This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Following Awareness; Insight (3) Mindfulness vs Insight - Rerun. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Unknown at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Good morning and welcome to our meditation.
One of the differences between mindfulness and insight is that mindfulness is the use of attention that prepares the ground to have insight, to have a deep seeing, or a true seeing of how things actually are. As we sit today in mindfulness meditation, the role of Samadhi1 is to be able to sit in the middle of all our capacities for attention and have them unified in some kind of wonderful way, working together.
The attentional capacities we have are recognition, a cognitive knowing of what’s happening. This cognitive knowing may or may not be verbal; it might be a kind of nonverbal knowing. It might also be a kind of visual knowing for people who are visual thinkers.
Another attentional faculty is our capacity to sense and to feel with our senses. In Buddhism, the idea of sense experience includes seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and the tactile, which is whatever sensations are born through the body. There’s also a kind of sense door that, in the simplest possible way, knows or senses that we’re thinking. I use both words, knowing and sensing, because thinking is sometimes more than just words and ideas or images. You can also feel the physicality of thinking—the tension, the pressure, the contraction that comes along with it.
Another attentional capacity is to settle back and observe experience. This is to perceive without being in any way entangled with experience, allowing things to be just as they are. It’s not as intimate as feeling or sensing the experience, and not so cognitive as an act of recognition. It’s observing without recognizing what something is, but observing how it moves and changes, comes and goes, shifts, oscillates, and vibrates. It’s like you would sit and observe a river; you don’t know the name of the river, and eventually, even the idea that it’s a river falls away. You’re just watching the flow, the current, or the waves washing against the shore, or a fire on a dark night, an outdoor bonfire.
To bring all these together in Samadhi is to sit in the general sense of just being present here, with all of ourselves included.
To begin, very simply, assume a meditation posture—a posture that for you supports attention and presence to the experience of the present moment.
As you sit with your body, notice by what means you are aware of your body. In what way are you aware of your body? This is different than thinking about it or trying to analyze the question or figure it out with your mind. There’s nothing to figure out. Rather, when you’re not thinking, in what way are you aware of having a body in the meditation posture? Is it a knowing, a cognitive recognition? Is it a sensing of sensations? The body may be a broad glow or vibration, a diffuse feeling of softness, or particular sensations of contact where the body touches surfaces or itself—the hands touching each other or resting on the thighs.
As you’re aware of your body, allow the awareness to go through your body wherever the awareness wants, or wherever the body seems to invite awareness. You’re not directing the awareness, but rather you’re following the awareness where it goes in the body. Maybe you’re following whatever the body seems to call on for you to be with. Sometimes it’s a knowing, sometimes it’s sensing and feeling. Let the directing and actively doing mind rest. You aren’t taking the lead, but you’re allowing awareness to join with the body.
If you’re aware of tension in your body, it’s okay. See how simple the awareness can be. And if it’s easy enough, if you feel it’s the wish the body has, allow for the body to relax. If the body seems to invite you to relax or calm it, then go ahead and allow for a calming, a softening through your body.
Where in your body do you seem to be most aware? Where is it easiest for awareness to rest in the body?
Then, within the body, as part of the body, become aware of breathing. Know your breathing in a simple, relaxed way. Knowing breathing in as breathing in, breathing out as breathing out. Or perhaps sensing the sensations that come into play as you breathe. Awareness can follow the sensations of breathing as they appear. The knowing mind can, from time to time, recognize some of those sensations. Knowing the sensations is meant to support staying close to them.
As you exhale, let go of your thoughts, relaxing the thinking mind and letting go into the body breathing.
To know, to feel and sense, to be aware continuously enough that we find ourselves settled here in present moment experience. The mind is steadied, thinking has become stiller and quieter. And then at some point, the capacity to simply observe experience in the present moment, like waves endlessly washing up on the shore, or a river flowing. Simply knowing the movement, the appearing and disappearing of things, without needing to know what they are or to feel what they are. Nothing to figure out, nothing to fix, nothing to accomplish, but to settle back with an overview that observes the river of sensations, the river of thoughts and feelings as they flow through. Be careful not to get stuck anywhere. Just watch the change.
