What follows is an exceptional textbook on meditation by Buddhist monk, H. Gunaratana Mahathera. It explains in clear detail the type of meditation called Vipissana, usually translated into English as Insight. This is the main text that we use in our meditation classes and sessions. You are welcome to copy this text and to distribute it provided that you do not alter it in any way and that it remains free of charge.

Mindfulness In Plain English

H. Gunaratana Mahathera

Preface

In my experience I found that the most effective way to express

something in order to make others understand is to use the

simplest language. Also I learned from teaching that the more

rigid the language the less effective it is. People to not

respond to very stern and rigid language especially when we try

to teach something which normally people don't engage in during

their daily life. Meditation appears to them as something that

they cannot always do. As more people turn to meditation, they

need more simplified instructions so they can practice by

themselves without a teacher around. This book is the result of

requests made by many meditators who need a very simple book

written in ordinary colloquial language.

In preparing this book I have been helped by many of my friends.

I am deeply grateful to all of them. Especially I would like to

express my deepest appreciation and sincere gratitude to John

Patticord, Daniel J. Olmsted, Matthew Flickstein, Carol

Flickstein, Patrick Hamilton, Genny Hamilton, Bill Mayne, Bhikkhu

Dang Pham Jotika and Bhikkhu Sona for their most valuable

suggestions, comments and criticisms of numerous points in

preparing this book. Also thanks to Reverend Sister Sama and

Chris O'Keefe for their support in production efforts.

H. Gunaratana Mahathera

Bhavana Society

Rt. 1 Box 218-3

High View, WV 26808

December 7, 1990

The subject of this book is Vipassana meditation practice.

Repeat, practice. This is a meditation manual, a nuts-and-bolts,

step-by-step guide to Insight meditation. It is meant to be

practical. It is meant for use.

There are already many comprehensive books on Buddhism as a

philosophy, and on the theoretical aspects of Buddhist

meditation. If you are interested in that material we urge you

to read those books. Many of them are excellent. This book is a

'How to.' It is written for those who actually want to meditate

and especially for those who want to start now. There are very

few qualified teachers of the Buddhist style of meditation in the

United States of America. It is our intention to give you the

basic data you need to get off to a flying start. Only those who

follow the instructions given here can say whether we have

succeeded or failed. Only those who actually meditate regularly

and diligently can judge our effort. No book can possibly cover

every problem that a meditator may run into. You will need to

meet a qualified teacher eventually. In the mean time, however,

these are the basic ground rules; a full understanding of these

pages will take you a very long way.

There are many styles of meditation. Every major religious

tradition has some sort of procedure which they call meditation,

and the word is often very loosely used. Please understand that

this volume deals exclusively with the Vipassana style of

meditation as taught and practiced in South and Southeast Asian

Buddhism. It is often translated as Insight meditation, since

the purpose of this system is to give the meditator insight into

the nature of reality and accurate understanding of how

everything works.

Buddhism as a whole is quite different from the theological

religions with which Westerners are most familiar. It is a

direct entrance to a spiritual or divine realm without addressing

deities or other 'agents'. Its flavor is intensely clinical,

much more akin to what we would call psychology than to what we

would usually call religion. It is an ever-ongoing investigation

of reality, a microscopic examination of the very process of

perception. Its intention is to pick apart the screen of lies

and delusions through which we normally view the world, and thus

to reveal the face of ultimate reality. Vipassana meditation is

an ancient and elegant technique for doing just that.

Theravada Buddhism presents us with an effective system for

exploring the deeper levels of the mind, down to the very root of

consciousness itself. It also offers a considerable system of

reverence and rituals in which those techniques are contained.

This beautiful tradition is the natural result of its 2,500-year

development within the highly traditional cultures of South and

Southeast Asia.

In this volume, we will make every effort to separate the

ornamental and the fundamental and to present only the naked

plain truth itself. Those readers who are of a ritual bent may

investigate the Theravada practice in other books, and will find

there a vast wealth of customs and ceremony, a rich tradition

full of beauty and significance. Those of a more clinical bent

may use just the techniques themselves, applying them within

whichever philosophical and emotional context they wish. The

practice is the thing.

The distinction between Vipassana meditation and other styles of

meditation is crucial and needs to be fully understood. Buddhism

addresses two major types of meditation. They are different

mental skills, modes of functioning or qualities of

consciousness. In Pali, the original language of Theravada

literature, they are called 'Vipassana' and 'Samatha'.

'Vipassana' can be translated as 'insight', a clear awareness of

exactly what is happening as it happens. 'Samatha' can be

translated as 'concentration' or 'tranquility'. It is a state in

which the mind is brought to rest, focused only on one item and

not allowed to wander. When this is done, a deep calm pervades

body and mind, a state of tranquility which must be experienced

to be understood. Most systems of meditation emphasize the

Samatha component. The meditator focuses his mind upon some

items, such as prayer, a certain type of box, a chant, a candle

flame, a religious image or whatever, and excludes all other

thoughts and perceptions from his consciousness. The result is a

state of rapture which lasts until the meditator ends the session

of sitting. It is beautiful, delightful meaningful and alluring,

but only temporary. Vipassana meditation address the other

component, insight.

The Vipassana meditator uses his concentration as a tool by which

his awareness can chip away at the wall of illusion which cuts

him off from the living light of reality. It is a gradual

process of ever-increasing awareness and into the inner workings

of reality itself. It takes years, but one day the meditator

chisels through that wall and tumbles into the presence of light.

The transformation is complete. It's called liberation, and it's

permanent. Liberation is the goal of all buddhist systems of

practice. But the routes to attainment of the end are quite

diverse.

There are an enormous number of distinct sects within Buddhism.

But they divide into two broad streams of thought-Mahayana and

Theravada. Mahayana Buddhism prevails throughout East Asia,

shaping the cultures of China, Korea, Japan, Nepal, Tibet and

Vietnam. The most widely known of the Mahayana systems is Zen,

practiced mainly in Japan, Korea, Vietnam and the United States.

The Theravada system of practice prevails in South and Southeast

Asia in the countries of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Laos and

Cambodia. This book deals with Theravada practice.

The traditional Theravada literature describes the techniques of

both Samatha (concentration and tranquility of mind) and

Vipassana (insight or clear awareness). There are forty

different subjects of meditation described in the Pali

literature. They are recommended as objects of concentration and

as subjects of investigation leading to insight. But this is a

basic manual, and we limit our discussion to the most fundamental

of those recommended objects--breathing. This book is an

introduction to the attainment of mindfulness through bare

attention to, and clear comprehension of, the whole process of

breathing. Using the breath as his primary focus of attention,

the meditator applies participatory observation to the intirety

of his own perceptual universe. He learns to watch changes

occurring in all physical experiences, in feelings and in

perceptions. He learns to study his own mental activities and

the fluctuations in the character of consciousness itself. All

of these changes are occurring perpetually and are present in

every moment of our experiences.

Meditation is a living activity, an inherently experiential

activity. It cannot be taught as a purely scholastic subject.

The living heart of the process must come from the teacher's own

personal experience. Nevertheless, there is a vast fund of

codified material on the subject which is the product of some of

the most intelligent and deeply illumined human beings ever to

walk the earth. This literature is worthy of attention. Most of

the points given i this book are drawn from the Tipitaka, which

is the three-section collected work in which the Buddah's

original teachings have been preserved. The Tipitaka is

comprised of the Vinaya, the code of discipline for monks, nuns,

and lay people; the Suttas, public discourses attributed to the

Buddha; and the Abhidhamma, a set of deep psycho-philosophical

teachings.

In the first century after Christ, an eminent Buddhist scholar

named Upatissa wrote the Vimuttimagga, (The Path of Freedom) in

which he summarized the Buddha's teachings on meditation. In the

fifth century A.C. (after Christ,) another great Buddhist scholar

named Buddhaghosa covered the same ground in a second scholastic

thesis--the Visuddhimagga, (The Path of Purification) which is

the standard text on meditation even today. Modern meditation

teachers rely on the Tipitaka and upon their own personal

experiences. It is our intention to present you with the

clearest and most concise directions for Vipassana meditation

available in the English language. But this book offers you a

foot in the door. It's up to you to take the first few steps on

the road to the discovery of who you are and what it all means.

It is a journey worth taking. We wish you success.

Chapter 1

MEDITATION: WHY BOTHER?

Meditation is not easy. It takes time and it takes energy. It

also takes grit, determination and discipline. It requires a

host of personal qualities which we normally regard as unpleasant

and which we like to avoid whenever possible. We can sum it all

up in the American word 'gumption'. Meditation takes 'gumption'.

It is certainly a great deal easier just to kick back and watch

television. So why bother? Why waste all that time and energy

when you could be out enjoying yourself? Why bother? Simple.

Because you are human. And just because of the simple fact that

you are human, you find yourself heir to an inherent

unsatisfactoriness in life which simple will not go away. You

can suppress it from your awareness for a time. You can distract

yourself for hours on end, but it always comes back--usually when

you least expect it. All of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue,

you sit up, take stock, and realize your actual situation in

life.

There you are, and you suddenly realize that you are spending

your whole life just barely getting by. You keep up a good

front. You manage to make ends meed somehow and look OK from the

outside. But those periods of desperation, those times when you

feel everything caving in on you, you keep those to yourself.

You are a mess. And you know it. But you hide it beautifully.

Meanwhile, way down under all that you just know there has got be

some other way to live, some better way to look at the world,

some way to touch life more fully. You click into it by chance

now and then. You get a good job. You fall in love. You win

the game. and for a while, things are different. Life takes on a

richness and clarity that makes all the bad times and humdrum

fade away. The whole texture of your experience changes and you

say to yourself, "OK, now I've made it; now I will be happy".

But then that fades, too, like smoke in the wind. You are left

with just a memory. That and a vague awareness that something is

wrong.

But there is really another whole realm of depth and sensitivity

available in life, somehow, you are just not seeing it. You wind

up feeling cut off. You feel insulated from the sweetness of

experience by some sort of sensory cotton. You are not really

touching life. You are not making it again. And then even that

vague awareness fades away, and you are back to the same old

reality. The world looks like the usual foul place, which is

boring at best. It is an emotional roller coaster, and you spend

a lot of your time down at the bottom of the ramp, yearning for

the heights.

So what is wrong with you? Are you a freak? No. You are just

human. And you suffer from the same malady that infects every

human being. It is a monster in side all of us, and it has many

arms: Chronic tension, lack of genuine compassion for others,

including the people closest to you, feelings being blocked up,

and emotional deadness. Many, many arms. None of us is entirely

free from it. We may deny it. We try to suppress it. We build

a whole culture around hiding from it, pretending it is not

there, and distracting ourselves from it with goals and projects

and status. But it never goes away. It is a constant

undercurrent in every thought and every perception; a little

wordless voice at the back of the head saying, "Not good enough

yet. Got to have more. Got to make it better. Got to be

better." It is a monster, a monster that manifests everywhere in

subtle forms.

Go to a party. Listen to the laughter, that brittle-tongued

voice that says fun on the surface and fear underneath. Feel the

tension, feel the pressure. Nobody really relaxes. They are

faking it. Go to a ball game. Watch the fan in the stand.

Watch the irrational fit of anger. Watch the uncontrolled

frustration bubbling forth from people that masquerades under the

guise of enthusiasm, or team spirit. Booing, cat-calls and

unbridled egotism in the name of team loyalty. Drunkenness,

fights in the stands. These are the people trying desperately to

release tension from within. These are not people who are at

peace with themselves. Watch the news on TV. Listen to the

lyrics in popular songs. You find the same theme repeated over

and over in variations. Jealousy, suffering, discontent and

stress.

Life seems to be a perpetual struggle, some enormous effort

against staggering odds. And what is our solution to all this

dissatisfaction? We get stuck in the 'If only' syndrome. If

only I had more money, then I would be happy. If only I can find

somebody who really loves me, if only I can lose 20 pounds, if

only I had a color TV, Jacuzzi, and curly hair, and on and on

forever. So where does all this junk come from and more

important, what can we do about it? It comes from the conditions

of our own minds. It is deep, subtle and pervasive set of mental

habits, a Gordian knot which we have built up bit by bit and we

can unravel just the same way, one piece at a time. We can tune

up our awareness, dredge up each separate piece and bring it out

into the light. We can make the unconscious conscious, slowly,

one piece at a time.

The essence of our experience is change. Change is incessant.

Moment by moment life flows by and it is never the same.

Perpetual alteration is the essence of the perceptual universe.

A thought springs up in you head and half a second later, it is

gone. In comes another one, and that is gone too. A sound

strikes your ears and then silence. Open your eyes and the world

pours in, blink and it is gone. People come into your life and

they leave again. Friends go, relatives die. Your fortunes go

up and they go down. Sometimes you win and just as often you

lose. It is incessant: change, change, change. No two moments

ever the same.

There is not a thing wrong with this. It is the nature of the

universe. But human culture has taught you some odd responses to

this endless flowing. We categorize experiences. We try to

stick each perception, every mental change in this endless flow

into one of three mental pigeon holes. It is good, or it is bad,

or it is neutral. Then, according to which box we stick it in,

we perceive with a set of fixed habitual mental responses. If a

particular perception has been labeled 'good', then we try to

freeze time right there. We grab onto that particular thought,

we fondle it, we hold it, we try to keep it from escaping. When

that does not work, we go all-out in an effort to repeat the

experience which caused that thought. Let us call this mental

habit 'grasping'.

Over on the other side of the mind lies the box labeled 'bad'.

When we perceive something 'bad', we try to push it away. We try

to deny it, reject it, get rid of it any way we can. We fight

against our own experience. We fun from pieces of ourselves.

Let us call this mental habit 'rejecting'. Between these two

reactions lies the neutral box. Here we place the experiences

which are neither good nor bad. They are tepid, neutral,

uninteresting and boring. We pack experience away in the neutral

box so that we can ignore it and thus return our attention to

where the action is, namely our endless round of desire and

aversion. This category of experience gets robbed of its fair

share of our attention. Let us call this mental habit

'ignoring'. The direct result of all this lunacy is a perpetual

treadmill race to nowhere, endlessly pounding after pleasure,

endlessly fleeing from pain, endlessly ignoring 90 percent of our

experience. Than wondering why life tastes so flat. In the

final analysis, it's a system that does not work.

No matter how hard you pursue pleasure and success, there are

times when you fail. No matter how fast you flee, there are

times when pain catches up with you. And in between those times,

life is so boring you could scream. Our minds are full of

opinions and criticisms. We have built walls all around

ourselves and we are trapped with the prison of our own lies and

dislikes. We suffer.

Suffering is big word in Buddhist thought. It is a key term and

it should be thoroughly understood. The Pali word is 'dukkha',

and it does not just mean the agony of the body. It means the

deep, subtle sense of unsatisfactoriness which is a part of every

mental treadmill. The essence of life is suffering, said the

Buddha. At first glance this seems exceedingly morbid and

pessimistic. It even seems untrue. After all, there are plenty

of times when we are happy. Aren't there? No, there are not. IT

just seems that way. Take any moment when you feel really

fulfilled and examine it closely. Down under the joy, you will

find that subtle, all-pervasive undercurrent of tension, that no

matter how great the moment is, it is going to end. No matter

how much you just gained, you are either going to lose some of it

or spend the rest of your days guarding what you have got and

scheming how to get more. And in the end, you are going to die.

In the end, you lose everything. It is all transitory.

Sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it? Luckily it's not; not at all.

It only sounds bleak when you view it from the level of ordinary

mental perspective, the very level at which the treadmill

mechanism operates. Down under that level lies another

perspective, a completely different way to look at the universe.

It is a level of functioning where the mind does not try to

freeze time, where we do not grasp onto our experience as it

flows by, where we do not try to block things out and ignore

them. It is a level of experience beyond good and bad, beyond

pleasure and pain. It is a lovely way to perceive the world, and

it is a learnable skill. It is not easy, but is learnable.

Happiness and peace. Those are really the prime issues in human

existence. That is what all of us are seeking. This often is a

bit hard to see because we cover up those basic goals with layers

of surface objectives. We want food, we want money, we want sex,

possessions and respect. We even say to ourselves that the idea

of 'happiness' is too abstract: "Look, I am practical. Just give

me enough money and I will buy all the happiness I need".

Unfortunately, this is an attitude that does not work. Examine

each of these goals and you will find they are superficial. You

want food. Why? Because I am hungry. So you are hungry, so

what? Well if I eat, I won't be hungry and then I'll feel good.

Ah ha! Feel good! Now there is a real item. What we really

seek is not the surface goals. They are just means to an end.

What we are really after is the feeling of relief that comes when

the drive is satisfied. Relief, relaxation and an end to the

tension. Peace, happiness, no more yearning.

So what is this happiness? For most of us, the perfect happiness

would mean getting everything we wanted, being in control of

everything, playing Caesar, making the whole world dance a jig

according to our every whim. Once again, it does not work that

way. Take a look at the people in history who have actually held

this ultimate power. These were not happy people. Most

assuredly they were not men at peace with themselves. Why?

Because they were driven to control the world totally and

absolutely and they could not. They wanted to control all men

and there remained men who refused to be controlled. They could

not control the stars. They still got sick. They still had to

die.

You can't ever get everything you want. It is impossible.

Luckily, there is another option. You can learn to control your

mind, to step outside of this endless cycle of desire and

aversion. You can learn to not want what you want, to recognize

desires but not be controlled by them. This does not mean that

you lie down on the road and invite everybody to walk all over

you . It means that you continue to live a very normal-looking

life, but live from a whole new viewpoint. You do the things

that a person must do, but you are free from that obsessive,

compulsive drivenness of your own desires. You want something,

but you don't need to chase after it. You fear something, but

you don't need to stand there quaking in your boots. This sort

of mental culture is very difficult. It takes years. But trying

to control everything is impossible, and the difficult is

preferable to the impossible.

Wait a minute, though. Peace and happiness! Isn't that what

civilization is all about? We build skyscrapers and freeways.

We have paid vacations, TV sets. We provide free hospitals and

sick leaves, Social Security and welfare benefits. All of that

is aimed at providing some measure of peace and happiness. Yet

the rate of mental illness climbs steadily, and the crime rates

rise faster. The streets are crawling with delinquents and

unstable individuals. Stick you arms outside the safety of your

own door and somebody is very likely to steal your watch!

Something is not working. A happy man does not feel driven to

kill. We like to think that our society is exploiting every area

of human knowledge in order to achieve peace and happiness.

We are just beginning to realize that we have overdeveloped the

material aspect of existence at the expense of the deeper

emotional and spiritual aspect, and we are paying the price for

that error. It is one thing to talk about degeneration of moral

and spiritual fiber in America today, and another thing to do

something about it. The place to start is within ourselves.

Look carefully inside, truly and objectively, and each of us will

see moments when "I am the punk" and "I am the crazy". We will

learn to see those moments, see them clearly, cleanly and without

condemnation, and we will be on our way up and out of being so.

You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until

you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you

do that, changes flow naturally. You don't have to force or

struggle or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. You

just change. It is automatic. But arriving at the initial

insight is quite a task. You've got to see who you are and how

you are, without illusion, judgement or resistance of any kind.

You've got to see your own place in society and your function as

a social being. You've got to see your duties and obligations to

your fellow human beings, and above all, your responsibility to

yourself as an individual living with other individuals. And

you've got to see all of that clearly and as a unit, a single

gestalt of interrelationship. It sounds complex, but it often

occurs in a single instant. Mental culture through meditation is

without rival in helping you achieve this sort of understanding

and serene happiness.

The Dhammapada is an ancient Buddhist text which anticipated

Freud by thousands of years. It says: "What you are now is the

result of what you were. What you will be tomorrow will be the

result of what you are now. The consequences of an evil mind

will follow you like the cart follows the ox that pulls it. The

consequences of a purified mind will follow you like you own

shadow. No one can do more for you than your own purified mind--

no parent, no relative, no friend, no one. A well-disciplined

mind brings happiness".

Meditation is intended to purify the mind. It cleanses the

thought process of what can be called psychic irritants, things

like greed, hatred and jealousy, things that keep you snarled up

in emotional bondage. It brings the mind to a state of

tranquility and awareness, a state of concentration and insight.

In our society, we are great believers in education. We believe

that knowledge makes a cultured person civilized. Civilization,

however, polishes the person superficially. Subject our noble

and sophisticated gentleman to stresses of war or economic

collapse, and see what happens. It is one thing to obey the law

because you know the penalties and fear the consequences. It is

something else entirely to obey the law because you have cleansed

yourself from the greed that would make you steal and the hatred

that would make you kill. Throw a stone into a stream. The

running water would smooth the surface, but the inner part

remains unchanged. Take that same stone and place it in the

intense fires of a forge, and the whole stone changes inside and

outside. It all melts. Civilization changes man on the outside.

Meditation softens him within, through and through.

Meditation is called the Great Teacher. It is the cleansing

crucible fire that works slowly through understanding. The

greater your understanding, the more flexible and tolerant you

can be. The greater your understanding, the more compassionate

you can be. You become like a perfect parent or an ideal

teacher. You are ready to forgive and forget. You feel love

towards others because you understand them. And you understand

others because you have understood yourself. You have looked

deeply inside and seen self illusion and your own human failings.

You have seen your own humanity and learned to forgive and to

love. When you have learned compassion for yourself, compassion

for others is automatic. An accomplished meditator has achieved

a profound understanding of life, and he inevitable relates to

the world with a deep and uncritical love.

Meditation is a lot like cultivating a new land. To make a field

out of a forest, fist you have to clear the trees and pull out

the stumps. Then you till the soil and you fertilize it. Then

you sow your seed and you harvest your crops. To cultivate your

mind, first you have to clear out the various irritants that are

in the way, pull them right out by the root so that they won't

grow back. Then you fertilize. You pump energy and discipline

in the mental soil. Then you sow the seed and you harvest your

crops of faith, morality , mindfulness and wisdom.

Faith and morality, by the way, have a special meaning in this

context. Buddhism does not advocate faith in the sense of

believing something because it is written in a book or attributed

to a prophet or taught to you by some authority figure. The

meaning here is closer to confidence. It is knowing that

something is true because you have seen it work, because you have

observed that very thing within yourself. In the same way,

morality is not a ritualistic obedience to some exterior, imposed

code of behavior.

The purpose of meditation is personal transformation. The you

that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the

same you that comes out the other side. It changes your

character by a process of sensitization, by making you deeply

aware of your own thoughts, word, and deeds. Your arrogance

evaporates and your antagonism dries up. Your mind becomes still

and calm. And your life smoothes out. Thus meditation properly

performed prepares you to meet the ups and down of existence. It

reduces your tension, your fear, and your worry. Restlessness

recedes and passion moderates. Things begin to fall into place

and your life becomes a glide instead of a struggle. All of this

happens through understanding.

Meditation sharpens your concentration and your thinking power.

Then, piece by piece, your own subconscious motives and mechanics

become clear to you. Your intuition sharpens. The precision of

your thought increases and gradually you come to a direct

knowledge of things as they really are, without prejudice and

without illusion. So is this reason enough to bother? Scarcely.

These are just promises on paper. There is only one way you will

ever know if meditation is worth the effort. Learn to do it

right, and do it. See for yourself.

Chapter 2

What Meditation Isn't

Meditation is a word. You have heard this word before, or you

would never have picked up this book. The thinking process

operates by association, and all sorts of ideas are associated

with the word 'meditation'. Some of them are probably accurate

and others are hogwash. Some of them pertain more properly to

other systems of meditation and have nothing to do with Vipassana

practice. Before we proceed, it behooves us to blast some of the

residue out of our own neuronal circuits so that new information

can pass unimpeded. Let us start with some of the most obvious

stuff.

We are not going to teach you to contemplate your navel or to

chant secret syllables. You are not conquering demons or

harnessing invisible energies. There are no colored belts given

for your performance and you don't have to shave your head or

wear a turban. You don't even have to give away all your

belongings and move to a monastery. In fact, unless your life is

immoral and chaotic, you can probably get started right away and

make some sort of progress. Sounds fairly encouraging, wouldn't

you say?

There are many, many books on the subject of meditation. Most of

them are written from the point of view which lies squarely

within one particular religious or philosophical tradition, and

many of the authors have not bothered to point this out. They

make statements about meditation which sound like general laws,

but are actually highly specific procedures exclusive to that

particular system of practice. The result is something of a

muddle. Worse yet is the panoply of complex theories and

interpretations available, all of them at odds with one another.

The result is a real mess and an enormous jumble of conflicting

opinions accompanied by a mass of extraneous data. This book is

specific. We are dealing exclusively with the Vipassana system

of meditation. We are going to teach you to watch the

functioning of your own mind in a calm and detached manner so you

can gain insight into your own behavior. The goal is awareness,

an awareness so intense, concentrated and finely tuned that you

will be able to pierce the inner workings of reality itself.

There are a number of common misconceptions about meditation. We

see them crop up again and again from new students, the same

questions over and over. It is best to deal with these things at

once, because they are the sort of preconceptions which can block

your progress right from the outset. We are going to take these

misconceptions one at a time and explode them.

Misconception #1

Meditation is just a relaxation technique

The bugaboo here is the word 'just'. Relaxation is a key

component of meditation, but Vipassana-style meditation aims at a

much loftier goal. Nevertheless, the statement is essentially

true for many other systems of meditation. All meditation

procedures stress concentration of the mind, bringing the mind to

rest on one item or one area of thought. Do it strongly and

thoroughly enough, and you achieve a deep and blissful relaxation

which is called Jhana. It is a state of such supreme tranquility

that it amounts to rapture. It is a form of pleasure which lies

above and beyond anything that can be experienced in the normal

state of consciousness. Most systems stop right there. That is

the goal, and when you attain that, you simply repeat the

experience for the rest of your life. Not so with Vipassana

meditation. Vipassana seeks another goal--awareness.

