The next stage of practice, then, combines awareness of the effective tone of experience with mindfulness directed to its ethical context expressed in terms of the distinction between worldly and unworldly feelings.

A brief overview of “the mindfulness of feelings” from the Early Buddhist perspective.

So no matter which of the aggregates you focus on, the analysis always seems to come down to perception, and especially the perception of value, the perception of meaning.

One truly sees any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: all form—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’

Rāhula asks how to see so that conceit no longer occurs. The Buddha teaches him to investigate the five aggregates in terms of not-self.

Experiencing revulsion, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion his mind is liberated.

The five aggregates are burning.

But because consciousness is painful—soaked and steeped in pain and not steeped in pleasure—sentient beings do grow disillusioned with it. Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they are purified. This is a cause and reason for the purification of sentient beings.

Mahāli the Licchavi reports to the Buddha that the rival teacher Pūraṇa Kassapa asserts that there is no reason for beings to be either defiled or pure. The Buddha denies this, and goes on to explain how it happens.

those wanderers who followed other religions, unable to bear the esteem of the mendicant Sangha, abused, attacked, harassed, and troubled the mendicants…

How a wise meditator views abusive speech.

Not grasping what’s impermanent, suffering, and perishable, would people think ‘I’m better’ or ‘I’m equal’ or ‘I’m worse’?

Conceit stems from clinging to the senses and their impressions.

The insight exercises can be practised not only in solitude, as is necessary in the case of the exercise of calm or samatha, but they can be practised everywhere. Maturity of knowledge is the main thing required. For if knowledge is ripe, the insight of impermanence may easily be accomplished while listening to a discourse or while living a householder’s ordinary life.

In this work, Ledi Sayadaw explores topics such as the distortions of perception (vipallasa), the conceivings (mannana), the stages (bhumi), the Noble Truths (sacca), the causes of phenomena, the higher knowledges, Nibbana, and more. Each subject is thoroughly explained and accompanied by concise descriptions, some taken from the Pali texts and others drawn from Ledi Sayadaw’s own teachings.

Our cultivation of the mind is aimed both at firmly establishing calm and at developing the arising of true wisdom and insight. We depend on the practice as laid down by the Lord Buddha which I have been explaining in stages.

In this brief work, Somdet Phra Nyanasaṁvara illuminates the principles of mindfulness within the larger framework of mental cultivation. Each section is taken from twenty-two talks given between August and October 1961 to both monastics and laypeople, in which the venerable offers practical instruction for cultivating clarity, calm, and insight.

How is Māra defined?

Those who see it like this see rightly.

True confidence only comes about once the teachings have led the disciple to personal verification of their efficacy.

Faith is a starting point for the realization of truth.

Both viññāṇa and paññā can be interpreted to mean consciousness, the former the consciousness apropos of the phenomenal and the latter apropos of the noumenal.

Since thoughts are produced by what is not-self, how could they be self?

… freed by not grasping: they are well freed. Those who are well freed are consummate ones. For consummate ones, there is no cycle of rebirths to be found.

How the Four Noble Truths illuminate the Five Aggregates.

Seeing rightly, they grow disillusioned. When relishing ends, greed ends.

Right view is seeing the aggregates as they are: impermanent.

What is the gratification, what is the danger, what is the escape in the case of feeling … perception … volitional formations … consciousness?

How the Buddha investigated the aggregates.

Rāhula, what do you think? Is the eye permanent or impermanent?

The Buddha takes Rāhula with him to a secluded spot in order to lead him on to liberation.

And why, bhikkhus, do you call it form? ‘It is deformed,’ bhikkhus, therefore it is called form.

The Buddha explains how to view rebirth.

Madhyamaka is thus conceived of as a means, with liberation as its ultimate end. But the question remains, how does philosophical argumentation lead to spiritual goals?

This article explains the basic tenets of Madhyamaka thought found in Nagarjuna’s Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikās, and then, focusing on chapter 23, proceeds to show how such philosophical inquiry and its resultant understanding lead to final liberation (nibbana).

