Introduction To Vipassana Meditation

This is an introduction to Vipassana meditation. During Vipassana, we scan our bodies from head to toe with the intention of being aware and being accepting of any sensation, be it pleasurable, painful, or neutral. By doing so, we develop confidence and acceptance of all feelings.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Evan and today I'm going to be leading you in a Vipassana meditation.

So the goal of Vipassana is,

It's like a long body scan.

If you've ever done a body scan meditation,

It's quite popular to do before other meditations,

Body scans.

And we start from the top of our head,

We move our attention all the way down our body to the toes and all the way back up to our head.

So Vipassana is like a big body scan.

And so the way we gain insight into reality,

Into the present moment,

Into the sensations in our body and how they arise and pass away,

Is we,

As we move our attention,

If any spots of pain come up,

We're not going to put a lot of attention on that spot.

We're just going to move past it.

So say a spot of,

I'm moving my attention down my arm and a spot of pain comes up or I feel ticklish or something in my right arm,

Then I'm not going to put a lot of attention on that.

I'm not going to start thinking about that a lot.

I'm just going to pass my attention over it.

I'm going to treat that sensation as I would any other normal sensation.

So as we do this,

We're going to do the same method sort of applies to spots of pleasure as well.

So say,

You know,

I'm doing Vipassana and I notice that I have this really good feeling in my stomach because my stomach's opened up and it's feeling,

You know,

The air is flowing better and I feel like this really pleasurable sensation in my stomach area.

As I move my attention down my torso,

I'm not going to focus on that a lot.

I'm just going to move my attention over my torso,

Over that area,

Being aware of it,

Being aware of all the other sensations there and just continue to move my awareness down my body.

And so as we do this,

We start to develop insight and we start to notice that these painful sensations,

It's kind of pointless to put a lot of focus on them because they're going to pass away after a while.

You know,

Sometimes as we sit,

You know,

We may have spots of ticklishness that come up and after a few minutes they pass away and we don't feel them anymore.

Or say we have spots of pain that come up.

After a few minutes those two might fade away.

Sometimes it might take a little bit more time but they too will fade away.

And if you have,

You know,

A spot of pain that's really,

Really frustrating and really,

Really painful,

Then,

You know,

Get up,

Change your posture,

You know,

That's okay.

The point is to sort of build this tolerance and build this awareness and this understanding in an enjoyable way.

And so the insight we gain from these pleasurable feelings,

From sort of not focusing on them a lot and just sort of moving past them is that they too pass away.

And so,

You know,

If we're holding on to this pleasurable sensation and we're saying,

Yeah,

Oh,

I feel so great,

We're feeling it and we're feeling it and we're just focusing on that sensation,

Then when it passes away,

How are we going to feel?

You know,

So a lot of times we're going to feel sad,

We're going to feel bad.

And so remembering that the goal of Vipassana,

Which I'll teach you guys in a few minutes here,

Is to just sort of,

You know,

Scan our bodies and just being aware of the sensations as we scan from the head,

From the top of our head to the toes and not focusing on those painful sensations and not focusing on those really pleasurable sensations but just moving over them and just being aware of them and just treating them as we would any other sensation.

So,

We're going to put our attention on the very top of our head,

The very top of our head.

Imagine there's a little rock or a little pea sitting right on the top of our head.

Let's try to notice any sensations there.

Let's move our awareness all over the top of our head,

All over our scalp.

Just see if we can notice any sensations there.

If we can't notice any sensations there,

That's okay.

We're just going to move our awareness over it and see if any sensations pop up.

Now let's start moving our awareness down the front of our face.

So,

We're going to move our awareness over our forehead,

Noticing any sensations here,

Remembering if there's anything painful,

If there's anything ticklish,

If there's anything really pleasurable,

Just being aware of it,

Just moving our attention over it,

Not putting a lot of focus on it.

Moving our attention over our eyebrows,

Over our eyes,

Over our temples.

Moving our attention over our ears.

Sometimes it's hard to feel sensations in the ears,

So if you don't feel anything right now,

It's totally fine.

As you practice Vipassana,

You might start noticing more sensations here.