Concentration and relaxation are considered necessary

concomitants to awareness. They are required precursors, handy

tools, and beneficial byproducts. But they are not the goal.

The goal is insight. Vipassana meditation is a profound

religious practice aimed at nothing less that the purification

and transformation of your everyday life. We will deal more

thoroughly with the differences between concentration and insight

in Chapter 14.

Misconception #2

Meditation means going into a trance

Here again the statement could be applied accurately to certain

systems of meditation, but not to Vipassana. Insight meditation

is not a form of hypnosis. You are not trying to black out your

mind so as to become unconscious. You are not trying to turn

yourself into an emotionless vegetable. If anything, the reverse

is true. You will become more and more attuned to your own

emotional changes. You will learn to know yourself with ever-

greater clarity and precision. In learning this technique,

certain states do occur which may appear trance-like to the

observer. But they are really quite the opposite. In hypnotic

trance, the subject is susceptible to control by another party,

whereas in deep concentration the meditator remains very much

under his own control. The similarity is superficial, and in any

case the occurrence of these phenomena is not the point of

Vipassana. As we have said, the deep concentration of Jhana is a

tool or stepping stone on the route of heightened awareness.

Vipassana by definition is the cultivation of mindfulness or

awareness. If you find that you are becoming unconscious in

meditation, then you aren't meditating, according to the

definition of the word as used in the Vipassana system. It is

that simple.

Misconception #3

Meditation is a mysterious practice which

cannot be understood

Here again, this is almost true, but not quite. Meditation deals

with levels of consciousness which lie deeper than symbolic

thought. Therefore, some of the data about meditation just won't

fit into words. That does not mean, however, that it cannot be

understood. There are deeper ways to understand things than

words. You understand how to walk. You probably can't describe

the exact order in which your nerve fibers and your muscles

contract during that process. But you can do it. Meditation

needs to be understood that same way, by doing it. It is not

something that you can learn in abstract terms. It is to be

experienced. Meditation is not some mindless formula which gives

automatic and predictable results. You can never really predict

exactly what will come up in any particular session. It is an

investigation and experiment and an adventure every time. In

fact, this is so true that when you do reach a feeling of

predictability and sameness in your practice, you use that as an

indicator. It means that you have gotten off the track somewhere

and you are headed for stagnation. Learning to look at each

second as if it were the first and only second in the universe is

most essential in Vipassana meditation.

Misconception #4

The purpose of meditation is to

become a psychic superman

No, the purpose of meditation is to develop awareness. Learning

to read minds is not the point. Levitation is not the goal. The

goal is liberation. There is a link between psychic phenomena

and meditation, but the relationship is somewhat complex. During

early stages of the meditator's career, such phenomena may or may

not arise. Some people may experience some intuitive

understanding or memories from past lives; others do not. In any

case, these are not regarded as well-developed and reliable

psychic abilities. Nor should they be given undue importance.

Such phenomena are in fact fairly dangerous to new meditators in

that they are too seductive. They can be an ego trap which can

lure you right off the track. Your best advice is not to place

any emphasis on these phenomena. If they come up, that's fine.

If they don't, that's fine, too. It's unlikely that they will.

There is a point in the meditator's career where he may practice

special exercises to develop psychic powers. But this occurs way

down the line. After he has gained a very deep stage of Jhana,

the meditator will be far enough advanced to work with such

powers without the danger of their running out of control or

taking over his life. He will then develop them strictly for the

purpose of service to others. This state of affairs only occurs

after decades of practice. Don't worry about it. Just

concentrate on developing more and more awareness. If voices and

visions pop up, just notice them and let them go. Don't get

involved.

Misconception #5

Meditation is dangerous and a prudent

person should avoid it

Everything is dangerous. Walk across the street and you may get

hit by a bus. Take a shower and you could break your neck.

Meditate and you will probably dredge up various nasty-matters

from your past. The suppressed material that has been buried

there for quite some time can be scary. It is also highly

profitable. No activity is entirely without risk, but that does

not mean that we should wrap ourselves in some protective cocoon.

That is not living. That is premature death. The way to deal

with danger is to know approximately how much of it there is,

where it is likely to be found and how to deal with it when it

arises. That is the purpose of this manual. Vipassana is

development of awareness. That in itself is not dangerous, but

just the opposite. Increased awareness is the safeguard against

danger. Properly done, meditation is a very gently and gradual

process. Take it slow and easy, and development of your practice

will occur very naturally. Nothing should be forced. Later,

when you are under the close scrutiny and protective wisdom of a

competent teacher, you can accelerate your rate of growth by

taking a period of intensive meditation. In the beginning,

though, easy does it. Work gently and everything will be fine.

Misconception #6

Meditation is for saints and holy men, not

for regular people

You find this attitude very prevalent in Asia, where monks and

holy men are accorded an enormous amount of ritualized reverence.

This is somewhat akin to the American attitude of idealizing

movie stars and baseball heroes. Such people are stereotyped,

made larger than life, and saddled with all sort of

characteristics that few human beings can ever live up to. Even

in the West, we share some of this attitude about meditation. We

expect the meditator to be some extraordinarily pious figure in

whose mouth butter would never dare to melt. A little personal

contact with such people will quickly dispel this illusion. They

usually prove to be people of enormous energy and gusto, people

who live their lives with amazing vigor. It is true, of course,

that most holy men meditate, but they don't meditate because they

are holy men. That is backward. They are holy men because they

meditate. Meditation is how they got there. And they started

meditating before they became holy. This is an important point.

A sizable number of students seems to feel that a person should

be completely moral before he begins meditation. It is an

unworkable strategy. Morality requires a certain degree of

mental control. It's a prerequisite. You can't follow any set

of moral precepts without at least a little self-control, and if

your mind is perpetually spinning like a fruit cylinder in a one-

armed bandit, self-control is highly unlikely. So mental culture

has to come first.

There are three integral factors in Buddhist meditation--

morality, concentration and wisdom. Those three factors grow

together as your practice deepens. Each one influences the

other, so you cultivate the three of them together, not one at a

time. When you have the wisdom to truly understand a situation,

compassion towards all the parties involved is automatic, and

compassion means that you automatically restrain yourself from

any thought, word or deed that might harm yourself or others.

Thus your behavior is automatically moral. It is only when you

don't understand things deeply that you create problems. If you

fail to see the consequences of your own action, you will

blunder. The fellow who waits to become totally moral before he

begins to meditate is waiting for a 'but' that will never come.

The ancient sages say that he is like a man waiting for the ocean

to become calm so that he can go take a bath. To understand this

relationship more fully, let us propose that there are levels of

morality. The lowest level is adherence to a set of rules and

regulations laid down by somebody else. It could be your

favorite prophet. It could be the state, the head man of your

tribe or your father. No matter who generates the rules, all

you've got to do at this level is know the rules and follow them.

A robot can do that. Even a trained chimpanzee could do it if

the rules were simple enough and he was smacked with a stick

every time he broke one. This level requires no meditation at

all. All you need are the rules and somebody to swing the stick.

The next level of morality consists of obeying the same rules

even in the absence of somebody who will smack you. You obey

because you have internalized the rules. You smack yourself

every time you break one. This level requires a bit of mind

control. If your thought pattern is chaotic, your behavior will

be chaotic, too. Mental culture reduces mental chaos.

There is a third level or morality, but it might be better termed

ethics. This level is a whole quantum layer up the scale, a real

paradigm shift in orientation. At the level of ethics, one does

not follow hard and fast rules dictated by authority. One

chooses his own behavior according to the needs of the situation.

This level requires real intelligence and an ability to juggle

all the factors in every situation and arrive at a unique,

creative and appropriate response each time. Furthermore, the

individual making these decisions needs to have dug himself out

of his own limited personal viewpoint. He has to see the entire

situation from an objective point of view, giving equal weight to

his own needs and those of others. In other words, he has to be

free from greed, hatred, envy and all the other selfish junk that

ordinarily keeps us from seeing the other guy's side of the

issue. Only then can he choose that precise set of actions which

will be truly optimal for that situation. This level of morality

absolutely demands meditation, unless you were born a saint.

There is no other way to acquire the skill. Furthermore, the

sorting process required at this level is exhausting. If you

tried to juggle all those factors in every situation with your

conscious mind, you'd wear yourself out. The intellect just

can't keep that many balls in the air at once. It is an

overload. Luckily, a deeper level of consciousness can do this

sort of processing with ease. Meditation can accomplish the

sorting process for you. It is an eerie feeling.

One day you've got a problem--say to handle Uncle Herman's latest

divorce. It looks absolutely unsolvable, and enormous muddle of

'maybes' that would give Solomon himself the willies. The next

day you are washing the dishes, thinking about something else

entirely, and suddenly the solution is there. It just pops out

of the deep mind and you say, 'Ah ha!' and the whole thing is

solved. This sort of intuition can only occur when you disengage

the logic circuits from the problem and give the deep mind the

opportunity to cook up the solution. The conscious mind just

gets in the way. Meditation teaches you how to disentangle

yourself from the thought process. It is the mental art of

stepping out of your own way, and that's a pretty useful skill in

everyday life. Meditation is certainly not some irrelevant

practice strictly for ascetics and hermits. It is a practical

skill that focuses on everyday events and has immediate

application in everybody's life. Meditation is not other-

worldly.

Unfortunately, this very fact constitutes the drawback for

certain students. They enter the practice expecting

instantaneous cosmic revelation, complete with angelic choirs.

What they usually get is a more efficient way to take out the

trash and better ways to deal with Uncle Herman. They are

needlessly disappointed. The trash solution comes first. The

voices of archangels take a bit longer.

Misconception #7

Meditation is running away from reality

Incorrect. Meditation is running into reality. It does not

insulate you from the pain of life. It allows you to delve so

deeply into life and all its aspects that you pierce the pain

barrier and you go beyond suffering. Vipassana is a practice

done with the specific intention of facing reality, to fully

experience life just as it is and to cope with exactly what you

find. It allows you to blow aside the illusions and to free

yourself from all those polite little lies you tell yourself all

the time. What is there is there. You are who you are, and

lying to yourself about your own weaknesses and motivations only

binds you tighter to the wheel of illusion. Vipassana meditation

is not an attempt to forget yourself or to cover up your

troubles. It is learning to look at yourself exactly as you are.

See what is there, accept it fully. Only then can you change it.

Misconception #8

Meditation is a great way to get high

Well, yes and no. Meditation does produce lovely blissful

feelings sometimes. But they are not the purpose, and they don't

always occur. Furthermore, if you do meditation with that

purpose in mind, they are less likely to occur than if you just

meditate for the actual purpose of meditation, which is increased

awareness. Bliss results from relaxation, and relaxation results

from release of tension. Seeking bliss from meditation

introduces tension into the process, which blows the whole chain

of events. It is a Catch-22. You can only have bliss if you

don't chase it. Besides, if euphoria and good feelings are what

you are after, there are easier ways to get them. They are

available in taverns and from shady characters on the street

corners all across the nation. Euphoria is not the purpose of

meditation. It will often arise, but it to be regarded as a by-

product. Still, it is a very pleasant side-effect, and it

becomes more and more frequent the longer you meditate. You

won't hear any disagreement about this from advanced

practitioners.

Misconception #9

Meditation is selfish

It certainly looks that way. There sits the meditator parked on

his little cushion. Is he out giving blood? No. Is he busy

working with disaster victims? No. But let us examine his

motivation. Why is he doing this? His intention is to purge his

own mind of anger, prejudice and ill-will. He is actively

engaged in the process of getting rid of greed, tension and

insensitivity. Those are the very items which obstruct his

compassion for others. Until they are gone, any good works that

he does are likely to be just an extension of his own ego and of

no real help in the long run. Harm in the name of help is one of

the oldest games. The grand inquisitor of the Spanish

Inquisition spouts the loftiest of motives. The Salem witchcraft

trials were conducted for the public good. Examine the personal

lives of advanced meditators and you will often find them engaged

in humanitarian service. You will seldom find them as crusading

missionaries who are willing to sacrifice certain individuals for

the sake of some pious idea. The fact is we are more selfish

than we know. The ego has a way of turning the loftiest

activities into trash if it is allowed free range. Through

meditation we become aware of ourselves exactly as we are, by

waking up to the numerous subtle ways that we manifest our own

selfishness. Then we truly begin to be genuinely selfless.

Cleansing yourself of selfishness is not a selfish activity.

Misconception #10

When you meditate, you sit around

thinking lofty thoughts

Wrong again. There are certain systems of contemplation in which

this sort of thing is done. But that is not Vipassana.

Vipassana is the practice of awareness. Awareness of whatever is

there, be it supreme truth or crummy trash. What is there is

there. Of course, lofty aesthetic thoughts may arise during your

practice. They are certainly not to be avoided. Neither are

they to be sought. They are just pleasant side-effects.

Vipassana is a simple practice. It consists of experiencing your

own life events directly, without preference and without mental

images pasted to them. Vipassana is seeing your life unfold from

moment to moment without biases. What comes up comes up. It is

very simple.

Misconception #11

A couple of weeks of meditation and

all my problems will go away

Sorry, meditation is not a quick cure-all. You will start seeing

changes right away, but really profound effects are years down

the line. That is just the way the universe is constructed.

Nothing worthwhile is achieved overnight. Meditation is tough in

some respects. It requires a long discipline and sometimes a

painful process of practice. At each sitting you gain some

results, but those results are often very subtle. They occur

deep within the mind, only to manifest much later. and if you

are sitting there constantly looking for some huge instantaneous

changes, you will miss the subtle shifts altogether. You will

get discouraged, give up and swear that no such changes will ever

occur. Patience is the key. Patience. If you learn nothing

else from meditation, you will learn patience. And that is the

most valuable lesson available.

Chapter 3

What Meditation Is

Meditation is a word, and words are used in different ways by

different speakers. This may seem like a trivial point, but it

is not. It is quite important to distinguish exactly what a

particular speaker means by the words he uses. Every culture on

earth, for example, has produced some sort of mental practice

which might be termed meditation. It all depends on how loose a

definition you give to that word. Everybody does it, from

Africans to Eskimos. The techniques are enormously varied, and

we will make no attempt to survey them. There are other books

for that. For the purpose of this volume, we will restrict our

discussion to those practices best known to Western audiences and

most likely associated with the term meditation.

Within the Judeo-Christian tradition we find two overlapping

practices called prayer and contemplation. Prayer is a direct

address to some spiritual entity. Contemplation in a prolonged

period of conscious thought about some specific topic, usually a

religious ideal or scriptural passage. From the standpoint of

mental culture, both of these activities are exercises in

concentration. The normal deluge of conscious thought is

restricted, and the mind is brought to one conscious area of

operation. The results are those you find in any concentrative

practice: deep calm, a physiological slowing of the metabolism

and a sense of peace and well-being.

Out of the Hindu tradition comes Yogic meditation, which is also

purely concentrative. The traditional basic exercises consist of

focusing the mind on a single object a stone, a candle flame, a

syllable or whatever, and not allowing it to wander. Having

acquired the basic skill, the Yogi proceeds to expand his

practice by taking on more complex objects of meditation chants,

colorful religious images, energy channels in the body and so

forth. Still, no matter how complex the object of meditation,

the meditation itself remains purely an exercise in

concentration.

Within the Buddhist tradition, concentration is also highly

valued. But a new element is added and more highly stressed.

That element is awareness. All Buddhist meditation aims at the

development of awareness, using concentration as a tool. The

Buddhist tradition is very wide, however, and there are several

diverse routes to this goal. Zen meditation uses two separate

tacks. The first is the direct plunge into awareness by sheer

force of will. You sit down and you just sit, meaning that you

toss out of your mind everything except pure awareness of

sitting. This sounds very simple. It is not. A brief trial

will demonstrate just how difficult it really is. The second Zen

approach used in the Rinzai school is that of tricking the mind

out of conscious thought and into pure awareness. This is done

by giving the student an unsolvable riddle which he must solve

anyway, and by placing him in a horrendous training situation.

Since he cannot flee from the pain of the situation, he must flee

into a pure experience of the moment. There is nowhere else to

go. Zen is tough. It is effective for many people, but it is

really tough.

Another stratagem, Tantric Buddhism, is nearly the reverse.

Conscious thought, at least the way we usually do it, is the

manifestation of ego, the you that you usually think that you are.

Conscious thought is tightly connected with self-concept. The

self-concept or ego is nothing more than a set of reactions and

mental images which are artificially pasted to the flowing

process of pure awareness. Tantra seeks to obtain pure awareness

by destroying this ego image. This is accomplished by a process

of visualization. The student is given a particular religious

image to meditate upon, for example, one of the deities from the

Tantric pantheon. He does this in so thorough a fashion that he

becomes that entity. He takes off his own identity and puts on

another. This takes a while, as you might imagine, but it works.

During the process, he is able to watch the way that the ego is

constructed and put in place. He comes to recognize the

arbitrary nature of all egos, including his own, and he escapes

from bondage to the ego. He is left in a state where he may have

an ego if he so chooses, either his own or whichever other he

might wish, or he can do without one. Result: pure awareness.

Tantra is not exactly a game of patty cake either.

Vipassana is the oldest of Buddhist meditation practices. The

method comes directly from the Sitipatthana Sutta, a discourse

attributed to Buddha himself. Vipassana is a direct and gradual

cultivation of mindfulness or awareness. It proceeds piece by

piece over a period of years. The student's attention is

carefully directed to an intense examination of certain aspects

of his own existence. The meditator is trained to notice more

and more of his own flowing life experience. Vipassana is a

gentle technique. But it also is very , very thorough. It is an

ancient and codified system of sensitivity training, a set of

exercises dedicated to becoming more and more receptive to your

own life experience. It is attentive listening, total seeing and

careful testing. We learn to smell acutely, to touch fully and

really pay attention to what we feel. We learn to listen to our

own thoughts without being caught up in them.

The object of Vipassana practice is to learn to pay attention.

We think we are doing this already, but that is an illusion. It

comes from the fact that we are paying so little attention to the

ongoing surge of our own life experiences that we might just as

well be asleep. We are simply not paying enough attention to

notice that we are not paying attention. It is another Catch-22.

Through the process of mindfulness, we slowly become aware of

what we really are down below the ego image. We wake up to what

life really is. It is not just a parade of ups and downs,

lollipops and smacks on the wrist. That is an illusion. Life

has a much deeper texture than that if we bother to look, and if

we look in the right way.

Vipassana is a form of mental training that will teach you to

experience the world in an entirely new way. You will learn for

the first time what is truly happening to you, around you and

within you. It is a process of self discovery, a participatory

investigation in which you observe your own experiences while

participating in them, and as they occur. The practice must be

approached with this attitude.

"Never mind what I have been taught. Forget about theories and

prejudgments and stereotypes. I want to understand the true

nature of life. I want to know what this experience of being

alive really is. I want to apprehend the true and deepest

qualities of life, and I don't want to just accept somebody

else's explanation. I want to see it for myself." If you pursue

your meditation practice with this attitude, you will succeed.

You'll find yourself observing things objectively, exactly as

they are--flowing and changing from moment to moment. Life then

takes on an unbelievable richness which cannot be described. It

has to be experienced.

The Pali term for Insight meditation is Vipassana Bhavana.

Bhavana comes from the root 'Bhu', which means to grow or to

become. There fore Bhavana means to cultivate, and the word is

always used in reference to the mind. Bhavana means mental

cultivation. 'Vipassana' is derived from two roots. 'Passana'

means seeing or perceiving. 'Vi' is a prefix with the complex

set of connotations. The basic meaning is 'in a special way.'

But there also is the connotation of both 'into' and 'through'.

The whole meaning of the word is looking into something with

clarity and precision, seeing each component as distinct and

separate, and piercing all the way through so as to perceive the

most fundamental reality of that thing. This process leads to

insight into the basic reality of whatever is being inspected.

Put it all together and 'Vipassana Bhavana' means the cultivation

of the mind, aimed at seeing in a special way that leads to

insight and to full understanding.

In Vipassana mediation we cultivate this special way of seeing

life. We train ourselves to see reality exactly as it is, and we

call this special mode of perception 'mindfulness.' This process

of mindfulness is really quite different from what we usually do.

We usually do not look into what is really there in front of us.

We see life through a screen of thoughts and concepts, and we

mistake those mental objects for the reality. We get so caught

up in this endless thought stream that reality flows by

unnoticed. We spend our time engrossed in activity, caught up in

an eternal pursuit of pleasure and gratification and an eternal

flight from pain and unpleasantness. We spend all of our

energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our

fears. We are endlessly seeking security. Meanwhile, the world

of real experience flows by untouched and untasted. In Vipassana

meditation we train ourselves to ignore the constant impulses to

be more comfortable, and we dive into the reality instead. The

ironic thing is that real peace comes only when you stop chasing

it. Another Catch-22.

When you relax your driving desire for comfort, real fulfillment

arises. When you drop your hectic pursuit of gratification, the

real beauty of life comes out. When you seek to know the reality

without illusion, complete with all its pain and danger, that is

when real freedom and security are yours. This is not some

doctrine we are trying to drill into you. This is an observable

reality, a thing you can and should see for yourself.

Buddhism is 2500 years old, and any thought system of that

vintage has time to develop layers and layers of doctrine and

ritual. Nevertheless, the fundamental attitude of Buddhism is

intensely empirical and anti-authoritarian. Gotama the Buddha

was a highly unorthodox individual and real anti-traditionalist.

He did not offer his teaching as a set of dogmas, but rather as a

set of propositions for each individual to investigate for

himself. His invitation to one and all was 'Come and See'. One

of the things he said to his followers was "Place no head above

your own". By this he meant, don't accept somebody else's word.

See for yourself.

We want you to apply this attitude to every word you read in this

manual. We are not making statements that you would accept

merely because we are authorities in the field. Blind faith has

nothing to do with this. These are experiential realities.

Learn to adjust your mode of perception according to instructions

given in the book, and you will see for yourself. That and only

that provides ground for your faith. Insight meditation is

essentially a practice of investigative personal discovery.

Having said this, we will present here a very short synopsis of

some of the key points of Buddhist philosophy. We make not

attempt to be thorough, since that has been quite nicely done in

many other books. This material is essential to understanding

Vipassana, therefore, some mention must be made.

From the Buddhist point of view, we human beings live in a very

peculiar fashion. We view impermanent things as permanent,

though everything is changing all around us. The process of

change is constant and eternal. As you read these words, you

body is aging. But you pay no attention to that. The book in

your hand is decaying. The print is fading and the pages are

becoming brittle. The walls around you are aging. The molecules

within those walls are vibrating at an enormous rate, and

everything is shifting, going to pieces and dissolving slowly.

You pay no attention to that, either. Then one day you look

around you. Your body is wrinkled and squeaky and you hurt. The

book is a yellowed, useless lump; the building is caving in. So

you pine for lost youth and you cry when the possessions are

gone. Where does this pain come from? It comes from your own

inattention. You failed to look closely at life. You failed to

observe the constantly shifting flow of the world as it went by.

You set up a collection of mental constructions, 'me', 'the

book', 'the building', and you assume that they would endure

forever. They never do. But you can tune into the constantly

ongoing change. You can learn to perceive your life as an ever-

flowing movement, a thing of great beauty like a dance or

symphony. You can learn to take joy in the perpetual passing

away of all phenomena. You can learn to live with the flow of

existence rather than running perpetually against the grain. You

can learn this. It is just a matter of time and training.

Our human perceptual habits are remarkably stupid in some ways.

We tune out 99% of all the sensory stimuli we actually receive,

and we solidify the remainder into discrete mental objects. Then

we react to those mental objects in programmed habitual ways. An

example: There you are, sitting alone in the stillness of a

peaceful night. A dog barks in the distance. The perception

itself is indescribably beautiful if you bother to examine it.

Up out of that sea of silence come surging waves of sonic

vibration. You start to hear the lovely complex patterns, and

they are turned into scintillating electronic stimulations within

the nervous system. The process is beautiful and fulfilling in

itself. We humans tend to ignore it totally. Instead, we

solidify that perception into a mental object. We paste a mental

picture on it and we launch into a series of emotional and

conceptual reactions to it. "There is that dog again. He is

always barking at night. What a nuisance. Every night he is a

real bother. Somebody should do something. Maybe I should call

a cop. No, a dog catcher. So, I'll call the pound. No, maybe

I'll just write a real nasty letter to the guy who owns that dog.

No, too much trouble. I'll just get an ear plug." They are just

perceptual and mental habits. You learn to respond this way as a

child by copying the perceptual habits of those around you.

These perceptual responses are not inherent in the structure of

the nervous system. The circuits are there. But this is not the

only way that our mental machinery can be used. That which has

been learned can be unlearned. The first step is to realize what

you are doing, as you are doing it, and stand back and quietly

watch.

From the Buddhist perspective, we humans have a backward view of

life. We look at what is actually the cause of suffering and we

see it as happiness. The cause of suffering is that desire-

aversion syndrome which we spoke of earlier. Up pops a

perception. It could be anything--a beautiful girl, a handsome

guy, speed boat, thug with a gun, truck bearing down on you,

anything. Whatever it is, the very next thing we do is to react

to the stimulus with a feeling about it.

