Vipashyana meditation, as explained in the lam-rim tradition, is essential for cutting the root of samsara by realizing voidness (emptiness), the opposite of the unawareness that grasps at truly established existence, and must be developed alongside shamatha. One begins with understanding of the lack of an impossible “soul” of a person, and for that practitioners use lines of reasonings such as “neither one nor many” through a four-point analysis that clearly identifies the object to be negated – the false inherently existent “me” – to reach the conviction that this “me” cannot exist as either one or many with its basis of aggregate factors.
This analysis leads to total absorption on space-like voidness, where the mind rests single-pointedly in the bare absence of inherent existence, alternating between discerning and stabilizing meditation to maintain both conviction and clarity. In the subsequent attainment (post-meditation period), all conventional phenomena are understood to function like illusions: they appear inherently existent yet are seen as dependent on mental labeling and causes, enabling cause and effect to operate precisely because of their voidness. The same insight is then extended to all phenomena – physical forms, consciousnesses, noncongruent affecting variables and static phenomena such as space and voidness itself – by applying the “neither one nor many” reasoning to show that nothing exists truly independently from its own side.
Developing genuine vipashyana requires avoiding four mistaken approaches to voidness meditation, such as blank-mindedness or over-reliance on analysis alone, and instead skillfully alternating analytic discernment with stabilizing concentration. Through repeated practice, the joined pair of shamatha and vipashyana matures into a non-conceptual straightforward cognition of voidness, propelling the practitioner onto the pathway mind of seeing as an arya. On the subsequent accustoming pathway mind, the eight branches of the noble path are cultivated within the three higher trainings, leading ultimately to liberation as an arhat or full enlightenment as a Buddha for the benefit of all beings.