One Tool Among Many: The Place of Vipassanā in Buddhist Practice. ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

One Tool Among Many: The Place of Vipassanā in Buddhist Practice. ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

"Vipassanā is not a meditation technique. It’s a quality of mind — the ability to see events clearly in the present moment. 

Although mindfulness is helpful in fostering vipassanā, it’s not enough for developing vipassanā to the point of total release. Other techniques and approaches are needed as well. 

In particular, vipassanā needs to be teamed with samatha — the ability to settle the mind comfortably in the present — so as to master the attainment of strong states of absorption, or jhāna. Based on this mastery, you then apply samatha and vipassanā to a skillful program of questioning, called appropriate attention, directed at all experience: exploring events not in terms of me/not me, or being/not being, but in terms of the four noble truths. 

You pursue this program until it leads to a fivefold understanding of all events: in terms of their arising, their passing away, their drawbacks, their allure, and the escape from them. Only then can the mind taste release."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu 

"One Tool Among Many: The Place of Vipassanā in Buddhist Practice"
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0012.html