Take worry. We worry a lot. Worry itself is the problem. Worry

is a process. It has steps. Anxiety is not just a state of

existence but a procedure. What you've got to do is to look at

the very beginning of that procedure, those initial stages before

the process has built up a head of steam. The very first link of

the worry chain is the grasping/rejecting reaction. As soon as

some phenomenon pops into the mind, we try mentally to grab onto

it or push it away. That sets the worry response in motion.

Luckily, there is a handy little tool called Vipassana meditation

which you can use to short-circuit the whole mechanism.

Vipassana meditation teaches us how to scrutinize our own

perceptual process with great precision. We learn to watch the

arising of thought and perception with a feeling of serene

detachment. We learn to view our own reactions to stimuli with

calm and clarity. We begin to see ourselves reacting without

getting caught up in the reactions themselves. The obsessive

nature of thought slowly dies. We can still get married. We can

still step out of the path of the truck. But we don't need to go

through hell over either one.

This escape from the obsessive nature of thought produces a whole

new view of reality. It is a complete paradigm shift, a total

change in the perceptual mechanism. It brings with it the

feeling of peace and rightness, a new zest for living and a sense

of completeness to every activity. Because of these advantages,

Buddhism views this way of looking at things as a correct view of

life and Buddhist texts call it seeing things as they really are.

Vipassana meditation is a set of training procedures which open

us gradually to this new view of reality as it truly is. Along

with this new reality goes a new view of the most central aspect

of reality: 'me'. A close inspection reveals that we have done

the same thing to 'me' that we have done to all other

perceptions. We have taken a flowing vortex of thought, feeling

and sensation and we have solidified that into a mental

construct. Then we have stuck a label onto it, 'me'. And

forever after, we threat it as if it were a static and enduring

entity. We view it as a thing separate from all other things.

We pinch ourselves off from the rest of that process of eternal

change which is the universe. And than we grieve over how lonely

we feel. We ignore our inherent connectedness to all other

beings and we decide that 'I' have to get more for 'me'; then we

marvel at how greedy and insensitive human beings are. And on it

goes. Every evil deed, every example of heartlessness in the

world stems directly from this false sense of 'me' as distinct

from all else that is out there.

Explode the illusion of that one concept and your whole universe

changes. Don't expect to do this overnight, though. You spent

your whole life building up that concept, reinforcing it with

every thought, word, and deed over all those years. It is not

going to evaporate instantly. But it will pass if you give it

enough time and enough attention. Vipassana meditation is a

process by which it is dissolved. Little by little, you chip

away at it just by watching it.

The 'I' concept is a process. It is a thing we are doing. In

Vipassana we learn to see that we are doing it, when we are doing

it and how we are doing it. Then it moves and fades away, like a

cloud passing through the clear sky. We are left in a state

where we can do it or not do it, whichever seems appropriate to

the situation. The compulsiveness is gone. We have a choice.

These are all major insights, of course. Each one is a deep-

reaching understanding of one of the fundamental issues of human

existence. They do not occur quickly, nor without considerable

effort. But the payoff is big. They lead to a total

transformation of your life. Every second of your existence

thereafter is changed. The meditator who pushes all the way down

this track achieves perfect mental health, a pure love for all

that lives and complete cessation of suffering. That is not

small goal. But you don't have to go all the way to reap

benefits. They start right away and they pile up over the years.

It is a cumulative function. The more you sit, the more you

learn about the real nature of your own existence. The more

hours you spend in meditation, the greater your ability to calmly

observe every impulse and intention, every thought and emotion

just as it arises in the mind. Your progress to liberation is

measured in cushion-man hours. And you can stop any time you've

had enough. There is no stick over your head except your own

desire to see the true quality of life, to enhance your own

existence and that of others.

Vipassana meditation is inherently experiential. It is not

theoretical. In the practice of meditation you become sensitive

to the actual experience of living, to how things feel. You do

not sit around developing subtle and aesthetic thoughts about

living. You live. Vipassana meditation more than anything else

is learning to live.

Chapter 4

Attitude

Within the last century, Western science and physics have made a

startling discovery. We are part of the world we view. The very

process of our observation changes the things we observe. As an

example, an electron is an extremely tiny item. It cannot be

viewed without instrumentation, and that apparatus dictates what

the observer will see. If you look at an electron in one way, it

appears to be a particle, a hard little ball that bounces around

in nice straight paths. When you view it another way, an

electron appears to be a wave form, with nothing solid about it.

It glows and wiggles all over the place. An electron is an event

more than a thing. And the observer participates in that event

by the very process of his or her observation. There is no way

to avoid this interaction.

Eastern science has recognized this basic principle for a very

long time. The mind is a set of events, and the observer

participates in those events every time he or she looks inward.

Meditation is participatory observation. What you are looking at

responds to the process of looking. What you are looking at is

you, and what you see depends on how you look. Thus the process

of meditation is extremely delicate, and the result depends

absolutely on the state of mind of the meditator. The following

attitudes are essential to success in practice. Most of them

have been presented before. But we bring them together again

here as a series of rules for application.

1. Don't expect anything. Just sit back and see what happens.

Treat the whole thing as an experiment. Take an active interest

in the test itself. But don't get distracted by your

expectations about results. For that matter, don't be anxious

for any result whatsoever. Let the meditation move along at its

own speed and in its own direction. Let the meditation teach you

what it wants you to learn. Meditative awareness seeks to see

reality exactly as it is. Whether that corresponds to our

expectations or not, it requires a temporary suspension of all

our preconceptions and ideas. We must store away our images,

opinions and interpretations someplace out of the way for the

duration. Otherwise we will stumble over them.

2. Don't strain: Don't force anything or make grand exaggerated

efforts. Meditation is not aggressive. There is no violent

striving. Just let your effort be relaxed and steady.

3. Don't rush: There is no hurry, so take you time. Settle

yourself on a cushion and sit as though you have a whole day.

Anything really valuable takes time to develop. Patience,

patience, patience.

4. Don't cling to anything and don't reject anything: Let come

what comes and accommodate yourself to that, whatever it is. If

good mental images arise, that is fine. If bad mental images

arise, that is fine, too. Look on all of it as equal and make

yourself comfortable with whatever happens. Don't fight with

what you experience, just observe it all mindfully.

5. Let go: Learn to flow with all the changes that come up.

Loosen up and relax.

6. Accept everything that arises: Accept your feelings, even the

ones you wish you did not have. Accept your experiences, even

the ones you hate. Don't condemn yourself for having human flaws

and failings. Learn to see all the phenomena in the mind as

being perfectly natural and understandable. Try to exercise a

disinterested acceptance at all times and with respect to

everything you experience.

7. Be gentle with yourself: Be kind to yourself. You may not be

perfect, but you are all you've got to work with. The process of

becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance

of who you are.

8. Investigate yourself: Question everything. Take nothing for

granted. Don't believe anything because it sounds wise and pious

and some holy men said it. See for yourself. That does not mean

that you should be cynical, impudent or irreverent. It means you

should be empirical. Subject all statements to the actual test

of your experience and let the results be your guide to truth.

Insight meditation evolves out of an inner longing to wake up to

what is real and to gain liberating insight to the true structure

of existence. The entire practice hinges upon this desire to be

awake to the truth. Without it, the practice is superficial.

9. View all problems as challenges: Look upon negatives that

arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don't run from

them, condemn yourself or bear your burden in saintly silence.

You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice,

dive in and investigate.

10. Don't ponder: You don't need to figure everything out.

Discursive thinking won't free you from the trap. In mediation,

the mind is purified naturally by mindfulness, by wordless bare

attention. Habitual deliberation is not necessary to eliminate

those things that are keeping you in bondage. All that is

necessary is a clear, non-conceptual perception of what they are

and how they work. That alone is sufficient to dissolve them.

Concepts and reasoning just get in the way. Don't think. See.

11. Don't dwell upon contrasts: Differences do exist between

people, but dwelling upon then is a dangerous process. Unless

carefully handled, it leads directly to egotism. Ordinary human

thinking is full of greed, jealousy and pride. A man seeing

another man on the street may immediately think, "He is better

looking than I am." The instant result is envy or shame. A girl

seeing another girl may think, "I am prettier than she is." The

instant result is pride. This sort of comparison is a mental

habit, and it leads directly to ill feeling of one sort or

another: greed, envy, pride, jealousy, hatred. It is an

unskillful mental state, but we do it all the time. We compare

our looks with others, our success, our accomplishments, our

wealth, possessions, or I.Q. and all these lead to the same

place--estrangement, barriers between people, and ill feeling.

The meditator's job is to cancel this unskillful habit by

examining it thoroughly, and then replacing it with another.

Rather than noticing the differences between self and others, the

meditator trains himself to notice similarities. He centers his

attention on those factors that are universal to all life, things

that will move him closer to others. Thus his comparison, if

any, leads to feelings of kinship rather than feelings of

estrangement.

Breathing is a universal process. All vertebrates breathe in

essentially the same manner. All living things exchange gasses

with their environment in some way or other. This is one of the

reasons that breathing is chosen as the focus of meditation. the

meditator is advised to explore the process of his own breathing

as a vehicle for realizing his own inherent connectedness with

the rest of life. This does not mean that we shut our eyes to

all the differences around us. Differences exist. It means

simply that we de-emphasize contrasts and emphasize the universal

factors. The recommended procedure is as follows:

When the meditator perceives any sensory object, he is not to

dwell upon it in the ordinary egotistical way. He should rather

examine the very process of perception itself. He should watch

the feelings that arise and the mental activities that follow.

He should note the changes that occur in his own consciousness as

a result. In watching all these phenomena, the meditator must be

aware of the universality of what he is seeing. That initial

perception will spark pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings.

That is a universal phenomenon. It occurs in the mind of others

just as it does in his, and he should see that clearly.

Following these feelings various reactions may arise. He may

feel greed, lust, or jealousy. He may feel fear, worry,

restlessness or boredom. These reactions are universal. He

simple notes them and then generalizes. He should realize that

these reactions are normal human responses and can arise in

anybody.

The practice of this style of comparison may feel forced and

artificial at first, but it is no less natural than what we

ordinarily do. It is merely unfamiliar. With practice, this

habit pattern replaces our normal habit of egoistic comparing and

feels far more natural in the long run. We become very

understanding people as a result. we no longer get upset by the

failings of others. We progress toward harmony with all life.

Chapter 5

The Practice

Although there are many subjects of meditation, we strongly

recommend you start with focusing your total undivided attention

on your breathing to gain some degree of shallow concentration.

Remember that you are not practicing a deep absorption or pure

concentration technique. You are practicing mindfulness for

which you need only a certain degree of shallow concentration.

You want to cultivate mindfulness culminating in insight and

wisdom to realize the truth as it is. You want to know the

working of your body-mind complex exactly as it is. You want to

get rid of all psychological annoyance to make your life really

peaceful and happy.

The mind cannot be purified without seeing things as they really

are. "Seeing things as they really are" is such a heavily loaded

and ambiguous phrase. Many beginning meditators wonder what we

mean, for anyone who has clear eye sight can see objects as they

are.

When we use this phrase in reference to insight gained from our

meditation, what we mean is not seeing things superficially with

our regular eyes, but seeing things with wisdom as they are in

themselves. Seeing with wisdom means seeing things within the

framework of our body/mind complex without prejudices or biases

springing from our greed, hatred and delusion. Ordinarily when

we watch the working of our mind/body complex, we tend to hide or

ignore things which are not pleasant to us and to hold onto

things which are pleasant. This is because our minds are

generally influenced by our desires, resentment and delusion.

Our ego, self or opinions get in our way and color our judgment.

When we mindfully watch our bodily sensations, we should not

confuse them with mental formations, for bodily sensations can

arise without anything to do with the mind. For instance, we sit

comfortably. After a while, there can arise some uncomfortable

feeling on our back or in our legs. Our mind immediately

experiences that discomfort and forms numerous thoughts around

the feeling. At that point, without trying to confuse the

feeling with the mental formations, we should isolate the feeling

as feeling and watch it mindfully. Feeling is one of the seven

universal mental factors. The other six are contact, perception,

mental formations, concentration, life force, and awareness.

At another time, we may have a certain emotion such as,

resentment, fear, or lust. Then we should watch the emotion

exactly as it is without trying to confuse it with anything else.

When we bundle our form, feeling, perceptions, mental formations

and consciousness up into one and try to watch all of them as

feeling, we get confused, as we will not be able to see the

source of feeling. If we simply dwell upon the feeling alone,

ignoring other mental factors, our realization of truth becomes

very difficult. We want to gain the insight into the experience

of impermanence to over come our resentment; our deeper knowledge

of unhappiness overcomes our greed which causes our unhappiness;

our realization of selflessness overcomes ignorance arising from

the notion of self. We should see the mind and body separately

first. Having comprehended them separately, we should see their

essential interconnectedness. As our insight becomes sharp, we

become more and more aware of the fact that all the aggregates

are cooperating to work together. None can exist without the

other. We can see the real meaning of the famous metaphor of the

blind man who has a healthy body to walk and the disabled person

who has very good eyes to see. Neither of them alone can do much

for himself. But when the disabled person climbs on the

shoulders of the blind man, together they can travel and achieve

their goals easily. Similarly, the body alone can do nothing for

itself. It is like a log unable to move or do anything by itself

except to become a subject of impermanence, decay and death. The

mind itself can do nothing without the support of the body. When

we mindfully watch both body and mind, we can see how many

wonderful things they do together.

As long as we are sitting in one place we may gain some degree of

mindfulness. Going to a retreat and spending several days or

several months watching our feelings, perceptions, countless

thoughts and various states of consciousness may make us

eventually calm and peaceful. Normally we do not have that much

time to spend in one place meditating all the time. Therefore,

we should find a way to apply our mindfulness to our daily life

in order for us to be able to handle daily unforeseeable

eventualities. What we face every day is unpredictable. Things

happen due to multiple causes and conditions, as we are living in

a conditional and impermanent world. Mindfulness is our

emergency kit, readily available at our service at any time.

When we face a situation where we feel indignation, if we

mindfully investigate our own mind, we will discover bitter

truths in ourselves. That is we are selfish; we are egocentric;

we are attached to our ego; we hold on to our opinions; we think

we are right and everybody else is wrong; we are prejudiced; we

are biased; and at the bottom of all of this, we do not really

love ourselves. This discovery, though bitter, is a most

rewarding experience. And in the long run, this discovery

delivers us from deeply rooted psychological and spiritual

suffering.

Mindfulness practice is the practice of one hundred percent

honesty with ourselves. When we watch our own mind and body, we

notice certain things that are unpleasant to realize. As we do

not like them, we try to reject them. What are the things we do

not like? We do not like to detach ourselves from loved ones or

to live with unloved ones. We include not only people, places

and material things into our likes and dislikes, but opinions,

ideas, beliefs and decisions as well. We do not like what

naturally happens to us. We do not like, for instance, growing

old, becoming sick, becoming weak or showing our age, for we have

a great desire to preserve our appearance. We do not like

someone pointing out our faults, for we take great pride in

ourselves. We do not like someone to be wiser than we are, for

we are deluded about ourselves. These are but a few examples of

our personal experience of greed, hatred and ignorance.

When greed, hatred and ignorance reveal themselves in our daily

lives, we use our mindfulness to track them down and comprehend

their roots. The root of each of these mental states in within

ourselves. If we do not, for instance, have the root of hatred,

nobody can make us angry, for it is the root of our anger that

reacts to somebody's actions or words or behavior. If we are

mindful, we will diligently use our wisdom to look into our own

mind. If we do not have hatred in us we will not be concerned

when someone points out our shortcomings. Rather, we will be

thankful to the person who draws our attention to our faults. We

have to be extremely wise and mindful to thank the person who

explicates our faults so we will be able to tread the upward path

toward improving ourselves. We all have blind spots. The other

person is our mirror for us to see our faults with wisdom. We

should consider the person who shows our shortcomings as one who

excavates a hidden treasure in us that we were unaware of. It is

by knowing the existence of our deficiencies that we can improve

ourselves. Improving ourselves is the unswerving path to the

perfection which is our goal in life. Only by overcoming

weaknesses can we cultivate noble qualities hidden deep down in

our subconscious mind. Before we try to surmount our defects, we

should what they are.

If we are sick, we must find out the cause of our sickness. Only

then can we get treatment. If we pretend that we do not have

sickness even though we are suffering, we will never get

treatment. Similarly, if we think that we don't have these

faults, we will never clear our spiritual path. If we are blind

to our own flaws, we need someone to point them out to us. When

they point out our faults, we should be grateful to them like the

Venerable Sariputta, who said: "Even if a seven-year-old novice

monk points out my mistakes, I will accept them with utmost

respect for him." Ven. Sariputta was an Arahant who was one

hundred percent mindful and had no fault in him. But since he

did not have any pride, he was able to maintain this position.

Although we are not Arahants, we should determine to emulate his

example, for our goal in life also is to attain what he attained.

Of course the person pointing out our mistakes himself may not be

totally free from defects, but he can see our problems as we can

see his faults, which he does not notice until we point them out

to him.

Both pointing out shortcomings and responding to them should be

done mindfully. If someone becomes unmindful in indicating

faults and uses unkind and harsh language, he might do more harm

than good to himself as well as to the person whose shortcomings

he points out. One who speaks with resentment cannot be mindful

and is unable to express himself clearly. One who feels hurt

while listening to harsh language may lose his mindfulness and

not hear what the other person is really saying. We should speak

mindfully and listen mindfully to be benefitted by talking and

listening. When we listen and talk mindfully, our minds are free

from greed, selfishness, hatred and delusion.

Our Goal

As meditators, we all must have a goal, for if we do not have a

goal, we will simply be groping in the dark blindly following

somebody's instructions on meditation. There must certainly be a

goal for whatever we do consciously and willingly. It is not the

Vipassana meditator's goal to become enlightened before other

people or to have more power or to make more profit than others,

for mindfulness meditators are not in competition with each

other.

Our goal is to reach the perfection of all the noble and

wholesome qualities latent in our subconscious mind. This goal

has five elements to it: Purification of mind, overcoming sorrow

and lamentation, overcoming pain and grief, treading the right

path leading to attainment of eternal peace, and attaining

happiness by following that path. Keeping this fivefold goal in

mind, we can advance with hope and confidence to reach the goal.

Practice

Once you sit, do not change the position again until the end of

the time you determined at the beginning. Suppose you change

your original position because it is uncomfortable, and assume

another position. What happens after a while is that the new

position becomes uncomfortable. Then you want another and after

a while, it too becomes uncomfortable. So you may go on

shifting, moving, changing one position to another the whole time

you are on your mediation cushion and you may not gain a deep and

meaningful level of concentration. Therefore, do not change your

original position, no matter how painful it is.

To avoid changing your position, determine at the beginning of

meditation how long you are going to meditate. If you have never

meditated before, sit motionless not longer than twenty minutes.

As you repeat your practice, you can increase your sitting time.

The length of sitting depends on how much time you have for

sitting meditation practice and how long you can sit without

excruciating pain.

We should not have a time schedule to attain the goal, for our

attainment depends on how we progress in our practice based on

our understanding and development of our spiritual faculties. We

must work diligently and mindfully towards the goal without

setting any particular time schedule to reach it. When we are

ready, we get there. All we have to do is to prepare ourselves

for that attainment.

After sitting motionless, close your eyes. Our mind is analogous

to a cup of muddy water. The longer you keep a cup of muddy

water still, the more mud settles down and the water will be seen

clearly. Similarly, if you keep quiet without moving you body,

focusing your entire undivided attention on the subject of your

meditation, your mind settles down and begins to experience the

bliss of meditation.

To prepare for this attainment, we should keep our mind in the

present moment. The present moment is changing so fast that the

casual observer does not seem to notice its existence at all.

Every moment is a moment of events and no moment passes by

without noticing events taking place in that moment. Therefore,

the moment we try to pay bare attention to is the present moment.

Our mind goes through a series of events like a series of

pictures passing through a projector. Some of these pictures are

coming from our past experiences and others are our imaginations

of things that we plan to do in the future.

The mind can never be focused without a mental object. Therefore

we must give our mind an object which is readily available every

present moment. What is present every moment is our breath. The

mind does not have to make a great effort to find the breath, for

every moment the breath is flowing in and out through our

nostrils. As our practice of insight meditation is taking place

every waking moment, our mind finds it very easy to focus itself

on the breath, for it is more conspicuous and constant than any

other object.

After sitting in the manner explained earlier and having shared

your loving-kindness with everybody, take three deep breaths.

After taking three deep breaths, breathe normally, letting your

breath flow in and out freely, effortlessly and begin focusing

your attention on the rims of your nostrils. Simply notice the

feeling of breath going in and out. When one inhalation is

complete and before exhaling begins, there is a brief pause.

Notice it and notice the beginning of exhaling. When the

exhalation is complete, there is another brief pause before

inhaling begins. Notice this brief pause, too. This means that

there are two brief pauses of breath--one at the end of inhaling,

and the other at the end of exhaling. The two pauses occur in

such a brief moment you may not be aware of their occurrence.

But when you are mindful, you can notice them.

Do not verbalize or conceptualize anything. Simply notice the

in-coming and out-going breath without saying, "I breathe in", or

"I breathe out." When you focus your attention on the breath

ignore any thought, memory, sound, smell, taste, etc., and focus

your attention exclusively on the breath, nothing else.

At the beginning, both the inhalations and exhalations are short

because the body and mind are not calm and relaxed. Notice the

feeling of that short inhaling and short exhaling as they occur

without saying "short inhaling" or "short exhaling". As you

remain noticing the felling of short inhaling and short exhaling,

your body and mind become relatively calm. Then your breath

becomes long. Notice the feeling of that long breath as it is

without saying "Long breath". Then notice the entire breathing

process from the beginning to the end. Subsequently the breath

becomes subtle, and the mind and body become calmer than before.

Notice this calm and peaceful feeling of your breathing.

What To Do When the Mind Wanders Away?

In spite of your concerted effort to keep the mind on your

breathing, the mind may wander away. It may go to past

experiences and suddenly you may find yourself remembering places

you've visited, people you met, friends not seen for a long time,

a book you read long ago, the taste of food you ate yesterday,

and so on. As soon as you notice that you mind is no longer on

your breath, mindfully bring it back to it and anchor it there.

However, in a few moments you may be caught up again thinking how

to pay your bills, to make a telephone call to you friend, write

a letter to someone, do your laundry, buy your groceries, go to a

party, plan your next vacation, and so forth. As soon as you

notice that your mind is not on your subject, bring it back

mindfully. Following are some suggestions to help you gain the

concentration necessary for the practice of mindfulness.

1. Counting

In a situation like this, counting may help. The purpose of

counting is simply to focus the mind on the breath. Once you

mind is focused on the breath, give up counting. This is a

device for gaining concentration. There are numerous ways of

counting. Any counting should be done mentally. Do not make any

sound when you count. Following are some of the ways of

counting.

a)While breathing in count "one, one, one, one..." until the

lungs are full of fresh air. While breathing out count "two,

two, two, two..." until the lings are empty of fresh air. Then

while breathing in again count "three, three, three, three..."

until the lungs are full again and while breathing out count

again "four, four, four, four..." until the lungs are empty of

fresh air. Count up to ten and repeat as many times as necessary

to keep the mind focused on the breath.

b)The second method of counting is counting rapidly up to ten.

While counting "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,

nine and ten" breathe in and again while counting "one, two,

three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten" breathe out.

This means in one inhaling you should count up to ten and in one

exhaling you should count up to ten. Repeat this way of counting

as many times as necessary to focus the mind on the breath.

c)The third method of counting is to counting secession up to

ten. At this time count "one, two, three, four, five" (only up

to five) while inhaling and then count "one, two, three, four,

five, six" (up to six) while exhaling. Again count "one, two,

three, four fire, six seven" (only up to seven) while inhaling.

Then count "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight" while

exhaling. Count up to nine while inhaling and count up to ten

while exhaling. Repeat this way of counting as many times as

necessary to focus the mind on the breath.

d)The fourth method is to take a long breath. When the lungs are

full, mentally count "one" and breath out completely until the

lungs are empty of fresh air. Then count mentally "two". Take a

long breath again and count "three" and breath completely out as

before. When the lungs are empty of fresh air, count mentally

"four". Count your breath in this manner up to ten. Then count

backward from ten to one. Count again from one to ten and then

ten to one.

e)The fifth method is to join inhaling and exhaling. When the

lungs are empty of fresh air, count mentally "one". This time

you should count both inhalation and exhalation as one. Again

inhale, exhale, and mentally count "two". This way of counting

should be done only up to five and repeated from five to one.

Repeat this method until you breathing becomes refined and quiet.

Remember that you are not supposed to continue your counting all

the time. As soon as your mind is locked at the nostrils-tip

where the inhaling breath and exhaling breath touch and begin to

feel that you breathing is so refined and quiet that you cannot

notice inhalation and exhalation separately, you should give up

counting. Counting is used only to train the mind to concentrate

on one point.

2. Connecting

After inhaling do not wait to notice the brief pause before

exhaling but connect the inhaling and exhaling, so you can notice

both inhaling and exhaling as one continuous breath.

3. Fixing

After joining inhaling and exhaling, fix your mind on the point

where you feel you inhaling and exhaling breath touching. Inhale

and exhale as on single breath moving in and out touching or

rubbing the rims of your nostrils.

