Ajahn Chah: Calm or Insight Meditation?

Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org) via Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Calm down then scan the body.

We sit in meditation to establish peacefulness and cultivate mental energy. We don’t do it in order to play around at anything special.

Insight meditation (vipassana) is sitting in samādhi [absorbed concentration, mental purity resulting from singlepointedness, all-together coherence of mind] itself.

At some places they say, "Now we are going to sit in samādhi [serenity]. After that we’ll do vipassana [insight-meditation]." Don’t divide them like this!

Tranquility is the base that gives rise to wisdom; wisdom is the fruit of tranquility. To say that "now we are going to do calm meditation and later we’ll do insight meditation," you can’t do that!

You can only divide them in speech. It's just like a knife. The blade is on one side, and the back of the blade is on the other. You can’t divide them. If you pick up either side, you get both sides. Tranquility gives rise to wisdom like this.