Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Vipassana: liberation through insight


Is vipassana really Buddhist? The truth about the world's most popular meditation
Buddha's Wisdom
(Buddha's Wisdom) šŸ” IS VIPASSANA REALLY BUDDHIST? THE HIDDEN STORY BEHIND THE WORLD'S MOST PRACTICED KIND OF INSIGHT MEDITATION

Millions of people have practiced Buddhist vipassana meditation, but very few know what the word vipassanā originally meant, or how the modern movement transformed one of Buddhism's oldest insights into a global meditation phenomenon.
What is insight (vipassana) meditation actually for? This word doesn't mean "meditation" at all. And the practice millions know from Goenka's free 10-day silent retreats was born not in the Buddha's proto-India, but in [George Orwell's] colonial Burma, the day an empire stopped protecting the Theravada Dhamma.

This is the true story of insight meditation: what vipassanā really means, how it nearly vanished, and how a monk, a farmer, an accountant, and a businessman carried it to the modern world.

šŸ“æ DISCOVER:
  • The original meaning of vipassanā and why it never simply meant "meditation"
  • How the fall of the Burmese kingdom sparked the modern Vipassana Movement
  • Why meditation was rare even among Buddhist monastics for nearly 1,000 years
  • Why many Buddhist teachers say today's vipassana is both ancient and surprisingly modern
  • The unlikely relay that saved insight practice: from Buddhist monk Ledi Sayadaw to a rice farmer to S.N. Goenka's flight home in 1969
  • What today's vipassana retreats, the mindfulness movement, and scientific research gained... and what may have been left behind.
šŸ™ If this changed what viewers thought meditation was, subscribe. The next episode uncovers the other half the world forgot: the deep stillness of jhana ("meditative absorption" as samma-samadhi or "right stillness," "coherent unification of mind") the Buddha paired with insight.

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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:
  • 00:00 Day 4 — inside the silence
  • 01:54 What vipassanā really means
  • 04:33 The ice cube — what seeing actually means
  • 09:43 The king is gone — Mandalay, 1885
  • 15:09 The farmer, the accountant, and the businessman
  • 18:48 How vipassanā conquered the West
  • 23:28 The homecoming
#vipassana #vipassanameditation #insightmeditation #buddhism #meditation #buddhistwisdom #mindfulness #theravada #buddhisthistory #goenka #Buddha

šŸ“š SOURCES AND FURTHER READING: (affiliate links)
  • Primary Buddhist Texts
  • Saṃyutta Nikāya (SN 22.59) — Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta ("The Discourse on Not-Self")
  • Satipaį¹­į¹­hāna Sutta ("The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse," Majjhima Nikāya, MN 10)
  • Mahāsatipaį¹­į¹­hāna Sutta ("The Greater Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse," DÄ«gha Nikāya, DN 22)
  • Ānāpānasati Sutta ("Discourse on Mindfulness of In-and-Out Breathing," Majjhima Nikāya, MN 118)
  • Selected passages from the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification) by Buddhaghosa
Historical and Scholarly Resources
  • Erik Braun — The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw amzn.to/4h8DnaQ
  • Robert Sharf on meditation in monastic history; Robert Buswell on the lapse of vipassanā practice
  • Bhikkhu Anālayo — works on Satipaį¹­į¹­hāna and early Buddhist meditation amzn.to/4bDh1KT
  • Rupert Gethin — The Foundations of Buddhism amzn.to/4wGpXr3
  • Bhikkhu Bodhi — translations of the Pāli canon amzn.to/4w4iJNB
  • Prof. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. — writings on modern Buddhism
  • Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche — teachings on Tibetan Buddhist meditation and lhaktong (vipaśyanā)
  • Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Zen) — teachings on mindfulness, concentration, and insight amzn.to/4w6ILjx
Modern Scientific References
  • Jon Kabat-Zinn — Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) amzn.to/4yooPKg
  • Research on mindfulness, attention regulation, stress reduction, and contemplative neuroscience
#vipassana How this was made: Made with AI. Sounds or visuals were altered or fully generated. Learn more

The Seven (7) Levels of Buddhism


This silly looking cartoon of a video is profound, so much so that we are included to call its maker, Greg Knows All, "AƱƱa GREGįøaƱƱa" or "Greg who knows" (after the Buddha's very first enlightened disciple, AƱƱa KonįøaƱƱa, "Kaundinya who knows, who see").

