What Is Vipassana?

Vipassana is the Buddhist practice of insight meditation, which is the cultivation of mindfulness, awareness, and “clear seeing.”

By Phillip Moffitt

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Vipassana is the Buddhist practice of Insight Meditation, which is the cultivation of mindfulness, awareness and "clear seeing." Mindfulness (sati) practice leads to Wisdom (panna). Thus, a practice of vipassana cultivates satti-panna, mindful wisdom.

Vipassana means to "see through" or see things through the "suchness" of all physical and mental experience. It is the meditative training that the Buddha created over 2,500 years ago for achieving the end of suffering. It is most thoroughly described in the Satipatthana Sutta.* Vipassana is primarily associated with the Theravada tradition in Buddhism, which flowers in South East Asia and Sri Lanka.

*For more information on the Satipatthana Sutta, refer to: The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya, translated by Bhikkhu Ñanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995).