Episode 7 – Paul Linn – Vipassana Meditation

Paul L. Linn MA, LMHC has been teaching and offering therapy to groups and individuals in numerous forms for 32 years.

He attended graduate school at the California Institute of Integral Studies, after training in Gestalt and body centered psychotherapy. Paul has a long standing interest in dharma studies and an extensive training practice in the insight meditation tradition visit site.

For the last 20 years he has been guiding meditation groups and residentials. The TsomT system developed as a dynamic synthesis of therapeutic and meditative methods. In combination, the streams that feed this synthesis emerge as an engaged, practical and immediate opportunity for relief from what can be ailing within the human/existential condition, while simultaneously inviting realization of the creative wonder that abides within all that is occuring.

Vipassanā (Pāli) or vipaśyanā (विपश्यना, Sanskrit; Chn. 觀 guān; Tib. ལྷག་མཐོང་, lhaktong; Wyl. lhag mthong) in the Buddhist tradition means insight into the true nature of reality,[1][2] namely as the Three marks of existence: impermanence, suffering or unsatisfactoriness, and the realisation of non-self.

Vipassanā-meditation is a modern Theravada practice, reintroduced by Ledi Sayadaw and Mogok Sayadaw and popularized by Mahasi Sayadaw,[3][4][5] S. N. Goenka and the Vipassana movement, [6] in which mindfulness of breathing and of thoughts, feelings and actions are being used to gain insight in the true nature of reality. Due to the popularity of Vipassanā-meditation, the mindfulness of breathing has gained further popularity in the west as mindfulness.[6]

Vipassanā is a Pali word from the Sanskrit prefix “vi-” and verbal root paś. It is often translated as “insight” or “clear-seeing,” though, the “in-” prefix may be misleading; “vi” in Indo-Aryan languages is equivalent to the Latin “dis.” The “vi” in vipassanā may then mean to see into, see through or to see ‘in a special way.’[2] Alternatively, the “vi” can function as an intensive, and thus vipassanā may mean “seeing deeply.”[citation needed]

A synonym for “Vipassanā” is paccakkha (Pāli; Sanskrit: pratyakṣa), “before the eyes,” which refers to direct experiential perception. Thus, the type of seeing denoted by “vipassanā” is that of direct perception, as opposed to knowledge derived from reasoning or argument.[citation needed]

In Tibetan, vipashyana is lhagthong (wylie: lhag mthong). The term “lhag” means “higher”, “superior”, “greater”; the term “thong” is “view” or “to see”. So together, lhagthong may be rendered into English as “superior seeing”, “great vision” or “supreme wisdom.” This may be interpreted as a “superior manner of seeing”, and also as “seeing that which is the essential nature.” Its nature is a lucidity—a clarity of mind.[7]

Henepola Gunaratana defined Vipassanā as:

Looking into something with clarity and precision, seeing each component as distinct and separate, and piercing all the way through so as to perceive the most fundamental reality of that thing” [2]

Find paul’s work here:

http://tsomt.com/

and here:

http://www.floridavipassana.org/

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