Date: 03/01/2025 03/02/2025
Location: Star River Meditation Center
Teacher: Yunquan Huang
Sitting Meditation
From Mindfulness to Insight
Mindfulness observes what is happening; insight understands why it is happening. Mindfulness perceives movement; insight perceives impermanence and non-self. Mindfulness is the training of awareness; insight is the awakening of wisdom.
1.What Is Mindfulness?
1.Mindfulness is direct awareness
Breath, sensations, thoughts, and emotions are observed without judgment.
2.Mindfulness sees change
Everything in the body and mind is continuously moving.
3.Mindfulness stays with the present moment
Not the past or future—only what is happening right now.
Essence: Mindfulness sees the flow of experience.
2.Why Mindfulness Matters
1.It breaks automatic reactions
Emotion and thought lose their immediate control over you.
2.It stabilizes awareness
A stable mind can observe deeper truths.
3.It prepares the ground for insight
Insight arises from calm and steady awareness.
3.What Is Insight?
1.Insight is direct understanding
It is not thinking but seeing clearly.
2.Insight reveals the Three Characteristics
Impermanence
Non-self
Unsatisfactoriness
3.Insight is experiential
Not “I know things change,”
but “I see change happening now.”
Essence: Insight sees the nature behind experience.
4.The Difference Between Mindfulness and Insight
1.Mindfulness watches breath, body, feelings, and thought as they arise.
Insight sees that these arise and vanish due to causes and conditions.
2.Mindfulness observes what is happening.
Insight understands why it is happening.
3.Mindfulness stabilizes the mind.
Insight frees the mind.
Mindfulness is the path.
Insight is the wisdom it leads to.
5.How Mindfulness Leads to Insight
1.Begin by observing phenomena
Breath, sensations, thoughts.
2.Notice their constant change
Arising, shifting, fading.
3.Recognize lack of control
Thoughts and feelings move on their own.
4.See how clinging produces suffering
The tighter the grasp, the greater the pain.
Through this natural unfolding, insight appears.
6.Practical Steps
1.Anchor attention in the breath
Stability forms.
2.Observe all experience as movement
Allow everything to arise and pass.
3.Notice impermanence moment by moment
This is the doorway to insight.
4.Let understanding emerge naturally
Insight cannot be forced.
Conclusion
Mindfulness observes changing experience;Insight sees the impermanent, non-self nature behind it.When you clearly see the arising and fading of sensations, thoughts, and emotions,mindfulness transforms into insight,and true wisdom begins to open.