When the wandering ascetic Siddhartha first thought to teach and make known the Path to Enlightenment (Bodhi) and Liberation (Nirvana), what today the ancient Theravada tradition calls "Buddhism" or Buddha-Dhamma (The Doctrine of the Awakened One), he had no one to teach, no one at least whom he thought would understand. There were his wise albeit unenlightened teachers, but they were passed away and reborn in worlds where they could not be reached for a very long time. Some planes of existence are so long lasting, it's staggering. So he realized his five former companions on his spiritual quest might get it. When he taught them, one did. And that was Kondanna (Kaudinya)

He may be reading this from somewhere, possibly What the Buddha Taught or a scholarly rundown of the historical Buddha's path by Bhikkhu Bodhi or Ven. Professor Analayo. Wow, Greg.

Bruce Lee beats John Wayne's big bodyguard


John Wayne’s 350 lb. bodyguard attacked Bruce Lee — then watched him get crushed
Bruce Lee Diaries(AI Bruce Lee Diaries) Backstage at a Hollywood soundstage in 1972, Bruce Lee arrived for a quiet studio meeting. What he didn’t expect was a challenge from a massive former Marine — the personal bodyguard of John Wayne.

Future of kung fu: robots?
Who? "John Wayne was a Nazi"
(M.D.C., Millions of Dead Cops) Who's famous TV cowboy John Wayne?

Kids with Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, 1948
The man believed real combat training made movie martial arts useless. Fifteen minutes later, only a handful of crew members would witness what really happened. In this true behind-the-scenes story, discover how Bruce Lee — the star audiences knew from The Green Hornet — was openly mocked and tested in front of Wayne himself.

The 350-pound bodyguard thought size, strength, and Western military experience guaranteed him victory. What Bruce did next shocked everyone in the room — including "The [Grand] Duke."

Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do: The "Stop Fist Way"
This isn’t just another Bruce Lee legend. It’s the moment when raw Western power collided with a real Eastern understanding of movement, timing, and control — and when one of Hollywood’s toughest men learned that fighting isn’t about who’s bigger, it’s about who understands more.

For decades, this quiet backstage confrontation between Bruce Lee and John Wayne’s bodyguard stayed out of the spotlight. Now, the full story of how a 350-pound former Marine was taken down — twice — can finally be told.

#johnwayne #brucelee #truestory #hollywood #martialarts #behindthescenes. How this was made: AI sounds or visuals were altered or fully generated. Learn more

Mexico's Aztec Dance to the gods šŸ‘¹


Catholic converts drew stories to colonial priests
The Aztec religion is a polytheistic and monistic pantheism in which the Nahua (Nahuatl, the indigenous language of Mexico) concept of teotl was construed as the supreme god Ometeotl, as well as a diverse pantheon of lesser gods and manifestations of nature [1].

The popular religion tended to embrace the mythological and polytheistic aspects, and the Aztec Empire's state religion sponsored both the monism of the upper classes and the popular heterodoxies [2].

The codices were made by Catholic priests
The most important deities were worshiped by priests in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), particularly Tlaloc and the god of the Mexica (the tribe from which the word "Mexico" derives), Huitzilopochtli, whose shrines were located on the Templo Mayor ("Main Temple").

Their priests would receive special dispensation from the empire. When other states were conquered the empire would often incorporate practices from its new territories into the mainstream religion [3].


Aztec Mexico has world's largest pyramid
In common with many other indigenous Mesoamerican civilizations, the Aztecs put great ritual emphasis on calendrics, and scheduled festivals, government ceremonies, and even war around key transition dates in the Aztec calendar [4].

Aztec calendar, often seen in depictions of more sophisticated Mexican Mayan Calendar
Maya Calendars: How did the Maya count time with moving gears? | TheCollector
Pok ta pok ballgame (Mesoamerican ballgame) Native Maya Indians in Mexico
They built massive sports complexes like the Great Ball Court in Chichen Itza, Mexico

Quetzalcóatl (Aztec religion)
Public ritual practices could involve food, storytelling, and dance, as well as ceremonial warfare, the Mesoamerican ballgame (precursor of football, soccer, and basketball), and human sacrifice (a tribute to appease bloodthirsty gods of military service and slaughter) [5].

The cosmology of Aztec religion divides the world into 13 heavens and nine earthly layers or netherworlds [6]. The first heaven overlaps with the first terrestrial layer, so that heaven and the terrestrial layers meet at the surface of the Earth, where we are.

The celestial entities of "shining ones" (sky devas)
Each level is associated with a specific set of deities and astronomical objects. The most important celestial entities in Aztec religion are the Sun, the Moon, and the planet Venus (as both "Morning Star" and "Evening Star") [7].