4. Focus you mind like a carpenter

A carpenter draws a straight line on a board and that he wants to

cut. Then he cuts the board with his handsaw along the straight

line he drew. He does not look at the teeth of his say as they

move in and out of the board. Rather he focuses his entire

attention on the line he drew so he can cut the board straight.

Similarly keep your mind straight on the point where you feel the

breath at the rims of your nostrils.

5. Make you mind like a gate-keeper

A gate-keeper does not take into account any detail of the people

entering a house. All he does is notice people entering the

house and leaving the house through the gate. Similarly, when

you concentrate you should not take into account any detail of

your experiences. Simply notice the feeling of your inhaling and

exhaling breath as it goes in and out right at the rims of your

nostrils.

As you continue your practice you mind and body becomes so light

that you may feel as if you are floating in the air or on water.

You may even feel that your body is springing up into the sky.

When the grossness of your in-and-out breathing has ceased,

subtle in-and-out breathing arises. This very subtle breath is

your objective focus of the mind. This is the sign of

concentration. This first appearance of a sign-object will be

replaced by more and more subtle sign-object. This subtlety of

the sign can be compared to the sound of a bell. When a bell is

struck with a big iron rod, you hear a gross sound at first. As

the sound faces away, the sound becomes very subtle. Similarly

the in-and-out breath appears at first as a gross sign. As you

keep paying bare attention to it, this sign becomes very subtle.

But the consciousness remains totally focused on the rims of the

nostrils. Other meditation objects become clearer and clearer,

as the sign develops. But the breath becomes subtler and subtler

as the sign develops. Because of this subtlety, you may not

notice the presence of your breath. Don't get disappointed

thinking that you lost your breath or that nothing is happening

to your meditation practice. Don't worry. Be mindful and

determined to bring your feeling of breath back to the rims of

your nostrils. This is the time you should practice more

vigorously, balancing your energy, faith, mindfulness,

concentration and wisdom.

Farmer's simile

Suppose there is a farmer who uses buffaloes for plowing his rice

field. As he is tired in the middle of the day, he unfastens his

buffaloes and takes a rest under the cool shade of a tree. When

he wakes up, he does not find his animals. He does not worry,

but simply walks to the water place where all the animals gather

for drinking in the hot mid-day and he finds his buffaloes there.

Without any problem he brings them back and ties them to the yoke

again and starts plowing his field.

Similarly as you continue this exercise, your breath becomes so

subtle and refined that you might not be able to notice the

feeling of breath at all. When this happens, do not worry. It

has not disappeared. It is still where it was before-right at

the nostril-tips. Take a few quick breaths and you will notice

the feeling of breathing again. Continue to pay bare attention

to the feeling of the touch of breath at the rims of your

nostrils.

¿?

As you keep your mind focused on the rims of your nostrils, you

will be able to notice the sign of the development of meditation.

You will feel the pleasant sensation of sign. Different

meditators feel this differently. It will be like a star, or a

peg made of heartwood, or a long string, or a wreath of flowers,

or a puff of smoke, or a cob-web, or a film of cloud, or a lotus

flower, or the disc of the moon or the disc of the sun.

Earlier in your practice you had inhaling and exhaling as objects

of meditation. Now you have the sign as the third object of

meditation. When you focus your mind on this third object, your

mind reaches a stage of concentration sufficient for your

practice of insight meditation. This sign is strongly present at

the rims of the nostrils. Master it and gain full control of it

so that whenever you want, it should be available. Unite the

mind with this sign which is available in the present moment and

let the mind flow with every succeeding moment. As you pay bare

attention to it, you will see the sign itself is changing every

moment. Keep your mind with the changing moments. Also notice

that your mind can be concentrated only on the present moment.

This unity of the mind with the present moment is called

momentary concentration. As moments are incessantly passing away

one after another, the mind keeps pace with them. Changing with

them, appearing and disappearing with them without clinging to

any of them. If we try to stop the mind at one moment, we end up

in frustration because the mind cannot be held fast. It must

keep up with what is happening in the new moment. As the present

moment can be found any moment, every waking moment can be made a

concentrated moment.

To unite the mind with the present moment, we must find something

happening in that moment. However, you cannot focus your mind on

every changing moment without a certain degree of concentration

to keep pace with the moment. Once you gain this degree of

concentration, you can use it for focusing your attention on

anything you experience--the rising and falling of your abdomen,

the rising and falling of the chest area, the rising and falling

of any feeling, or the rising and falling of your breath or

thoughts and so on.

To make any progress in insight meditation you need this kind of

momentary concentration. That is all you need for the insight

meditation practice because everything in your experience lives

only for one moment. When you focus this concentrated state of

mind on the changes taking place in your mind and body, you will

notice that your breath is the physical part and the feeling of

breath, consciousness of the feeling and the consciousness of the

sign are the mental parts. As you notice them you can notice

that they are changing all the time. You may have various types

of sensations, other than the feeling of breathing, taking place

in your body. Watch them all over your body. Don't try to

create any feeling which is not naturally present in any part of

your body. When thought arises notice it, too. All you should

notice in all these occurrences is the impermanent,

unsatisfactory and selfless nature of all your experiences

whether mental or physical.

As your mindfulness develops, your resentment for the change,

your dislike for the unpleasant experiences, your greet for the

pleasant experiences and the notion of self hood will be replaced

by the deeper insight of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and

selflessness. This knowledge of reality in your experience helps

you to foster a more calm, peaceful and mature attitude towards

your life. You will see what you thought in the past to be

permanent is changing with such an inconceivable rapidity that

even your mind cannot keep up with these changes. Somehow you

will be able to notice many of the changes. You will see the

subtlety of impermanence and the subtlety of selflessness. This

insight will show you the way to peace, happiness and give you

the wisdom to handle your daily problems in life.

When the mind is united with the breath flowing all the time, we

will naturally be able to focus the mind on the present moment.

We can notice the feeling arising from contact of breath with the

rim of our nostrils. As the earth element of the air that we

breathe in and out touches the earth element of our nostrils, the

mind feels the flow of air in and out. The warm feeling arises

at the nostrils or any other part of the body from the contact of

the heat element generated by the breathing process. The feeling

of impermanence of breath arises when the earth element of

flowing breath touches the nostrils. Although the water element

is present in the breath, the mind cannot feel it.

Also we feel the expansion and contraction of our lungs, abdomen

and low abdomen, as the fresh air is pumped in and out of the

lungs. The expansion and contraction of the abdomen, lower

abdomen and chest are parts of the universal rhythm. Everything

in the universe has the same rhythm of expansion and contraction

just like our breath and body. All of them are rising and

falling. However, our primary concern is the rising and falling

phenomena of the breath and minute parts of our minds and bodies.

Along with the inhaling breath, we experience a small degree of

calmness. This little degree of tension-free calmness turns into

tension if we don't breathe out in a few moments. As we breathe

out this tension is released. After breathing out, we experience

discomfort if we wait too long before having fresh brought in

again. This means that every time our lungs are full we must

breathe out and every time our lungs are empty we must breathe

in. As we breathe in, we experience a small degree of calmness,

and as we breathe out, we experience a small degree of calmness.

We desire calmness and relief of tension and do not like the

tension and feeling resulting from the lack of breath. We wish

that the calmness would stay longer and the tension disappear

more quickly that it normally dose. But neither will the tension

go away as fast as we wish not the calmness stay as long as we

wish. And again we get agitated or irritated, for we desire the

calmness to return and stay longer and the tension to go away

quickly and not to return again. Here we see how even a small

degree of desire for permanency in an impermanent situation

causes pain or unhappiness. Since there is no self-entity to

control this situation, we will become more disappointed.

However, if we watch our breathing without desiring calmness and

without resenting tension arising from the breathing in and out,

but experience only the impermanence, the unsatisfactoriness and

selflessness of our breath, our mind becomes peaceful and calm.

Also, the mind does not stay all the time with the feeling of

breath. It goes to sounds, memories, emotions, perceptions,

consciousness and mental formations as well. When we experience

these states, we should forget about the feeling of breath and

immediately focus our attention on these states--one at a time,

not all of them at one time. As they fade away, we let our mind

return to the breath which is the home base the mind can return

to from quick or long journey to various states of mind and body.

We must remember that all these mental journeys are made within

the mind itself.

Every time the mind returns to the breath, it comes back with a

deeper insight into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and

selflessness. The mind becomes more insightful from the

impartial and unbiased watching of these occurrences. The mind

gains insight into the fact that this body, these feelings,

various states of consciousness and numerous mental formations

are to be used only for the purpose of gaining deeper insight

into the reality of this mind/body complex.

Chapter 6

What To Do With Your Body

The practice of meditation has been going on for several thousand

years. That is quite a bit of time for experimentation, and the

procedure has been very, very thoroughly refined. Buddhist

practice has always recognized that the mind and body are tightly

linked and that each influences the other. Thus there are

certain recommended physical practices which will greatly assist

you to master your skill. And these practices should be

followed. Keep in mind, however, that these postures are

practice aids. Don't confuse the two. Meditation does not mean

sitting in the lotus position. It is a mental skill. It can be

practiced anywhere you wish. But these postures will help you

learn this skill and they speed your progress and development.

So use them.

General Rules

The purpose of the various postures is threefold. First, they

provide a stable feeling in the body. This allows you to remove

your attention from such issues as balance and muscular fatigue,

so that you can then center your concentration upon the formal

object of meditation. Second, they promote physical immobility

which is then reflected by an immobility of mind. This creates a

deeply settled and tranquil concentration. Third, they give you

the ability to sit for a long period of time without yielding to

the meditator's three main enemies--pain, muscular tension and

falling asleep. The most essential thing is to sit with your

back straight. The spine should be erect with the spinal

vertebrae held like a stack of coins, one on top of the other.

Your head should be held in line with the rest of the spine. All

of this is done in a relaxed manner. No Stiffness. You are not

a wooden soldier, and there is no drill sergeant. There should

be no muscular tension involved in keeping the back straight.

Sit light and easy. The spine should be like a firm young tree

growing out of soft ground. The rest of the body just hangs from

it in a loose, relaxed manner. This is going to require a bit of

experimentation on your part. We generally sit in tight, guarded

postures when we are walking or talking and in sprawling postures

when we are relaxing. Neither of those will do. But they are

cultural habits and they can be re-learned.

Your objective is to achieve a posture in which you can sit for

the entire session without moving at all. In the beginning, you

will probably feel a bit odd to sit with the straight back. But

you will get used to it. It takes practice, and an erect posture

is very important. This is what is known in physiology as a

position of arousal, and with it goes mental alertness. If you

slouch, you are inviting drowsiness. What you sit on is equally

important. You are going to need a chair or a cushion, depending

on the posture you choose, and the firmness of the seat must be

chosen with some care. Too soft a seat can put you right to

sleep. Too hard can promote pain.

Clothing

The clothes you wear for meditation should be loose and soft. If

they restrict blood flow or put pressure on nerves, the result

will be pain and/or that tingling numbness which we normally

refer to as our 'legs going to sleep'. If you are wearing a

belt, loosen it. Don't wear tight pants or pants made of thick

material. Long skirts are a good choice for women. Loose pants

made of thin or elastic material are fine for anybody. Soft,

flowing robes are the traditional garb in Asia and they come in

an enormous variety of styles such as sarongs and kimonos. Take

your shoes off and if your stockings are thick and binding, take

them off, too.

Traditional Postures

When you are sitting on the floor in the traditional Asian

manner, you need a cushion to elevate your spine. Choose one

that is relatively firm and at least three inches thick when

compressed. Sit close to the front edge of the cushion and let

your crossed legs rest on the floor in front of you. If the

floor is carpeted, that may be enough to protect your shins and

ankles from pressure. If it is not, you will probably need some

sort of padding for your legs. A folded blanket will do nicely.

Don't sit all the way back on the cushion. This position causes

its front edge to press into the underside of your thigh, causing

nerves to pinch. The result will be leg pain.

There are a number of ways you can fold your legs. We will list

four in ascending order of preference.

1. American indian style. Your right foot is tucked under the

left knee and left foot is tucked under your right knee.

2. Burmese style. Both of your legs lie flat on the floor from

knee to foot. They are parallel with each other and one in front

of the other.

3. Half lotus. Both knees touch the floor. One leg and foot

lie flat along the calf of the other leg.

4. Full lotus. Both knees touch the floor, and your legs are

crossed at the calf. Your left foot rests on the right thigh,

and your right foot rests on the left thigh. Both soles turn

upward.

In these postures, your hands are cupped one on the other, and

they rest on your lap with the palms turned upward. The hands

lie just below the navel with the bend of each wrist pressed

against the thigh. This arm position provides firm bracing for

the upper body. Don't tighten your neck muscles. Relax your

arms. Your diaphragm is held relaxed, expanded to maximum

fullness. Don't let tension build up in the stomach area. Your

chin is up. Your eyes can be open or closed. If you keep them

open, fix them on the tip of your nose or in the middle distance

straight in front. You are not looking at anything. You are

just putting your eyes in some arbitrary direction where there is

nothing in particular to see, so that you can forget about

vision. Don't strain. Don't stiffen and don't be rigid. Relax;

let the body be natural and supple. Let it hang from the erect

spine like a rag doll.

Half and full lotus positions are the traditional meditation

postures in asia. And the full lotus is considered the best. It

is the most solid by far. Once you are locked into this

position, you can be completely immovable for a very long period.

Since it requires a considerable flexibility in the legs, not

everybody can do it. Besides, the main criterion by which you

choose a posture for yourself is not what others say about it.

It is your own comfort. Choose a position which allows you to

sit the longest without pain, without moving. Experiment with

different postures. The tendons will loosen with practice. And

then you can work gradually towards the full lotus.

Using A Chair

Sitting on the floor may not be feasible for you because of pain

or some other reason. No problem. You can always use a chair

instead. Pick one that has a level seat, a straight back and no

arms. It is best to sit in such a way that your back does not

lean against the back of the chair. The front of the seat should

not dig into the underside of your thighs. Place your legs side

by side,feet flat on the floor. As with the traditional

postures, place both hands on your lap, cupped one upon the

other. Don't tighten your neck or shoulder muscles, and relax

your arms. Your eyes can be open or closed.

In all the above postures, remember your objectives. You want to

achieve a state of complete physical stillness, yet you don't

want to fall asleep. Recall the analogy of the muddy water. You

want to promote a totally settled state of the body which will

engender a corresponding mental settling. There must also be a

state of physical alertness which can induce the kind of mental

clarity you seek. So experiment. Your body is a tool for

creating desired mental states. Use it judiciously.

_

Chapter 7

What To Do With Your Mind

The meditation we teach is called Insight Meditation. As we have

already said, the variety of possible objects of meditation is

nearly unlimited, and human beings have used an enormous number

down through the ages. Even within the Vipassana tradition there

are variances. There are meditation teachers who teach their

students to follow the breath by watching the rise and fall of

the abdomen. Others recommend focusing attention on the touch of

the body against the cushion, or hand against hand, or the

feeling of one leg against the other. The method we are

explaining here, however, is considered the most traditional and

is probably what Gotama Buddha taught his students. The

Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha's original discourse on

mindfulness, specifically says that one must begin by focusing

the attention on the breathing and then go on to note all other

physical and mental phenomena which arise.

We sit, watching the air going in and out of our noses. At first

glance, this seems an exceedingly odd and useless procedure.

Before going on to specific instructions, let us examine the

reason behind it. The first question we might address is why use

any focus of attention at all? We are, after all, trying to

develop awareness. Why not just sit down and be aware of

whatever happens to be present in the mind? In fact there are

meditations of that nature. They are sometimes referred to as

unstructured meditation and they are quite difficult. The mind

is tricky. Thought is an inherently complicated procedure. By

that we mean we become trapped, wrapped up, and stuck in the

thought chain. One thought leads to another which leads to

another, and another, and another, and so on. Fifteen minutes

later we suddenly wake up and realize we spent that whole time

stuck in a daydream or sexual fantasy or a set of worries about

our bills or whatever.

There is a difference between being aware of a thought and

thinking a thought. That difference is very subtle. It is

primarily a matter of feeling or texture. A thought you are

simply aware of with bare attention feels light in texture; there

is a sense of distance between that thought and the awareness

viewing it. It arises lightly like a bubble, and it passes away

without necessarily giving rise to the next thought in that

chain. Normal conscious thought is much heavier in texture. It

is ponderous, commanding, and compulsive. It sucks you in and

grabs control of consciousness. By its very nature it is

obsessional, and it leads straight to the next thought in the

chain, apparently with no gap between them.

Conscious thought sets up a corresponding tension in the body,

such as muscular contraction or a quickening of the heartbeat.

But you won't feel tension until it grows to actual pain, because

normal conscious thought is also greedy. It grabs all your

attention and leaves none to notice its own effect. The

difference between being aware of the thought and thinking the

thought is very real. But it is extremely subtle and difficult

to see. Concentration is one of the tools needed to be able to

see this difference.

Deep concentration has the effect of slowing down the thought

process and speeding up the awareness viewing it. The result is

the enhanced ability to examine the thought process.

Concentration is our microscope for viewing subtle internal

states. We use the focus of attention to achieve one-pointedness

of mind with calm and constantly applied attention. Without a

fixed reference point you get lost, overcome by the ceaseless

waves of change flowing round and round within the mind.

We use breath as our focus. It serves as that vital reference

point from which the mind wanders and is drawn back. Distraction

cannot be seen as distraction unless there is some central focus

to be distracted from. That is the frame of reference against

which we can view the incessant changes and interruptions that go

on all the time as a part of normal thinking.

Ancient Pali texts liken meditation to the process of taming a

wild elephant. The procedure in those days was to tie a newly

captured animal to a post with a good strong rope. When you do

this the elephant is not happy. He screams and tramples, and

pulls against the rope for days. Finally it sinks through his

skull that he can't get away, and he settles down. At this point

you can begin to feed him and to handle him with some measure of

safety. Eventually you can dispense with the rope and post

altogether, and train your elephant for various tasks. Now

you've got a tamed elephant that can be put to useful work. In

this analogy the wild elephant is your wildly active mind, the

rope is mindfulness, and the post is our object of meditation--

breathing. The tamed elephant who emerges from this process is a

well trained, concentrated mind that can then be used for the

exceedingly tough job of piercing the layers of illusion that

obscure reality. Meditation tames the mind.

The next question we need to address is: Why choose breathing as

the primary object of meditation? Why not something a bit more

interesting? Answers to this are numerous. A useful object of

meditation should be one that promotes mindfulness. It should be

portable, easily available and cheap. It should also be

something that will not embroil us in those states of mind from

which we are trying to free ourselves, such as greed, anger and

delusion. Breathing satisfies all these criteria and more.

Breathing is something common to every human being. We all carry

it with us wherever we go. It is always there, constantly

available, never ceasing from birth till death, and it costs

nothing.

Breathing is a non-conceptual process, a thing that can be

experienced directly without a need for thought. Furthermore, it

is a very living process, an aspect of life that is in constant

change. The breath moves in cycles--inhalation, exhalation,

breathing in and breathing out. Thus it is miniature model of

life itself.

The sensation of breath is subtle, yet it is quite distinct when

you learn to tune into it. It takes a bit of an effort to find

it. Yet anybody can do it. You've got to work at it, but not

too hard. For all these reasons, breathing makes an ideal object

of meditation. Breathing is normally an involuntary process,

proceeding at its own pace without a conscious will. Yet a

single act of will can slow it down or speed it up. Make it long

and smooth or short and choppy. The balance between involuntary

breathing and forced manipulation of breath is quite delicate.

And there are lessons to be learned here on the nature of will

and desire. Then, too, that point at the tip of the nostril can

be viewed as a sort of a window between the inner and outer

worlds. IT is a nexus point and energy-transfer spot where stuff

from the outside world moves in and becomes a part of what we

call 'me', and where a part of me flows forth to merge with the

outside world. There are lessons to be learned here about self-

concept and how we form it.

Breath is a phenomenon common to all living things. A true

experiential understanding of the process moves you closer to

other living beings. It shows you your inherent connectedness

with all of life. Finally, breathing is a present-time process.

By that we mean it is always occurring in the here-and-now. We

don't normally live in the present, of course. We spend most of

our time caught up in memories of the past or leaping ahead to

the future, full of worries and plans. The breath has none of

that 'other-timeness'. When we truly observe the breath, we are

automatically placed in the present. We are pulled out of the

morass of mental images and into a bare experience of the here-

and-now. In this sense, breath is a living slice of reality. A

mindful observation of such a miniature model of life itself

leads to insight that are broadly applicable to the rest of our

experience.

The first step in using the breath as an object of meditation is

to find it. What you are looking for is the physical, tactile

sensation of the air that passes in and out of the nostrils.

This is usually just inside the tip of the nose. But the exact

spot varies from one person to another, depending on the shape of

the nose. To find your own point, take a quick deep breath and

notice the point just inside the nose or on the upper lip where

you have the most distinct sensation of passing air. Now exhale

and notice the sensation at the same point. IT is from this

point that you will follow the whole passage of breath. Once you

have located your own breath point with clarity, don't deviate

from that spot. Use this single point in order to keep your

attention fixed. Without having selected such a point, you will

find yourself moving in and out of the nose, going up and down

the windpipe, eternally chasing after the breath which you can

never catch because it keeps changing, moving and flowing.

If you ever sawed wood you already know the trick. As a

carpenter, you don't stand there watching the saw blade going up

and down. You will get dizzy. You fix your attention on the

spot where the teeth of the blade dig into the wood. It is the

only way you can saw a straight line. As a meditator, you focus

your attention on that single spot of sensation inside the nose.

From this vantage point, you watch the entire movement of breath

with clear and collected attention. Make no attempt to control

the breath. This is not a breathing exercise of the sort done in

Yoga. Focus on the natural and spontaneous movement of the

breath. Don't try to regulate it or emphasize it in any way.

Most beginners have some trouble in this area. In order to help

themselves focus on the sensation, they unconsciously accentuate

their breathing. The results is a forced and unnatural effort

that actually inhibits concentration rather than helping it.

Don't increase the depth of your breath or its sound. This

latter point is especially important in group meditation. Loud

breathing can be a real annoyance to those around you. Just let

the breath move naturally, as if you were asleep. Let go and

allow the process to go along at its own rhythm.

This sounds easy, but it is trickier than you think. Do not be

discouraged if you find your own will getting in the way. Just

use that as an opportunity to observe the nature of conscious

intention. Watch the delicate interrelation between the breath,

the impulse to control the breath and the impulse to cease

controlling the breath. You may find it frustrating for a while,

but it is highly profitable as a learning experience, and it is a

passing phase. Eventually, the breathing process will move along

under its own steam. And you will feel no impulse to manipulate

it. At this point you will have learned a major lesson about

your own compulsive need to control the universe.

Breathing, which seems so mundane and uninteresting at first

glance, is actually an enormously complex and fascinating

procedure. It is full of delicate variations, if you look.

There is inhalation and exhalation, long breath and short breath,

deep breath, shallow breath, smooth breath and ragged breath.

These categories combine with one another in subtle and intricate

ways. Observe the breath closely. Really study it. You find

enormous variations and constant cycle of repeated patterns. It

is like a symphony. Don't observe just the bare outline of the

breath. There is more to see here than just an in-breath and an

out-breath. Every breath has a beginning middle and end. Every

inhalation goes through a process of birth, growth and death and

every exhalation does the same. The depth and speed of your

breathing changes according to your emotional state, the thought

that flows through your mind and the sounds you hear. Study

these phenomena. You will find them fascinating.

This does not mean, however, that you should be sitting there

having little conversations with yourself inside your head:

"There is a short ragged breath and there is a deep long one. I

wonder what's next?" No, that is not Vipassana. That is

thinking. You will find this sort of thing happening, especially

in the beginning. This too is a passing phase. Simply note the

phenomenon and return your attention toward the observation of

the sensation of breath. Mental distractions will happen again.

But return your attention to your breath again, and again, and

again, and again, for as long as it takes until it does not

happen anymore.

When you first begin this procedure, expect to face some

difficulties. Your mind will wander off constantly, darting

around like a drunken bumblebee and zooming off on wild tangents.

Try not to worry. The monkey-minded phenomenon is well known.

It is something that every advanced meditator has had to deal

with. They have pushed through it one way or another, and so can

you. When it happens, judge not the fact that you have been

thinking, day-dreaming, worrying, or whatever. Gently, but

firmly, without getting upset or judging yourself for straying,

simply return to the simple physical sensation of the breath.

Then do it again the next time, and again, an again, and again.

Somewhere in this process, you will come face-to-face with the

sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy.

Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling

pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and hopeless. No

problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has

always been this way, and you just never noticed. You are also

no crazier than everybody else around you. The only real

difference is that you have confronted the situation; they have

not. So they still feel relatively comfortable. That does not

mean that they are better off. Ignorance may be bliss, but it

does not lead to liberation. So don't let this realization

unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real

progress. The very fact that you have looked at the problem

straight in the eye means that you are on your way up and out of

it.

In the wordless observation of the breath, there are two states

to be avoided: thinking and sinking. The thinking mind manifests

most clearly as the monkey-mind phenomenon we have just been

discussing. The sinking mind is almost the reverse. As a

general term, sinking mind denotes any dimming of awareness. At

its best, it is sort of a mental vacuum in which there is no

thought, no observation of the breath, no awareness of anything.

It is a gap, a formless mental gray area rather like a dreamless

sleep. Sinking mind is a void. Avoid it.

