By practicing mindfulness meditation we can see and actually remove the causes of suffering, which are within ourselves. To focus impartial attention on the present moment is the hallmark of vipassana. There is awareness and acceptance of whatever is occurring in the immediate now, without judging or adding to it. You could call it survival; in some cases thats true, but most of the time it's just desire, because a lot of the things we want have nothing to do with our actual survival.
It is amazing to see how tricky and stubborn it can be in this regard. Ironically, the reason we suffer is not at all because we fail to follow the urging of desire; in fact, desire is itself the very culprit. It is because we feel this pressure or mental agitation or mental burning called desire that we suffer.
It is truly amazing that the thing causing our suffering somehow convinces us that it has our best interests at heart, when the opposite is the case.
It tries to point the finger elsewhere while all the time being the source of the problem. When you meditate longer you will be able to see this clearly; it is quite astonishing to realize. Right now you are using skillful means to convince yourself of the urgency of the practice.
Thats a smart thing to do. But later, when insight is stronger, you wont need to do this. You will actually see, right in the present, the way that desire is making you suffer. When this happens you will be amazed and feel as if you had previously made a mistake about everything about where you formerly thought happiness could be found.
At that point you will readjust yourself and set yourself to eliminate this desire no matter what it takes. You wont have to do anything to convince yourself then, because it will be very clear. When we really see what is causing our suffering, it's the most natural thing in the world to take steps to eliminate that cause.
The Buddha gave a wonderful example in the suttas. A fisherman thought hed caught an eel in his net, and pulled it out. When he looked at the creature clearly, however, he saw it was a poisonous snake, not an eel.
Instantly he threw it back in the water. When you really see the trouble that attachment and desire causes, you will want to just drop or disband those things immediately, because you will see that to attach to this and that truly causes a lot of suffering instead of offering happiness as you thought before.
Even if you can't let go of all attachments yet, you will be much more circumspect and keep making an effort to let go all the time, because youll see the danger there. Seeing this danger is a good thing, not bad, because it is the way to freedom. Then eventually, the suttas tell us, youll be able to let go of attachment to the body-mind and reach the stage of regarding it as a chess piece, as I know you want to do.
I started on the Week 3 exercises today. There are 5 topics listed below, in order of importance. If you don't have any comments about issue 4, then that is fine. It's funny. I managed to do my practice for 1 day in that willful fashion. I basically forgot the willfull approach and also forgot to motivate my mind by telling it vipassana is a survival tool.
I find the instructions for this exercise to be contradictory in a few places. First, the instructions for this say: "With your mind you are going to look repeatedly at the bodys posture in the present moment. Focus on one point, such as your hands in your lap. I'm pretty sure choosing a focal point supercedes the initial instructions about body's posture, but I did find it confusing.
In another place we are told, "Observe 'sitting' for one moment, let it go, then bring the mind back to it. Watch this action—i. In sentence 1 there is no "meta-observer", there is simply a person focusing on the hands, then zoning out for a second and then going back.
In sentence 2, there is a meta-observer: not only is the focus-let go cycle occuring, but there is a meta-observer of the focus let-go cycle. I want to return to a former comment of yours: "The arising and vanishing of phenomena is not the same as the rise and fall of the abdomen, although the latter also arises and passes away.
Yes, I agree with this, having read a bit of the text Moment to Moment Mindfulness. The rising of the abdomen rises and falls. And the falling of the abdomen rises and falls.
It is for this reason, that I would prefer a different term for these two motions, such as expanding and contracting or opening and closing or filling and emptying. But those terms are second-order terms. In other words, they involve thinking about perception which is a form of thinking.
We want to stay as close to raw perception as possible. So, I don't see why just calling both abdomen motions moving is not OK. But I really want to stay away from the terms rising and falling if at all possible.
I have asked about doing insight in places such as the grocery line, driving, etc twice before and you have never answered! I'm not sure if you are missing the questions or just what. But personally, I am glad to only have to do this on the cushion for now.
