Vipassana (Insight Meditation)

Vipassana (Insight Meditation) stands as the oldest Buddhist meditation tradition, developing moment-to-moment awareness of bodily sensations. Ten-day silent retreats following the S.N. Goenka tradition have shown a 26% reduction in cortisol levels and a 15% decrease in inflammatory markers like IL-6 in multiple studies. Compared to Loving-Kindness Meditation (Metta) at #4, Vipassana offers a more systematic body-scan approach that directly targets stress physiology, providing faster autonomic regulation gains in retreat settings.