Vipassana meditation is an active function. Concentration is a

strong, energetic attention to one single item. Awareness is a

bright clean alertness. Samahdhi and Sati--these are the two

faculties we wish to cultivate. And sinking mind contains

neither. At its worst, it will put you to sleep. Even at its

best it will simply waste your time.

When you find you have fallen into a state of sinking mind, just

note the fact and return your attention to the sensation of

breathing. Observe the tactile sensation of the in-breath. Feel

the touch sensation of the out-breath. Breathe in, breathe out

and watch what happens. When you have been doing that for some

time--perhaps weeks or months--you will begin to sense the touch

as a physical object. Simply continue the process--breathe in

and breathe out. Watch what happens. As your concentration

deepens you will have less and less trouble with monkey-mind.

Your breathing will slow down and you will track it more and more

clearly, with fewer and fewer interruptions. You begin to

experience a state of great calm in which you enjoy complete

freedom from those things we call psychic irritants. No greed,

lust, envy, jealousy or hatred. Agitation goes away. Fear

flees. These are beautiful, clear, blissful states of mind.

They are temporary, and they will end when meditation ends. Yet

even these brief experiences will change your life. This is not

liberation, but these are stepping stones on the path that leads

in that direction. Do not, however, expect instant bliss. Even

these stepping stones take time and effort and patience.

The meditation experience is not a competition. There is a

definite goal. But there is no timetable. What you are doing is

digging your way deeper and deeper through the layers of illusion

toward realization of the supreme truth of existence. The

process itself is fascinating and fulfilling. It can be enjoyed

for its own sake. There is no need to rush.

At the end of a well-done meditation session you will feel a

delightful freshness of mind. It is peaceful, buoyant, and

joyous energy which you can then apply to the problems of daily

living. This in itself is reward enough. The purpose of

meditation is not to deal with problems, however, and problem-

solving ability is a fringe benefit and should be regarded as

such. If you place too much emphasis on the problem-solving

aspect, you will find your attention turning to those problems

during the session sidetracking concentration. Don't think about

your problems during your practice. Push them aside very gently.

Take a break from all that worrying and planning. Let your

meditation be a complete vacation. Trust yourself, trust your

own ability to deal with these issues later, using the energy and

freshness of mind that you built up during your meditation.

Trust yourself this way and it will actually occur.

Don't set goals for yourself that are too high to reach. Be

gently with yourself. You are trying to follow your own

breathing continuously and without a break. That sounds easy

enough, so you will have a tendency at the outset to push

yourself to be scrupulous and exacting.

This is unrealistic. Take time in small units instead. At the

beginning of an inhalation, make the resolve to follow the breath

just for the period of that one inhalation. Even this is not so

easy, but at least it can be done. Then, at the start of the

exhalation, resolve to follow the breath just for that one

exhalation, all the way through. You will still fail repeatedly,

but keep at it.

Every time you stumble, start over. Take it one breath at a

time. This is the level of the game where you can actually win.

Stick at it--fresh resolve with every breath cycle, tiny units of

time. Observe each breath with care and precision, taking it one

split second on top of another, with fresh resolve piled one on

top of the other. In this way, continuous and unbroken awareness

will eventually result.

Mindfulness of breathing is a present-time awareness. When you

are doing it properly, you are aware only of what is occurring in

the present. You don't look back and you don't look forward.

You forget about the last breath, and you don't anticipate the

next one. When the inhalation is just beginning, you don't look

ahead to the end of that inhalation. You don't skip forward to

the exhalation which is to follow. You stay right there with

what is actually taking place. The inhalation is beginning, and

that's what you pay attention to; that and nothing else.

This meditation is a process of retraining the mind. The state

you are aiming for is one in which you are totally aware of

everything that is happening in your own perceptual universe,

exactly the way it happens, exactly when it is happening; total,

unbroken awareness in the present time. This is an incredibly

high goal, and not to be reached all at once. It takes practice,

so we start small. We start by becoming totally aware of one

small unit of time, just one single inhalation. And, when you

succeed, you are on your way to a whole new experience of life.

_

Chapter 8

Structuring Your Meditation

Everything up to this point has been theory. Now let's dive into

the actual practice. Just how do we go about this thing called

meditation.

First of all, you need to establish a formal practice schedule, a

specific period when you will do Vipassana meditation and nothing

else. When you were a baby, you did not know how to walk.

Somebody went to a lot of trouble to teach you that skill. They

dragged you by the arms. They gave you lots of encouragement.

Made you put one foot in front of the other until you could do it

by yourself. Those periods of instruction constituted a formal

practice in the art of walking.

In meditation, we follow the same basic procedure. We set aside

a certain time, specifically devoted to developing this mental

skill called mindfulness. We devote these times exclusively to

that activity, and we structure our environment so there will be

a minimum of distraction. This is not the easiest skill in the

world to learn. We have spent our entire life developing mental

habits that are really quite contrary to the ideal of

uninterrupted mindfulness. Extricating ourselves from those

habits requires a bit of strategy. As we said earlier, our minds

are like cups of muddy water. The object of meditation is to

clarify this sludge so that we can see what is going on in there.

The best way to do that is just let it sit. Give it enough time

and it will settle down. You wind up with clear water. In

meditation, we set aside a specific time for this clarifying

process. When viewed from the outside, it looks utterly useless.

We sit there apparently as productive as a stone gargoyle.

Inside, however, quite a bit is happening. The mental soup

settles down, and we are left with a clarity of mind that

prepares us to cope with the upcoming events of our lives.

that does not mean that we have to do anything to force this

settling. It is a natural process that happens by itself. The

very act of sitting still being mindful causes this settling. In

fact, any effort on our part to force this settling is

counterproductive. That is repression, and it does not work.

Try to force things out of the mind and you merely add energy to

them You may succeed temporarily, but in the long run you will

only have made them stronger. They will hide in the unconscious

until you are not watching, then they will leap out and leave you

helpless to fight them off.

The best way to clarify the mental fluid is to just let it settle

all by itself. Don't add any energy to the situation. Just

mindfully watch the mud swirl, without any involvement in the

process. Then, when it settles at last, it will stay settled.

We exert energy in meditation, but not force. Our only effort is

gently, patient mindfulness.

The meditation period is like a cross-section of your whole day.

Everything that happens to you is stored away in the mind in some

form, mental or emotional. During normal activity, you get so

caught up in the press of events that the basic issues with which

you are dealing are seldom thoroughly handled. They become

buried in the unconscious, where they seethe and foam and fester.

Then you wonder where all that tension came from. All of this

material comes forth in one form or another during your

meditation. You get a chance to look at it, see it for what it

is, and let it go. We set up a formal meditation period in order

to create a conducive environment for this release. We re-

establish our mindfulness at regular intervals. We withdraw from

those events which constantly stimulate the mind. We back out of

all the activity that prods the emotions. We go off to a quiet

place and we sit still, and it all comes bubbling out. Then it

goes away. The net effect is like recharging a battery.

Meditation recharges your mindfulness.

Where To Sit

Find yourself a quiet place, a secluded place, a place where you

will be alone. It doesn't have to be some ideal spot in the

middle of a forest. That's nearly impossible for most of us, but

it should be a place where you feel comfortable, and where you

won't be disturbed. It should also be a place where you won't

feel on display. You want all of your attention free for

meditation, not wasted on worries about how you look to others.

Try to pick a spot that is as quiet as possible. It doesn't have

to be a soundproof room, but there are certain noises that are

highly distracting, and they should be avoided. Music and

talking are about the worst. The mind tends to be sucked in by

these sounds in an uncontrollable manner, and there goes your

concentration.

There are certain traditional aids that you can employ to set the

proper mood. A darkened room with a candle is nice. Incense is

nice. A little bell to start and end your sessions is nice.

These are paraphernalia, though. They provide encouragement to

some people, but they are by no means essential to the practice.

You will probably find it helpful to sit in the same place each

time. A special spot reserved for meditation and nothing else is

an aid for most people. You soon come to associate that spot

with the tranquility of deep concentration, and that association

helps you to reach deep states more quickly. The main thing is

to sit in a place that you feel is conductive to your own

practice. That requires a bit of experimentation. Try several

spots until you find one where you feel comfortable. You only

need to find a place where you don't feel self-conscious, and

where you can meditate without undue distraction.

Many people find it helpful and supportive to sit with a group of

other meditators. The discipline of regular practice is

essential, and most people find it easier to sit regularly if

they are bolstered by a commitment to a group sitting schedule.

You've given your word, and you know you are expected. Thus the

'I'm too busy' syndrome is cleverly skirted. You may be able to

locate a group of practicing meditators in your area. It doesn't

matter if they practice a different form of meditation, so long

as it's one of the silent forms. On the other hand, you also

should try to be self-sufficient in your practice. Don't rely on

the presence of a group as your sole motivation to sit. Properly

done, sitting is a pleasure. Use the group as an aid, not as a

crutch.

When To Sit

The most important rule here is this: When it comes to sitting,

the description of Buddhism as the Middle Way applies. Don't

overdo it. Don't underdo it. This doesn't mean you just sit

whenever the whim strikes you. It means you set up a practice

schedule and keep to it with a gently, patient tenacity. Setting

up a schedule acts as an encouragement. If, however, you find

that your schedule has ceased to be an encouragement and become a

burden, then something is wrong. Meditation is not a duty, nor

an obligation.

Meditation is psychological activity. You will be dealing with

the raw stuff of feelings and emotions. Consequently, it is an

activity which is very sensitive to the attitude with which you

approach each session. What you expect is what you are most

likely to get. Your practice will therefore go best when you are

looking forward to sitting. If you sit down expecting grinding

drudgery, that is probably what will occur. So set up a daily

pattern that you can live with. Make it reasonable. Make it fit

with the rest of your life. And if it starts to feel like you're

on an uphill treadmill toward liberation, then change something.

First thing in the morning is a great time to meditate. Your

mind is fresh then, before you've gotten yourself buried in

responsibilities. Morning meditation is a fine way to start the

day. It tunes you up and gets you ready to deal with things

efficiently. You cruise through the rest of the day just a bit

more lightly. Be sure you are thoroughly awake, though. You

won't make much progress if you are sitting there nodding off, so

get enough sleep. Wash your face, or shower before you begin.

You may want to do a bit of exercise beforehand to get the

circulation flowing. Do whatever you need to do in order to wake

up fully, then sit down to meditate. Do not, however, let

yourself get hung up in the day's activities. It's just too easy

to forget to sit. Make meditation the first major thing you do

in the morning.

The evening is another good time for practice. Your mind is full

of all the mental rubbish that you have accumulated during the

day, and it is great to get rid of the burden before you sleep.

Your meditation will cleanse and rejuvenate your mind. Re-

establish your mindfulness and your sleep will be real sleep.

When you first start meditation, once a day is enough. If you

feel like meditating more, that's fine, but don't overdo it.

There's a burn-out phenomenon we often see in new meditators.

They dive right into the practice fifteen hors a day for a couple

of weeks, and then the real world catches up with them. They

decide that this meditation business just takes too much time.

Too many sacrifices are required. They haven't got time for all

of this. Don't fall into that trap. Don't burn yourself out the

first week. Make haste slowly. Make your effort consistent and

steady. Give yourself time to incorporate the meditation

practice into your life, and let your practice grow gradually and

gently.

As your interest in meditation grows, you'll find yourself making

more room in your schedule for practice. It's a spontaneous

phenomenon, and it happens pretty much by itself--no force

necessary.

Seasoned meditators manage three or four hours of practice a day.

They live ordinary lives in the day-to-day world, and they still

squeeze it all in. And they enjoy it. It comes naturally.

How Long To Sit

A similar rule applies here: Sit as long as you can, but don't

overdo. Most beginners start with twenty or thirty minutes.

Initially, it's difficult to sit longer than that with profit.

The posture is unfamiliar to Westerners, and it takes a bit of

time for the body to adjust. The mental skills are equally

unfamiliar, and that adjustment takes time, too.

As you grow accustomed to procedure, you can extend your

meditation little by little. We recommend that after a year or

so of steady practice you should be sitting comfortable for an

hour at a time.

Here is an important point, though: Vipassana meditation is not a

form of asceticism. Self-mortification is not the goal. We are

trying to cultivate mindfulness, not pain. Some pain is

inevitable, especially in the legs. We will thoroughly cover

pain, and how to handle it, in Chapter 10. There are special

techniques and attitudes which you will learn for dealing with

discomfort. The point to be made here is this: This is not a

grim endurance contest. You don't need to prove anything to

anybody. So don't force yourself to sit with excruciating pain

just to be able to say that you sat for an hour. That is a

useless exercise in ego. And don't overdo it in the beginning.

Know your limitations, and don't condemn yourself for not being

able to sit forever, like a rock.

As meditation becomes more and more a part of your life, you can

extend your sessions beyond an hour. As a general rule, just

determine what is a comfortable length of time for you at this

point in your life. Then sit five minutes longer than that.

There is no hard and fast rule about length of time for sitting.

Even if you have established a firm minimum, there may be days

when it is physically impossible for you to sit that long. That

doesn't mean that you should just cancel the whole idea for that

day. It's crucial to sit regularly. Even ten minutes of

meditation can be very beneficial.

Incidentally, you decide on the length of your session before you

meditate. Don't do it while you are meditating. It's too easy

to give in to restlessness that way, and restlessness is one of

the main items that we want to learn to mindfully observe. So

choose a realistic length of time, and then stick to it.

You can use a watch to time you sessions, but don't peek at it

every two minutes to see how you are doing. Your concentration

will be completely lost, and agitation will set in. You'll find

your self hoping to get up before the session is over. That's

not meditation--that's clock watching. Don;t look at the clock

until you think the whole meditation period has passed.

Actually, you don't need to consult the clock at all, at least

not every time you meditate. In general, you should be sitting

for as long as you want to sit. There is no magic length of

time. It is best, though, to set yourself a minimum length of

time. If you haven't predetermined a minimum, you'll find

yourself prone to short sessions. You'll bolt every time

something unpleasant comes up or whenever you feel restless.

That's not good. These experiences are some of the most

profitable a meditator can face, but only if you sit through

them. You've got to learn to observe them calmly and clearly.

Look at them mindfully. When you've done that enough time, they

lose their hold on you. You see them for what they are: just

impulses, arising and passing away, just part of the passing

show. Your life smoothes out beautifully as a consequence.

'Discipline' is a difficult word for most of us. It conjures up

images of somebody standing over you with a stick, telling you

that you're wrong. But self-discipline is different. It's the

skill of seeing through the hollow shouting of your own impulses

and piercing their secret. They have no power over you. It's

all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you;

they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no

stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you

never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty

back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though.

The words on this page won't do it. But look within and watch

the stuff coming up--restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain--

just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your

surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As

simple as that. There is another word for 'self-discipline'. It

is 'Patience'.

_

Chapter 9

Set Up Exercises

In Theravada Buddhist countries, it is traditional to begin each

meditation session with the recitation of a certain set of

formulas. An American audience is likely to take one glance at

these invocations and to dismiss them as harmless rituals and

nothing more. The so-called rituals, however, have been devised

and refined by a set of pragmatic and dedicated men and women,

and they have a thoroughly practical purpose. They are therefore

worthy of deeper inspection.

The Buddha was considered contrary in his own day. He was born

into an intensely over-ritualized society, and his ideas appeared

thoroughly iconoclastic to the established hierarchy of his own

era. On numerous occasions, he disavowed the use of rituals for

their own sake, and he was quite adamant about it. This does not

mean that ritual has no use. It means that ritual by itself,

performed strictly for it's own sake, will not get you out of the

trap. If you believe that mere recitation of words will save

you, then you only increase your own dependence on words and

concepts. This moves you away from the wordless perception of

reality rather than toward it. Therefore, the formulae which

follow must be practiced with a clear understanding of what they

are and why they work. They are not magical incantations. They

are psychological cleansing devices which require active mental

participation in order to be effective. Mumbled words without

intention are useless. Vipassana meditation is a delicate

psychological activity, and the mental set of the practitioner is

crucial to its success. The technique works best in an

atmosphere of calm, benevolent confidence. And these recitations

have been designed to foster those attitudes. Correctly used,

they can act as a helpful tool on the path to liberation.

The Threefold Guidance

Meditation is a tough job. It is an inherently solitary

activity. One person battles against enormously powerful forces,

part of the very structure of the mind doing the meditating.

When you really get into it, you will eventually find yourself

confronted with a shocking realization. One day you will look

inside and realize the full enormity of what you are actually up

against. What you are struggling to pierce looks like a solid

wall so tightly knit that not a single ray of light shines

through. You find yourself sitting there, staring at this

edifice and you say to yourself, "That? I am supposed to get past

that? But it's impossible! That is all there is. That is the

whole world. That is what everything means, and that is what I

use to define myself and to understand everything around me, and

if I take that away the whole world will fall apart and I will

die. I cannot get through that. I just can't."

It is a very scary feeling, a very lonely feeling. You feel

like, "Here I am, all alone, trying to punch away something so

huge it is beyond conception." To counteract this feeling, it is

useful to know that you are not alone. Others have passed this

way before. They have confronted that same barrier, and they

have pushed their way through to the light. They have laid out

the rules by which the job can be done, and they have banded

together into a brotherhood for mutual encouragement and support.

The Buddha found his way through this very same wall, and after

him came many others. He left clear instructions in the form of

the Dhamma to guide us along the same path. And he founded the

Sangha, the brotherhood of monks to preserve that path and to

keep each other on it. You are not alone, and the situation is

not hopeless.

Meditation takes energy. You need courage to confront some

pretty difficult mental phenomena and the determination to sit

through various unpleasant mental states. Laziness just will not

serve. In order to pump up your energy for the job, repeat the

following statements to yourself. Feel the intention you put

into them. Mean what you say.

"I am about to tread the very path that has been walked by the

Buddha and by his great and holy disciples. An indolent person

cannot follow that path. May my energy prevail. May I succeed."

Universal Loving-Kindness

Vipassana meditation is an exercise in mindfulness, egoless

awareness. It is a procedure in which the ego will be eradicated

by the penetrating gaze of mindfulness. The practitioner begins

this process with the ego in full command of mind and body.

Then, as mindfulness watches the ego function, it penetrates to

the roots of the mechanics of ego and extinguishes ego piece by

piece. There is a full blown Catch-22 in all this, however.

Mindfulness is egoless awareness. If we start with ego in full

control, how do we put enough mindfulness there at the beginning

to get the job started? There is always some mindfulness present

in any moment. The real problem is to gather enough of it to be

effective. To do this we can use a clever tactic. We can weaken

those aspects of ego which do the most harm, so that mindfulness

will have less resistance to overcome.

Greed and hatred are the prime manifestations of the ego process.

To the extent that grasping and rejecting are present in the

mind, mindfulness will have a very rough time. The results of

this are easy to see. If you sit down to meditate while you are

in the grip of some strong obsessive attachment, you will find

that you will get nowhere. If you are all hung up in your latest

scheme to make more money, you probably will spend most of your

meditation period doing nothing but thinking about it. If you

are in a black fury over some recent insult, that will occupy

your mind just as fully. There is only so much time in one day,

and your meditation minutes are precious. It is best not to

waste them. The Theravada tradition has developed a useful tool

which will allow you to remove these barriers from your mind at

least temporarily, so that you can get on with the job of

removing their roots permanently.

You can use one idea to cancel another. You can balance a

negative emotion by instilling a positive one. Giving is the

opposite of greed. Benevolence is the opposite of hatred.

Understand clearly now: This is not an attempt to liberate

yourself by autohypnosis. You cannot condition Enlightenment.

Nibbana is an unconditioned state. A liberated person will

indeed be generous and benevolent, but not because he has been

conditioned to be so. He will be so purely as a manifestation of

his own basic nature, which is no longer inhibited by ego. So

this is not conditioning. This is rather psychological medicine.

If you take this medicine according to directions, it will bring

temporary relief from the symptoms of the malady from which you

are currently suffering. Then you can get to work in earnest on

the illness itself.

You start out by banishing thoughts of self-hatred and self-

condemnation. You allow good feelings and good wishes first to

flow to yourself, which is relatively easy. Then you do the same

for those people closest to you. Gradually, you work outward

from your own circle of intimates until you can direct a flow of

those same emotions to your enemies and to all living beings

everywhere. Correctly done, this can be a powerful and

transformative exercise in itself.

At the beginning of each meditation session, say the following

sentences to yourself. Really feel the intention:

1. May I be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to me.

May no difficulties come to me. May no problems come to me. May

I always meet with success.

May I also have patience, courage, understanding, and

determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,

problems, and failures in life.

2. May my parents be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come

to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come

to them. May they always meet with success.

May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and

determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,

problems, and failures in life.

3. May my teachers be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm

come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems

come to them. May they always meet with success.

May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and

determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,

problems, and failures in life.

4. May my relatives be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm

come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems

come to them. May they always meet with success.

May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and

determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,

problems, and failures in life.

5. May my friends be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come

to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come

to them. May they always meet with success.

May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and

determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,

problems, and failures in life.

6. May all indifferent persons be well, happy and peaceful. May

no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no

problems come to them. May they always meet with success.

May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and

determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,

problems, and failures in life.

7. May my enemies be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come

to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come

to them. May they always meet with success.

May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and

determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,

problems, and failures in life.

8. May all living beings be well, happy and peaceful. May no

harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no

problems come to them. May they always meet with success.

May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and

determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties,

problems, and failures in life.

Once you have completed these recitations, lay aside all your

troubles and conflicts for the period of practice. Just drop the

whole bundle. If they come back into your meditation later, just

treat them as what they are, distractions.

The practice of Universal Loving-Kindness is also recommended for

bedtime and just after arising. It is said to help you sleep

well and to prevent nightmares. It also makes it easier to get

up in the morning. And it makes you more friendly and open

toward everybody, friend or foe, human or otherwise.

The most damaging psychic irritant arising in the mind

particularly at the time when the mind is quiet, is resentment.

You may experience indignation remembering some incident that

caused you psychological and physical pain. This experience can

cause you uneasiness, tension, agitation and worry. You might

not be able to go on sitting and experiencing this state of mind.

Therefore, we strongly recommend that you should start your

meditation with generating Universal Loving-Kindness.

You sometimes may wonder how can we wish: "May my enemies be

well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them; may no

difficulty come to them; may n problem come to them; may they

always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage,

understanding and determination to meet and overcome inevitable

difficulties, problems and failures in life"?

You must remember that you practice loving-kindness for the

purification of your own mind, just as you practice meditation

for your own attainment of peace and liberation from pain and

suffering. As you practice loving-kindness within yourself, you

can behave in a most friendly manner without biases, prejudices,

discrimination or hate. Your noble behavior helps you to help

others in a most practical manner to reduce their pain and

suffering. It is compassionate people who can help others.

Compassion os a manifestation of loving-kindness in action, for

one who does not have loving-kindness cannot help others. Noble

behavior means behaving in a most friendly and most cordial

manner. Behavior includes your thought speech and action. If

this triple mode of expression of your behavior is contradictory

behavior cannot be noble behavior. On the other hand,

pragmatically speaking, it is much better to cultivate the noble

thought, "May all beings be happy minded" than the thought, "I

hate him". Our noble thought will one day express itself in

noble behavior and our spiteful thought in evil behavior.

Remember that your thoughts are transformed into speech and

action in order to bring the expected result. Thought translated

into action is capable of producing tangible result. You should

always speak and do things with mindfulness of loving-kindness.

While speaking of loving-kindness, if you act or speak in a

diametrically opposite way you will be reproached by the wise.

As mindfulness of loving-kindness develops, your thoughts, words

and deeds should be gently, pleasant, meaningful, truthful and

beneficial to you as well as to others. If your thoughts, words

or deeds cause harm to you, to others or to both, then you must

ask yourself whether you are really mindful of loving-kindness.

For all practical purposes, if all of your enemies are well,

happy and peaceful, they would not be your enemies. If they are

free from problems, pain, suffering, affliction, neurosis,

psychosis, paranoia, fear, tension, anxiety, etc., they would not

be your enemies. Your practical solution to your enemies is to

help them to overcome their problems, so you can live in peace

and happiness. In fact, if you can, you should fill the minds of

all your enemies with loving-kindness and make all of them

realize the true meaning of peace, so you can live in peace and

happiness. The more they are in neurosis, psychosis, fear,

tension, anxiety, etc., the more trouble, pain and suffering they

can bring to the world. If you could convert a vicious and

wicked person into a holy and saintly individual, you would

perform a miracle. Let us cultivate adequate wisdom and loving-

kindness within ourselves to convert evil minds to saintly minds.

When you hate somebody you think, "Let him be ugly. Let him lie

in pain. Let him have no prosperity. Let him not be right. Let

him not be famous. Let him have no friends Let him, after death,

reappear in an unhappy state of depravation in a bad destination

in perdition." However, what actually happens is that your own

body generates such harmful chemistry that you experience pain,

increased heart beat, tension, change of facial expression, loss

of appetite for food, deprivation of sleep and appear very

unpleasant to others. You go through the same things you wish

for your enemy. Also you cannot see the truth as it is. Your

mind is like boiling water. Or you are like a patient suffering

from jaundice to whom any delicious food tastes bland.

Similarly, you cannot appreciate somebody's appearance,

achievement, success, etc. As long as this condition exists, you

cannot meditate well.

Therefore we recommend very strongly that you practice loving-

kindness before you start your serious practice of meditation.

Repeat the proceeding passages very mindfully and meaningfully.

