The Origins of Insight Meditation

It is easy to get the impression from reading the literature that the principal form of meditation current today in Theravāda Buddhism is a particular type of insight meditation (vipassanā)—one which is keenly recommended by adherents. Meditation practice of this kind has in relatively recent years spread from Burma to other Southern Buddhist countries and even outside the traditional environment of this form of Buddhism. Today centres and teachers for the practice of insight meditation are to be found in England, Germany, India, U.S.A., and many other countries. Almost all of these derive ultimately from Burma, although they are not all of the same branch of Burmese meditation. This method is advocated with great, if not excessive, enthusiasm—perhaps a single quotation (from the well-known German monk Ñāṇapoṇika Mahāthera) will suffice: