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Vipassana Nepalविपश्यना नेपाल

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Vipassana: the essentials

What Vipassana is, where it comes from, what you actually do on a course, and how people keep practising afterwards. Read in order; together it takes about 70 minutes.

विपश्यना के हो, कहाँबाट आयो, र शिविरमा के गरिन्छ

  1. Part 1: What is Vipassana meditation?

    What the word Vipassana means, what meditators actually do, how it relates to calm and to mindfulness, whether it is religious, and how it is learned.

    7 min read

  2. Part 2: The Buddha and the origins of Vipassana

    Who the Buddha was, the four places of his life from Lumbini in Nepal to Kushinagar, and what the early texts say he taught about meditation.

    7 min read

  3. Part 3: How Vipassana survived

    From oral recitation to the Pali Canon, Buddhaghosa and colonial Burma, then to India in 1969 and the West: how the practice was kept, lost and revived.

    8 min read

  4. Part 4: The three trainings: sīla, samādhi and paññā

    The four noble truths in brief, the Noble Eightfold Path grouped as ethics, concentration and wisdom, and how a 10-day course follows that order.

    6 min read

  5. Part 5: The four foundations of mindfulness

    What the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta says about observing body, feelings, mind and dhammā, and why traditions start from different foundations.

    8 min read

  6. Part 6: Anicca, dukkha, anattā: impermanence, suffering and non-self

    What anicca (impermanence), dukkha (suffering) and anattā (not-self) mean in the early texts, why insight aims to see them, and common misreadings.

    7 min read

  7. Part 7: Samatha and Vipassana: calm and insight

    Calm and insight in the early texts, what jhāna is, and why traditions disagree on how much concentration is needed before insight.

    6 min read

  8. Part 8: Vipassana 10-day course: the silent retreat day by day

    What happens on a 10-day Vipassana silent retreat in S. N. Goenka's tradition: arrival, the Code of Discipline, the daily timetable and each stage.

    9 min read

  9. Part 9: Before your first course

    Who a 10-day Vipassana course suits, the health questions on the application and why they are asked, how to apply, what to pack and how to prepare.

    7 min read

  10. Part 10: Keeping up the practice at home

    What S. N. Goenka's tradition asks of students after a 10-day course, the courses and service open to them, and what other traditions suggest.

    5 min read