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I hadn’t worked with any particular method of insight, when realizations broke through my ordinary way of seeing and experiencing the world. It actually started on the first meditation lunch time class I attended at the LBC.  When as the bell sounded my mind just seemed to know what to do, which also freaked me out a bit, as I had come along for what I thought would be some relaxation! This opened the whole of the Buddhist world with  sound, lights, many visionary encounters and tasks or understandings I needed to make. This continues nearly 30 years later.

For the March 2023 edition of the Upadesha Magazine: The Variety of Insight Practice in Triratna

Background

How insight experiences have affected my practice of ethics is, in some ways, a bit obscure, to me at least.. That is I find it hard to be precise about how it has affected me, though I know it has affected me.  In general then, the main thing that I know insight has done in my life is to make me very sure about the truth of the dharma.  In other words there is much more sraddha - confidence in the dharma - now, and confidence in further stages of the path.  I also have a lot more confidence in what I did in the past.

This article was primarily intended to clarify some issues around ‘insight inquiry’ for Order members taking part in the current pilot project which is exploring how it may be incorporated in our system of practice. The fact that this article is an exploration of ‘issues’ means that it’s not offering a balanced view of insight inquiry and its outcomes, but is largely exploring what might be perceived as some of the ‘downsides’, not just of insight inquiry but of insight (spiritual death, vipashyana, prajna) generally.