Vipassana

Meditation retreats

Tenerife

The sages understood that for balancing the mind and make it steady, purity of thought and concentration are necessary.

Key word is self-observation of mind and body that makes of this meditation an impressive practice for the self knowledge.

These techniques are over 2.500 years old. They are ones of the oldest from India. They were already known before Buddha whom practised it as a remedy to the suffering together the suttas.

I started practicing vipassana when my life was surrounded by a lot of stress that made me fight with myself and with people. I often got angry and yelled at everyone. And looking for a remedy, I heard about vipassana. I signed up for a retreat in Morocco without knowing what I could learn. And the least expected happened. Now I could understand so many things about myself. And despite the fact that one retreat was not enough, I returned to participate in 3 more to really understand the anapanasati, vipassana techniques and probably the one that worried and interested me the most, which was satipatthana.

What a relief! Now I was aware of how the mind worked.

When you know how the mind works, you can overcome most circumstances and conflicts even if you don't believe it.

Although meditation was already a common practice in my life since I was young, when I was only 20 years old, by then I was using other types of meditations that crossed into my path, from different origins such as Japan, from the newage that became very fashionable as the American one, some from Asia and others from Europe.

I became very familiar with all of them because I felt a great connection with myself when I did them. I even organized mass meditation meetings in the sacred mountains of the island, town squares, etc.

It was very fun and inspiring.

Now comparing Vipassana with this kind of meditations they differ a lot. If I can point out about anapanasati, vipassana and satipatthana techniques they are highly effective tools that teach you who you are and how your body and mind work.

So essential to stop daily suffering and your well-being!

Being aware of how we function as a human being, the matter that is a body and an intangible mind, its influence on us, made me understand and know myself so deeply. Years have passed and I am still very grateful to have discovered the tools that helped to remove suffering, erase painful memories, calm down and get to know oneself.

The Monk Ledi Sayadaw

He was responsible for making the practice of insight meditation, based on the mindful observation of one’s experience, accessible to all kinds of people—not just monks or nuns, but fishermen, hunters, and farmers. As a result of his influence, today many more people have been introduced to insight meditation: business executives, software developers, teachers, and schoolchildren, to name a few. Such practice is now in deep dialogue with nearly all Buddhist traditions—including those of Tibet, China, and Japan—and it forms an integral part of research, experimentation, and reflection in the fields of psychology, neurology, and Western philosophy.

Ledi Sayadaw Monk