The body is like a robot. The mind is the one who directs and tells the robot what to do. So, whatever happens to the body, the mind should stay clear.

The beauties remain as they are in the world,
while, in this regard,
the enlightened
subdue their desire.

The Buddha gives a deep discourse on the development of wisdom.

What is the cause, sir, what is the reason why some sentient beings aren’t fully extinguished in the present life?

If a mendicant approves, welcomes, and keeps clinging to them, their consciousness relies on that and grasps it. A mendicant with grasping does not become extinguished.

The ultimate condition in which the two truths cannot be separated,
That is the yoga of the Great Middle Way.

A medium length peom by a modern Tibetan master on realizing the fruit of the Middle Way: non-duality.

All dhammas are unworthy of attachment.

He sees forms as something separate. He sees eye-consciousness as something separate. He sees eye-contact as something separate. And whatever arises in dependence on eye-contact—experienced either as pleasure, as pain, or as neither-pleasure-nor-pain—that too he sees as something separate.

A meditator must overcome ignorance directly.

… he understands: ‘I feel a feeling terminating with life.’ He understands: ‘With the breakup of the body, following the exhaustion of life, all that is felt, not being delighted in, will become cool right here; mere bodily remains will be left.’

A mendicant (whether enlightened or not!) should thoroughly investigate the causes of their suffering until they see for themselves how it is dependently arisen.

Some suffering ceases with nibbāna, but all with parinibbāna.

… what is that due to apart from seeing things as they really are?

The Buddha teaches a householder named Soṇa about the nature of the five aggregates and conceit.

Here, I’d like to talk about those things that the meditator will often misunderstand to be unbeneficial or improper practice or a sign that the practice is going wrong when in fact these things are a sign that one is practicing correctly.

A talk about how right perception of the three characteristics is often misunderstood by meditators as “wrong” when they expect meditation to always lead immediately to “blissful” states.

Progress in meditation is about giving up and letting go, not becoming and taking on new constructs.

A list of common questions on vipassanā practice along with Ajahn Yuttadhammo’s insightful and practical answers.

So too, bhikkhus, that a bhikkhu with a rightly directed view, with a rightly directed development of the path, could pierce ignorance…

… with liberation as proximate cause, the knowledge of destruction.

A “tremendously important” sutta showing how liberation is also governed by the law of Dependent Origination.

For Bhikkhu Bodhi’s commentary on this sutta, see Transcendental Dependent Arising.

Therefore, bhikkhus, an exertion should be made to understand…

As the dawn precedes the sunrise, right view precedes the penetration of the four noble truths.

With the present book I return to the Pāli version of the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta. My exploration is entirely dedicated to the actual practice of satipaṭṭhāna, informed by the previously gathered details and overall picture as it emerges from a study of relevant material in the early discourses.

Building on his early work, Bhikkhu Analayo details a mindfulness practise that incorporates all aspects of Buddhist psychology.

If he thus goes into seclusion and lives alone, his thoughts aren’t careless. He cultivates diligence, stops mental disturbances, and attains a concentrated state…

For an alternative translation, see Kuan, 2007.

Suppose, bhikkhus, there was a great tree. Then a man would come along bringing a shovel and a basket. He would cut down the tree at its foot, dig it up, and pull out the roots…

Craving increases when you linger on pleasing things that stimulate grasping.

They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as a boil, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as falling apart, as empty, as not-self. They turn their mind away from those things, and apply it to the deathless

On making the jump from samatha to vipassanā.

That perplexity, doubtfulness, indecisiveness in regard to the true Dhamma is a formation. That formation—what is its source, what is its origin, from what is it born and produced?

A beautiful and deep sutta which gives some insight into how to see—and untangle—Dependent Arising.

Linked together by bones and sinews,
plastered over with flesh and hide,
and covered by the skin …

Gain victory over the defilements with this one weird trick (contemplation of the unattractiveness of the body).

