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What is Insight Meditation?

 

Insight meditation is the end result of mindfulness. However, you can’t have mindfulness until you have at least a basic degree of concentration. Therefore before we start talking about insight meditation we need to discuss concentration and mindfulness.

Most beginner meditation courses teach their students about concentration before teaching them about mindfulness. That is because concentration is the cornerstone of all forms of meditation including insight meditation.

Concentration is the focus on one point of interest. It could be an object, a thought, a breath or a chant. In our daily lives we often have overworked and quite frankly overwhelmed minds. Our minds are trained not to concentrate on any one thing for too long. Once only needs to watch a recent movie to notice how quick camera angles change to keep up with our short visual attention spans.

Therefore, the first step of meditation is to retrain the mind to find comfort in concentration. There is a personal liberty when you find concentration within you. You will often find a very peaceful state. A state without confusion or frustration. It is this state you first need to find while training for insight meditation. While meditating you will usually focus on your breath and if your mind wanders you will try to smoothly bring your mind back to your breath. Don’t pass judgment on yourself for allowing your mind to wander. Just gently bring your thoughts back to your breath and regain your concentration. At first, your mind will probably continuously wander. Just recognize that it happened and bring your mind back to concentrating your breathing. Practice this everyday for no less than 10 minutes / day. The end result of concentration meditation will be tranquility. It could also help you move on to focus on mindfulness which will in turn lead you to get started in insight meditation.

If concentration is the fixation on a particular thought, process or idea, then mindfulness is the exploration of that thought, process or idea. Mindfulness is the observation of the thing you are exploring. You are trying to truly find out what the item at hand truly is. When you have mindfulness and concentration you begin to develop insight.

If your aim to really look within yourself and discover who you really are then mindfulness needs to be one of your primary focuses. It is similar to a scientist making a thorough examination of an object. You will be doing the same with your mind. You will use your mind as a microscope. You will require concentration to look at the point you’ve fixated on and mindfulness to thoroughly look at the specimen. Making observations and discovering things thought this lens is what is known as insight meditation.


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