I was brought up in the Theravada tradition and have little knowledge on Mahayana. Recently some of my friends participated in a Mahayana retreat and praised it highly. One of them even claimed that Mahayana is for practical Buddhists and Theravada is for rituals and ceremonies etc. So I got a bit curious about this and started searching on Mahayana. But I couldn't find the answer to my main question.

As Vipassana meditation is the core of Theravada which finally leads to the end of suffering, can someone tell me if there exists such a meditation technique in Mahayana as well?