Vipassana combined with other techniques for spiritual enlightnment

[Consilience]

58 minutes ago, Flyboy said:

The purpose of vipassana is to develop sensory clarity and to reduce clinging.  As clinging to various sensations is ground down (which can be done at deeper and deeper levels as clarity increases), the "speed" with which sensations are noticed in awareness may increase dramatically.  It's like reality gets lubed.  Clinging is let go by noticing the 3 characteristics - impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and no-self.  Put simply, self and resistance/clinging (and suffering!) are dependently originated, meaning one arises in response to the other.  Vipassana deconstructs the resistance side of this (while self-inquiry and do nothing both deconstruct the "self" side).   They are mutually supportive.  Either can be taken all the way, but I personally think meeting in the middle is the best path.

As equanimity deepens, self (and thus suffering) decreases.  Awakening becomes likely as space is created between awareness and its contents, but this initial awakening will need to deepen substantially to reach the major milestone of true Anatta (no-self in ALL sensory perception, including time, space, distance, etc., EVEN awareness itself).  The deconstruction to reach anatta is subtle and deep, and will take years of careful practice for most.  Anatta is a massive achievement, but there are subtle aspects of enlightenment that deepen this realization.  These essentially include emptiness and luminosity--on the one hand truly dropping the "thingness/inherent existence" of all things, and on the other the shining forth of love, interconnection, and vivid aliveness in every moment of experience, with no boundaries or borders to be found anywhere.  It all becomes one ineffable unspeakable Thisness.

As far as suffering goes, Anatta is basically the end of that.  Descriptions in words fail very early on in this process, so realize this is not a conceptual dogma but really just a general pointing map for the path.  Seeing That Frees is a wonderful guide to much of this, but really understanding how all the practices relate to each other is a larger work of integration, and you'll need to branch out to many teachers and methods to put it together yourself.  

Such a great reply! 

The importance of dropping self-clinging in all modalities of perception seems to be lost in the goenka community. Self clinging can literally exist as mental imagery and therefore exist even as body sensations are seen as non-self. Self clinging can exist within the perceptions of space, in sight sound and touch. It’s not enough to deconstruct the body and emotions as they relate to the sensations of touch. Sounds and sights, in all forms, must be penetrated. This is why I love the Unified Mindfulness approach to vipassana.