Vipashyana is Sanskrit. Vipassana is Pali. Both words refer to using perception to get to the root of perceiving. If one penetrates through the layers within the process of perception: concepts about what one is perceiving, sensations related to the senses, and the titillation of the senses, then one will arrive at the interesting – and potentially reality-splitting – experience of emptiness. As such penetrating perception (vipashyana) leads to pure perception. The latter is the unity of purity, radiance, and voidness.

One could make a foundational error when engaging what one thinks is a vipashyana practice: that of over-using the mind in its role of the observer. For this reason, we begin with the heart.

advancing 030818 the heart of vipashyana