Then there is the hollow head
all filled with brains.
Governed by ignorance,
the fool thinks it’s lovely.

I became profoundly dispassionate
towards all sensual pleasures.
Seeing fear in identity,
I longed for renunciation.

… the Buddha emphatically advised his disciples to become wise ones and “investigators”

Let them enjoy the filthy, lazy pleasure of possessions, honor, and popularity.

The Buddha declares the antidote to greed.

I went in search of the world’s gratification, and I found it.

The Buddha became awakened by understanding gratification, as well as its danger and escape.

The more convincing position taken in Sarvāstivāda exegesis sees the three types of wisdom as interrelated activities that can rely on mindfulness, thereby testifying to the flexibility and broad compass of mindfulness in Buddhist thought as something not limited to a rigid division between theory and practice.

… even for King Pasenadi there is alteration; there is change

A sutta on using anicca to make the transition from samatha to vipassanā.

In reality there are only three things: mind, matter, and Dhamma.

The word “suffering” just means everything that can make you unhappy, that stops you from being a peaceful and happy and content person. When we really look at it, that comes down to just about everything! Everything we come into contact with has the potential to cause us suffering.

A wise man is not deluded by what is perceived by the senses. He does not expect purity by any other way.

Life is short. Possessiveness brings grief. Freedom comes from abandoning any sense of “mine.”

… this study critically examines the traditional Buddhist distinction between the ‘practice of serenity’ (samatha-bhāvanā) and the ‘practice of insight’ (vipassanā-bhāvanā); doing so challenges the traditional positioning of the four jhānas under the category of ‘serenity (or concentration) meditation’ and the premise regarding their secondary and superfluous role in the path

You can see that every moment is birth and death. There is nothing you can keep, and there is nothing you can hold on to, because things are arising and passing away so quickly.

A series of eleven, informal Dhamma talks on the insight knowledges delivered to a group of meditators in Australia.

How do you see things as they are?

If we have agility, we can accommodate both these aspects

David had a hunch about what had caused his panic attack: his meditation practice.

Without a foundation in view and ethics, many Westerners are finding themselves unable to handle the arising of meditative insight.

What advice would you give the meditators in this article?

If you sincerely desire to develop contemplation and attain insight in your present life, you must give up worldly thoughts and actions during training…

A straightforward description of Mahasi’s Vipassanā technique, along with the insight knowledges.

… a brief survey of three modern day insight meditation traditions (I), followed by examining their common roots in the medieval scheme of insight knowledges (II), which in turn I trace back to the early discourses in the Pāli Nikāyas (III).

For a talk on this paper, see here.

We need to catch “that which is aware” as a process. That which is aware during meditation is not a stable entity. It’s just a process. If we see it as a stable entity, we’re going the wrong way.

A talk on Bhante Analayo’s paper of the same name. For Bhante’s slides, see this PDF.

While the Buddha analyzed and explained the sequence of mind moments in minute detail, to me it’s more like falling out of a tree. As we come crashing down there’s no opportunity to estimate how many feet and inches we’ve fallen. What we know is that we’ve hit the ground with a thud and it hurts!

… no ordinary being can truly take the measure of another…

When practicing Vipassana in line with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, there are some important basics

… it is necessary to work for the total removal within oneself of sakkāya-diṭṭhi, which is the root cause of rebirth in the miserable states of existence. Sakkāya-diṭṭhi can only be destroyed completely by the noble path and fruit: the three supramundane virtues of morality, concentration, and wisdom. It is therefore imperative to work for the development of these virtues. How should one do the work? By means of noting

The anger, the aversion is something we’ve carried around and developed for a long time. It’s something that has causes in the way we’ve lived our lives. It’s something that we can’t remove from our minds simply by wishing for it. It’s something we can only be free from by understanding and retraining our minds out of this bad habit.

An explanation of the four satipaṭṭhāna and how meditating on them creates liberating understanding.

… what now is feeling?

A mendicant asks the Buddha to explain how feelings relate to the four noble truths.

