Awakening from our habitual way of perceiving things requires a profound shift in our intuitive understanding of the nature of reality. Awakening is a cognitive event, the culminating Insight in a series of very special Insights called vipassana. This climax of the progress of Insight only occurs when the mind is in a unique mental state called śamatha.11 Śamatha and vipassana are both generated using stable attention (samādhi) and mindfulness (sati). Although it’s possible to cultivate either śamatha or vipassanā independently of one another, both are
