DQ Series: Vipassana Practice

C'mon guys play nice.

How to practice Vipassana Meditation correctly?

There's nothing else here except what's present, you just need to pay attention, there's no reason for any arguing. It includes any meditation technique that cultivates insight including contemplation, introspection, observation of bodily sensations, analytic meditation, and observations about lived experience. Therefore, the term can include a wide variety of meditation techniques across lineages.

In the latter forms it is a simple technique which depends on direct experience and observation. It can be related to the three trainings taught by the Buddha as the basis of a spiritual path: Mindfulness of body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind. By seeing the arising and passing away of mindfulness and contemplations with regard to an origin, it follows that the self related to the contemplation arises and passes away, because the contemplation of the arising and passing away of the self is not a tenable position, the not-self arises.

The meditator can meditate on one of these until he sees the truth with its origin and cessation. That makes soo much sense! Thank you very much! Yea, I crack it and itch if I need to and I breathe even when I am scratching or itching myself: At least according to my teacher: I just heard this in a dharma talk and I am sharing! If you complete the 16th insight fruition , you are a stream enterer.

After completing the first path, you can achieve the second path. If you achieved the second path, you are a once returner. After completing the second path, you can achieve the third path. If you complete the third path, you are a non-returner. After completing the third path, you can achieve the fourth path.

If you complete the fourth path, you are a arahant enlighten being. The paths refer to this model of enlightenment. Which is not some random objectives organized in some arbitrary way, but it a description of what naturally happen to mediators when they practice well. Zen also uses this model, but since it is a natural process, they do not speak of it as it will happen anyway. The process is clear. Work hard and you will work your way through all of the insights of the first path and achieve the first level of enlightenment.

Since it is the science of the mind and not some feel good new age thing , things are predictable. What happen to you during the way has been documented and analyzed thoroughly over the millenniums and experienced over and over again by countless people. I think I was projecting something onto you and then responding. But it IS true my teacher said that formless meditation is the meditation buddha became enlightened. In my tradition buddhism is systematized differently. Its in the Jewel Ornament of Liberation. But your right it is systematized.

The notion that there are parallel tracks of enlightenment is one I categorically reject and love to fight hard against, and thus, from my point of view, the 5 Paths, 4 Paths, 10 Bhumis, and all other models of enlightenment are all describing the same territory, albeit sometimes with wildly different emphases and degrees of metaphorical and dogmatic augmentation. The Jewel Ornament of Liberation probably describes the same terrain but it is a different method. Gampopa was a student of Milarepa and therefore a lineage holder of the mahamudra realization which was brought to India by Naropa and Tilopa.

Gampopa unified these teachings with the Kadampa teachings he had already studied. So terrain may be the same but the method is different. Mahamudra is a tantra system. Could you say what you mean by forms and formless practice? Hello everyone, It is truly amazing to find it is possible to answer your questions so that everyone on this Shenpentalk list can receive the benefit instantaneously without us all having to be gathered in same geographical space.

We are, however, all in the same space in many other senses, including here online and ultimately in the sense of the vast expanse of Openness, Clarity and Sensitivity! We will have to see how best to make use of this opportunity. A student has given me a question to start the ball rolling. If this is so, would we still call our practice formless meditation even though we were not living the natural state?

When Rigdzin Shikpo was teaching us to meditate according to Trungpa Rinpoche's instructions, the terms that Rinpoche used were formless meditation or shamata. Neither of these terms is very satisfactory, so for a long time we called it sitting meditation, but that was not very satisfactory either.

The problem is that shamata applies to all sorts of ways of calming and focusing the mind and any meditation might be practised sitting down. So what term refers to the specific practice that we do? Well, the meditation itself is almost formless. It is not completely formless, since we still have the out-breath to focus on. The meditation is not merely shamata either, since it is combined with more and more insight vipasyana as our understanding deepens.

Dzogchen is actually a name for the Awakened state. We cannot say that our practice on the way to realising that state is 'Dzogchen' itself.

However, one could perhaps call it meditation that is opening out into Dzogchen and so you could argue that it is all right to call it 'Dzogchen meditation' in that sense. It still sounds a bit odd to my unaccustomed ears So I suppose I would say the instruction for the basic 'formless meditation' that we teach is instruction on how to recognise the nature of the chitta within the practice lineage of the Dzogchen tradition. The first instruction and the final instruction on the path are identical - the complete relaxation of letting go into the spaciousness of experience.

The difference is that for the beginner the instruction it is very rough and ready, very hit or miss.

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The student has to learn how to apply the instruction through continually bringing the heart and mind back in line with it, through reflection and through the play, beauty and skill of learning how to integrate insights and experiences into the fabric of one's being. As a final instruction it is simplicity itself, the complete opposite of ego and the ego mandala; completely opposed to it with no concessions whatsoever. When the instruction says there is nothing to do, it really means it, and finally one sees clearly enough what the instruction means, to be able to apply it completely and perfectly, the Great Perfection, the Perfection of doing absolutely nothing.

We cannot give up 'doing' in this sense until we have familiarised ourselves with those subtle forms of fixation and grasping and that is only possible through shamata and vipasyana. The meditation itself that you are starting to practice could therefore be called a form of shamata-vipasyana using a minimum of form combined with instruction on how to recognise the nature of the chitta within the practice lineage of the Dzogchen tradition. Since Dzogchen itself is the Awakened state in which our Awakened state and that of all Awakened beings is inseparable, it can only be realised by opening out to the power of the Awakened state of others.