As you recite these passages, feel true loving-kindness within

yourself first and then share it with others, for you cannot

share with others what you do not have within yourself.

Remember, though, these are not magic formulas. They don't work

by themselves. If you use them as such, you will simply waste

time and energy. But if you truly participate in these

statements and invest them with your own energy, they will serve

you well. Give them a try. See for yourself.

_

Chapter 10

Dealing With Problems

You are going to run into problems in your meditation. Everybody

does. Problems come in all shapes and sixes, and the only thing

you can be absolutely certain about is that you will have some.

The main trick in dealing with obstacles is to adopt the right

attitude. Difficulties are an integral part of your practice.

They aren't something to be avoided. They are something to be

used. They provide invaluable opportunities for learning.

The reason we are all stuck in life's mud is that we ceaselessly

run from our problems and after our desires. Meditation provides

us with a laboratory situation in which we can examine this

syndrome and devise strategies for dealing with it. The various

snags and hassles that arise during meditation are grist for the

mill. They are the material on which we work. There is no

pleasure without some degree of pain. There is no pain without

some amount of pleasure. Life is composed of joys and miseries.

They go hand-in-hand. Meditation is no exception. You will

experience good times and bad times, ecstasies and frightening

times.

So don't be surprised when you hit some experience that feels

like a brick wall. Don't think you are special. Every seasoned

meditator has had his own brick walls. They come up again and

again. Just expect them and be ready to cope. Your ability to

cope with trouble depends upon your attitude. If you can learn

to regard these hassles as opportunities, as chances to develop

in your practice, you'll make progress. Your ability to deal

with some issue that arises in meditation will carry over into

the rest of your life and allow you to smooth out the big issues

that really bother you. If you try to avoid each piece of

nastiness that arises in meditation, you are simply reinforcing

the habit that has already made life seem so unbearable at times.

It is essential to learn to confront the less pleasant aspects of

existence. Our job as meditators is to learn to be patient with

ourselves, to see ourselves in an unbiased way, complete with all

our sorrows and inadequacies. We have to learn to be kind to

ourselves. In the long run, avoiding unpleasantness is a very

unkind thing to do to yourself. Paradoxically, kindness entails

confronting unpleasantness when it arises. One popular human

strategy for dealing with difficulty is autosuggestion: when

something nasty pops up, you convince yourself it is pleasant

rather than unpleasant. The Buddha's tactic is quite the

reverse. Rather than hide it or disguise it, the Buddha's

teaching urges you to examine it to death. Buddhism advises you

not to implant feelings that you don't really have or avoid

feelings that you do have. If you are miserable you are

miserable; this is the reality, that is what is happening, so

confront that. Look it square in the eye without flinching.

When you are having a bad time, examine the badness, observe it

mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics. The way

out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built.

You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap

can't trap you if it has been taken to pieces. The result is

freedom.

This point is essential, but it is one of the least understood

aspects of Buddhist philosophy. Those who have studied Buddhism

superficially are quick to conclude that it is a pessimistic set

of teachings, always harping on unpleasant things like suffering,

always urging us to confront the uncomfortable realities of pain,

death and illness. Buddhist thinkers do not regard themselves as

pessimists--quite the opposite, actually. Pain exists in the

universe; some measure of it is unavoidable. Learning to deal

with it is not pessimism, but a very pragmatic form of optimism.

How would you deal with the death of your spouse? How would you

feel if you lost your mother tomorrow? Or your sister or your

closest friend? Suppose you lost your job, your savings, and the

use of your hands, on the same day; could you face the prospect

of spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair? How are you

going to cope with the pain of terminal cancer if you contract

it, and how will you deal with your own death, when that

approaches? You may escape most of these misfortunes, but you

won't escape all of them. Most of us lose friends and relatives

at some time during our lives; all of us get sick now and then;

at the very least you are going to die someday. You can suffer

through things like that or you can face them openly--the choice

is yours.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Pain and suffering are two

different animals. If any of these tragedies strike you in your

present state of mind, you will suffer. The habit patterns that

presently control your mind will lock you into that suffering and

there will be no escape. A bit of time spent in learning

alternatives to those habit patterns is time will-invested. Most

human beings spend all their energies devising ways to increase

their pleasure and decrease their pain. Buddhism does not advise

that you cease this activity altogether. Money and security are

fine. Pain should be avoided where possible. Nobody is telling

you to give away all your possessions or seek out needless pain,

but Buddhism does advise you to invest some of your time and

energy in learning to deal with unpleasantness, because some pain

is unavoidable.

When you see a truck bearing down on you, by all means jump out

of the way. But spend some time in meditation, too. Learning to

deal with discomfort is the only way you'll be ready to handle

the truck you didn't see.

Problems arise in your practice. Some of them will be physical,

some will be emotional, and some will be attitudinal. All of

them are confrontable and each has its own specific response.

All of them are opportunities to free yourself.

Problem 1

Physical Pain

Nobody likes pain, yet everybody has some sometime. It is one of

life's most common experiences and is bound to arise in your

meditation in one form or another. Handling pain is a two-stage

process. First, get rid of the pain if possible or at least get

rid of it as much as possible. Then, if some pain lingers, use

it as an object of meditation.

The first step is physical handling. Maybe the pain is an

illness of one sort or another, a headache, fever, bruises or

whatever. In this case, employ standard medical treatments

before you sit down to meditate: take your medicine, apply your

liniment, do whatever you ordinarily do. Then there are certain

pains that are specific to the seated posture. If you never

spend much time sitting cross-legged on the floor, there will be

an adjustment period. Some discomfort is nearly inevitable.

According to where the pain is, there are specific remedies. If

the pain is in the leg or knees, check you pants. If they are

tight or made of thick material, that could be the problem. Try

to change it. Check your cushion, too. It should be about three

inches in height when compressed. If the pain is around your

waist, try loosening your belt. Loosen the waistband of your

pants is that is necessary. If you experience pain in your lower

back, your posture is probably at fault. Slouching will never be

comfortable, so straighten up. Don't be tight or rigid, but do

keep your spine erect. Pain in the neck or upper back has

several sources. The first is improper hand position. Your

hands should be resting comfortable in your lap. Don't pull them

up to your waist. Relax your arms and your neck muscles. Don't

let your head droop forward. Keep it up and aligned with the

rest of the spine.

After you have made all these various adjustments, you may find

you still have some lingering pain. If that is the case, try

step two. Make the pain your object of meditation. Don't jump

up and down and get excited. Just observe the pain mindfully.

When the pain becomes demanding, you will find it pulling your

attention off the breath. Don't fight back. Just let your

attention slide easily over onto the simple sensation. Go into

the pain fully. Don't block the experience. Explore the

feeling. Get beyond your avoiding reaction and go into the pure

sensations that lie below that. You will discover that there are

two things present. The first is the simple sensation--pain

itself. Second is your resistance to that sensation. Resistance

reaction is partly mental and partly physical. The physical part

consists of tensing the muscles in and around the painful area.

Relax those muscles. Take them one by one and relax each one

very thoroughly. This step alone probably diminishes the pain

significantly. Then go after the mental side of the resistance.

Just as you are tensing physically, you are also tensing

psychologically. You are clamping down mentally on the sensation

of pain, trying to screen it off and reject it from

consciousness. The rejection is a wordless, "I don't like this

feeling" or "go away" attitude. It is very subtle. But it is

there, and you can find it if you really look. Locate it and

relax that, too.

That last part is more subtle. There are really no human words

to describe this action precisely. The best way to get a handle

on it is by analogy. Examine what you did to those tight muscles

and transfer that same action over to the mental sphere; relax

the mind in the same way that you relax the body. Buddhism

recognizes that the body and mind are tightly linked. This is so

true that many people will not see this as a two-step procedure.

For them to relax the body is to relax the mind and vice versa.

These people will experience the entire relaxation, mental and

physical, as a single process. In any case, just let go

completely till you awareness slows down past that barrier which

you yourself erected. It was a gap, a sense of distance between

self and others. It was a borderline between 'me' and 'the

pain'. Dissolve that barrier, and separation vanishes. You slow

down into that sea of surging sensation and you merge with the

pain. You become the pain. You watch its ebb and flow and

something surprising happens. It no longer hurts. Suffering is

gone. Only the pain remains, an experience, nothing more. The

'me' who was being hurt has gone. The result is freedom from

pain.

This is an incremental process. In the beginning, you can expect

to succeed with small pains and be defeated by big ones. Like

most of our skills, it grows with practice. The more you

practice, the bigger the pain you can handle. Please understand

fully. There is no masochism being advocated here. Self-

mortification is not the point.

This is an exercise in awareness, not in sadism. If the pain

becomes excruciating, go ahead and move, but move slowly and

mindfully. Observe your movements. See how it feels to move.

Watch what it does to the pain. Watch the pain diminish. Try

not to move too much though. The less you move, the easier it is

to remain fully mindful. New meditators sometimes say they have

trouble remaining mindful when pain is present. This difficulty

stems from a misunderstanding. These students are conceiving

mindfulness as something distinct from the experience of pain.

It is not. Mindfulness never exists by itself. It always has

some object and one object is as good as another. Pain is a

mental state. You can be mindful of pain just as you are mindful

of breathing.

The rules we covered in Chapter 4 apply to pain just as they

apply to any other mental state. You must be careful not to

reach beyond the sensation and not to fall short of it. Don't

add anything to it, and don't miss any part of it. Don't muddy

the pure experience with concepts or pictures or discursive

thinking. And keep your awareness right in the present time,

right with the pain, so that you won't miss its beginning or its

end. Pain not viewed in the clear light of mindfulness gives

rise to emotional reactions like fear, anxiety, or anger. If it

is properly viewed, we have no such reaction. IT will be just

sensation, just simple energy. Once you have learned this

technique with physical pain, you can then generalize it in the

rest of your life. You can use it on any unpleasant sensation.

What works on pain will work on anxiety or chronic depression.

This technique is one of life's most useful and generalizable

skills. It is patience.

Problem 2

Legs Going To Sleep

It is very common for beginners to have their legs fall asleep or

go numb during meditation. They are simply not accustomed to the

cross-legged posture. Some people get very anxious about this.

They feel they must get up and move around. A few are completely

convinced that they will get gangrene from lack of circulation.

Numbness in the leg is nothing to worry about. it is caused by

nerve-pinch, not by lack of circulation. You can't damage the

tissues of your legs by sitting. So relax. When your legs fall

asleep in meditation, just mindfully observe the phenomenon.

Examine what it feels like. It may be sort of uncomfortable, but

it is not painful unless you tense up. Just stay calm and watch

it. It does not matter if your legs go numb and stay that way

for the whole period. After you have meditated for some time,

that numbness gradually will disappear. Your body simply adjusts

to daily practice. Then you can sit for very long sessions with

no numbness whatever.

Problem 3

Odd Sensations

People experience all manner of varied phenomena in meditation.

Some people get itches. Others feel tingling, deep relaxation, a

feeling of lightness or a floating sensation. You may feel

yourself growing or shrinking or rising up in the air. Beginners

often get quite excited over such sensations. As relaxation sets

in, the nervous system simply begins to pass sensory signals more

efficiently. Large amounts of previously blocked sensory data

can pour through, giving rise to all manner of unique sensations.

It does not signify anything in particular. It is just

sensation. So simply employ the normal technique. Watch it come

up and watch it pass away. Don't get involved.

Problem 4

Drowsiness

It is quite common to experience drowsiness during meditation.

You become very calm and relaxed. That is exactly what is

supposed to happen. Unfortunately, we ordinarily experience this

lovely state only when we are falling asleep, and we associate it

with that process. So naturally, you begin to drift off. When

you find this happening, apply your mindfulness to the state of

drossiness itself. Drowsiness has certain definite

characteristics. It does certain things to your thought process.

Find out what. It has certain body feelings associated with it.

Locate those.

This inquisitive awareness is the direct opposite of drowsiness,

and will evaporate it. If it does not, then you should suspect a

physical cause of your sleepiness. Search that out and handle

it. If you have just eaten large meal, that could be the cause.

It is best to eat lightly before you meditate. Or wait an hour

after a big meal. And don't overlook the obvious either. And

don't overlook the obvious either. If you have been out loading

brinks all day, you are naturally going to be tired. The same is

true if you only got a few hours sleep the night before. Take

care of your body's physical needs. Then meditate. Do not give

in to sleepiness. Stay awake and mindful, for sleep and

meditative concentration are two diametrically opposite

experiences. You will not gain any new insight from sleep, but

only from meditation. If you are very sleepy then take a deep

breath and hold it as long as you can. Then breathe out slowly.

Take another deep breath again, hold it as long as you can and

breathe out slowly. Repeat this exercise until your body warms

up and sleepiness fades away. Then return to your breath.

Problem 5

Inability To Concentrate

An overactive, jumping attention is something that everybody

experiences from time to time. It is generally handled by

techniques presented in the chapter on distractions. You should

also be informed, however, that there are certain external

factors which contribute to this phenomenon. And these are best

handled by simple adjustments in your schedule. Mental images

are powerful entities. They can remain in the mind for long

periods. All of the storytelling arts are direct manipulation of

such material, and to the extent the writer has done his job

well, the characters and images presented will have a powerful

and lingering effect on the mind. If you have been to the best

movie of the year, the meditation which follows is going to be

full of those images. If you are halfway through the scariest

horror novel you ever read, your meditation is going to be full

of monsters. So switch the order of events. Do your meditation

first. Then read or go to the movies.

Another influential factor is your own emotional state. If there

is some real conflict in your life, that agitation will carry

over into meditation. Try to resolve your immediate daily

conflicts before meditation when you can. Your life will run

smoother, and you won't be pondering uselessly in your practice.

But don't use this advice as a way to avoid meditation.

Sometimes you can't resolve every issue before you sit. Just go

ahead and sit anyway. Use your meditation to let go of all the

egocentric attitudes that keep you trapped within your own

limited viewpoint. Your problems will resolve much more easily

thereafter. And then there are those days when it seems that the

mind will never rest, but your can't locate any apparent cause.

Remember the cyclic alternation we spoke of earlier. Meditation

goes in cycles. You have good days and you have bad days.

Vipassana meditation is primarily an exercise in awareness.

Emptying the mind is not as important as being mindful of what

the mind is doing. If you are frantic and you can't do a thing

to stop it, just observe. It is all you. The result will be one

more step forward in your journey of self-exploration. Above

all, don't get frustrated over the nonstop chatter of your mind.

That babble is just one more thing to be mindful of.

Problem 6

Boredom

It is difficult to imagine anything more inherently boring than

sitting still for an hour with nothing to do but feel the air

going in and out of your nose. You are going to run into boredom

repeatedly in your meditation. Everybody does. Boredom is a

mental state and should be treated as such. A few simple

strategies will help you to cope.

Tactic A: Re-establish true mindfulness

If the breath seems an exceedingly dull thing to observe over and

over, you may rest assured of one thing: You have ceased to

observe the process with true mindfulness. Mindfulness is never

boring. Look again. Don't assume that you know what breath is.

Don't take it for granted that you have already seen everything

there is to see. If you do, you are conceptualizing the process.

You are not observing its living reality. When you are clearly

mindful of breath or indeed anything else, it is never boring.

Mindfulness looks at everything with the eyes of a child, with

the sense of wonder. Mindfulness sees every second as if it were

the first and the only second in the universe. So look again.

Tactic B: Observe your mental state

Look at your state of boredom mindfully. What is boredom? Where

is boredom? What does it feel like? What are its mental

component? Does it have any physical feeling? What does it do

to your thought process? Take a fresh look at boredom, as if you

have never experienced that state before.

Problem 7

Fear

States of fear sometimes arise during meditation for no

discernible reason. It is a common phenomenon, and there can be

a number of causes. You may be experiencing the effect of

something repressed long ago. Remember, thoughts arise first in

the unconscious. The emotional contents of a thought complex

often leach through into your conscious awareness long before the

thought itself surfaces. If you sit through the fear, the memory

itself may bubble up where you can endure it. Or you may be

dealing directly with that fear which we all fear: 'fear of the

unknown'. At some point in your meditation career, you will be

struck with the seriousness of what you are actually doing. You

are tearing down the wall of illusion you have always used to

explain life to yourself and to shield yourself from the intense

flame of reality. You are about to meet ultimate truth face to

face. That is scary. But it has to be dealt with eventually. Go

ahead and dive right in.

A third possibility: the fear that your are feeling may be self-

generated. It may be arising out of unskillful concentration.

You may have set an unconscious program to 'examine what comes

up.' Thus when a frightening fantasy arises, concentration locks

onto it and the fantasy feeds on the energy of your attention and

grows. The real problem here is that mindfulness is weak. If

mindfulness was strongly developed, it would notice this switch

of attention as soon as it occurred and handle the situation in

the usual manner. No matter what the source of your fear,

mindfulness is the cure. Observe the emotional reactions that

come along and know them for what they are. Stand aside from the

process and don't get involved. Treat the whole dynamic as if

you were an interested bystander. Most importantly, don't fight

the situation. Don't try to repress the memories or the feelings

or the fantasies. Just step out of the way and let the whole

mess bubble up and flow past. It can't hurt you. It is just

memory. It is only fantasy. It is nothing but fear.

When you let it run its course in the arena of conscious

attention, it won't sink back into the unconscious. It won't

come back to haunt you later. It will be gone for good.

Problem 8

Agitation

Restlessness is often a cover-up for some deeper experience

taking place int he unconscious. We humans are great at

repressing things. Rather than confronting some unpleasant

thought we experience, we try to bury it. We won't have to deal

with the issue. Unfortunately, we usually don't succeed, at

least not fully. We hide the thought, but the mental energy we

use to cover it up sits there and boils. The result is that

sense of uneasiness which we call agitation or restlessness.

There is nothing you can put your finger on. But you don't feel

at ease. You can't relax. When this uncomfortable state arises

in mediation, just observe it. Don't let it rule you. Don't

jump up and run off. And don't struggle with it and try to make

it go away. Just let it be there and watch it closely. Then the

repressed material will eventually surface and you will find out

what you have been worrying about.

The unpleasant experience that you have been trying to avoid

could be almost anything: Guilt, greed or problems. It could be

a low-grade pain or subtle sickness or approaching illness.

Whatever it is, let it arise and look at it mindfully. If you

just sit still and observe your agitation, it will eventually

pass. Sitting through restlessness is a little breakthrough in

your meditation career. It will teach you much. You will find

that agitation is actually a rather superficial mental state. It

is inherently ephemeral. It comes and it goes. It has no real

grip on you at all. Here again the rest of your life will

profit.

Problem 9

Trying Too Hard

Advanced meditators are generally found to be pretty jovial men

and women. They possess that most valuable of all human

treasures, a sense of humor. It is not the superficial witty

repartee of the talk show host. It is a real sense of humor.

They can laugh at their own human failures. They can chuckle at

personal disasters. Beginners in meditation are often much too

serious for their own good. So laugh a little. It is important

to learn to loosen up in your session, to relax into your

meditation. You need to learn to flow with whatever happens.

You can't do that if you are tensed and striving, taking it all

so very, very seriously. New meditators are often overly eager

for results. They are full of enormous and inflated

expectations. They jump right in and expect incredible results

in no time flat. They push. They tense. They sweat and strain,

and it is all so terribly, terribly grim and solemn. This state

of tension is the direct antithesis of mindfulness. So naturally

they achieve little. Then they decide that this meditation is

not so exciting after all. It did not give them what they

wanted. They chuck it aside. It should be pointed out that you

learn about meditation only by meditating. You learn what

meditation is all about and where it leads only through direct

experience of the thing itself. Therefore the beginner does not

know where he is headed because he has developed little sense of

where his practice is leading.

The novice's expectation is inherently unrealistic and

uninformed. As a newcomer to meditation, he or she would expect

all the wrong things, and those expectations do you no good at

all. They get in the way. Trying too hard leads to rigidity and

unhappiness, to guilt and self-condemnation. When you are trying

too hard, your effort becomes mechanical and that defeats

mindfulness before it even gets started. You are well-advised to

drop all that. Drop your expectations and straining. Simply

meditate with a steady and balanced effort. Enjoy your mediation

and don't load yourself down with sweat and struggles. Just be

mindful. The meditation itself will take care of the future.

Problem 10

Discouragement

The direct upshot of pushing too hard is frustration. You are in

a state of tension. You get nowhere. You realize you are not

making the progress you expected, so you get discouraged. You

feel like a failure. IT is all a very natural cycle, but a

totally avoidable one. The source is striving after unrealistic

expectations. Nevertheless, it is a common enough syndrome and,

in spite of all the best advice, you may find it happening to

you. There is a solution. If you find yourself discouraged,

just observe your state of mind clearly. Don't add anything to

it. Just watch it. A sense of failure is only another ephemeral

emotional reaction. If you get involved, it feeds on your energy

and grows. If you simply stand aside and watch it, it passes

away.

If you are discouraged over your perceived failure in meditation,

that is especially easy to deal with. You feel you have failed

in your practice. You have failed to be mindful. Simply become

mindful of that sense of failure. You have just re-established

your mindfulness with that single step. The reason for your

sense of failure is nothing but memory. There is no such thing

as failure in meditation. There are setbacks and difficulties.

But there is no failure unless you give up entirely. Even if you

spend twenty solid years getting nowhere, you can be mindful at

any second you choose to do so. It is your decision. Regretting

is only one more way of being unmindful. The instant that you

realize that you have been unmindful, that realization itself is

an act of mindfulness. So continue the process. Don't get

sidetracked in an emotional reaction.

Problem 11

Resistance To Meditation

There are times when you don't feel like meditating. The very

idea seems obnoxious. Missing a single practice session is

scarcely important, but it very easily becomes a habit. It is

wiser to push on through the resistance. Go sit anyway. Observe

this feeling of aversion. In most cases it is a passing emotion,

a flash in the pan that will evaporate right in front of your

eyes. Five minutes after you sid down it is gone. In other

cases it is due to some sour mood that day, and it lasts longer.

Still, it does pass. And it is better to get rid of it in twenty

or thirty minutes of meditation than to carry it around with you

and let it ruin the rest of your day. Another time, resistance

may be due to some difficulty you are having with the practice

itself. You may or may not know what that difficulty is. if the

problem is known, handle it by one of the techniques given in

this book. Once the problem is gone, resistance will be gone.

If the problem is unknown, then you are going to have to tough it

out. Just sit through the resistance and observe that mindfully.

When it has finally run its course, it will pass. Then the

problem causing it will probably bubbly up in its wake, and you

can deal with that.

If resistance to meditation is a common feature of your practice,

then you should suspect some subtle error in your basic attitude.

Meditation is not a ritual conducted in a particular posture. It

is not a painful exercise, or period of enforced boredom. And it

is not some grim, solemn, obligation. Meditation is mindfulness.

it is a new way of seeing and it is a form of play. Meditation

is your friend. Come to regard it as such and resistance will

wash away like smoke on a summer breeze.

If you try all these possibilities and the resistance remains,

then there may be a problem. There can be certain metaphysical

snags that a meditator runs into which go far beyond the scope of

this book. It is not common for new meditators to hit these, but

it can happen. Don't give up. Go get help. Seek out qualified

teachers of the Vipassana style of meditation and ask them to

help you resolve the situation. Such people exist for exactly

that purpose.

Problem 12

Stupor Or Dullness

We have already discussed the sinking mind phenomenon. But there

is a special route to that state you should watch for. Mental

dullness can result as an unwanted byproduct of deepening

concentration. As your relaxation deepens, muscles loosen and

nerve transmission changes. This produces a very calm and light

feeling in the body. you feel very still and somewhat divorced

from the body. this is a very pleasant state and at first your

concentration is quite good, nicely centered on the breath. As

it continues, however, the pleasant feeling intensify and they

distract your attention from the breath. You start to really

enjoy that state and your mindfulness goes way down. Your

attention winds up scattered, drifting listlessly through vague

clouds of bliss. The result is a very unmindful state, sort of

an ecstatic stupor. The cure, of course, is mindfulness.

Mindfully observe these phenomena and they will dissipate. When

blissful feelings arise accept them. There is no need to avoid

them. Don't get wrapped up in them. They are physical feelings,

so treat them as such. Observe feelings as feelings. Observe

dullness as dullness. Watch them rise and watch them pass.

Don't get involved.

You will have problems in meditation. Everybody does. You can

treat them as terrible torments, or as challenges to be overcome.

If you regard them as burdens, you suffering will only increase.

If you regard them as opportunities to learn and to grow, your

spiritual prospects are unlimited._

Chapter 11

Dealing with Distractions - I

At some time, every meditator encounters distractions during

practice, and methods are needed to deal with them. Some elegant

stratagems have been devised to get you back on the track more

quickly than trying to push your way through by sheer force of

will. Concentration and mindfulness go hand-in-hand. Each one

complements the other. If either one is weak, the other will

eventually be affected. Bad days are usually characterized by

poor concentration. Your mind just keeps floating around. You

need some method of reestablishing your concentration, even in

the face of mental adversity. Luckily, you have it. In fact you

can take your choice from a traditional array of practical

maneuvers.