Convert or die: Become Catholic
After Conquest by Spain, Aztec people were forced to convert to Catholicism, and the two religions syncretized.

In this religion, your black magic blood sacrifice will come from a scapegoat, who is the God Himself disguised as a human to pay Himself a ransom for your eternal soul washed in blood: You have to accept it, or we'll kill you. And let our priests molest your kids because they don't have wives. The Vatican orders it. Don't worry. His Mom is very nice and will do lots of favors for you.
Let me just liberate your iishti so you can go back to the Son, I mean Sun (Codex Laud, f.8)
.
This syncretism is evidenced by the Virgin of Guadalupe [8] and the Day of the Dead. More: Aztec religion

Short Attn Span Theater: strange, DMT🤯

Wait, wait! What are you talking about, Chase Hughes? Why brain won't allow change
WARNING: Basketball Violence

Does Israel have a 'right' to exist? (No)


(Real Lee Camp formerly of Redacted Tonight) How to answer the "Israel has a right to exist" propaganda argument and question (Ashkenazi hasbara developed in a public relations brainstorm)

QUESTION: WQ, does the ethno-state of Israel have a right to exist?
Be gay here in the JAO and as racist as all out
ANSWER
: Of course it does, but where? Long before waves of murderous regimes in Palestine began to commit war crime after war crime, "Israel" was established by sympathetic Russian Jews in a place propagandists make sure most of us never hear about called the JAO or Jewish Autonomous Oblast. If what Ashkenazi Jews invading the Middle East say were really true, they would probably want to move to this safe land for all where they could rule themselves and be safe and left alone. Why go kill and start an empire you're calling "Greater Israel" in the geopolitical Middle East and causing so much strife, grief, and antisemitism for generations of Americans over the last century or so?

  • Propaganda for "Israel" = hasbara
    Propaganda for Israel
    : hasbara (Hebrew הַ×”ְבָּרָה) is Israel's version of political lying as public diplomacy for a Zionist Israel. This could include but is not limited to mass communication, deception, PR, bribes, corrupting officials, paying off influencers, blackmail (with or without the help of Jewish operatives like Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and possibly Monica Lewinski) individual interactions with foreign nationals through the Wild West of social media and well controlled legacy media, and structural cultural diplomatic channels, AIPAC and other Israel lobbyists. Organizations involved include the terrorist militant IDF Spokesperson's Unit, Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and pro-Israel lobby, or civil society organizations. These efforts were referred to as "propaganda" by earlier Zionists, with Theodor Herzl urging delegates at the Third Zionist Congress in 1899 "to engage in propaganda and to work" [1: 104].  Nahum Sokolow introduced the term hasbara, which literally only means "explaining" [2], but here used in the sense of lying, propaganda, psyops, PR, and whatever means deemed necessary to bring about a Zionist ethnostate and spearhead of Western imperialism in the geopolitical Middle East. It seeks to rationalize, excuse, and even justify internationally criminal Israeli state actions, reactive, event-driven, and now proactive with control of politicians like Trump, Starmer, and other Jews and sympathizers in high places funded by Zionist pact money. Thank you, Adelsons.
USA complicit in Israel's genocide?
SURVEY (July 8, 2026) Washington, DC: Public support for genocidal Zionist Israel in the United States has severely declined... madhyamamonline.com

I've had it with God, Krishna and Jesus

(Life of BeerBiceps) How Lord Krishna and Jesus Christ are related: Sindu/Hinduism+Christianity

A Hindu's Crisis of Faith
  • Great Lord Krishna of Hinduism
    Hindu Lord Vishnu (the Preserver), Narayana, Hari, the Supreme god of Vaishnavism. [This is a beautiful avatar so much so that the Buddha, the Christ, and the dark Lord Krishna (whose name means "black" Kānha, Sanskrit कान्हा, "The dark-complexioned beloved one" 108 Names of Shri Krishna) are said to be avatars and incarnations or emanations of this god. Of course, in the case of the historical Buddha, this can't be quite right. It is a beautiful sentiment, indeed, but the Buddha is not reborn here or elsewhere, is not a "god," and rises beyond the gods.
  • Radha and Krishna=Jesus and Mary
    As for a historical Jesus, maybe, but surely most Christians (or perhaps they should more rightly be labelled Jesuits or Jesevites) would not like to think that their all-powerful, supreme controller, creator of the entire universe were an avatar of a neighboring faith, in spite of the fact that Jesus practiced Hinduism to some extent or was exposed to it in his 18 years of travel in Tibet and India (Nicolas Notovitch). However, the title avatar may well apply to Lord Krishna, the central object of veneration and faith in popular Hinduism today, sometimes rivaling Lord Shiva and the great Goddesses Lakshmi, Sarawati, Parvati, Kali, Ma Durga, and his consort Radha.]
  • Ishtadeva or Ishtadevata (Sanskrit इष्ट देव(ता), iṣṭa-deva(tā), literally the "cherished divinity" from iṣṭa, "personal, liked, preferred, cherished" and devatā, "deity, divinity, godhead, tutelary deity" or deva, "deity"), is a term used in Hinduism denoting a worshipper's favorite deity [1, 2] or favorite form of the deity if approached from a monotheistic or henotheistic point of view. More
Could Hindu godman restore faith?
Three religions, one teaching?

