In this episode, I'd like to focus on awareness, or vipashyana • while mindfulness refers to stabilizing, grounding, and focusing the mind, vipashyana is about clarity, openness, curiosity, and inquisitiveness • vipashyana is a natural outgrowth of mindfulness practice: as the mind settles, it begins to naturally clarify • vipashyana draws us outward; it is based on taking a genuine interest in the details of our life, in the details of our perception, and in the details of our own character • with vipashyana, we use our meditative grounding as a stepping stone to engage in the world with clarity and insight • the idea of clarity in vipashyana is more like a verb than like a noun: it's a positive kind of questioning mind, a process of seeking clarity, of not being satisfied with a superficial or vague understanding of our experience or of the teachings of Dharma • when you hear about something like the Four Noble Truths, what does that actually mean? • rather than just passively accepting that this is the way it's been taught, we try to really penetrate and understand it • vipashyana exposes how fuzzy we are about so much of our basic experience, how many unexamined assumptions we operate under, how much we miss • vipashyana is like having a set of fresh eyes: when you take a fresh look, you see things differently • you connect to a vaster world that is more vivid, and fresh, and true.
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