Maneuver 1

Time Gauging

This first technique has been covered in an earlier chapter. A

distraction has pulled you away from the breath, and you suddenly

realize that you've been day-dreaming. The trick is to pull all

the way out of whatever has captured you, to break its hold on

you completely so you can go back to the breath with full

attention. You do this by gauging the length of time that you

were distracted. This is not a precise calculation. you don't

need a precise figure, just a rough estimate. You can figure it

in minutes, or by idea significance. Just say to yourself,

"Okay, I have been distracted for about two minutes" or "Since

the dog started barking" or "Since I started thinking about

money." When you first start practicing this technique, you will

do it by talking to yourself inside your head. Once the habit is

well established, you can drop that, and the action becomes

wordless and very quick. The whole idea, remember, is to pull

out of the distraction and get back to the breath. You pull out

of the thought by making it the object of inspection just long

enough to glean from it a rough approximation of its duration.

The interval itself is not important. Once you are free of the

distraction, drop the whole thing and go back to the breath. Do

not get hung up in the estimate.

Maneuver 2

Deep Breaths

When your mind is wild and agitated, you can often re-establish

mindfulness with a few quick deep breaths. Pull the air in

strongly and let it out the same way. This increases the

sensation inside the nostrils and makes it easier to focus. Make

a strong act of will and apply some force to your attention.

Concentration can be forced into growth, remember, so you will

probably find your full attention settling nicely back on the

breath.

Maneuver 3

Counting

Counting the breaths as they pass is a highly traditional

procedure. Some schools of practice teach this activity as their

primary tactic. Vipassana uses it as an auxiliary technique for

re-establishing mindfulness and for strengthening concentration.

As we discussed in Chapter 5, you can count breaths in a number

of different ways. Remember to keep your attention on the

breath. You will probably notice a change after you have done

your counting. The breath slows down, or it becomes very light

and refined. This is a physiological signal that concentration

has become well-established. At this point, the breath is

usually so light or so fast and gentle that you can't clearly

distinguish the inhalation from the exhalation. They seem to

blend into each other. You can then count both of them as a

single cycle. Continue your counting process, but only up to a

count of five, covering the same five-breath sequence, then start

over. When counting becomes a bother, go on to the next step.

Drop the numbers and forget about the concepts of inhalation and

exhalation. Just dive right in to the pure sensation of

breathing. Inhalation blends into exhalation. One breath blends

into the next in a never ending cycle of pure, smooth flow.

Maneuver 4

The In-Out Method

This is an alternative to counting, and it functions in much the

manner. Just direct your attention to the breath and mentally

tag each cycle with the words "Inhalation...exhalation" or

'In...out". Continue the process until you no longer need these

concepts, and then throw them away.

Maneuver 5

Canceling One Thought With Another

Some thoughts just won't go away. We humans are obsessional

beings. It's one of our biggest problems. We tend to lock onto

things like sexual fantasies and worries and ambitions. We feed

those thought complexes over the years of time and give them

plenty of exercise by playing with them in every spare moment.

Then when we sit down to meditate, we order them to go away and

leave us alone. It is scarcely surprising that they don't obey.

Persistent thoughts like these require a direct approach, a full-

scale frontal attack.

Buddhist psychology has developed a distinct system of

classification. Rather than dividing thoughts into classes like

'good' or 'bad', Buddhist thinkers prefer to regard them as

'skillful' versus 'unskillful'. An unskillful thought is on

connected with greed, hatred, or delusion. These are the

thoughts that the mind most easily builds into obsessions. They

are unskillful in the sense that they lead you away from the goal

of Liberation. Skillful thoughts, on the other hand, are those

connected with generosity, compassion, and wisdom. They are

skillful in the sense that they may be used as specific remedies

for unskillful thoughts, and thus can assist you toward

Liberation.

You cannot condition Liberation. It is not a state built out of

thoughts. Nor can you condition the personal qualities which

Liberation produces. Thoughts of benevolence can produce a

semblance of benevolence, but it's not the real item. It will

break down under pressure. Thoughts of compassion produce only

superficial compassion. Therefore, these skillful thoughts will

not, in themselves, free you from the trap. They are skillful

only if applied as antidotes to the poison of unskillful

thoughts. Thoughts of generosity can temporarily cancel greed.

They kick it under the rug long enough for mindfulness to do its

work unhindered. Then, when mindfulness has penetrated to the

roots of the ego process, greed evaporates and true generosity

arises.

This principle can be used on a day to day basis in your own

meditation. If a particular sort of obsession is troubling you,

you can cancel it out by generating its opposite. Here is an

example: If you absolutely hate Charlie, and his scowling face

keeps popping into your mind, try directing a stream of love and

friendliness toward Charlie. You probably will get rid of the

immediate mental image. Then you can get on with the job of

meditation.

Sometimes this tactic alone doesn't work. The obsession is

simply too strong. In this case you've got to weaken its hold on

you somewhat before you can successfully balance it out. Here is

where guilt, one of man's most misbegotten emotions, finally

becomes of some use. Take a good strong look at the emotional

response you are trying to get rid of. Actually ponder it. See

how it makes you feel. Look at what it is doing to your life,

your happiness, your health, and your relationships. Try to see

how it makes you appear to others. Look at the way it is

hindering your progress toward Liberation. The Pali scriptures

urge you to do this very thoroughly indeed. They advise you to

work up the same sense of disgust and humiliation that you would

feel if you were forced to walk around with the carcass of a dead

and decaying animal tied around your neck. Real loathing is what

you are after. This step may end the problem all by itself. If

it doesn't, then balance out the lingering remainder of the

obsession by once again generating its opposite emotion.

Thoughts of greed cover everything connected with desire, from

outright avarice for material gain, all the way down to a subtle

need to be respected as a moral person. Thoughts of hatred run

the gamut from petty peevishness to murderous rage. Delusion

covers everything from daydreaming through actual hallucinations.

Generosity cancels greed. Benevolence and compassion cancel

hatred. You can find a specific antidote for any troubling

thought if you just think about it a while.

Maneuver 6

Recalling Your Purpose

There are times when things pop into your mind, apparently at

random. Words, phrases, or whole sentences jump up out of the

unconscious for no discernible reason. Objects appear. Pictures

flash on and off. This is an unsettling experience. Your mind

feels like a flag flapping in a stiff wind. It washes back and

forth like waves in the ocean. At times like this it is often

enough just to remember why you are there. You can say to

yourself, "I'm not sitting here just to waste my time with these

thoughts. I'm here to focus my mind on the breath, which is

universal and common to all living beings". Sometimes your mind

will settle down, even before you complete this recitation.

Other times you may have to repeat it several times before you

refocus on the breath.

These techniques can be used singly, or in combinations.

Properly employed, they constitute quite an effective arsenal for

your battle against the monkey mind._

Chapter 12

Dealing With Distractions - II

So there you are meditating beautifully. Your body is totally

immobile, and you mind is totally still. You just glide right

along following the flow of the breath, in, out, in, out...calm,

serene and concentrated. Everything is perfect. And then, all

of a sudden, something totally different pops into your mind: "I

sure wish I had an ice cream cone." That's a distraction,

obviously. That's not what you are supposed to be doing. You

notice that, and you drag yourself back to the breath, back to

the smooth flow, in, out, in...and then: "Did I ever pay that gas

bill?" Another distraction. You notice that one, and you haul

yourself back to the breath. In, out, in, out, in..."That new

science fiction movie is out. Maybe I can go see it Tuesday

night. No, not Tuesday, got too much to do on Wednesday.

Thursday's better..." Another distraction. You pull yourself

out of that one and back you go to the breath, except that you

never quite get there because before you do that little voice in

your head goes, "My back is killing me." And on and on it goes,

distraction after distraction, seemingly without end.

What a bother. But this is what it is all about. These

distractions are actually the whole point. The key is to learn

to deal with these things. Learning to notice them without being

trapped in them. That's what we are here for. The mental

wandering is unpleasant, to be sure. But it is the normal mode

of operation of your mind. Don't think of it as the enemy. It

is just the simple reality. And if you want to change something,

the first thing you have to do is see it the way it is.

When you first sit down to concentrate on the breath, you will be

struck by how incredibly busy the mind actually is. It jumps and

jibbers. It veers and bucks. It chases itself around in constant

circles. It chatters. It thinks. It fantasizes and daydreams.

Don't be upset about that. it's natural. When your mind wanders

from the subject of meditation, just observe the distraction

mindfully.

When we speak of a distraction in Insight Meditation, we are

speaking of any preoccupation that pulls the attention off the

breath. This brings up a new, major rule for your meditation:

When any mental state arises strongly enough to distract you from

the object of meditation, switch your attention to the

distraction briefly. Make the distraction a temporary object of

meditation. Please note the word temporary. It's quite

important. We are not advising that you switch horses in

midstream. We do not expect you to adopt a whole new object of

meditation every three seconds. The breath will always remain

your primary focus. You switch your attention to the distraction

only long enough to notice certain specific things about it.

What is it? How strong is it? and, how long does it last?

As soon as you have wordlessly answered these questions, you are

through with your examination of that distraction, and you return

your attention to the breath. Here again, please note the

operant term, wordlessly. These questions are not an invitation

to more mental chatter. That would be moving you in the wrong

direction, toward more thinking. We want you to move away from

thinking, back to a direct, wordless and nonconceptual experience

of the breath. These questions are designed to free you from the

distraction and give you insight into its nature, not to get you

more thoroughly stuck in it. They will tune you in to what is

distracting you and help you get rid of it--all in one step.

Here is the problem: When a distraction, or any mental state,

arises in the mind, it blossoms forth first in the unconscious.

Only a moment later does it rise to the conscious mind. That

split-second difference is quite important, because it time

enough for grasping to occur. Grasping occurs almost

instantaneously, and it takes place first in the unconscious.

Thus, by the time the grasping rises to the level of conscious

recognition, we have already begun to lock on to it. It is

quite natural for us to simply continue that process, getting

more and more tightly stuck in the distraction as we continue to

view it. We are, by this time, quite definitely thinking the

thought, rather than just viewing it with bare attention. The

whole sequence takes place in a flash. This presents us with a

problem. By the time we become consciously aware of a

distraction we are already, in a sense, stuck in it. Our three

questions are a clever remedy for this particular malady. In

order to answer these questions, we must ascertain the quality of

the distraction. To do that, we must divorce ourselves from it,

take a mental step back from it, disengage from it, and view it

objectively. We must stop thinking the thought or feeling the

feeling in order to view it as an object of inspection. This

very process is an exercise in mindfulness, uninvolved, detached

awareness. The hold of the distraction is thus broken, and

mindfulness is back in control. At this point, mindfulness makes

a smooth transition back to its primary focus and we return to

the breath.

When you first begin to practice this technique, you will

probably have to do it with words. You will ask your questions

in words, and get answers in words. It won't be long, however,

before you can dispense with the formality of words altogether.

Once the mental habits are in place, you simply note the

distraction, note the qualities of the distraction, and return to

the breath. It's a totally nonconceptual process, and it's very

quick. The distraction itself can be anything: a sound, a

sensation, an emotion, a fantasy, anything at all. Whatever it

is, don't try to repress it. Don't try to force it out of your

mind. There's no need for that. Just observe it mindfully with

bare attention. Examine the distraction wordlessly and it will

pass away by itself. You will find your attention drifting

effortlessly back to the breath. And do not condemn yourself for

having been distracted. Distractions are natural. They come

and they go.

Despite this piece of sage counsel, you're going to find yourself

condemning anyway. That's natural too. Just observe the process

of condemnation as another distraction, and then return to the

breath.

Watch the sequence of events: Breathing. Breathing. Distracting

thought arises. Frustration arising over the distracting thought.

You condemn yourself for being distracted. You notice the self

condemnation. You return to the breathing. Breathing.

Breathing. It's really a very natural, smooth-flowing cycle, if

you do it correctly. The trick, of course, is patience. If you

can learn to observe these distractions without getting involved,

it's all very easy. You just glide through the distractions and

your attention returns to the breath quite easily. Of course,

the very same distraction may pop up a moment later. If it does,

just observe that mindfully. If you are dealing with an old,

established thought pattern, this can go on happening for quite a

while, sometimes years. Don't get upset. This too is natural.

just observe the distraction and return to the breath. Don't

fight with these distracting thoughts. Don't strain or struggle.

It's a waste. Every bit of energy that you apply to that

resistance goes into the thought complex and makes it all the

stronger. So don't try to force such thoughts out of your mind.

It's a battle you can never win. Just observe the distraction

mindfully and, it will eventually go away. It's very strange,

but the more bare attention you pay to such disturbances, the

weaker they get. Observe them long enough, and often enough,

with bare attention, and they fade away forever. Fight with them

and they gain in strength. Watch them with detachment and they

wither.

Mindfulness is a function that disarms distractions, in the same

way that a munitions expert might defuse a bomb. Weak

distractions are disarmed by a single glance. Shine the light of

awareness on them and they evaporate instantly, never to return.

Deep-seated, habitual thought patterns require constant

mindfulness repeatedly applied over whatever time period it takes

to break their hold. Distractions are really paper tigers. They

have no power of their own. They need to be fed constantly, or

else they die. If you refuse to feed them by your own fear,

anger, and greed, they fade.

Mindfulness is the most important aspect of meditation. It is

the primary thing that you are trying to cultivate. So there is

really no need at all to struggle against distractions. The

crucial thing is to be mindful of what is occurring, not to

control what is occurring. Remember, concentration is a tool.

It is secondary to bare attention. From the point of view of

mindfulness, there is really no such thing as a distraction.

Whatever arises in the mind is viewed as just one more

opportunity to cultivate mindfulness. Breath, remember, is an

arbitrary focus, and it is used as our primary object of

attention. Distractions are used as secondary objects of

attention. They are certainly as much a part of reality as

breath. It actually makes rather little difference what the

object of mindfulness is. You can be mindful of the breath, or

you can be mindful of the distraction. You can be mindful of

the fact that your mind is still, and your concentration is

strong, or you can be mindful of the fact that your concentration

is in ribbons and your mind is in an absolute shambles. It's all

mindfulness. Just maintain that mindfulness and concentration

eventually will follow.

The purpose of meditation is not to concentrate on the breath,

without interruption, forever. That by itself would be a useless

goal. The purpose of meditation is not to achieve a perfectly

still and serene mind. Although a lovely state, it doesn't lead

to liberation by itself. The purpose of meditation is to achieve

uninterrupted mindfulness. Mindfulness, and only mindfulness,

produces Enlightenment.

Distractions come in all sizes, shapes and flavors. Buddhist

philosophy has organized them into categories. One of them is

the category of hindrances. They are called hindrances because

they block your development of both components of mediation,

mindfulness and concentration. A bit of caution on this term:

The word 'hindrances' carries a negative connotation, and indeed

these are states of mind we want to eradicate. That does not

mean, however, that they are to be repressed, avoided or

condemned.

Let's use greed as an example. We wish to avoid prolonging any

state of greed that arises, because a continuation of that state

leads to bondage and sorrow. That does not mean we try to toss

the thought out of the mind when it appears. We simply refuse to

encourage it to stay. We let it come, and we let it go. When

greed is first observed with bare attention, no value judgements

are made. We simply stand back and watch it arise. The whole

dynamic of greed from start to finish is simply observed in this

way. We don't help it, or hinder it, or interfere with it in the

slightest. It stays as long as it stays. And we learn as much

about it as we can while it is there. We watch what greed does.

We watch how it troubles us, and how it burdens others. We

notice how it keeps us perpetually unsatisfied, forever in a

state of unfulfilled longing. From this first-hand experience,

we ascertain at a gut level that greed is an unskillful way to

run your life. There is nothing theoretical about this

realization.

All of the hindrances are dealt with in the same way, and we will

look at them here one by one.

Desire: Let us suppose you have been distracted by some nice

experience in meditation. It could be pleasant fantasy or a

thought of pride. It might be a feeling of self-esteem. It

might be a thought of love or even the physical sensation of

bliss that comes with the meditation experience itself. Whatever

it is, what follows is the state of desire -- desire to obtain

whatever you have been thinking about or desire to prolong the

experience you are having. No matter what its nature, you should

finally disappears. When you have done that, return your

attention to breathing.

Aversion: Suppose that you have been distracted by some negative

experience. It could be something you fear or some nagging

worry. It might be guilt or depression or pain. Whatever the

rejecting or repressing -- trying to avoid it, resist it or deny

it. The handling here is essentially the same. Watch the

arising of the thought or sensation. Notice the state of

rejection that comes with it. Gauge the extent or degree of that

rejection. See how long it lasts and when it fades away. Then

return your attention to your breath.

Lethargy: Lethargy comes in various grades and intensities,

ranging from slight drowsiness to total torpor. We are talking

about a mental state here, not a physical one. Sleepiness or

acuity. It is an enforced stupidity pretending to be sleep.

This can be a tough one to deal with, because its presence is

directly contrary to the employment of mindfulness. Lethargy is

nearly the reverse of mindfulness. Nevertheless, mindfulness is

the cure for this hindrance, too, and the handling is the same.

Note the state of drowsiness when it arises, and note its extent

or degree. Note when it arises, how long it lasts, and when it

passes away. The only thing special here is the importance of

catching the phenomenon early. You have got to get it right at

its conception and apply liberal doses of pure awareness right

away. If you let it get a start, its growth probably will out

pace your mindfulness power. When lethargy wins, the result is

Agitation: States of restlessness and worry are expressions of

mental agitation. Your mind keeps darting around, refusing to

settle on any one thing. You may keep running over and over the

same issues. But even here an unsettled feeling is the

predominant component. The mind refuses to settle anywhere. It

jumps around constantly. The cure for this condition is the same

basic sequence. Restlessness imparts a certain feeling to

consciousness. You might call it a flavor or texture. Whatever

you call it, that unsettled feeling is there as a definable

characteristic. Look for it. Once you have spotted it, note how

much of it is present. Note when it arises. Watch how long it

lasts, and see when it fades away. Then return your attention to

the breath.

Doubt: Doubt has its own distinct feeling in consciousness. The

Pali texts describe it very nicely. It's the feeling of a man

stumbling through a desert and arriving at an unmarked crossroad.

Which road should he take? There is no way to tell. So he just

stands there vacillating. One of the common forms this takes in

meditation is an inner dialogue something like this: "What am I

doing just sitting like this? Am I really getting anything out of

this at all? Oh! Sure I am. This is good for me. The book said

so. No, that is crazy. This is a waste of time. No, I won't

give up. I said I was going to do this, and I am going to do it.

Or am I being just stubborn? I don't know. I just don't know."

what is happening. To handle doubt, simply become aware of this

mental state of wavering as an object of inspection. Don't be

trapped in it. Back out of it and look at it. See how strong it

is. See when it comes and how long it lasts. Then watch it fade

away, and go back to the breathing.

This is the general pattern you will use on any distraction that

arises. By distraction, remember we mean any mental state that

arises to impede your meditation. Some of these are quite

subtle. It is useful to list some of the possibilities. The

negative states are pretty easy to spot: insecurity, fear, anger,

depression, irritation and frustration.

Craving and desire are a bit more difficult to spot because they

can apply to things we normally regard as virtuous or noble. You

can experience the desire to perfect yourself. You can feel

craving for greater virtue. You can even develop an attachment

to the bliss of the meditation experience itself. It is a bit

hard to detach yourself from such altruistic feelings. In the

end, though, it is just more greed. It is a desire for

gratification and a clever way of ignoring the present-time

reality.

Trickiest of all, however, are those really positive mental

states that come creeping into your meditation. Happiness,

peace, inner contentment, sympathy and compassion for all beings

everywhere. These mental states are so sweet and so benevolent

that you can scarcely bear to pry yourself loose from them. It

makes you feel like a traitor to mankind. There is no need to

feel this way. We are not advising you to reject these states of

mind or to become heartless robots. We merely want you to see

to become attached to them. Just see each one as it comes up.

See what it is, how strong it is and how long it lasts. Then

watch it drift away. It is all just more of the passing show of

your own mental universe.

Just as breathing comes in stages, so do the mental states.

Every breath has a beginning, a middle and an end. Every mental

states has a birth, a growth and a decay. You should strive to

see these stages clearly. This is no easy thing to do, however.

As we have already noted, every thought and sensation begins

first in the unconscious region of the mind and only later rises

to consciousness. We generally become aware of such things only

after they have arisen in the conscious realm and stayed there

for some time. Indeed we usually become aware of distractions

only when they have released their hold on us and are already on

their way out. it is at this point that we are struck with the

sudden realization that we have been somewhere, day-dreaming,

fantasizing, or whatever. Quite obviously this is far too late

in the chain of events. We may call this phenomenon catching the

lion by is tail, and it is an unskillful thing to do. Like

confronting a dangerous beast, we must approach mental states

head-on. Patiently, we will learn to recognize them as they

arise from progressively deeper levels of our conscious mind.

Since mental states arise first in the unconscious, to catch the

arising of the mental state, you've got to extend your awareness

down into this unconscious area. That is difficult, because you

can't see what is going on down there, at least not in the same

way you see a conscious thought. But you can learn to get a

vague sense of movement and to operate by a sort of mental sense

of touch. This comes with practice, and the ability is another

of the effects of the deep calm of concentration. Concentration

slows down the arising of these mental states and gives you time

to feel each one arising out of the unconscious even before you

see it in consciousness. Concentration helps you to extend your

awareness down into that boiling darkness where thought and

sensation begin.

As your concentration deepens, you gain the ability to see

thoughts and sensations arising slowly, like separate bubbles,

each distinct and with spaces between them. They bubble up in

slow motion out of the unconscious. They stay a while in the

conscious mind and then they drift away.

The application of awareness to mental states is a precision

operation. This is particularly true of feelings or sensations.

It is very easy to overreach the sensation. That is, to add

something to it above and beyond what is really there. It is

equally easy to fall short of sensation, to get part of it but

not all. The ideal that you are striving for is to experience

each mental state fully, exactly the way it is, adding nothing to

it and not missing any part of it. Let us use pain in the leg as

an example. What is actually there is a pure flowing sensation.

It changes constantly, never the same from one moment to the

next. It moves from one location to another, and its intensity

surges up and down. Pain is not a thing. It is an event. There

should be no concepts tacked on to it and none associated with

it. A pure unobstructed awareness of this event will experience

it simply as a flowing pattern of energy and nothing more. No

thought and no rejection. Just energy.

Early on in our practice of meditation, we need to rethink our

underlying assumptions regarding conceptualization. For most of

us, we have earned high marks in school and in life for our

ability to manipulate mental phenomena -- concepts -- logically.

Our careers, much of our success in everyday life, our happy

relationships, we view as largely the result of our successful

manipulation of concepts. In developing mindfulness, however, we

temporarily suspend the conceptualization process and focus on

the pure nature of mental phenomena. During meditation we are

seeking to experience the mind at the pre-concept level.

But the human mind conceptualizes such occurrences as pain. You

find yourself thinking of it as 'the pain'. That is a concept.

It is a label, something added to the sensation itself. You find

yourself building a mental image, a picture of the pain, seeing

it as a shape. You may see a diagram of the leg with the pain

outlined in some lovely color. This is very creative and

terribly entertaining, but not what we want. Those are concepts

tacked on to the living reality. Most likely, you will probably

find yourself thinking: "I have a pain in my leg." 'I' is a

concept. It is something extra added to the pure experience.

When you introduce 'I' into the process, you are building a

conceptual gap between the reality and the awareness viewing that

reality. Thoughts such as 'Me', 'My' or 'Mine' have no place in

direct awareness. They are extraneous addenda, and insidious

ones at that. When you bring 'me' into the picture, you are

identifying with the pain. That simply adds emphasis to it. If

you leave 'I' out of the operation, pain is not painful. It is

just a pure surging energy flow. It can even be beautiful. If

you find 'I' insinuating itself in your experience of pain or

indeed any other sensation, then just observe that mindfully.

Pay bare attention to the phenomenon of personal identification

with the pain.

The general idea, however, is almost too simple. You want to

really see each sensation, whether it is pain, bliss or boredom.

You want to experience that thing fully in its natural and

unadulterated form. There is only one way to do this. Your

timing has to be precise. Your awareness of each sensation must

coordinate exactly with the arising of that sensation. If you

catch it just a bit too late, you miss the beginning. You won't

get all of it. If you hang on to any sensation past the time

when it has memory. The thing itself is gone, and by holding

onto that memory, you miss the arising of the next sensation. It

is a very delicate operation. You've got to cruise along right

here in present time, picking things up and letting things drop

with no delays whatsoever. It takes a very light touch. Your

relation to sensation should never be one of past or future but

always of the simple and immediate now.

The human mind seeks to conceptualize phenomena, and it has

developed a host of clever ways to do so. Every simple sensation

will trigger a burst of conceptual thinking if you give the mind

its way. Let us take hearing, for example. You are sitting in

meditation and somebody in the next room drops a dish. The

sounds strike your ear. Instantly you see a picture of that

other room. You probably see a person dropping a dish, too. If

this a familiar environment, say your own home, you probably will

have a 3-D technicolor mind movie of who did the dropping and

which dish was dropped. This whole sequence presents itself to

consciousness instantly. It just jumps out of the unconscious so

bright and clear and compelling that it shoves everything else

out of sight. What happens to the original sensation, the pure

experience of hearing? It got lost in the shuffle, completely

overwhelmed and forgotten. We miss reality. We enter a world of

fantasy.

Here is another example: You are sitting in meditation and a

sound strikes your ear. it is just an indistinct noise, sort of

a muffled crunch; it could be anything. What happens next will

probably be something like this. "What was that? Who did that?

Where did that come from? How far away was that? Is it

dangerous?". And on and on you go, getting no answers but your

fantasy projection. Conceptualization is an insidiously clever

process It creeps into you experience, and it simply takes over.