Are nuns 2nd-class citizens in Buddhism?
(Natasha Yehenara) Are Buddhist nuns, who are forced to accept the garudhammas or "Eight Additional Rules," second-class citizens?

Ayya Tathaaloka (Alliance for Bhikkhunis)
[They sure have been treated as such by sexist and patriarchal monks trying to enhance and preserve their worldly power as abuse-prone clergyman. But these additional rules are NOT historical, as revealed by the scholarship of Ayya Tathālokā BhikkhunÄ« of California looking into the Theravada Bhikkhuni Vinaya, were not laid down or approved by the Buddha, and have been shown to be later additions. For instance, on one occasion, the Buddha's mother, the first Buddhist nun in history, comes to the Buddha seeking clarification on some matter or other, which would never have happened IF such additional rules had been laid down by him. The fact that she asks what she does, as documented in a vinaya backstory preserved among the ancient Buddhist texts, proves the Buddha didn't do it. And the fact that monks at later Buddhist councils added such sexist and oppressive stipulations is tantamount to crimes against humanity and the Sangha, maybe even a "defeat" (parajika) offense of a schism between monk and nun communities. Wisdom Quarterly stands firmly on the side of nuns, Natasha, and all future female-embodied persons (because we can all be reborn any gender whether we like it or not) seeking enlightenment and liberation. We have covered this topic many times in the past.]

Buddhist monk left Science: Matthieu Ricard


(Study Buddhism) The Western Nepalese Vajrayana Buddhist monk (lama) who left Western science behind: Dr. Matthieu "Happiest Person in the World" Ricard on finding human perfection

Jackie Chan on the great Bruce Lee

Tao Te Ching, world's 2nd most translated book

USA complicit in Israel/IDF's genocide?

Why won't brain allow change, Chase Hughes?

Chase Hughes needs to be silenced at all costs. Destroy him. Start with his reputation.
The Passport for PUA players
  • Liven: Take a 3-minute quiz. Is your brain working against you? Discover what's keeping you stuck and finally break the cycle. This journey is intended to help you better understand your patterns and structure your experiences. Treat this quiz as a moment of honest reflection.
  • Liven is not related to Chase Hughes and is not intended to replace professional diagnosis, treatment, or therapy. Everyone's experience is unique. Results may vary. Experiencing medical or mental health concerns? Please reach out to a licensed healthcare professional.
People (operatives?) who hate Chase Hughes want to shut him up

The Passport by Chase Hughes (2007)
Who is Chase Hughes? (Zach Elwood wants to tell us on the behavior-podcast.com, The Chase Hughes podcast series. Here's a shot from the back cover of Chase Hughes' 2007 pick-up artist book The Passport.

Chase Hughes' 2007/2008 website allegedly sold a supplement he called "Redshift with Neuridium." He claimed it was used by "all branches of the United States Armed Forces" and that it had "international recognition," neither of which seems to be the case.




I'm a handsome success. Buy from me.
Why is Chase Hughes popular? Chase has appeared on popular podcasts and shows, including Joe Rogan's podcast, the podcast Diary of a CEO (as seen in the clip above), and the Dr. Phil Show.

There are a lot of people leaving positive reviews for his books on Amazon.com and his YouTube videos.

But the truth is, haters say, that Chase Hughes has been lying about his credentials and experiences for most of his adult life. His "success" and popularity are based on a few factors.


(Liven) PRIVATE RESULTS: Your ADHD patterns suggest your brain may be locked in an avoidance cycle — treating important tasks as low-level threats and redirecting your energy toward anything that offers immediate relief. This is often fueled by years of accumulated pressure between high capability and low output. Over time, this can take a significant toll — chronic procrastination, task paralysis, and a widening gap between your intentions and your actions. This cycle is extremely difficult to break through willpower alone, as your neurology is prioritizing short-term safety over long-term execution.