Method
Vipassanā
Classification
- Method family
- contemplative
- Domains
- Ethics
Overview
Vipassanā cultivates insight by closely examining changing physical and mental processes, especially as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and without an enduring self in Buddhist contexts.
Purpose. The practice weakens distorted perception and attachment by training the practitioner to see how experience arises and passes. Vipassanā is not a synonym for every Buddhist meditation or for contemplative practice in other traditions.
Characteristic operations
- Establish attentive observation: Select bodily or mental processes as the field of examination.
- Track change: Notice arising, alteration, and passing rather than treating experience as static.
- Examine appropriation: Observe how processes are taken as “I” or “mine” and how craving follows.
- Cultivate insight: Understand impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self through trained observation.
Used by traditions
Applied to questions
References
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Religious Experience, §4.4.1
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Buddha, §2
- Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.94 and 7.16–19