When vipassana practice came to this country, it arrived
mostly as a monastic-derived technique--a refined system for retreating to purify the
mind. Buddhism in Asia is more than meditation. In the past ten years
there's been a move in the West to make vipassana more relevant to the rest
of daily life. Some teachers have adapted it to the fact that most American
practitioners are not monastics by including teachings about family, sex,
work, and relationships, for example. I feel this trend may be helpful in
making the teachings more accessible to a wider audience but worry that the
"real" teachings are being lost in the translation.