The Santa Fe Vipassana Sangha is a community of Dharma practitioners seeking liberation through Insight Meditation and integration of the Buddha’s teachings into daily life.
As spiritual friends, committed to generosity and compassionate action, we are dedicated to supporting each other’s practice.
The Sangha is a non-profit organization engaged in an ongoing process of consensus decision-making.
This community is open to all people seeking to follow the Eight-fold Path regardless of color, race, gender, age, or sexual preference.
Insight meditation (Vipassana in Pali, the original language of the Buddhist texts) is a simple and direct practice — the moment-to-moment observation of the mind-body process through calm, focused awareness. Seeing life as a constantly changing process, one begins to accept pleasure and pain, fear and joy, and all aspects of life with increasing equanimity and balance. As insight deepens, wisdom and compassion arise. Growth in clarity brings about penetrating insight into the nature of our experience and increases peace and clarity in our daily lives. With this comes an increased awareness that at all times we are practicing not just for ourselves but also for the benefit of all beings.
Along with Vipassana the Buddha taught metta as a complementary practice to Insight Meditation. Metta (the Pali word for loving-kindness) is a meditation that helps to cultivate our natural capacity to have an open and loving heart. Metta is traditionally offered along with meditations that deepen compassion, joy in the happiness of others, and equanimity. These practices aid the development of concentration, happiness, and a greater ability to love.
The Vipassana practice originates in the Theravada tradition, which is the oldest of the three main branches of Buddhism. It has been taught in southeast Asia for more than 2,500 years and continues to be the core Buddhist practice in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, and parts of India.
One form of Vipassana meditation was brought to the United States by several young students and Peace Corps volunteers (Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Jacqueline Mandell) in the 1970s. It is now often referred to as American Vipassana.
Although the word "Dharma" can have many meanings it generally means those timeless teachings of the Buddha that awaken our potential for happiness, or it also refers to the truth of the way things are. Therefore everything is Dharma and everything is of a lawful nature.
Sangha is a community of people who practice meditation together and are committed to the teachings of the Buddha in the form of the Eightfold Noble Path.
Sangha historically referred to the monks and nuns, but now has a broader meaning of the entire community of practitioners.
This is the Pali word for "generosity" or "gift." It is intrinsic to the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha stated that the teachings were priceless, and thus should be offered freely to those seeking the wisdom of the Dharma. The act of giving itself is of immeasurable benefit to the giver, opening the heart, diminishing one’s self-absorption, and valuing the well-being of others.
Each week we are given the opportunity to offer such a gift to our teacher in appreciation for his or her willingness to impart this wisdom. Teachers are not paid for teaching and have no other income other than dana. There is no suggested amount, since dana is not a payment for a service but rather a way of inspiring both gratitude and generosity in our hearts.