Vipashyana or Vipassana; Sanskrit/Pali – Insight. Vi comes from viesa which means “special” or “superior.” Ashyana means “to perceive.” So Vipashyana means “to perceive the superior.” Related to the Tibetan lhagthong: “To see the special.” Vipashyana is the discrimination of phenomena.
Classical Buddhism presents “Vipashyana” in different ways. But in synthesis, Vipashyana (insight meditation) should be understood as any meditation practice that by means of mental tranquility (calm abiding, Shamatha) achieves insight into the true nature of the object of meditation.
True Vipashyana is achieved through the conscious use of the imagination, often called “clairvoyance.”
(Sanskrit) The ability of the consciousness – not the intellect – to discriminate between illusion and reality.
Continue reading “Viveka”
(Sanskrit: वृत्ति), literally “whirlpool”, is a technical term in yoga meant to indicate that the contents of mental awareness are disturbances in the medium of consciousness.
(Sanskrit: वृत्ति), literally “whirlpool”, is a technical term in yoga meant to indicate that the contents of mental awareness are disturbances in the medium of consciousness.
Vritti is literally translated as whirlpool or waves, and in this context we mean it as mental waves. What are the mental waves? Well, that is everything going on inside of our mind.
A good way to translate vritti is mental activity. You could say mental waves, but a more practical direct translation is a mental activity because any activity of the mind is vritti. If you’re studying something, writing, thinking about something, that’s vritti. When you sit to meditate and your mind is stubborn, that is vritti causing you to wandering away.
It’s vritti you see when you observe your mind. You’re observing the vritti. That’s all the swirling waves, all the things that are going on inside of ourselves.
