughts and letting them go, as meditation. I think this is a kind of Vipassana meditation, right? I observed myself becoming calmer in a pleasant way, less aggressive and less worrying. But I also feel the need to enhance my concentration abilities,since I get "sucked" into my thoughts too easily.

 

If you watch your thoughts as 'just thoughts' arising and ceasing - yeah, that will be vipassana. Satipatthana sutta: 'When the mind is X, he discerns that the mind is X. [...] This is how a monk remains focused on the mind in & of itself.'

 

Don't forget to notice the calmness or whatever else as 'just X' arising and ceasing. If you can be aware of it, it's a phenomenon!

 

It's difficult to disembed from thoughts and see them objectively as phenomena because we are very conceptual beings, and we build our narratives to a large extent out of thoughts. We're just used to using thoughts in narratives, rather than seeing them as phenomena.

 

It gets easier as you build up the habit of this different way of seeing through practice. It may be easier at first to focus more of your vipassana towards sensory experiences, which are easier to see in this way. Building up concentration also helps.

 

Edited November 19, 2016 by Seeker of Wisdom

[Gerard]

Is it advisable to to both meditations parallel e.g. Breath Mediaton/Anapanasati in the moorning and in the eveningVipassana? For my practice this would be perfect! Or do these meditations interfer in an unwanted way?

 

Start by developing serious concentration (samatha) by focusing in one technique (please read this info if you don't have a real live teacher, having one is advisable and will speed up your training process while avoiding or minimising pitfalls in practice which are plentiful):

 

Buddho

 

Later on you'll develop Vipassana in order to gain real insight of the true nature of our reality.

 

Some Northern Thai schools follow Mahasi Sayadaw's method, they skip Samatha and work with Vipassana right from the beginning; they completely focus on the watching of sensations, thoughts, pain, pleasure, sounds, visions (EVERYTHING) that occur during meditation practice while the breathing is placed on the rising and falling of the abdomen. This is the method that I learned.

 

The division between Samatha and Vipassana starts to blur and ultimately fade away once you reach an intermediate to advanced level. You just start meditating, developing jhana and insight. In other words, you just get into the business of serious meditation.

 

Good luck

Edited November 21, 2016 by Gerard

[Gerard]

Vipassana is not about being without thoughts: even if you find yourself in a realm of no-thoughts, the method of vipassana would be to consciously produce the mental question "who's experiencing this stillness?" / "Is this thing permanent?" / "Will this pleasure last forever?" and to proceed from there in your investigations.

 

Not in the beginning, friend. Later on thoughts will dissolve like anything else. That's why one must attend retreat under a teacher's guidance to get full benefit of this method. If you are experienced with Vipassana then retreat without a teacher is OK.

 

Vipassana and Samatha will fade when you start getting into the high jhanas territory where the sky is the limit, then you'll be aiming at 'enlightenment.' But again one should have become a renunciate at this stage due to the heavy involvement with meditation. Your entire life revolves around MEDITATION, while you meditate, while you eat, while you sleep, while you brush your teeth, while you walk to the meditation hall or back to the hut, etc.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Gerard

[Cheshire Cat]

Not in the beginning, friend. Later on thoughts will dissolve like anything else. That's why one must attend retreat under a teacher's guidance to get full benefit of this method. If you are experienced with Vipassana then retreat without a teacher is OK.

 

(...)

Here everyone can see that generally we cannot universally agree on what vipassana really is.

It's so because the original historical method is forgotten.

A good idea would be to try the different approaches and see.

 

There are evidence of the existence of different schools even in the early years of Buddhist development that debated about the degree of importance of vipassana.

 

There were -for example- (as there are) those who say that it's better to stick to samatha and one would get complete enlightenment by that.

Samatha is a kind of trance, a shifting of consciousness, the way to reach non-ordinary existence and trascendence. It's the method that can produce longevity and siddhis .

 

I personally believe that vipassana is born out of the Buddha's precise need to escape suffering in the most definitive way, not only in meditation, and abandoning the idea of continuous meditation ( that cannot be done).

That can be achieved only by developing the ability of being detached from normal experience, detached from ordinary life by training ordinary consciousness: it's not about noting super-fast every single shade of each sensation ( that would lead to a jhanic state , IMHO). It's not about changing the methods of discerning reality or deliberately alter the speed of the chains of thoughts. It's not to escape from thinking by focusing on tactile sensations in the body.

 

Vipassana ( in my personal understanding) is the training of the mind to understand and experience impermanence/no-SELF/suffering in ordinary life.

It's a method to turn a specific train of reflexive thinking into an automatic functioning of the mind.

[atask]

 

 

On 11/18/2016 at 6:51 PM, Rocco said:

. But I also feel the need to enhance my concentration abilities,since I get "sucked" into my thoughts too easily.

Hey Rocco

 

 Have actually just said this on another post of yours but turns out it is probably more relevant here, if you take yourself to the 10 day course it will give you the best chance to get through this and move into a clearer practice! 

 

 There are three types of knowing.. intellectual like reading, emotional like understanding and experiential through experience. This is an insight that can only be gained by working diligently and patiently. Then you are bound to be successful..