About This Answer
A meditator who had long focused on concentration attended a vipassanā retreat that placed little emphasis on samādhi, and found it stirred up more defilement, particularly aversion. Should she continue, or return to her concentration practice? Ajahn Dtun answers that the Buddha did not teach morality and wisdom alone, or morality and concentration alone, but a complete path of morality, concentration and wisdom.
Vipassanā, used correctly, means insight, and insight comes from contemplation carried out with the energy of concentration present in the mind. Reflecting only with the intellect never yields true insight. Once the mind has been made peaceful and one-pointed, wisdom works with concentration concealed within it and more easily sees impermanence and not-self in body and mind.
Without concentration, the mind stays bound up with its thoughts and emotions and cannot separate from them. The correct way is neither concentration without vipassanā nor vipassanā without concentration: the two must be done together.