Insight meditation, also known as vipassana (a Pali word which means "clear-seeing"), is a practice that originates in the core teachings of the Buddha. Insight meditation has been practiced within the Theravadan school, one of the three main schools of the Buddha’s teachings, for the past 2, 500 years. Today, in Asia, it is practiced in Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka. The other traditions that have passed on the Buddha’s teachings include the Mahayana (associated primarily with China, Korea and Japan), and the Vajrayana (Tibet, Bhutan).

In the 1960s and 1970s, insight meditation was embraced by Westerners such as Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and Jack Kornfield. They studied the meditation form in Asia and eventually returned to the West, began to teach and set up retreat centers. The Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, was established in 1976. Several years later, Jack Kornfield and others founded the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. Recent years have seen the emergence of insight meditation communities throughout the West. An increasing population of men and women have come to see that by practicing meditation they are able to more easily and fully live amid the complex, ever-changing, often chaotic modern world.

The heart of insight meditation is the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness. Practicing mindfulness, we learn to be aware, awake, in the present moment. We learn to see clearly, to understand our relationship to our experience. We learn to understand our difficulty, stress, anxiety, fear, anger, depression, dissatisfaction. We learn, gradually, to let go of it. To know peace, freedom. Living in the moment, the mind and the heart no longer obscured by the veils of negativity, desire, and confusion, we learn to touch each moment joyfully. We learn to connect with others with love, kindness, compassion. This is our practice.

In insight meditation we practice the skills of sitting meditation and walking meditation. We learn specific techniques for integrating mindfulness into our lives. We also practice lovingkindness meditation (metta), a way of cultivating the intention to live with kindness and compassion. Ultimately, we learn to be mindful in all the areas of our lives. Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we’re mindful, awake. We know, intimately, all the moments of our lives.

Insight meditation, mindfulness, is a practice that everyone can learn. The Buddha himself said quite succinctly, "This can be done." We don’t need a certain type of body, a certain type of mind. We don’t need a particular background or history. Each of us can awaken.

"Better than one hundred years lived Devoid of insight and unsettled Is one day lived With insight and absorbed in meditation." -Buddha