When asked what is vipassanā most Buddhists would think of vipassanā as a technique of Buddhist meditation. But actually vipassanā is not a kind of meditation at all. There is a difference between vipassanā and vipassanā-bhāvana. Vipassanā refers to insight wisdom whereas vipassanā-bhāvana refers to insight meditation or, more correctly, the development (bhāvana) of insight. These two are related but not exactly the same. One refers to the thing to be developed whereas the other to the process, method, and technique of developing it.
Let's take a closer look at vipassanā. We usually translate vipassanā as insight. This word insight tells us two things about vipassanā. Firstly, insight denotes a clear and deep understanding. This is very true of vipassanā. Vipassanā is indeed a kind of very clear and deep understanding, knowledge, or wisdom. Secondly, the word insight denotes that this understanding or wisdom of vipassanā is intuitive in nature. This means it is a wisdom that arises spontaneously in the mind without any prompting from the rational mind, without the help of the power of intellect. In other words it arises without any deliberate act of thinking, reasoning, or inferring, etc.
In our normal day to day life we usually try to understand things by thinking about them, by applying logic and reasoning, by making inference, by deducing, etc. All these involve the power of the intellect. In this way we derive knowledge, understanding, and even wisdom. But vipassanā wisdom does not arise in this way. How then does it arise?
