Vipassana(Insight)

Developed in conjunction with mental tranquility, samatha, insight is the most vital aspect in the systematic cultivation of the mind in Buddhism, being responsible for the growth of wisdom that issues in liberation.

The Significance of Insight

Insight stands for a mental vision that “sees,” passati, in an “intensified” and also “analytical” manner, vi-. According to early Buddhist meditation theory, such insight is the key requirement for liberation. In fact, progress toward liberation sets the context for the early Buddhist conception of vipassanā, which stands for “liberating insight,” that is, for the type of insight whose growth culminates in the total release of the mind from the grip of defilements and delusion.
True insight is diametrically opposed to the four perversions, vipallāsa. These four perversions refer to mistaking what is impermanent, unsatisfactory, not-self, and unattractive for being the opposite ([1], Vol. II, p. 52). Undermining the force of these perversions through insight is what gradually eradicates the defilements in the mind and thereby leads to increasing degrees of dispassion and inner freedom. Cultivated in this way, insight reveals a vision of the world that is held to be increasingly in accordance with reality.

The Development of Insight

Key requirements for the development of insight are that the hindrances are abandoned and the factors of awakening are developed. The hindrances, nīvaraṇa, are five factors that early Buddhist meditation theory singles out as particularly obstructive to clarity of mind and therewith to all attempts at meditation. The standard listing enumerates sensual desire, ill will, sloth-and-torpor, restlessness-and-worry, and doubt.
Having overcome these five hindrances, the awakening factors, bojjhaṅga, can be cultivated, the seven mental qualities that have to be brought into being in order to be able to gain awakening. Mindfulness constitutes the first and foundational factor in this set, followed by investigation of phenomena, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity.
The development of insight stands within a clear-cut ethical context and inevitably has ethical repercussions. Genuine insight, from an early Buddhist perspective, needs to be based on a sound moral foundation. In turn, growth of insight will further strengthen this moral foundation, making certain unwholesome deeds a sheer impossibility for one endowed with higher insight.
Such gradual ennobling through insight reaches its culmination point with the arahant. By dint of profound insight and inner purity an arahant is said to be incapable of undertaking such deeds as deliberately depriving another living being of life, appropriating what belongs to others by way of theft, or consciously speaking falsehood ([2], Vol. I, p. 523). The profound insight and concomitant inner purification reached with full liberation also makes it impossible for an arahant to engage in sexual activity or else to hoard up things for the sake of sensual enjoyment. That is, from an early Buddhist perspective, genuine growth of insight can be measured in terms of the degree to which true inner detachment manifests in ethical purity.
The potential benefits of the path of insight are available to all those who engage in its practice and caste or gender are of no relevance. As a fully awakened nun reportedly proclaimed in reply to a challenge, womanhood is of no relevance once the mind is well concentrated and the teaching is properly seen with insight ([3], Vol. I, p. 129).
What should be properly seen with insight is whatever occurs in the present moment. This requirement is the theme of a set of stanzas on how to best spend an “auspicious night.” According to these stanzas, one should not go after the past, nor yearn for the future. Instead, spending one’s time in a truly auspicious manner takes place when one sees with insight, vipassati, phenomena as and when they manifest in the present moment ([2], Vol. III, p. 193).
Such insightful vision in the here and now is also a key requirement of satipaṭṭhāna practice. In fact, the four establishments of mindfulness, satipaṭṭhāna, provide a crucial basis for the growth of insight. The teachings, however, also have an important role to play in the development of insight, in particular when insightful vision is triggered through a particular instruction given by the Buddha.
In the early Buddhist discourses, the term vipassanā stands predominantly for insight as a quality to be developed. This differs to some extent from the modern usage, where vipassanā often refers to a particular form of meditation, usually a specific technique whose practice marks off one insight meditation tradition from another.
The somewhat nontechnical approach for the development of the quality of insight depicted in the early Buddhist discourses often involves the use of maxims, sayings, or brief instructions. The standard pattern here is that a monastic disciple approaches the Buddha and requests instructions for solitary intensive practice. The teachings given in reply could be, for example: “by clinging one is in bondage” ([3], Vol. III, p. 73). Often enough such an instruction, on being put into practice, leads to the attainment of full liberation. This certainly does not mean that insight is a matter of intellectual reflection. Rather, the teachings play an all-important role as a catalyst for the development of insight through meditation.