If anyone, bhikkhus, should speak thus: ‘Having rejected this all, I shall make known another all’—that would be a mere empty boast on his part.

The Buddha makes clear that the senses are really “all” there is.

… for one who sees the origin of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no notion of nonexistence in regard to the world. And for one who sees the cessation of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no notion of existence in regard to the world.

Venerable Kaccānagotta asks the Buddha about right view.

This sutta, brief but profound, became renowned as the only canonical reference named in Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, perhaps the most famous philosophical treatise in all of later Buddhism.

For one reducing suffering like this nibbāna is said to be near.

Venerable Māluṅkyaputta asks for a teaching to take on retreat. The Buddha wonders how to teach an old monk like him, then questions him on his desire for sense experiences that have been or might be, and encourages him to simply let sense experiences be. Māluṅkyaputta says he understands, and expands on the Buddha’s teaching in a series of verses.

… having heard these ten perceptions, venerable Girimānanda’s afliction immediately abated

A profound discourse on Vipassana meditation in an apotropaic frame.

… exactly what are we talking about when we’re talking about “our feelings”

… when the perception of impermanence is developed and cultivated it eliminates all desire for sensual pleasures, for rebirth in the realm of luminous form, and for rebirth in a future life. It eliminates all ignorance and eradicates the conceit ‘I am’

The perception of impermanence eliminates lust, ignorance, and conceit. Illustrated with a long series of similes.

… by passing over this issue in silence, they discreetly imply that they do not attain the jhānas at all. Where the redactors of suttas fear to tread, commentators step in boldly. It is in the commentaries (including the Visuddhimagga) that we first find explicit mention of the sukkhavipassaka or “dry-insight” meditator, often in connection with passages that mention the paññāvimutta or “wisdom-liberated” arahant. The dry-insight meditator is defined as “one whose insight is dry, arid, because such insight is unmoistened by the moisture of the jhānas”.

See also the follow-up paper promised at the end of this one.

When confrontation occurs with diligent attention, you directly meet all objects entering your stream of consciousness. You keep the object immovable in your awareness, as if it were a stone penetrating to the bottom of a glass of water, instead of allowing the object to float like a cork

A meandering series of talks on the seven bojjhanga from the perspective of the Mahasi tradition, which should prove interesting and encouraging for beginners and advanced students alike.

A highly orthodox presentation of kāyānupassanā in Theravāda Buddhism.

… the eightfold path is but one of several differently worded statements of Gotama’s course of practice

An astute comparison of five alternative formulations of the path and an excellent example of how to study the Pāli Canon.

This is the kind of inquiry one has to make for oneself. We call that, “biting into the mango.”

… who can untangle this tangle?

A brahmin with matted hair asks the Buddha how we can become disentangled. This short set of verses became one of the most important in all of Theravāda Buddhism when it was used as the cornerstone of Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga.

This treatise explains the progress of insight, together with the corresponding stages of purification. It has been written in brief for the benefit of meditators who have obtained distinctive results in their practice, so that they may more easily understand their experience.

… teachings from twelve of the greatest masters and monasteries in the Theravāda tradition

This classic book on insight meditation introduced the West to the Theravāda Tradition of Southeast Asia and launched the career of not only its author, but also many of his readers who subsequently sought out, learned from, and carried on the tradition of these venerable masters.

It’s basically impossible to understand modern Theravāda Buddhism without being familiar with at least most of the teachers featured in this outstanding book, but its value isn’t strictly historical as the wisdom and advice it contains is invaluable not just to scholars but also to any serious meditator intent on realizing the fruits of insight practice.

For a deeper historical look at this phenomenon, see Levman, 2017.

… indeed there is no thing there

A beautiful reading of this wonderful and profound sutta on realizing the essence of emptiness.

Whatever does not belong to you and does not belong to others, these things should quickly be eradicated and relinquished.

A clever Bhikkhu quickly understands a pithy teaching.

Meditation is not a pill.