The way to more or less literally 'tap into' that power is to find a good tap. You can think of those who link you in, through a living connection, to the lineage of those Awakened in that way as 'Gurus' or 'Lamas'. So you have to find at least one tap and then do whatever is necessary to turn it on, get it working and then to place yourself in the right relationship to it so that the water can flow into you in a way that truly benefits you.

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There is so much that is up to you. You have to learn bit by bit how to relate to the instruction and how to value those people who can be the tap for you, the sources of the power to Awaken. The instruction we give you when you first start is like an instruction on how to go about learning to relate to the tap and how to place yourself ready to start receiving the power. It could be that you 'twig' straightaway with no difficulty whatsoever.

Then you could link immediately into the Awakened state, your teacher would have become your root guru, your practice would have become Dzogchen and you would have received the complete transmission, the Abhiseka. That is so rare in the history of the tradition, that we do not have to wonder if that is our case or not. Even the most advanced and gifted practitioners seem to need to hear the instructions a good few times and practice a lot before they 'twig' and even to continue practising a lot after they 'twig' in order to stabilise the realisation.

Most of us need to hear them repeated for the whole of our lives and gradually by reflection and meditation, trial and error, our understanding deepens by stages, each more wonderful than the stage before. A path good at the beginning, the middle and the end. So the answer to the question is that it is not very accurate to call the form of meditation that you are being instructed in 'formless meditation' and if it is anything it is 'Dzog Rim': At a personal interview with Trungpa Rinpoche at his residence, the Kalapa Court in Boulder Colorado, he told me to practice Dzog Rim and get good experience with that before moving on to the 'development phase' Kye Rim as it is called.

In other words, the formless meditation that he got all his students to practice is a kind of Dzog Rim. Usually the term Dzog Rim is applied to the practices that follow Kye Rim, so it would sound a bit odd to adopt the term for the initial practice instructions. Again it might sound a bit presumptuous to call our first excursions into meditation 'Dzog Rim' as if we thought we were practising at an advanced level of practice, when what we really mean is that we are opening ourselves to that advanced level of practice by learning to be more simple and direct about our experience, more present with it, more accurate and less manipulative.

You could say open, clear and sensitive. I think my Tibetan colleagues would simply call what we do Nyamshak: That would not sound pretentious I think, although in English it would just translate as something like sitting in meditation. Known as Naad Yoga, it is spiritually potent. It is understood, in all forms of Yoga, that we have a central energy channel, known as the sushmuna , by which prana flows. This energy is our life force, it is consciousness itself, and to awaken its flow is to awaken to our own infinite potential as humans.

In Kundalini parlance, it is to awaken to the divine within.

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At the heart of this practice is mantra meditation, in which we vibrate that central channel as well as every cell in our body, as long as we are chanting from the heart and with the belly. It is understood that everything is vibration—even our state of mind, so we can either choose sounds that elevate, or not. Naad Yoga is the technology of doing just that. Even though Zen is not oriented around vibrational technology, it does have another point in common with Kundalini Yoga Practice: One of the things I always liked about the Zendo was that there were Christians practicing next to Jews—at this level, none of that matters anymore.

He embraced his truth, and left the rest behind, settling himself somewhere in the middle of it all. But even so, only the seeker gets to choose. And with the right to proceed along the sequence that is right for her. The well-known American spiritual teachers, Ram Dass and Bhagavan Dass, both traveled along paths that were ever-expanding, each having received initiation from Buddhist and Yogic teachers—and the former started off Jewish. As a fun and hopefully useful analogy, look upon Zen as a wonderful broth—the foundation of every soup that ever was.

To play with analogies further, Zen may be seen as an essential strand in the fabric of a rich spiritual life, as a concomitant part of a whole. And further still, think of it as a no-frills wooden boat, which, like any other boat, will carry you just fine to the other shore. How wonderful the differences are! By the way we are friends on facebook if you had forgotten.

How to practice Vipassana Meditation correctly? — NewBuddhist

I have some experience with this question. Zen as Adyashanti reveals is very much treating the body as a sensing organ of Spirit or the Void and I find this very much in tune with practices such as Sat Nam Rasayan, in which all senses, feelings and other experiences are treated as valuable and as equal. I find that deep Kundalini yoga and other pranayama helps me enter into silence far more easily as does the type of breath work involved in the Kriya yoga pranayama taught by Self Realization Fellowship. So for me, they are complimentary and while I am sure many might disagree, I feel that used in balance that the art and science of these practices can be highly complimentary.

That is just my opinion. A Kundalini Yoga set needs to be done as prescribed. But having completed a set of Kundalini Yoga, one would be in a good condition to then practice the zen practice of silent sitting. Thanks for posting a great topic idea. Thank you Guy, for reading and for taking the time to share your thoughts! I had no idea about your multifaceted practice!

I love your input. Hi Donna, I agree with Guy and Dewaine yipee its not just me commenting anymore! I often wondered about your view about combined practice. Got to go and get ready for my yoga class now. A very Zen-like musing, Simon! Perhaps there is no mountain at all. Thank you, as always, for visiting.

Hope you had a wonderful Yoga class. Zen Goes With Everything! Really enjoyed your article.