The Insight Knowledges

A systematic survey of the key experience to be encountered during the progress of insight meditation is not provided in the early Buddhist discourses, but is only found in later literature. Nevertheless, the scheme of insight knowledges has been and still is of considerable practical importance in Theravāda meditation traditions and therefore deserves a closer scrutiny.
The scheme of the “insight knowledges” begins with two preliminary knowledges ([4], p. 587): “knowledge of delimitating name-and-form,” nāma-rūpa-pariccheda-ñāṇa, and “knowledge of discerning conditions,” paccaya-pariggaha-ñāṇa. These knowledges reveal the insubstantiality of all aspects of personal existence by analyzing body and mind into their component parts as well as by revealing the conditioned interrelation of these component parts. Once mind and matter have been discerned as distinct but interrelated phenomena, a series of ten insight knowledges can take off. These ten knowledges comprise:
  • Comprehension, sammasana-ñāṇa
  • Arising and disappearing, udayabbaya-ñāṇa
  • Dissolution, bhaṅga-ñāṇa
  • Fearfulness, bhaya-ñāṇa
  • Disadvantageousness, ādīnava-ñāṇa
  • Disenchantment, nibbidā-ñāṇa
  • Desire for deliverance, muñcitukamyatā-ñāṇa
  • Reflection, paṭisaṅkhā-ñāṇa
  • Equanimity toward formations, saṅkhārupekkhā-ñāṇa
  • Conformity, anuloma-ñāṇa
Knowledge of comprehension comes about through contemplating the three characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self. This then leads on to contemplating in particular the characteristic of impermanence in terms of the arising and disappearing of phenomena. At this junction of progress, experiences can arise that are “imperfections of insight” ([4], p. 633). Such imperfections, upakkilesa, can involve the experience of, for example, deep tranquility, or penetrative insight, or firm equanimity. Though being signs of progress, these experiences can be attached to and mistakenly grasped as attainments in themselves.
Detached progress instead leads to a maturing of the experience of the continuous arising and passing away of all aspects of subjective experience. This eventually culminates in an experience of total dissolution, wherein the disappearance aspect of all phenomena becomes particularly prominent.
At this stage, when the entire meditative experience is marked with constant dissolution and disintegration, fear arises. Such fear manifests because the very foundation of what is taken to be “I” and “mine” – whether explicitly as a rationalized self-notion or implicitly as a subconscious feeling of identity that lurks at the background of all experience – is experienced as unstable, as breaking down and disintegrating at every moment.
The inherent disadvantage of all phenomena becomes evident, the whole world of experience looses all its attraction, and an all-pervasive sense of disenchantment sets in. Such disenchantment then expresses itself in desire for deliverance.
At this stage of practice, insight into the three characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self becomes markedly clear with knowledge due to reflection. This knowledge is similar in type to the earlier knowledge of comprehension, but differs from the latter in intensity and clarity. Knowledge due to reflection gains its momentum from having passed through the previous insight experiences, in particular through the experiences of dissolution, fear, and disenchantment.
Eventually, a profound sense of equanimity sets in, with which the not-self nature of reality becomes evident with outstanding clarity. Meditation practice continues effortlessly at this point; the mind is concentrated and well balanced. Full maturity of the development of insight comes with the knowledge of conformity, which heralds the breakthrough to the experience of Nirvāṇa.
At this point the series of ten insight knowledges reaches its completion. The mind momentarily withdraws from externals, and the practitioner leaves the stage of being a worldling, gotrabhū-ñāṇa. Immediately thereon follow the experience of the path and fruition moment, magga-ñāṇa and phala-ñāṇa, equivalent to realization of Nirvāṇa. On emerging from the experience of the supramundane, the mind naturally looks back on the extraordinary experience that has just happened and reviews what has taken place, paccavekkhaṇa-ñāṇa.

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