Vipassana movement

The vipassanā movement, also called the Insight Meditation Movement, refers to a number of branches of modern Theravāda Buddhism which stress insight into the three marks of existence as the main means to attain awakening and reach Nirvana.

It finds its origins in modernist influences on the traditions of Burma, Laos, Thailand and Sri Lanka, and the innovations and popularisations by Theravāda teachers as Mahasi Sayadaw ("New Burmese Method"), Ledi Sayadaw (the Ledi lineage), Anagarika Munindra, and Ajahn Chah (Thai Forest Tradition), as well as nonsectarian derivatives from those traditions such as the movement led by S. N. Goenka (with his co-teacher wife Illaichi Devi) who studied with teacher Sayagyi U Ba Khin.

The vipassanā Movement includes contemporary American Buddhist teachers such as Joseph Goldstein, Tara Brach, Gil Fronsdal, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield.

Meditation techniques

The vipassanā movement emphasizes the use of vipassanā to gain insight into the three marks of existence as the main means to attain awakening. Its main goal is not Nirvana but stream-entry, since it is believed that we live in degenerated age in which full awakening is impossible. The emphasis on vipassanā goes back to Buddhaghosa who, in his Visudhimagga emphasized vipassanā over samatha.[citation needed]

The various movements espouse similar meditation techniques. Teachers with the vipassanā movement teach forms of samatha and vipassanā meditation consistent with Buddhist meditation.

Schools and traditions

Thai Forest Tradition

The Thai Forest Tradition is a tradition of Buddhist monasticism within Thai Theravāda Buddhism which was in part a reaction against this perceived dilution in Buddhism. Practitioners inhabit remote wilderness and forest dwellings as spiritual practice training grounds.

The Thai Forest Tradition emphasizes direct experience through meditation practice and strict adherence to monastic rules (vinaya) over scholastic Pali Tipitaka study. Forest monks are considered to be meditation specialists. In contrast with the "New Burmese Method", the Thai Forest Tradition also teaches and practices the use of jhana.

The Forest Tradition is usually associated with certain supernatural attainments (abhiñña). It is widely known among Thai people for its orthodoxy, conservatism, and asceticism. Because of these qualities, it has garnered great respect and admiration from the Thai people.

Adherents model their practice and lifestyle on those of the Buddha and his early disciples. They are referred to as 'forest monks' because they keep alive the practices of the historical Buddha, who frequently dwelt in forests, both during his spiritual quest and afterwards.

Perhaps its most widely known representative was Ajahn Chah. A well-known American monk is Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, also known as Ajaan Geoff, (born 1949).

Burma

Burmese Theravāda Buddhism has had a profound influence on modern vipassanā practice.

The Mahasi ("New Burmese") Method

The so-called "New Burmese method was developed by U Nārada and popularized by his students Mahasi Sayadaw and Nyanaponika Thera. Another prominent teacher is Bhikkhu Bodhi, a student of Nyanaponika.

The New Burmese Method strongly emphasizes vipassanā over samatha. It is regarded as a simplification of traditional Buddhist meditation techniques, suitable not only for monks but also for lay-practitioners.

The Ledi lineage

The Ledi lineage begins with Ledi Sayadaw.

S.N. Goenka is a well-known teacher in the Ledi-lineage. According to S. N. Goenka, vipassanā techniques are essentially non-sectarian in character, and have universal application. One need not convert to Buddhism to practice these styles of meditation. Meditation centers teaching the vipassanā popularized by S. N. Goenka exist now in Nepal, India, Asia, North and South America, Europe, Australia, Middle East and Africa.

In the tradition of S.N.Goenka, vipassanā practice focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, which can be experienced directly by disciplined attention to the physical sensations that form the life of the body, and that continuously interconnect and condition the life of the mind.

Mahasati Meditation is another example of these practices.

Anagarika Munindra

Anagarika Munindra studied with both S.N. Goenka and Mahasi Sayadaw, and combined both lienages. Dipa Ma was a student of him.

Prominent women

Women have been quite prominent as teachers in the vipassanā movement. Though the formal Theravāda vipassanā tradition has been maintained by an almost exclusively male monastic tradition, nuns and non-monastic female adepts have played important roles, despite being completely absent or only noted in the background of the historical record. These teachers and practitioners expand the framework of vipassanā to incorporate the immanence of the female body and its innate opportunities for enlightenment through the cycles of its physiology and the emotions of marriage, childlessness, childbearing, child loss, and widowhood.

Dipa Ma

The modern Indian teacher Dipa Ma, a student of Anagarika Munindra, was one of the first female Asian masters to be invited to teach in America. As a widowed, single mother, Dipa Ma was a householder (non-monastic) who exemplified liberation and taught vipassanā as not only a retreat practice but also a lifestyle. Her message to women and men was you don't have to leave your family to reach high states of spiritual understanding, and she taught a radical inclusiveness. She encouraged women who were mothers of young children to practice vipassanā through the daily activities of mothering. She once said to Joseph Goldstein that "Women have an advantage over men because they have more supple minds... It may be difficult for men to understand this, because they are men." When asked if there was any hope for men, she replied "The Buddha was a man, and Jesus was a man. So there is hope for you."

Dipa Ma's Metta (Lovingkindness) meditation instruction was a core component to be practiced after each vipassanā session. It involves five stages, the first of which was the mastery of self-compassion in mind and heart, then continuing to the other stages. The prayer of the first stage, given in English is as follows:

Let me be free of enemies

Let me be free of dangers

Let me be free of mental anxieties

Let me pass my time with good body and happy mind.

Ilaichidevi Goenka

Indian teacher Ilaichidevi Goenka, wife of the Burmese-trained S.N. Goenka and mother of six children, began practicing adhittan vipassanā when her youngest child was four years old, eventually joining her husband on the teaching platform as co-teacher to thousands of students at retreat centers and prisons /Prisoners who do vipassanā meditation reportedly experience less behavior problems while incarcerated and have lower rates of recidivism, see: Doing Time, Doing Vipassana/ all over India as well as internationally. "Mataji" as she is lovingly referred to by her students, also leads chants with her husband.

Shambhavi Chopra

Indian Shambhavi Chopra, a former textiles designer and divorced mother of two who is now co-director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies, writes of her 10 day vipassanā meditation training at a retreat center in Germany in her book Yogini: The Enlightened Woman, and encourages students to explore vipassanā practice and mastery as a devotion to the Divine Mother of all.

Vipassanā in prisons

Vipassanā movement traditions have offered meditation programs in some prisons. One notable example was in 1993 when Kiran Bedi, a reformist Inspector General of India's prisons, learned of the success of vipassanā in a jail in Jaipur, Rajasthan. A ten-day retreat involved officials and inmates alike was then tried in India's largest prison Tihar Jail near New Delhi. This program was said to have dramatically changed the behavior of inmates and jailers alike. Inmates who completed the ten-day course were less violent and had a lower recidivism rate than other inmates. This project was documented in the documentary film, Doing Time, Doing Vipassana.

Famous masters

Thai Forest Tradition

Ajahn Buddhadasa (1906–1993)
Luangpor Teean Jittasubho (1911–1988)
Nani Bala Barua Dipa Ma (1911–1989) Indian meditation master teacher, mother, trained in Burma
Ajahn Dhammadharo (1913–2005)
Ajahn Chah (1918-1992) brought the Thai Forest Tradition to the West