I edited your post, #3, Jhananda. The quotes and the replies to them were all mixed up. I hope you don't mind.
Thank-you, Michel, for looking after things here. I traveled to another town, where there is a storage unit large enough to contain my research and personal items. I have been gone for a few days, and I have been distracted by the whole monumental idea of moving this project in just a few weeks. So, thank-you for fixing my oversights.
Thank-you for your reply, Jhananda.
I think one of the reasons everyone is confused about vipassana being a practice is since the 4th factor of Right Mindfulness, which is mindful contemplation of the 5 dhammas, is contained within the 3 groupings of meditation training in the N8P, that is: Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Meditation.
It is more complicated than that. If you read my essay
Exposing translator bias in the Translation of the Pali Canon and other Buddhist literature, then you should get the very disturbing understanding that no Buddhist priest for the last 2,000 years has understood the 8th fold of the Noble Eightfold Path. So, why should they understand something as abstract as insight (vipassana)?
What do you think of Thanissaro's view on Vipassana? The following is a conclusion to one of his essays titled, One Tool Among Many:
The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice, which you cited in part in one of your essays, but not this particular passage:
...Vipassana 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 vipassana, it's not enough for developing vipassana to the point of total release. Other techniques and approaches are needed as well. In particular, vipassana 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 jhana. Based on this mastery, samatha and vipassana are then applied 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. The meditator pursues 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.
This program for developing vipassana and samatha, in turn, needs the support of many other attitudes, mental qualities, and techniques of practice...
I agree with Thanissaro on so very few topics, but I do agree with him that "Vipassana is not a meditation technique." The problem is he thinks "samatha and vipassana are then applied to a skillful program of questioning," which shows that he too has no idea what the 8th fold of the Noble Eightfold Path is, nor what the superior fruit of attainment (maha-phala) are.
Sure sounds very complicated. The full essay is available here: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html
Yes, I have read his essay. I believe others should, and compare what he writes to what I write, and then learn to meditate deeply, and give rise to the superior fruit of attainment (maha-phala), then decide for yourself who is right and who is wrong.
Please note: I moved the topic to unpacking religion, because this topic is a key topic that has to be unpacked within Buddhism for anyone to understand the Noble Eightfold Path.