MEDITATION

GUIDED MEDITATION VII: INSIGHT MEDITATION

The practice of insight meditation (vipassana) involves being mindful of the entirety of one‟s experience. When we open our awareness to all that is present in a non-biased way, it is called choiceless awareness. To practice choiceless awareness meditation, combine the instructions already given for each of the 4 foundations of mindfulness. After settling the awareness on the breath for a few moments, open to the entirety of your experience. Notice each object of awareness as it arises, is present for a while, and then passes away. Ideally, each object is noticed and released without preference. It can be helpful to use a gentle mental note of each object. For example, in practicing choiceless awareness one might have noting like this: “breath,” “sound,” “memory,” “breath,” “pleasant feeling,” “desire,” “warmth,” “fear,” “planning,” “sound,” “pressure,” “breath,” etc. It is helpful to end the meditation session as usual by opening the awareness to the whole body and then setting the intention to bring mindfulness into the next activities of the day.