Hi, I'm Louise Taylor and I am an insight dharma teacher in both the Thai forest and Burmese lineages
Insight meditation is a form meditation that comes from the early teachings and instructions of the Buddha. The Buddha lived approximately 2500 years ago in what is now northern India. After his enlightenment he taught for 45 years in an oral language and after his death, these meditation instructions and wisdom teachings continued to be taught orally for next few hundred years.
Northern India was a central hub for many trade routes and the oral teachings spread through these trade routes and merged with the existing religions and philosophies. They travelled north and became what we know today as Tibetan Buddhism. They then travelled east into China and Japan and became what we now know as Zen. They also travelled south through India and into Sri Lanka and became what we now Know as Theravada Buddhism. It was in Sri Lanka, about 100 years or so BC that the teachings were first written down during the 4th Buddhist council (we think, it’s hard to know for sure since we weren’t there, and a lot has happened since then). They were written down in an ancient language called Pali.
They read like recollections of a beloved one, which in many ways they are. They always begin with something along the lines of … the blessed one was in (location) and this is what I heard him say……
Each recollection is called a sutta. There are 10,000 Pali suttas, most of them quite short but some of them are very lengthy.
Collectively they are called the Pali cannon or Tipitaka. They are nearest thing we have to his words, his insight, his wisdom, his instruction given long before there were any Buddhist or forms of Buddhism.
Fast forward 2500 years and Theravada Buddhism has spread from India and Sri Lanka into Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Burma and as it did, it evolved to reflect its surroundings and meditation masters taught subtle differences from their own practices and insights.
What is amazing is that throughout all this time and throughout all the locations two central suttas have been studied and practiced widely. They are the Sattipthana sutta known in the west as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and the Anapanasati sutta known in the west as Mindfulness of Breathing. This Theravada style of meditation based on the instructions given in the early Buddhist suttas is called vipassana in pali and translates as special seeing or insight.
Then in 70’s, and 80’s westerners began travelling to southeast Asia and ‘discovered’ meditation. Some of those most notable pioneering western practitioners who helped bring vipassana meditation to the west are Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzburg, Christopher Titmuss, Patrick Kearney, Subhana Barzaghi and Jon Kabat Zin.
These wonderful people along with many others brought Insight meditation back to the west and began the ‘mindfulness’ movement. Insight meditation again evolved in the conditions and culture of the west. Not constrained by strict religiosity we have seen an amazing melding of eastern practices with western psychology that provides incredible opportunities to liberate the mind, as well as the opportunity to sit multiday meditation retreats and explore mindfulness in a completely secular way. All of which offers the practitioner ways into and paths along the Dharma.
The body of the Buddha’s teachings is called the Dhamma (pali) or Dharma (Sanskrit) and I love the way the dhamma evolves throughout the world, a testament to its dynamic, living quality when practiced.
I do not consider myself religious and I do not consider myself a Buddhist. I’m not interested in the world of ists and isms, how I see it is that I’m a dharma practitioner. I keep practicing for freedom through the craft and art of meditation, following the instructions from the early teachings of the Buddha, captured in the Pali cannon and brought and kept alive by todays teachers and the all the teachers in between.
I feel enormously grateful that I have been able to regularly sit with 2 principle gifted and wise senior teachers, Subhana Barzaghi and Patrick Kearney over the last 15 years. I am also greatly influenced by the teachings of Mahasi Sayadaw, Sayadaw U Pandita, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Ajahn Chah, Carol Perry, Alan Bassal, Will James, Rob Burbea, Bhikkhu Analayo and Joesph Goldstein.
In the Suttas the Buddha says, many times, that he teaches that there is dukkha (suffering/sorrow/dissatisfaction) in this life and that there is a way to cease dukkha in this life.
I came to meditation over 25 years ago seeking a way to live with intense and chronic psycho/emotional pain. Dharma practice has indeed enabled me to not only to withstand the pain, but to see into its origination, to see into delusions about its presence and overtime to be released from its ironlike grip and enjoy much more peace, ease and joy. It isn’t perfect, it’s (always) a work in progress but I can honestly say the Dharma has saved my life.
In 2019 I had the wonderful opportunity to dive deeper into the dharma with Subhana Barzaghi and Alan Bassal of the Insight Meditation Institute as they offered the first intake of the 2-year Meditation and Compassion teacher training course in Sydney. This is where my teaching journey began. I was a reluctant teacher, enjoying more the opportunity for closeness to the teachers and the deepness of Dharma study rather than wanting to teach. But as I was gently nurtured by their wisdom and trust in me I ventured out to endeavour to share the skills and insights that had profoundly affected my life for the better.
At the completion of that course Subhana and Alan invited me to join an amazing group of fellow fledgling teachers in the Dharma Teacher Pathway, a 4-year course that I am 3 years into walking that has further enriched my understanding, practice and teaching skills. As well as teaching beginner’s courses and facilitating weekly sits in Hobart, I have also had the opportunity to assistant teach and co teach on multi day retreats in Byron Bay and Tasmania.
Currently I am living in Tasmania and co teaching on retreats in this sacred wild land.
“The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon” - Buddha
Meditation is a uniquely personal journey. Its experiences and wisdom help us to navigate life and see and feel the world with fresh eyes. The true cosmic magnitude of the Dharma cannot be explained, but it can be experienced. Meditation doesn’t linearly lead to it being experienced but it does create the best possible conditions for it to arise. Each teacher expresses the living dharma in different ways, each in their own way pointing to the moon. My aim is to be of benefit to others as they courageously walk this path. Please feel free to use the guided meditations, listen to recorded talks, read the articles you find here and get in touch if you have any questions or would like a one to one. If what you find here doesn’t inspire you, that’s ok, simply move on and keep going. There are many paths, many teachers, many fingers pointing at the same moon.
Lastly, although a healthy desire to improve our own experience attracts us and keeps us engaged with meditation. The fact is that we are not separate (although it can often feel that way), we are all interrelated and dependently arisen. What the wonderful Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh describes a interbeing. In this way your meditation effects us all in a positive way. When we meditate we are practicing for the end of suffering for all beings, everywhere, without exception. Thank you for your practice.