Meditation is uncovering deeper and deeper messes in the mind, and progressively “letting the dirt out.”

Change how you feel

We must use sati-paññā to sound out and see the dukkha. To see clearly the heat with insight. Then turn to see our Heart – is that also red-hot as well? Or is it only the body parts (dhātu-khandha) that are heated? If one possesses discernment then the Heart will not be moved. It will be cool within the mass of fire which is the body burning with the fires of dukkha. This is the way of those who practise.

A series of fiery and inspiring Dhamma talks from Thailand’s famed forest master on the subject of meditation: starting with the foundation of samatha and dwelling at length on the correct way to develop vipassana and paññā.

Insofar as it disintegrates, it is called the ‘world.’

To be female is to have the dukkha of a female. To be male is to have the dukkha of a male. […] If we deludedly think ‘I am happy’ then we must suffer accordingly.

In these three dhamma talks on emptiness delivered at Siriraj Hospital (Bangkok) in 1961, Ajahn Buddhadasa cuts right to the heart of Buddhism, encouraging us in plain and vivid language to stop identifying as or clinging to anything at all.

… although I have long waited upon the Teacher and bhikkhus worthy of esteem, never before have I heard such a talk on the Dhamma

A beautiful reading of this wonderful and profound sutta.

Kammaṭṭhāna meditation should be practised so as to reach Nibbāna, thereby escaping from all kinds of misery

A thorough and concise overview of the entire path of meditative purification. A very helpful map, essentially summarizing the Visuddhimagga.

Nibbāna isn’t something you accidentally fall into: it’s the culmination of intense, deliberate renunciation.

I rejoice, great seer,
in that supreme peace

How can one become freed of all doubts? How does one continue to advance even after stream-entry?

The book includes detailed descriptions of the qualia of the different stages of enlightenment, along with the insights and practices relevant to each stage. Far from a technical manual though, this book is a hugely inspiring and approachable series of straightforward conversations. A beginning practitioner will benefit immensely from hearing how possible enlightenment is, but it is the most advanced practitioners (think: sakadāgāmī / anāgāmī already) who will reap the highest reward from Arahattamagga: Arahattaphala.

… the common interpretation of the jhānas as absorption-concentration attainments [is] incompatible with the teachings of the Pāli Nikāyas. […] one attains the jhānas, not by one-pointed concentration and absorption into a meditation object, but by releasing and letting go of the foothold of the unwholesome mind […] the entrance into the first jhāna is the actualization and embodiment of insight practice.

While I think that Arbel goes too far in saying that jhāna can only be an insight attainment, I think her thesis is broadly correct: the vipassana jhānas, while not at all like their fixed-concentration cousins, do exist, contain all the jhāna factors and, in fact, constitute sammā-samādhi.

Transcribed from a series of YouTube videos, this short booklet concisely describes the practice as it’s taught in the Mahasi vipassana tradition.

For those practicing intensively according to this booklet, I encourage you to sign up for one-on-one instruction here.

There is also a sequel to this booklet.

Mendicants, sensual pleasures are impermanent, hollow, false, and deceptive, made by illusion, cooed over by fools.

The Buddha outlines a number of reflections conducive to attaining imperturbable states, and ends by warning Ānanda to not become attached to even that equanimity.

Mendicants, these seven perceptions, when developed and cultivated, are very fruitful and beneficial. They culminate in the deathless and end with the deathless. What seven? The perceptions of ugliness, death, repulsiveness of food, dissatisfaction with the whole world, impermanence, suffering in impermanence, and not-self in suffering.

… whoever—monk or nun—declares the attainment of arahantship in my presence, they all do it by means of one or another of four paths.

For it is death in the training of the noble one to reject the training and return to a lesser life.

The Buddha explains why some people progress on the path of meditation and why others fall short of the ultimate goal.

… a monk who is endowed with these fifteen factors including exertion, it is possible for [him to attain] breakthrough, it is possible for [him to attain] awakening, it is possible for [him to attain] arrival at unsurpassable security from bondage.

