Fabrizio Meditation

Fabrizio Giuliani has been practicing Vipassana in the Mahasi tradition for more than 25 years and is the founder of Ashoka – Mindfulness Meditation Center in Rome where he continues to teach Vipassana in the Mahasi tradition and Thai forest tradition.
After finishing high school  in Italy he moved to London and then to Australia where he graduated in cultural anthropology at the University of Sydney with a thesis on Shamanism in Colombia.
As soon as he graduated he moved to India to teach English to the community of Tibetan monks and refugees. He lived in Asia for 4 years traveling to Burma, Nepal and Thailand to practice intensively before returning to Australia to continue his practice at the Blue Mountains insight meditation center (Blue Mountains, Sydney).
In 2012 he moved to the USA where he practiced with Vipassana Hawai’i, IMS (Insight Meditation Society) in Massachusetts, Canada and lived for a few months at Robert Aitken’s Palolo Zen Center in O’ahu (Hawai’i) . Fabrizio has had the honor and the great fortune of having practiced with exceptional teachers who have dedicated their lives to the Dharma. Lynne Bousfield (Sydney Australia) with whom she teaches Vipassana retreats in Bali and Australia, Steven Smith (Vipassana Hawai’i) Michele McDonald (Vipassan Hawai’) Sayadaw Vivekananda (Lumbini, Nepal) Thanissara and Kittisaro (South Africa and California) With whom he continues to practice and has received from them authorization to teach.
He has just completed a course on compassion in the Mahayana and Theravada tradition. He is a qualified MBSR instructor from UCSD (University of California San Diego) His Dharma teaching has a strong practical element based on experience gained on the meditation cushion. His lineage is the Vipassana practice as taught by Mahasi Sayadaw and the Thai forest tradition of Ajan Chah.

What is Vipassana?

We spend our lives running away from what we don’t like and holding on to what we like. But in reality this is a recipe that ultimately makes us unhappy because, willy-nilly, we have no control over external events. What we love is by its nature non-permanent and like all things, it is born, lives and dies, while what we hate sometimes parks itself in our existence and remains stationary for too long. Here is the nature of suffering, but here is also the ‘cure’.

We can and must teach our minds that we can live with everything that happens to us and that this is the key to peace and well-being. With meditation, suffering begins to emerge and people who start practicing find that in reality the symptoms they wanted to heal from get ‘aggravated’ and they regret thinking that meditation doesn’t work or isn’t for them. Instead, it’s just the opposite.

With practice, the suffering of being, which we repress with continuous distractions, begins to emerge and show itself, because we become aware of it. The aim is not to get rid of these unpleasant or painful sensations but to make friends with them. It is one of the most difficult things but it is also the bravest path and whoever undertakes it is rewarded beyond all expectations. Vipassana insight (clear vision of reality as it truly is and not as a mental construction) develops wisdom, not an intellectual wisdom, but an intuitive wisdom that the mind cannot understand at the cognitive level.

A wisdom that over time breaks those ancient patterns that keep us trapped. Meditation books are an invaluable resource but they cannot replace pillow practice because they describe other people’s experiences. Your best teacher will always be your practice.