As we come to the end of this sitting, notice again what you’re aware of without any particular effort, except to be awake, to be here. And how are you aware? Is there a simple knowing, recognizing? A simple sensing? A simple observing? Or is there some kind of indistinct, general sense of being aware that doesn’t quite fit any of those three categories, maybe because it’s a natural blending of all three that keeps you right here?
Then, expand your “here” outward into your room, the building you’re in, the location you’re in. Expand your awareness outwards into the world. Consider how today you can live in a generous way to the people you’ll encounter, to the world itself. How is it that the practice of meditation and awareness can lead you to benefit this world, even in the simplest ways?
May it be that the benefit from our individual practice, and our collective practice together, translates to bringing welfare and happiness to this world.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to this third talk introducing the topic of insight. Today, I’d like to discuss the difference between mindfulness and insight—mindfulness and Vipassanā.2 The word Vipassanā is what we translate at IMC as “insight.” Some people who practice mindfulness don’t translate Vipassanā; they just use the Pali word to describe the technique of practice that they do. Sometimes in our tradition, in using the word insight, we say we’re practicing “insight meditation.”
But originally, back in ancient Buddhism, the word Vipassanā did not refer to a practice. It referred to the results of the practice—the way in which the practice led practitioners to be able to see deeply into their experience. That deep seeing is the insight we come to. We come to understand the liberating perspective, orientation, understanding, and perception that comes into play in a way that brings liberation from suffering.
So, mindfulness practice is not the same as insight, but it’s mindfulness practice that leads to insight. It creates the conditions by which we’re present enough and clear enough in our awareness and perception to be able to see clearly.
This word Vipassanā, as I described on Monday, can be understood as “clear seeing,” where the prefix “vi” is a prefix of emphasis. So it emphasizes seeing, making it “strong seeing” or “clear seeing.” But the “vi” can also be a prefix that distinguishes or divides things. So another way of understanding Vipassanā is that it’s “distinguishing seeing.” It’s seeing with clarity so that we see the particularities of what’s actually happening. The emphasis is on what is seen, not the act of seeing.
Mindfulness is a practice that leads to that. In classic Buddhism, mindfulness is not an end in itself but a means to something. In the teachings of the Buddha, there are a number of attentional faculties that are engaged that we can call mindfulness practice, leading to a very strong, established sense of awareness. We have a lot of attentional faculties, and all of them are awakened and brought together in order to be established in the present moment clearly enough to see distinctly.
So there’s knowing, the simple recognition of experience. There is sensing or feeling experience experientially through the body. And then there is something called Sampajañña,3 which is often translated into English as “clear recognition” or “clear understanding.” This is the form of practice that’s most often taught in secular mindfulness and sometimes in the Buddhist insight meditation tradition as well. It’s recognizing, but more than just a raw, simple recognition of what’s there; it’s recognizing in a particular way that comes along with a greater understanding, perspective, or orientation. It’s knowing without judgment, knowing with kindness, with friendliness, with spaciousness and openness. It’s having some kind of understanding of the context and value of what we are seeing, knowing, or feeling.
In Buddhism, this clear understanding of things is a very important part of mindfulness training because as we understand our experience in some simple way, it can guide us more deeply into it. One of the very clear distinctions for clear comprehension is to understand whether what we’re doing—the mental activity, the practices—is helpful or not helpful. Is it wholesome? Is it nourishing or is it not? Is it onward-leading to greater stability, greater presence, being more rooted here in the present moment, or is it not? We’re monitoring ourselves a little bit as we practice so we can adjust how we’re practicing, so that we begin enjoying it more. It’s not a strain; it’s not hard work. We’re learning the art of being present in a supportive way that welcomes attention, that makes us want to be present.
