page_title: Vipassana movement
section_title: Meditation techniques
hierarchical_section_title: Vipassana movement / Meditation techniques
caption_attribution_description: English: Insight Meditation Practice
context_page_description: The Vipassanā movement, also called the Insight Meditation Movement and American vipassana movement, refers to a branch of modern Burmese Theravāda Buddhism which gained widespread popularity since the 1950s, and to its western derivatives which were popularised since the 1970s, helping give rise to the mindfulness movement.
  The Burmese vipassana movement has its roots in the 19th century, when Theravada Buddhism came to be influenced by western modernism, and some monks tried to restore the Buddhist practice of meditation. Based on the commentaries, Ledi Sayadaw popularized vipassana meditation for lay people, teaching samatha and stressing the practice of satipatthana to acquire vipassana into the three marks of existence as the main means to attain the beginning of awakening and become a stream-enterer.
  It was highly popularized in the 20th century in traditional Theravada countries by Mahasi Sayadaw, who introduced the "New Burmese Satipatthana Method". It also gained a large following in the west, due to westerners who learned vipassana from Mahasi Sayadaw, S. N. Goenka, and other Burmese teachers.
context_section_description: The vipassanā movement emphasizes the use of vipassanā to gain insight into the three marks of existence as the main means to attain wisdom and the beginning of awakening and become a stream-enterer, c.q. attain full liberation. The practices are based on the Satipatthana sutta, the Visuddhimagga, and other texts, emphasizing satipatthana and bare insight.
  The various movements espouse forms of samatha and vipassanā meditation. The various vipassana teachers also make use of the scheme of the  insight knowledges, stages of insight which every practitioner passes through in their progress of meditation. The foundation for this progress is the meditation on the arising and passing away of all contemplated phenomena (anicca), which leads to an understanding of their unsatisfactory (dukkha) nature and insight into not-self (anatta).
caption: Insight Meditation Practice at Dhammadrops Foundation, Chiang Mai
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