Many Bhutanese speak admiringly of Goenka’s vipassana retreats, not realizing that the Bhutanese concept of lhakthong is the same as vipassana. Lhakthong means seeing the true colour of life. This true colour, or insight, is ridiculously simple and mundane. It is the ordinary, naked, raw, unconditioned truths of impermanence, suffering and emptiness. There are many methods to immerse ourselves in these naked truths in different buddhist traditions. All are equally good: but fundamentally vipassana or lhakthong trains us to take a certain attitude to life, and as we train ourselves, we develop compassion for those who have not yet woken up. In this way we become Dharma practitioners.

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