Tranquility and insight (samatha-vipassanā)
Includes tags: Calming meditation, Insight meditation
2. “Can you speak a little about samatha/vipassana and explain the difference between serenity and equanimity?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Calming meditation] [Insight meditation] [Equanimity] // [Commentaries] [Ajahn Chah] [Relinquishment] [Liberation] [Concentration] [Divine Abidings] [Factors of Awakening] [Discernment]
Quote: “Samatha-vipassanā is like a green mango and a ripe mango. Same mango.” — Ajahn Chah. [Calming meditation] [Insight meditation] [Similes]
9. “How can one skillfully investigate feelings without simply getting lost in analytical thought?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Mindfulness of feeling] [Proliferation] // [Suffering] [Directed thought and evaluation]
Quote: “The best investigation takes place when the mind is very still and not formulating a lot of ideas.” [Insight meditation] [Tranquility] [Direct experience]
4. “A small window of anattā has opened. It is very fresh, light, and breezy, but the opening is small, and the rest of the window is caked with so much dirt and grime. I’m fearful that outside of the support of retreat, it could close. Even now it feels like it is opening and closing. How to best proceed?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Not-self] [Symbolism/metaphor] [Fear] [Meditation retreats] // [Insight meditation] [Restlessness and worry] [Proliferation]
Quote: “The best thing is not claiming ownership over that insight. ... Pay attention to the feeling of it.” [Insight meditation] [Non-identification] [Direct experience ] [Feeling]
Quote: “If you just stick your finger in the warm water, then you’ll know what warm water is.” — Ajahn Chah. [Ajahn Chah] [Language] [Dhamma]
3. “Is mindfulness of the body fabricating a wholesome mental image of the body as opposed to an unwholesome image? But how can we know the body in any way other than vedanā?” Answered by Ajahn Karuṇadhammo. [Mindfulness of body] [Visualization] [Feeling] // [S. N. Goenka] [Mindfulness of breathing] [Postures] [Clear comprehension] [Right Mindfulness] [Calming meditation] [Insight meditation] [Delusion] [Characteristics of existence]
Quote: “The availability of insight is through stepping back from the assumptions that we make, whether it’s around the body or feeling or mind or the sense of self.” [Insight meditation] [Relinquishment]
8. “Do you have to emerge from jhāna to contemplate the characteristics of the aggregates?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Karuṇadhammo. [Jhāna] [Insight meditation] [Aggregates] // [Mindfulness] [Thai Forest Tradition] [Knowing itself]
Sutta: AN 9.36: “Jhāna.”
Quote: “Contemplation gets really good when you stop thinking.” — Ajahn Chah. [Ajahn Chah] [Insight meditation] [Directed thought and evaluation]
8. “Do you think it’s enough to just be aware of the suffering that’s caused by the clinging to self?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Suffering] [Clinging] [Self-identity view] [Dispassion] [Not-self] // [Characteristics of existence] [Cessation] [Ignorance] [Knowledge and vision] [Release] [Proliferation]
Quote: “The most efficacious investigation comes from a still mind.” [Concentration] [Calming meditation] [Insight meditation]
10. Quote: “One of the things I often attend to is the juxtaposition of stillness and movement. It’s not that one is right and the other wrong. We can be still and really dull or the mind can move with clarity and acuity. But stillness and movement, what’s generating it, what’s pushing it? That bhavadiṭṭhi/vibhavadiṭṭhi is the engine behind it and the force behind the arising of a sense of self, a sense of me.” — Ajahn Pasanno. [Ajahn Pasanno] [Insight meditation] [Calming meditation] [Right Concentration] [Not-self] [Clear comprehension] [Nature of mind] [Conditionality] [Becoming ] [Craving not to become] [Views] [Self-identity view ]
3. “I got a little confused about the part [of MN 19] where it says, ‘these thoughts are not to be feared.’” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Fear] [Directed thought and evaluation] // [Right Intention] [Calming meditation] [Happiness]
Quote: “In trying to stop thinking, there’s an incredible tension that is created in the mind.” [Calming meditation] [Suffering]
Follow-up: “[MN 19] mentioned that these thoughts might make you tired.” [Sloth and torpor]
10. “Of these three pairs (impermanence and signlessness; unsatisfactoriness and desirelessness; selflessness and emptiness; Visuddhimagga 21.70, quoted in The Island by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro, p. 686), is it skillful to direct the mind towards one or will one appear naturally?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Characteristics of existence] [Insight meditation] [Directed thought and evaluation]
Quote: “An insight into one will be an insight into all three.” [Insight meditation]
6. “How do you find it best to differentiate between true insights and insight defilements?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Cittapālā. [Insight meditation ] [Defilements of insight] // [Tranquility] [Relinquishment] [Simplicity]
Quote: “A really true insight—you don’t get anything from.” — Ajahn Pasanno. [Insight meditation ]