If you want to improve your meditation practice there are two things that you need to do simultaneously. Firstly, you need to practice mindfulness through insight meditation more often. This seems like common sense but it bears repeating because the point cannot be overstated. The Buddha was adamant that suffering cannot be overcome without practicing meditation. Even giving as important as it is for developing the merit necessary to come to meditation practice cannot by itself free us from suffering. We must examine suffering itself and it’s causes before we can observe it ceasing and discover the path which leads there.
We have all had the experience of doing work only to discover that it did not yield the results we had been hoping for. The reason this occurred is because we were not working in the correct way. The second thing you need to do in order to improve your practice, therefore, is ensure that you are practicing correctly. The Buddha described for us 16 stages of insight knowledge which were later collated and summarized for the benefit of meditation teachers. These 16 stages emerge by themselves when a person begins to apply mindfulness in the correct way over a sustained period of time.
We therefore have a way to confirm that your practice is correct. You can do a retreat with a teacher who has been trained in these 16 stages and he or she will tell you whether your practice is inline with the Buddha’s teaching or whether it requires adjustment. This is exactly what we teach at the Buddhavipassana Meditation Centre. We provide for students a secluded environment where they will practice a lot more often than they would at home; we show the students how to do the practice so that the 16 stages of knowledge arise clearly; and we check on them regularly to confirm the that their practice is correct. If you want to improve your practice, I invite you to join us.