Moving our awareness over our nose,

Over the top of our lip,

Over our lips,

Over our cheeks,

And even inside of our mouth,

Feeling our tongue,

Our teeth,

Our throat.

Moving our awareness down our chin,

Down the front of our neck,

Until we reach the bottom of our neck.

Then moving our awareness simultaneously over the right and left shoulders,

Feeling any sensations in the right and left shoulder at the same time.

And then moving our awareness down the right and left arm simultaneously.

So,

You'll sort of notice that we're sort of moving our awareness down our body symmetrically.

So if there's anything that is the same on the right and left,

Like the right arm and the left arm,

Right leg and the left leg,

We're going to move our awareness over those parts simultaneously.

So moving our awareness down the front of our arms,

Moving our awareness down our forearms,

And just sort of moving our awareness over any spots here.

So I might have left out some things,

Sort of the inside of the elbows and the outside of the elbows and our armpits,

And even if you feel anything inside of your arms,

Anything that goes beneath the skin,

Feeling there.

Moving our awareness to the wrists,

To the palms,

Moving our awareness over the front side of the fingers.

So we're going to go right thumb and left thumb at the same time,

Right pointer finger,

Left pointer finger at the same time,

And so on.

And moving our awareness over the backside of the fingers,

Thumbs,

Pointer fingers,

Middle fingers,

Ring fingers,

Pinkies.

Moving our awareness over the back of the hands.

Now that we're done with the arms and the hands,

Picking back where we left off at the bottom of the neck,

Moving our awareness over the collarbone,

Over the top of the chest,

Over the ribs.

And you might feel,

You know,

The touch of your shirt that you're wearing.

You might also feel just the sensations in your body.

So moving your awareness over the navel,

Over the stomach,

Over the genitals.

As we finish there,

Starting picking back up at the back,

At the very top of the back of our neck.

So right at the bottom of the back of our head,

Moving our awareness over our neck,

Till we reach the top of the back.

Moving our awareness over the top of our back,

All the way down our back,

All the way down to our butt,

To our sitting bone.

And then moving our awareness over the right and left thighs simultaneously,

Over the right and left knee simultaneously,

Over the right and left lower legs simultaneously,

Right and left ankles simultaneously,

Right and left tops of the feet simultaneously,

And then the right and left toes,

The tops of them simultaneously,

All of the toes simultaneously,

Moving our awareness over them.

And then starting back at the toes,

Moving our awareness over the bottoms of it,

Over the bottoms of each of the toes,

Moving our awareness over the bottoms of the feet,

And then back up to the ankles.

And we're going to go all the way back up to the top of our head.

So awareness,

Moving it over the lower legs,

All the way up to the knees,

Up to the thighs,

All the way up to the butt,

Up to the lower back,

All the way up to the top of the back,

All the way up to the top of the neck.

And then starting at the genitals,

All the way up to the lower stomach and the upper stomach,

The navel,

The ribs,

And the chest.

And then moving our awareness over the shoulders,

Back down,

The upper arms,

The lower arms,

The palms,

Each individual finger,

Right and left side simultaneously,

Over the fronts of them,

Over the backs of them,

Over the back of the hands,

And then starting off at the bottom of the neck,

Moving our awareness up the neck,

Up the chin,

Over the lips,

Inside the mouth,

The tops of the lips,

The cheeks,

The nose,

The eyes,

The eyebrows,

Forehead,

The temples,

The ears,

All the way up to the scalp,

The top of our head.

So that's a sort of explanation of where exactly we're going to put our focus in our body as we scan our body head to toe,

Toes to head.

So now I'd like you all to practice on your own,

Remembering that the goal of this meditation is to develop insight into the sensations in our body.

So remembering if there's anything painful,

Not clinging to that,

Remembering if there's anything pleasurable,

Not clinging to that,

Remembering to treat every sensation we feel as equal.

Thank you.

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So you just did about 15 minutes of Vipassana.

Reviews

Thank you for this my first Vipassana meditation. A wonderful experience to wholly meditate on the the body’s sensations. 🙏🏾

thank you, wonderful practice.

A very good introduction to the useful technique of body scanning.

this was my first introduction to vipassana and i found it very helpful. thank you. 🙏