And actually, I am starting to disintegrate certain gestalts automatically. For instance, when I hear a fan, normally it is just one roaring sound. Now, I can hear certain rises and falls within that one sound.
Or when water hits a bowl of liquid, I can hear individual splashes instead of just one continuous splash. I would like to start this section off with a quote from your last writing to me: "In vipassana we don't want to anticipate anything, for any length of time.
I would like to note that there are a number of spiritual systems where they mold reality to their liking by using creative visualization and imagination. The underlying philosophy of these systems is: "the creator wants us to live our lives with passion, integrity and purpose. He enjoys the cosmic play and wants us to create. From their viewpoint it would seem that vipassana is trying to turn me into a door mat or lifeless sponge! Someone with no ability to control or create reality, but only to accept it.
On the other hand, even my short regular practice of vipassana is starting to make the creative arts look shallow. For instance lets take a hit song. I realized that what people are doing when they enjoy a musical piece is hearing a bunch of notes and holding the notes in memory and piling up attraction after attraction contrast with aversion or equanimity. So the question s become:—are we supposed to be on this earth? It seems that the goal of a vipassana practitioner is to never take rebirth.
I personally have to wonder if I would get bored of not having a body—I mean, no soccer. No movies. No birthday parties. Just pure awareness with nothing to do. I personally think that would feel limiting and boring after awhile. Now, I can anticipate your answer: - people who want things are slaves of desire. Creating your reality, having a body are desires. Once you see that desires cause you to suffer, you will not follow any of them, including having a body.
People who want things actually are identified with their body. The same people who gain pleasure from getting certain things for their body will experience equal or greater pain when they are given the opposite thing or can't have what they want.
They will whine like a little baby with the pacifier snatched from their mouth. They are just bigger more powerful slaves of desire, able to create pacifiers in the form of Lamborghinis, hot women, or large mansions. But I'm really curious about the idea of having a body. Supposedly in the 4 heavenly realms there are beings with bodies as well. I'm really curious about what I am supposed to be, do and have.
What you said about hearing music and piling up attraction from moment to moment through the use of memory is quite a deep understanding. Thats exactly right. And it does seem shallow when one sees it for what it is. Yes, the ultimate goal of vipassana is to purify the mind of greed, hatred and delusion in order to be free of suffering, which entails not taking rebirth in samsara any longer.
But this is a really far-off goal. We have to focus on the shorter-term first. Even those whove reached the first level of enlightenment continue to be reborn as human beings for as many as 7 lifetimes. Once you reach that level and have experienced Nibbana you will be able to know whether, in comparison, the happiness that comes from having a body is better or not. Right now you have nothing to compare to. So wait until you have a superior object or different object, then you can decide.
Even reaching the first level of enlightenement is quite a lofty goal, but it is possible to attain in this lifetime if we work diligently. But as long as you still want to have a body, be assured you will continue to be reborn with one.
However, when you reach the higher vipassana insights even before realizing Nibbana you might change your mind. At that point, I continued my observation. Once, I caught myself lost in internal thought. And then I went back to abdomen observation. However, a bit later, I got irritated by his music then went back to observation.
Overall, I would say that last 10 minutes were not very productive. I did not get a chance to redo the abdomen observation—or rather, I failed to remain vigilant and return to the practice later that night. I don't think 10 "missed" minutes of practice is going to make or break me over a 3-month period. Thats fine, Terrence.
As long as you were aware —you knew— you were irritated, it wasn't a waste. That means you had mindfulness to see the irritation. In any case, you were making right effort. It is good to see how anger or desire is directly triggered by objects, following laws of cause and effect. I had been wondering about meditation off the cushion.
I told Cynthia that I tend to note whether my mind is attaching or rejecting during day-to-day life. The response:. Yes, what you are doing is correct. It is true that both attachment and aversion are forms of clinging.
During the hand exercises, I was really flubbing. Many times I did not pause. And my mind wandered. But I did keep noting all this. Then I got to sitting meditation.