So, clear comprehension of what’s happening in the present moment is an aspect of mindfulness practice. There’s knowing, there’s sensing, there’s clear comprehension. The last thing that’s mentioned in the Buddhist teachings on mindfulness practice is to feel the whole body and, as we are feeling it, to relax the tensions and the holdings in the body. There is an emphasis on calming the body as we meditate.
That’s a handful of things to hold together. But in practicing these in an easygoing, relaxed way, what we’re looking for is coming into a place where awareness and attention are now stabilized, established, and at ease, resting here in the present moment in our direct experience. It takes a while for the thinking mind to calm down. It takes a while to understand and see the dynamics of what’s happening within us to be able to settle and relax and to be rooted here in the present moment. For people who practice Samadhi, that’s meant to be a great support for stabilizing attention.
At some point, when it’s stable, being present and aware is not work; it’s almost just how we are. And as we just are, the next attentional faculty we have comes into play. This is what the Buddha calls observing, or Anupassanā.4 It has the same root word as in Vipassanā. The prefix “anu” means “alongside” or “following.” It means to settle back and just be able to observe.
The observing of experience has some wonderful qualities. When people teach mindfulness, this is often what they’re emphasizing. Observing is a little bit quieter than simple knowing. There doesn’t have to be a knowing in observing. It’s also not as intimate or connected as sensing. When we’re sensing, the sensations and the act of sensing are one and the same; they can’t really be separated. A moment of sensing comes with a sensation. If there’s no sensing of the sensations, are there sensations at all? It’s like the question: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, is there a sound?
Observing is a little bit removed, but not so removed that it’s detached, distant, or aloof. There’s a kind of wonderful delight, ease, and maybe a kind of intimacy or belonging that’s comparable to resting on the beach for hours, just being absorbed in watching the waves wash up on the shore and wash back, coming and going. There’s something about the mind watching very simple motion, the shifts and the changes, that relaxes and settles it. Watching a river flow can do that. Watching a fire in the fireplace or outdoors—people can watch it for a long time. Sometimes just being outdoors in the natural world, at ease on a bench in a park, and just gazing at the leaves, the greenery, the scenery. There’s something about just watching—we’re not necessarily actively recognizing every little thing, we’re not actually touching anything—but observing can be very, very satisfying. It’s like everything is okay; nothing needs to happen, nothing needs to be done, nothing needs to be fixed. Just to observe.
These are the attentional faculties that are considered part of mindfulness practice: recognition (knowing), sensing (feeling), clear comprehension (a higher-order level of understanding that helps us relax and be present in a useful way), relaxing, and observing. When those are supported by Samadhi, it’s a lot easier for all of them to keep us here, rooted in the present moment in a full way, where all our attentional faculties are awake and present. Well-practiced Samadhi not only supports us to be here but supports us to be here with all these attentional faculties operating naturally, coordinated in some kind of holistic way that lends itself to a generalized feeling of being aware—a field of awareness that’s a combination of all these things operating together.
And then, the mind, our heart, is ready for insight—for what we see in our experience. Mindfulness practice is a practice that leads to insight. Mindfulness practice supported by Samadhi helps that capacity for insight to come alive in a full way.
Thank you, and I look forward to continuing tomorrow.
Samadhi: A Pali word for a state of meditative concentration or collectedness. It is a state of deep mental stillness and unification. ↩
Vipassanā: A Pali word that literally means “clear-seeing” or “special-seeing.” It refers to insight into the true nature of reality, specifically the three marks of existence: impermanence (anicca), suffering or unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and non-self (anattā). ↩
Sampajañña: A Pali term for “clear comprehension” or “clear knowing.” It is the faculty of awareness that understands the context and purpose of one’s actions and mental states, particularly in relation to whether they are wholesome or unwholesome. Original transcript said ‘sajana’. ↩
Anupassanā: A Pali term meaning “observation,” “contemplation,” or “viewing.” It refers to the sustained observation of phenomena as they arise and pass away, a key component of insight meditation. Original transcript said ‘Anuasana’. ↩