Mahayana Vipassana Levels

These 10 day retreats were organized after many years of study and retreat by myself in the Tibetan Buddhist system.  I also attended 2 ten day Vipassana retreats during those years, one lead by Goenka himself in the early ’70’s and another in Canada by one of his students in 2000.  I was always impressed by the direct nature of experience that the Goenka retreats generated.  Keep in mind at the time of the second vipassana retreat I had done more than 7 years of solitary retreat and some of those retreats in excellent conditions of complete isolation.  I fully appreciated the experiences I generated but on a basic level I found the vipassana more helpful for beginners.  I generally found the Tibetan system intellectual and that when those students moved to tantra they tended to again be out of touch with their bodies, thus causing much lung (anxiety) and other imbalances.  In doing the vipassana retreats I discovered a great improvement in my meditations in tantra and although the Vajrasattva meditations should have accomplished this, they often again became more a visualization and mental observation than actually getting in touch with the body and its energies and feelings.   Therefore out of frustration as a westerner to deepen my practice I decided to mix these two worlds and so produced this above process.  It completely relies on the teachings of our great Guru Lord Buddha and his 2nd emanation Je Tsong Khapa but incorporates the two systems in a manner more suitable for western practitioners in my humble opinion.

To elaborate I have included a progression I utilize in Mexico called Shamata I, II and III.