[Buddha-l] Re: Vipassana?

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sat, 2005-10-15 at 20:44 -0700, d f tweney wrote:

> Can someone give me (or point me to) a good description of what makes 
> "vipassana" meditation unique -- or what differentiates it from, say, 
> Zen meditation?

The best source I have found is Henepola Gunaratana's books. A simple
one is called Mindfulness in Plain English. A more extensive book is his
Path of Serenity and Insight.

Vipassana is not a meditative technique. Rather, it is a goal, namely,
the goal of clearly seeing the marks of all phenomena, namely,
unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, and non-self. If you do a meditative
exercise, such as following the breath, for the sake of seeing these
marks, then it is vipassana meditation. If you follow the breath for the
sake of calming the mind, then it is serenity meditation. The meditative
exercise is the same in each case, but the purpose for doing it differs.
Meditating in order to experience calm brings temporary relief from
dukkha, while vipassana works at eliminating the root causes of
dukkha.  

>  I have read descriptions of vipassana meditation, which 
> is sometimes called "insight meditation," but the 
> descriptions/prescriptions seem to differ very little from what I've 
> read (and experienced) of the Zen approach. Is there a difference of 
> focus, or emphasis?

Not really. There is just more mumbo jumbo about enlightenment in Zen,
in addition to which you have to put up with a totalitarian master who
abuses you and tells you it is good for you. If the goal is to become
liberated form dukkha, vipassana is the method of choice. If your goal
is to become an obedient robot, go for Zen.

-- 
Richard Hayes