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cattasallaI made an earlier post about samatha and vipassanā. I thought I'd elaborate a bit on that.
First, let's be clear on what each of those is. Samatha is tranquility or calm. It is samādhi meditation. It is getting rested, and settled, and collected. Unification of the fragmented mind into a peaceful whole. Vipassanā, on the other hand, is usually translated as "insight" but literally means "clear seeing". It is penetrative wisdom, seeing things as they are: inconstant, stressful, and without independent existence. It is seeing the nature of stress, the origin of stress in craving and clinging, that freedom from stress can be found by abandoning craving, and the value of the eightfold path in shaping a life that does so.
One of the beautiful things about Buddhism is that the path unfolds naturally. There is effort involved, no doubt, but really, you just pick a practice, and the whole path blossoms.
If you pick samatha, like samādhi practices, first, you will get settled. From the composure, from the unified, collected mind, clarity will dawn. You will be able to see things clearly, as they are, and you will have vipassanā. If you pick a vipassanā practice first, like mindfulness, you will achieve clarity, and from that clarity you find stillness, or samatha. This is not to say some guidance might be necessary--if you achieve samatha first you might need some direction on where to point your clear, stable mind--but that's what the teachers are for.
Although, like I said in that previous post, I find that they typically work together: The path to samādhi is beset by disturbances that must be dissolves by penetrative insight.
First, let's be clear on what each of those is. Samatha is tranquility or calm. It is samādhi meditation. It is getting rested, and settled, and collected. Unification of the fragmented mind into a peaceful whole. Vipassanā, on the other hand, is usually translated as "insight" but literally means "clear seeing". It is penetrative wisdom, seeing things as they are: inconstant, stressful, and without independent existence. It is seeing the nature of stress, the origin of stress in craving and clinging, that freedom from stress can be found by abandoning craving, and the value of the eightfold path in shaping a life that does so.
One of the beautiful things about Buddhism is that the path unfolds naturally. There is effort involved, no doubt, but really, you just pick a practice, and the whole path blossoms.
If you pick samatha, like samādhi practices, first, you will get settled. From the composure, from the unified, collected mind, clarity will dawn. You will be able to see things clearly, as they are, and you will have vipassanā. If you pick a vipassanā practice first, like mindfulness, you will achieve clarity, and from that clarity you find stillness, or samatha. This is not to say some guidance might be necessary--if you achieve samatha first you might need some direction on where to point your clear, stable mind--but that's what the teachers are for.
Although, like I said in that previous post, I find that they typically work together: The path to samādhi is beset by disturbances that must be dissolves by penetrative insight.