The Buddha explains various ways one can become cut off.

Seeing this, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned with the eye, sights, eye consciousness, eye contact, feeling, and craving. Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they’re freed.

And once we become familiar with the nature of objects, because of seeing that, one sees the implications — “this thing that I’m basing my happiness on is uncertain, is subject to change, is going to pass away”

Ayya Vayama Bhikkhuni explains how we progress on the path through renunciation and what progress means for our experience of painful feelings.

It is wrong perception that leads to the concepts of being and nonbeing.

Let’s consider how a person, me, arises in your experience. First certain colors and shapes arise, largely maroon. A sense of foreboding ensues. The features arise: “monk,” “shaveling,” then the discernment “worthy of offerings.” The features arise: “wire-rimmed glasses,” “wry grin” and finally “Bhikkhu Cintita,” then the discernment “maybe not so worthy of offerings.” At some point in this process you are convinced that I exist

… beings are intoxicated with life and engage in misconduct by body, speech, and mind. But when one often reflects upon [death], the intoxication with life is diminished.

Topics that are worth regularly reflecting on, whether as a lay person or a renunciant.

One who has entirely given up the body, … how should one like that be guided?

How to develop insight after mastering the perception of nothingness.

It is, Ānanda, because it is empty of self and of what belongs to self that it is said, ‘Empty is the world.’

One should rein in the mind thus

One should restrain the senses like a farmer watching over a field. The Buddha gives the parable of a man bewitched when he first hears a lute. He takes apart the instrument in search of the sound, but is disillusioned when no sound is found.

Now suppose that in the autumn—when it’s raining in fat, heavy drops—a water bubble were to appear & disappear on the water, and a man with sight were to see it. To him it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance could there be in a bubble? In the same way, a man with wisdom sees a feeling. To him it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance could there be in a feeling?

The Buddha gives a series of similes for the aggregates: physical form is like foam, feeling is like a bubble, perception is like a mirage, choices are like a coreless tree, and consciousness is like an illusion.

Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu understands form, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation; he understands the gratification, the danger, and the escape in the case of form.

To be fully accomplished, a mendicant should investigate these Dhammas.

There is a way of developing immersion further

Developing convergence for pleasure, understanding, mindfulness, and for ending the defilements.

A bhikkhu who in such a manner is ardent and afraid of wrongdoing is called constantly energetic and resolute.

A short sutta stressing the foundation of ethics on which insight meditation must rest.

Have you seen the variegated and different colours of a caraṇa bird?

The Buddha encourages the monks to investigate the five aggregates, giving a few colorful similes to illustrate their nature.

“What meditation does Venerable Anuruddha practice so that physical pain doesn’t occupy his mind?”

Monks! All is aflame!

The “all” consisting of the six interior and exterior sense fields, that is. This is the famous “third sermon” taught at Gayā’s Head to the followers of the three Kassapa brothers.

Monk, monk! This ant-hill fumes by night and flames by day. The brahmin said, ‘Take up the sword and dig, O sage!’

In a curious discourse laden with evocative imagery, a deity presents a riddle to a mendicant, who seeks an answer from the Buddha.

An instructed noble disciple also meets gain and loss, disrepute and fame, blame and praise, and pleasure and pain.

The eight worldly conditions in detail.

… by thoroughly understanding conceit, he has made an end of suffering.

How the three types of feeling should be viewed.

We have to practice step by step to attain succeeding levels of happiness, starting with the happiness that arises from giving, to the happiness from keeping the precepts, not hurting others, to the happiness from samadhi or mental discipline.

A simple and straightforward but powerful summary of the path to wisdom encouraging us all to strive for real, lasting happiness.

If a sensation of itchiness intervenes and the yogi desires to scratch because it is hard to bear, both the sensation and the desire to get rid of it should be noted, without immediately getting rid of the sensation by scratching.

An excellent general introduction to meditation, these instructions are applicable to whatever meditation technique you use.