Vipassana meditation is the simple and direct practice of moment-to-moment observation of the mind/body process through calm and focused awareness without judgement.
Vipassana practice opens our insight to the perception of the true nature of reality. Seeing life as a constantly changing process, one begins to accept all aspects of life -- pleasure and pain, fear and joy -- with increasing equanimity. Grounded in the present moment, balanced awareness leads us to a deep stillness that can give us a growing understanding of the nature of life. From this insight, wisdom and compassion become truly possible. -- Dharma Seed Catalog
Learning to observe from a place of stillness enables insight to arise. As insight deepens, wisdom and compassion arise. When performed with mindfulness and clear awareness, all actions are service, all activities are practice. Our community offers specific opportunities for practice, and we endeavor to integrate all of our daily activities into our practice.
In the practice of Dana (generosity), the teacher offers teachings without charge, and in turn the Sangha (community of meditators) has the opportunity to make offerings for the teachings and the operating expenses of the Sangha.
Begin by sitting in a chair or on a cushion on the floor, with your back straight. Relax into your sitting posture with a few deep breaths. Allow the body and mind to become utterly relaxed while remaining very alert and attentive to the present moment. Feel the areas of your body that are tense, and the areas that are relaxing. Just let the body follow its own natural law. Do not try to force or fix anything.
Let your mind be soft, and allow a spacious awareness to wash gently through your body.
Simply feel the sensations of sitting, side-stepping with your mind the tendency to image your body, to interpret, to define or think about it. Just let such thoughts and images come and go without being bothered by them, and attune to the bare sensations of sitting.
Feel your body with an awareness that arises from within your body, not from your head. Awareness of body anchors attention in the present moment and helps you to inhabit your body.
Gently sweep your awareness through your body, feeling the sensations with no agenda, no goal. Allow your body to anchor awareness in the present moment by just staying mindful of these sensations.
After some time, shift your awareness to the field of sound vibrations. Awareness of sounds creates openness, spaciousness, and receptivity in the mind. Be aware of both the pure sound vibration as well as the space or silence between the sounds. As with body sensations incline your awareness away from the definition of the sound, or thoughts about the sound, and simply attune to the sound just as it is.
After some minutes of awareness of body and sounds, bring your attention to your natural breathing process. Locate the area where the breath is most clear and let awareness lightly rest there. For some it is the sensation of the rising and falling of the abdomen. For others it may be the sensations experienced at the nostrils with the inhalation and exhalation.
You can use very soft mental labels to guide and sustain attention to the breath. "Rising/falling" for the abdomen and "in/out" for the nostrils. Let the breath breathe itself without control, direction, or force. Feel each breath from within the breath, not from the head. Feel the full breath cycle from the beginning through the middle to the end.
The awareness is a combination of light, open spaciousness and receptivity, like listening, and alert, attentive presence, touching the actual texture, shape, and form of sensations.
Let go of everything else, or let it be in the background. Just let the breathing breathe itself. Rest in a sense of utter relaxation, in that mindful feeling, with the sensations of the breath.
As soon as you notice the mind wandering off, lost in thought, be aware of that with nonjudging awareness, gently connect it again to your anchor. Just feel from within the stream of sensations.
Toward the end of your sitting, not striving or anticipating, not pouncing on sensations in the present, not bending back to what was just missed or reflecting on what just happened, keep inclining to the totality of the present moment. Keep anchoring easily, deeply, restfully. Just one breath at a time.
Mindfulness of breath begins to collect and concentrate the mind so that the initial distractions of thoughts, emotions, sensations, and sounds soon become objects of awareness themselves. Insight is gained into the true nature of the body and mind.
As concentration grows, mindfulness opens to the entire "flow" of body/mind experience through all the sense doors--sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch and mental/emotive.
Seeing things as they are begins to untangle the tangles of attachment, fear, and confusion. One is able to live more from a place of joy, compassion, equanimity and wisdom.
Very simple. Now please just begin, and never stop being aware.