Our attention is the most valuable resource we have. Saying that we devote our attention to something is similar to saying that we’re devoting our time to it. But the concept of devoting one’s attention to something is more profound. This is so because the act of paying attention is subtle yet the benefit of paying attention for one thought moment greatly outweighs the effort required to do so. But the real untapped value of our attention lies not in paying attention to what we are doing every now and then but rather in the continued and applied attention over a period of time in a formal way. In the ancient Pali language of the Buddha, this type of exercise is called Vipassana Kammathana which translates to “insight meditation”.
Insight meditation is therefore the sustained application of attention over a period of time. But even this does not capture the full breadth of what we are doing when we practice insight meditation. We can gain a clue from the literal translation of the word Vipassana which is to “see through” or “see into”. In other words, insight meditation allows us to apply our attention in a sustained way to penetrate through or into the true nature of reality. We use our capacity to be mindful to apply laser like precision as we cut through and destroy the delusion that is causing us to suffer. Once we gain an understanding of the way things are, it’s not difficult to experience happiness because we learn the natural causes of happiness and suffering. In other words, once we know where we’re going its not difficult to get there.