Insight Meditation
Insight or Vipassana meditation is a simple form of Buddhist practice that helps to calm, collect and concentrate the mind. This practice originated with the Buddha over 2,550 years ago, and begins with focusing the attention on the breath.
Meditation allows us to see into our conditioning, and to become more present in the any given moment. As a non-sectarian practice, it can be combined with other spiritual practices or religions. Buddhist ethics and psychology are an important part of the core teachings. For books about Insight Meditation please see our reading list.
Click here to read about what happens during a retreat.
Teachings of Insight Meditation
The tradition of Insight Meditation is practiced in the spirit of “look and see for yourself.” The Buddha taught that there are four Noble Truths:
As a human being living a life, we see it includes the truth of unsatisfactoriness, stress, and suffering.
The cause of this suffering is craving, or struggle.
There is a way out of this suffering. Peace is possible!
The Eightfold Path offers practical tools to ease and end suffering.
The Eightfold Path defines a way of living that is designed to decrease suffering:
Wise View
Wise Intention
Wise Speech
Wise Action
Wise Livelihood
Wise Effort
Wise Mindfulness
Wise Concentration
These basic teachings of the Buddha are quite simple and are summarized in a number of good translations of sacred texts and commentaries. Check our reading list for recommended books.
Inclusiveness
The Buddha is revered as an awakened being because he understood the universality of the human condition and saw everyone had the potential to become enlightened. He knew this was possible step by step and he advised practitioners to question things for themselves, to carefully examine all dogma and doctrine to see its effects on its followers. In the U.S., Insight Meditation practitioners are able to work within their previous religious tradition while becoming an Insight practitioner. Mountain Stream Meditation welcomes practitioners of all religious, cultural, ethnic, gender, orientation, ability, and class backgrounds.
Lineage
Continuing from the time of the Buddha, the forest monasteries and meditation centers in Burma and Thailand have shared the Theravada teachings, practices and traditions of Buddhism unbroken for 2,550 years. A few of the great contemporary teachers in this tradition in Asia include: the Venerable Ajahn Chaa and Ajahn Buddhadasa in Thailand; the Venerable Sunlun Sayadaw and Mahasi Sayadaw in Burma. In 1965, the World Buddhist Council designated Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw as chief questioner, in the "central role in clarifying and preserving the Buddhist teachings for generations to come."
Many Western scholars and devotees have undertaken intensive Theravada meditation and practice in south and Southeast Asia, including ordination as monks and recently as nuns. After training in the monastic orders in the 1960’s & 70’s, four well known American practitioners, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg and Jacqueline Schwatz were authorized by Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw to the continue the Theravada (Vipassana) tradition in the U.S.
They each received Dharma transmission, which is ordination, and in 1976, three of them became resident guiding teachers at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, a non-profit religious organization. Dr. Jack Kornfield moved to California in the early 1980's and was a founder of Insight Meditation West, which is know as Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a non-profit religious organization. He is a senior Theravada elder authorized by Ven. Mahasai Sayadaw. Since 1986, Jack has trained many Insight meditation teachers, and Sylvia Boorstein is also a resident guiding teacher at Spirit Rock.
The guiding teachers at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Insight Meditation Society are the senior American heirs to the Insight (Vipassana) transmission. They were given transmission by the recognized hierarchy of Southeast Asian Insight meditation masters and offer their support of Mountain Stream Meditation.