Mindfulness and Insight

A clear, simple meditation method on practicing mindfulness for insight, which takes us to our goal of liberation, the end of all suffering.

Discarding any striving or ambition to attain something, the refined guidance that Mahasi Sayadaw provides in this book will lead practitioners to systematically and gradually purify their minds of attachment, aversion, and delusion and to realize the successive stages of enlightenment, culminating in the attainment of enlightenment (nibbana).

Mindfulness and Insight is an excerpt of two key chapters from the comprehensive, authoritative Manual of Insight, which expounds the doctrinal and practical aspects of mindfulness (satipatthana) and the development of insight knowledge (vipassana) up to and including nibbana. In Manual of Insight, Mahasi Sayadaw acknowledged that these two chapters alone offer suitable guidance on our own journey of awakening by realizing path knowledge, fruition knowledge, and nibbana, particularly for those with little or no knowledge of the Pali scriptures.

Part 1, “The Development of Mindfulness,” offers comprehensive instructions for developing mindfulness based on the Buddha’s teachings on the four foundations of mindfulness, as outlined in the highly regarded Discourse on Mindfulness (Satipatthana Sutta).

Part 2, “Practical Instructions,” provides guidance in both the practices preliminary to undertaking insight meditation and in developing insight knowledge, ranging from initial practices to advanced levels of practice.

The Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw (1904–82), U Sobhana Mahathera, was one of the most eminent meditation masters of modern times and a leader in the contemporary resurgence of vipassana meditation. He is the author of numerous works on both meditation and the Buddhist scriptures in his native Burmese, and held Burma’s highest scholastic honor, the Agga Mahapandita (awarded 1952).

Thousands of people have been trained at his Thathana Yeiktha Meditation Centre in Yangon and many more have benefited from his clear-cut approach to meditation practice available through his voluminous writings and through the teachings abroad of his disciples, including Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Rodney Smith, and many others. More than a hundred branch centers of the Thathana Yeiktha Centre have been established in Burma and his method has spread widely to other countries, East and West.