And I was doing nothing more than noting thoughts when they arose and noting the rise and fall of the belly. Then this pocket sort of opened up. My mind was not working so hard to do this exercise. I was actually waiting for things to happen so I could note them instead of creating thoughts.
This was a very calming session. I know we are not supposed to fall into tranquil abiding, but I don't think my calm was because I assumed a mental state or emotion. I simply was doing my best to allow myself to observe what was happening.
Yes, thats correct just to observe whatever is going on instead of trying to control it or anticipate what is going to arise next.
But don't expect your meditation will always be this way from now on. Next time it may change again. Thats one manifestation of impermanence. Even mindfulness is impermanent. So you don't need to feel annoyance or aversion in case your next meditation session is less satisfying. Just know whatevers going on. I learned that it is best to start over if possible. If not, just continue from where you left off.
If possible you should try to let the calls go to your answering machine or voicemail during practice. But thay not always be possible.
I find it unusual that the easiest exercise, requiring the least amount of concentration or insight observing "sitting" by looking at the hands for 2 to 3 seconds at a time is offered in the 3rd week. The hand exercise and rising falling are much more demanding exercises from my standpoint. Anyway, I will take your advice and drop the observing "sitting" So given that I am in week 4, what should the time breakdown be?
I'm guessing the 5 minutes for sitting gets moved to the hands, making 20 minutes for hands 10 each hand and 20 minutes for rising-falling. What I am starting to see is that the depression is an active act, being re-created moment by moment by my tendencies:.
So basically I can throw some noticing of my footsteps in there or something as I'm walking to break up the apparent rock solid wall of gloom. It's all good to say you arent the body as long as the body has a job grin. Actually simply noting the sense of gloom is useful. Because later it will switch to a feeling of depression.
Then hopelessness. Then sometimes I laugh. And presumably the law of kamma is at work. Some time long ago, perhaps I made someone else suffer in the cold or lose a job. I couldnt tell you. Again, I feel it might be better for you not to practice sitting as I mentioned in a previous email. I would recommend that for now you stick to the hand motions and rising-falling, because you already have strong enough concentration.
If you want to try out the sitting exercise occasionally thats all right, but for your regular practice I would suggest sticking with the other two exercises. So the more mindfulness one has, the clearer dukkha becomes. Had some perverse trick been played on the world? Ironically, having begun meditation in an effort to be free of suffering, I was now seeing more unsatisfactoriness—and rightly so, according to my teacher.
Then why cultivate mindfulness? Why stay in the present at all? The Gordian knot needed untangling. And why not approach it in a rigorous manner, strand by strand? A scientist might first analyze the material in question, which in this case was the present moment itself.
So we might begin by asking: Of what is the present moment actually composed? Each moment is composed of two parts: consciousness and one object—not a watering can or a thimble, but an object of the mind. Consciousness is always aware of something. When a patch of azure bursts into our field of awareness, a blip of eye-consciousness sees the color. When a smell wafts toward us, another blip of consciousness knows the scent. Our entire lives are nothing but a chain of moments in which we perceive one sight, taste, smell, touch, sound, feeling, or thought after another.
Outside of this process, nothing else happens. Now, what about the objects themselves? There are six types in all: sounds, colors, smells, tastes, touches, and mental objects. Mental objects are perceived through the mind-door directly.
They include, among others, thoughts, concepts, feelings, and emotions. These six main objects are all that we can know. Since mind and object are the only building blocks from which a moment of life can be fashioned, there is nothing else that could possibly take place in the now. Once we know what the present moment comprises, the next question is: Are these components delightful and lovely? We often think that images, smells, and so on can be wonderful.
And in the mundane sense, they can. We take delight in the scent of jasmine or the glimpse of a red sun over the mountains—but this pleasure is entangled with delusion. Take the sunset: What happens when we see it? I never worried that I might be doing it wrong. I regarded it as a grand experiment. Here was something practical I could do instead of endless thinking and reasoning.
I just wanted to investigate, to find out what was real. Even though I had no idea what 'reality' was, I had strong faith that somehow meditation would lead me to it.
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