When you hear a sound in meditation, pay bare attention to the

experience of hearing. That and that only. What is really

happening is so utterly simple that we can and do miss it

altogether. Sound waves are striking the ear in a certain unique

pattern. Those waves are being translated into electrical

impulses within the brain and those impulses present a sound

pattern to consciousness. That is all. No pictures. No mind

movies. No concepts. No interior dialogues about the question.

Just noise. Reality is elegantly simple and unadorned. When you

hear a sound, be mindful of the process of hearing. Everything

else is just added chatter. Drop it. The same rule applies to

every sensation, every emotion, every experience you may have.

Look closely at your own experience. Dig down through the layers

of mental bric-a-brac and see what is really there. You will be

amazed how simple it is, and how beautiful.

There are times when a number of sensations may arise at once.

You might have a thought of fear, a squeezing in the stomach and

an aching back and an itch on your left earlobe, all at the same

time. Don't sit there in a quandary. Don't keep switching back

and forth or wondering what to pick. One of them will be

strongest. Just open yourself up and the most insistent of these

phenomena will intrude itself and demand your attention. So give

it some attention just long enough to see it fade away. Then

return to your breathing. If another one intrudes itself, let it

in. When it is done, return to the breathing.

This process can be carried too far, however. Don't sit there

looking for things to be mindful of. Keep your mindfulness on

the breath until something else steps in and pulls your attention

away. When you feel that happening, don't fight it. Let you

attention flow naturally over to the distraction, and keep it

there until the distraction evaporates. Then return to

breathing. Don't seek out other physical or mental phenomena.

Just return to breathing. Let them come to you. There will be

times when you drift off, of course. Even after long practice

you find yourself suddenly waking up, realizing you have been off

the track for some while. Don't get discouraged. Realize that

you have been off the track for such and such a length of time

and go back to the breath. There is no need for any negative

reaction at all. The very act of realizing that you have been

off the track is an active awareness. it is an exercise of pure

mindfulness all by itself.

Mindfulness grows by the exercise of mindfulness. It is like

exercising a muscle. Every time you work it, you pump it up just

a little. You make it a little stronger. The very fact that you

have felt that wake-up sensation means that you have just

improved your mindfulness power. That means you win. Move back

to the breathing without regret. however, the regret is a

conditioned reflex and it may come along anyway--another mental

habit. If you find yourself getting frustrated, feeling

discouraged, or condemning yourself, just observe that with bare

attention. It is just another distraction. Give it some

attention and watch it fade away, and return to the breath.

The rules we have just reviewed can and should be applied

thoroughly to all of your mental states. You are going to find

this an utterly ruthless injunction. It is the toughest job that

you will ever undertake. You will find yourself relatively

willing to apply this technique to certain parts of your

experience, and you will find yourself totally unwilling to use

it on the other parts.

Meditation is a bit like mental acid. It eats away slowly at

whatever you put it on. We humans are very odd beings. We like

the taste of certain poisons and we stubbornly continue to eat

them even while they are killing us. Thoughts to which we are

attached are poison. You will find yourself quite eager to dig

some thoughts out by the roots while you jealously guard and

cherish certain others. That is the human condition.

Vipassana meditation is not a game. Clear awareness is more than

a pleasurable pastime. It is a road up and out of the quagmire

in which we are all stuck, the swamp of our own desires and

aversions. It is relatively easy to apply awareness to the

nastier aspects of your existence. Once you have seen fear and

depression evaporate in the hot, intense beacon of awareness, you

want to repeat the process. Those are the unpleasant mental

states. They hurt. You want to get rid of those things because

they bother you. It is a good deal harder to apply that same

process to mental states which you cherish, like patriotism, or

parental protectiveness or true love. But it is just as

necessary. Positive attachments hold you in the mud just as

assuredly as negative attachments. You may rise above the mud

far enough to breathe a bit more easily if you practice Vipassana

meditation with diligence. Vipassana meditation is the road to

Nibbana. And from the reports of those who have toiled their way

to that lofty goal, it is well worth every effort involved.

_

Chapter 13

Mindfulness (Sati)

Mindfulness is the English translation of the Pali word Sati.

Sati is an activity. What exactly is that? There can be no

precise answer, at least not in words. Words are devised by the

symbolic levels of the mind and they describe those realities

with which symbolic thinking deals. Mindfulness is pre-symbolic.

It is not shackled to logic. Nevertheless, Mindfulness can be

experienced--rather easily--and it can be described, as long as

you keep in mind that the words are only fingers pointing at the

moon. They are not the thing itself. The actual experience lies

beyond the words and above the symbols. Mindfulness could be

describes in completely different terms than will be used here

and each description could still be correct.

Mindfulness is a subtle process that you are using at this very

moment. the fact that this process lies above and beyond words

does not make it unreal--quite the reverse. Mindfulness is the

reality which gives rise to words--the words that follow are

simply pale shadows of reality. So, it is important to

understand that everything that follows here is analogy. It is

not going to make perfect sense. It will always remain beyond

verbal logic. But you can experience it. The meditation

technique called Vipassana (insight) that was introduced by the

Buddha about twenty-five centuries ago is a set of mental

activities specifically aimed at experiencing a state of

uninterrupted Mindfulness.

When you first become aware of something, there is a fleeting

instant of pure awareness just before you conceptualize the

thing, before you identify it. That is a stage of Mindfulness.

Ordinarily, this stage is very short. It is that flashing split

second just as you focus your eyes on the thing, just as you

focus your mind on the thing, just before you objectify it, clamp

down on it mentally and segregate it from the rest of existence.

It takes place just before you start thinking about it--before

your mind says, "Oh, it's a dog." That flowing, soft-focused

moment of pure awareness is Mindfulness. In that brief flashing

mind-moment you experience a thing as an un-thing. You

experience a softly flowing moment of pure experience that is

interlocked with the rest of reality, not separate from it.

Mindfulness is very much like what you see with your peripheral

vision as opposed to the hard focus of normal or central vision.

yet this moment of soft, unfocused, awareness contains a very

deep sort of knowing that is lost as soon as you focus your mind

and objectify the object into a thing. In the process of

ordinary perception, the Mindfulness step is so fleeting as to be

unobservable. We have developed the habit of squandering our

When this Mindfulness is prolonged by using proper techniques,

you find that this experience is profound and it changes your

entire view of the universe. This state of perception has to be

learned, however, and it takes regular practice. Once you learn

the technique, you will find that Mindfulness has many

interesting aspects.

Mindfulness is mirror-thought. It reflects only what is

presently happening and in exactly the way it is happening.

There are no biases.

Mindfulness is non-judgmental observation. It is that ability of

the mind to observe without criticism. With this ability, one

sees things without condemnation or judgment. One is surprised

It is psychologically impossible for us to objectively observe

what is going on within us if we do not at the same time accept

the occurrence of our various states of mind. This is especially

true with unpleasant states of mind. In order to observe our own

fear, we must accept the fact that we are afraid. We can't

examine our own depression without accepting it fully. The same

is true for irritation and agitation, frustration and all those

other uncomfortable emotional states. You can't examine

something fully if you are busy rejecting its existence.

Whatever experience we may be having, Mindfulness just accepts

it. It is simply another of life's occurrences, just another

thing to be aware of. No pride, no shame, nothing personal at

stake--what is there, is there.

Mindfulness is an impartial watchfulness. It does not take

sides. It does not get hung up in what is perceived. It just

perceives. Mindfulness does not get infatuated with the good

thoughts as equal, all feelings as equal. Nothing is suppressed.

Nothing is repressed. Mindfulness does not play favorites.

Mindfulness is nonconceptual awareness. Another English term for

Sati is 'bare attention'. It is not thinking. It does not get

involved with thought or concepts. It does not get hung up on

ideas or opinions or memories. It just looks. Mindfulness

registers experiences, but it does not compare them. It does not

label them or categorize them. It just observes everything as if

it was occurring for the first time. It is not analysis which is

based on reflection and memory. It is, rather, the direct and

immediate experiencing of whatever is happening, without the

medium of thought. It comes before thought in the perceptual

process.

Mindfulness is present time awareness. It takes place in the

here and now. It is the observance of what is happening right

now, in the present moment. It stays forever in the present,

surging perpetually on the crest of the ongoing wave of passing

time. If you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is

Mindfulness is non-egoistic alertness. It takes place without

reference to self. With Mindfulness one sees all phenomena

without references to concepts like 'me', 'my' or 'mine'. For

example, suppose there is pain in your left leg. Ordinary

consciousness would say, "I have a pain." Using Mindfulness, one

would simply note the sensation as a sensation. One would not

tack on that extra concept 'I'. Mindfulness stops one from

adding anything to perception, or subtracting anything from it.

One does not enhance anything. One does not emphasize anything.

One just observes exactly what is there--without distortion.

Mindfulness is awareness of change. it is observing the passing

flow of experience. It is watching things as they are changing.

it is seeing the birth, growth, and maturity of all phenomena.

It is watching phenomena decay and die. Mindfulness is watching

things moment by moment, continuously. It is observing all

phenomena--physical, mental or emotional--whatever is presently

taking place in the mind. One just sits back and watches the

show. Mindfulness is the observance of the basic nature of each

passing phenomenon. It is watching the thing arising and passing

away. It is seeing how that thing makes us feel and how we react

to it. It is observing how it affects others. In Mindfulness,

one is an unbiased observer whose sole job is to keep track of

the constantly passing show of the universe within. Please note

that last point. In Mindfulness, one watches the universe

within. The meditator who is developing Mindfulness is not

concerned with the external universe. It is there, but in

meditation, one's field of study is one's own experience, one's

thoughts, one's feelings, and one's perceptions. In meditation,

one is one's own laboratory. The universe within has an enormous

fund of information containing the reflection of the external

world and much more. An examination of this material leads to

total freedom.

Mindfulness is participatory observation. The meditator is both

participant and observer at one and the same time. If one

watches one's emotions or physical sensations, one is feeling

them at that very same moment. Mindfulness is not an

intellectual awareness. It is just here. Mindfulness is

objective, but it is not cold or unfeeling. It is the wakeful

experience of life, an alert participation in the ongoing process

of living.

Mindfulness is an extremely difficult concept to define in words-

-not because it is complex, but because it is too simple and

open. The same problem crops up in every area of human

experience. The most basic concept is always the most difficult

to pin down. Look at a dictionary and you will see a clear

example. Long words generally have concise definitions, but for

short basic words like 'the' and 'is', definitions can be a page

long. And in physics, the most difficult functions to describe

are the most basic--those that deal with the most fundamental

realities of quantum mechanics. Mindfulness is a pre-symbolic

function. You can play with word symbols all day long and you

will never pin it down completely. We can never fully express

what it is. However, we can say what it does.

There are three fundamental activities of Mindfulness. We can

use these activities as functional definitions of the term: (1)

nature of all phenomena. Let's examine these definitions in

greater detail.

Mindfulness reminds you of what you are supposed to be doing. In

meditation, you put your attention on one item. When your mind

wanders from this focus, it is Mindfulness that reminds you that

your mind is wandering and what you are supposed to be doing. It

habit which then carries over into the rest of your life. A

serious meditator pays bare attention to occurrences all the

time, day in, day out, whether formally sitting in meditation or

not. This is a very lofty ideal towards which those who meditate

may be working for a period of years or even decades. Our habit

of getting stuck in thought is years old, and that habit will

hang on in the most tenacious manner. The only way out is to be

equally persistent in the cultivation of constant Mindfulness.

stuck in your thought patterns. It is that very noticing which

allows you to back out of the thought process and free yourself

from it. Mindfulness then returns your attention to its proper

focus. If you are meditating at that moment, then your focus

will be the formal object of meditation. If your are not in

formal meditation, it will be just a pure application of bare

attention itself, just a pure noticing of whatever comes up

without getting involved--"Ah, this comes up...and now this, and

now this... and now this".

Mindfulness is at one and the same time both bare attention

itself and the function of reminding us to pay bare attention if

we have ceased to do so. Bare attention is noticing. It re-

establishes itself simply by noticing that it has not been

present. As soon as you are noticing that you have not been

noticing, then by definition you are noticing and then you are

back again to paying bare attention.

Mindfulness creates its own distinct feeling in consciousness.

It has a flavor--a light, clear, energetic flavor. Conscious

thought is heavy by comparison, ponderous and picky. But here

again, these are just words. Your own practice will show you the

difference. Then you will probably come up with your own words

and the words used here will become superfluous. Remember,

practice is the thing.

Mindfulness sees things as they really are. It adds nothing to

perception and it subtracts nothing. it distorts nothing. It is

bare attention and just looks at whatever comes up. Conscious

thought pastes things over our experience, loads us down with

concepts and ideas, immerses us in a churning vortex of plans and

worries, fears and fantasies. When mindful, you don't play that

game. You just notice exactly what arises in the mind, then you

notice the next thing. "Ah, this...and this...and now this." It

is really very simple.

Mindfulness sees the true nature of all phenomena. Mindfulness

and only Mindfulness can perceive the three prime characteristics

that Buddhism teaches are the deepest truths of existence. In

Pali these three are called Anicca (impermanence), Dukkha

(unsatisfactoriness), and Anatta (selflessness--the absence of a

permanent, unchanging, entity that we call Soul or Self). These

truths are not present in Buddhist teaching as dogmas demanding

blind faith. The Buddhists feel that these truths are universal

and self-evident to anyone who cares to investigate in a proper

way. Mindfulness is the method of investigation. Mindfulness

alone has the power to reveal the deepest level of reality

available to human observation. At this level of inspection, one

sees the following: (a) all conditioned things are inherently

transitory; (b) every worldly thing is, in the end, unsatisfying;

and (c) there are really no entities that are unchanging or

permanent, only processes.

impermanent character of every perception. It sees the

transitory and passing nature of everything that is perceived.

It also sees the inherently unsatisfactory nature of all

conditioned things. It sees that there is no sense grabbing onto

that way. And finally, Mindfulness sees the inherent

selflessness of all phenomena. It sees the way that we have

arbitrarily selected a certain bundle of perceptions, chopped

them off from the rest of the surging flow of experience and then

conceptualized them as separate, enduring, entities. Mindfulness

When it is fully developed, Mindfulness sees these three

attributes of existence directly, instantaneously, and without

the intervening medium of conscious thought. In fact, even the

attributes which we just covered are inherently arbitrary. They

don't really exist as separate items. They are purely the result

of our struggle to take this fundamentally simple process called

Mindfulness and express it in the cumbersome and inherently

unsuitable thought symbols of the conscious level. Mindfulness

holistic process that occurs as a unit: you notice your own lack

of Mindfulness; and that noticing itself is a result of

Mindfulness; and Mindfulness is bare attention; and bare

(impermanent, unsatisfactory, and self-less). It all takes place

in the space of a few mind-moments. This does not mean, however,

that you will instantly attain liberation (freedom from all human

weaknesses) as a result of your first moment of Mindfulness.

Learning to integrate this material into your conscious life is

another whole process. And learning to prolong this state of

Mindfulness is still another. They are joyous processes,

however, and they are well worth the effort.

Mindfulness (Sati) and Insight (Vipassana) Meditation

Mindfulness is the center of Vipassana Meditation and the key to

the whole process. it is both the goal of this meditation and

the means to that end. You reach Mindfulness by being ever more

mindful. One other Pali word that is translated into English as

Mindfulness is Appamada, which means non-negligence or an absence

of madness. One who attends constantly to what is really going

on in one's mind achieves the state of ultimate sanity.

The Pali term Sati also bears the connotation of remembering. It

is not memory in the sense of ideas and pictures from the past,

but rather clear, direct, wordless knowing of what is and what is

not, of what is correct and what is incorrect, of what we are

doing and how we should go about it. Mindfulness reminds the

meditator to apply his attention to the proper object at the

proper time and to exert precisely the amount of energy needed to

do the job. When this energy is properly applied, the meditator

hatred, no lust or laziness. But we all are human and we do err.

Most of us are very human and we err repeatedly. Despite honest

growth of wisdom and compassion. Without Mindfulness they cannot

develop to full maturity.

Deeply buried in the mind, there lies a mental mechanism which

accepts what the mind perceives as beautiful and pleasant

experiences and rejects those experiences which are perceived as

ugly and painful. This mechanism gives rise to those states of

mind which we are training ourselves to avoid--things like greed,

lust, hatred, aversion, and jealousy. We choose to avoid these

hindrances, not because they are evil in the normal sense of the

word, but because they are compulsive; because they take the mind

over and capture the attention completely; because they keep

going round and round in tight little circles of thought; and

because they seal us off from living reality.

These hindrances cannot arise when Mindfulness is present.

Mindfulness is attention to present time reality, and therefore,

directly antithetical to the dazed state of mind which

characterizes impediments. As meditators, it is only when we let

over--grasping, clinging and rejecting. Then resistance emerges

and obscures our awareness. We do not notice that the change is

taking place--we are too busy with a thought of revenge, or

greed, whatever it may be. While an untrained person will

continue in this state indefinitely, a trained meditator will

soon realize what is happening. It is Mindfulness that notices

the change. It is Mindfulness that remembers the training

received and that focuses our attention so that the confusion

fades away. And it is Mindfulness that then attempts to maintain

itself indefinitely so that the resistance cannot arise again.

Thus, Mindfulness is the specific antidote for hindrances. It is

both the cure and the preventive measure.

Fully developed Mindfulness is a state of total non-attachment

and utter absence of clinging to anything in the world. If we

can maintain this state, no other means or device is needed to

keep ourselves free of obstructions, to achieve liberation from

our human weaknesses. Mindfulness is non-superficial awareness.

It sees things deeply, down below the level of concepts and

opinions. This sort of deep observation leads to total

certainty, and complete absence of confusion. It manifests

itself primarily as a constant and unwavering attention which

never flags and never turns away.

This pure and unstained investigative awareness not only holds

mental hindrances at bay, it lays bare their very mechanism and

destroys them. Mindfulness neutralizes defilements in the mind.

The result is a mind which remains unstained and invulnerable,

completely unaffected by the ups and downs of life.

_

Chapter 14

Mindfulness Versus Concentration

Vipassana meditation is something of a mental balancing act. You

are going to be cultivating two separate qualities of the

mind--mindfulness and concentration. Ideally these two work

together as a team. They pull in tandem, so to speak. Therefore

it is important to cultivate them side-by-side and in a balanced

manner. If one of the factors is strengthened at the expense of

the other, the balance of the mind is lost and meditation

impossible.

Concentration and mindfulness are distinctly different functions.

They each have their role to play in meditation, and the

relationship between them is definite and delicate.

Concentration is often called one-pointedness of mind. it

consists of forcing the mind to remain on one static point.

Please note the word FORCE. Concentration is pretty much a

forced type of activity. It can be developed by force, by sheer

unremitting willpower. And once developed, it retains some of

that forced flavor. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is a

delicate function leading to refined sensibilities. These two

are partners in the job of meditation. Mindfulness is the

sensitive one. He notices things. Concentration provides the

power. He keeps the attention pinned down to one item. Ideally,

mindfulness is in this relationship. Mindfulness picks the

objects of attention, and notices when the attention has gone

astray. Concentration does the actual work of holding the

attention steady on that chosen object. If either of these

partners is weak, your meditation goes astray.

Concentration could be defined as that faculty of the mind which

focuses single mindedly on one object without interruption. It

must be emphasized that true concentration is a wholesome

one-pointedness of mind. That is, the state is free from greed,

hatred and delusion. Unwholesome one-pointedness is also

at all. In fact, such unwholesome concentration is fairly

short-lived even when it is achieved--especially when it is used

to harm others. True concentration itself is free from such

contaminants. It is a state in which the mind is gathered

together and thus gains power and intensity. We might use the

analogy of a lens. Parallel waves of sunlight falling on a piece

of paper will do no more than warm the surface. But the same

amount of light, when focused through a lens, falls on a single

point and the paper bursts into flames. Concentration is the

lens. It produces the burning intensity necessary to see into

the deeper reaches of the mind. Mindfulness selects the object

that the lens will focus on and looks through the lens to see

what is there.

can be used for good or for ill. A sharp knife can be used to

create a beautiful carving or to harm someone. it is all up to

the one who uses the knife. Concentration is similar. Properly

used, it can assist you towards liberation. But it can also be

used in the service of the ego. It can operate in the framework

of achievement and competition. You can use concentration to

dominate others. You can use it to be selfish. The real problem

is that concentration alone will not give you a perspective on

yourself. It won't throw light on the basic problems of

selfishness and the nature of suffering. It can be used to dig

down into deep psychological states. But even then, the forces

of egotism won't be understood. Only mindfulness can do that.

If mindfulness is not there to look into the lens and see what

has been uncovered, then it is all for nothing. Only mindfulness

understands. Only mindfulness brings wisdom. Concentration has

other limitations, too.

Really deep concentration can only take place under certain

specific conditions. Buddhists go to a lot of trouble to build

meditation halls and monasteries. Their main purpose is to

create a physical environment free of distractions in which to

learn this skill. No noise, no interruptions. Just as

important, however, is the creation of a distraction-free

emotional environment. The development of concentration will be

blocked by the presence of certain mental states which we call

the five hindrances. They are greed for sensual pleasure,

hatred, mental lethargy, restlessness, and mental vacillation.

We have examined these mental states more fulling in Chapter 12.

A monastery is a controlled environment where this sort of

emotional noise is kept to a minimum. No members of the opposite

sex are allowed to live together there. Therefore, there is less

opportunity for lust. No possessions are allowed. Therefore, no

ownership squabbles and less chance for greed and coveting.

Another hurdle for concentration should also be mentioned. In

really deep concentration, you get so absorbed in the object of

concentration that you forget all about trifles. Like your body,

for instance, and your identity and everything around you. Here

again the monastery is a useful convenience. It is nice to know

that there is somebody to take care of you by watching over all

the mundane matters of food and physical security. Without such

assurance, one hesitates to go as deeply into concentration as

one might.

Mindfulness, on the other hand, is free from all these drawbacks.

Mindfulness is not dependent on any such particular circumstance,

physical or otherwise. it is a pure noticing factor. Thus it is

free to notice whatever comes up--lust, hatred, or noise.

Mindfulness is not limited by any condition. it exists to some

extent in every moment, in every circumstance that arises. Also,

mindfulness has no fixed object of focus. It observes change.

Thus it has an unlimited number of objects of attention. It just

looks at whatever is passing through the mind and it does not

categorize. Distractions and interruptions are noticed with the

same amount of attention as the formal objects of meditation. In

a state of pure mindfulness your attention just flows along with

whatever changes are taking place in the mind. "Shift, shift,

shift. Now this, now this, and now this."

You can't develop mindfulness by force. Active teeth gritting

willpower won't do you any good at all. As a matter of fact, it

will hinder progress. Mindfulness cannot be cultivated by

struggle. It grows by realizing, by letting go, by just settling

down in the moment and letting yourself get comfortable with

whatever you are experiencing. This does not mean that

mindfulness happens all by itself. Far from it. Energy is

required. Effort is required. But this effort is different from

force. Mindfulness is cultivated by a gentle effort, by

effortless effort. The meditator cultivates mindfulness by

constantly reminding himself in a gently way to maintain his

awareness of whatever is happening right not. Persistence and

a light touch are the secrets. Mindfulness is cultivated by

constantly pulling oneself back to a state of awareness, gently,

gently, gently.

Mindfulness can't be used in any selfish way, either. it is

nonegoistic alertness. There is no 'me' in a state of pure

mindfulness. So there is no self to be selfish. On the

contrary, it is mindfulness which gives you the real perspective

on yourself. it allows you to take that crucial mental step

backward from your own desires and aversions so that you can then

look and say, "Ah ha, so that's how I really am."

In a state of mindfulness, you see yourself exactly as you are.

You see your own selfish behavior. You see your own suffering.

And you see how you create that suffering. You see how you hurt

others. You pierce right through the layer of lies that you

normally tell yourself and you see what is really there.

Mindfulness leads to wisdom.

Mindfulness is not trying to achieve anything. It is just

looking. Therefore, desire and aversion are not involved.

Competition and struggle for achievement have not place in the

process. Mindfulness does not aim at anything. It just sees

whatever is already there.

Mindfulness is a broader and larger function that concentration.

it is an all-encompassing function. Concentration is exclusive.

It settles down on one item and ignores everything else.

Mindfulness is inclusive. It stands back from the focus of

attention and watches with a broad focus, quick to notice any

change that occurs. If you have focused the mind on a stone,

concentration will see only the stone. Mindfulness stands back

from this process, aware of the stone, aware of the concentration

focusing on the stone, aware of the intensity of that focus and

instantly aware of the shift of attention when concentration is

distracted. It is mindfulness which notices the distraction

which has occurred, and it is mindfulness which redirects the

attention to the stone. Mindfulness is more difficult to

cultivate than concentration because it is a deeper-reaching

function. Concentration is merely focusing of the mind, rather

like a laser beam. It has the power to burn its way deep into

the mind and illuminate what is there. But it does not

understand what it sees. Mindfulness can examine the mechanics

of selfishness and understand what it sees. Mindfulness can

pierce the mystery of suffering and the mechanism of discomfort.

Mindfulness can make you free.

There is, however, another Catch-22. Mindfulness does not react

to what it sees. It just sees and understands. Mindfulness is

the essence of patience. Therefore, whatever you see must be

simply accepted, acknowledged and dispassionately observed. This

is not easy, but it is utterly necessary. We are ignorant. We

are selfish and greedy and boastful. We lust and we lie. These

are facts. Mindfulness means seeing these facts and being

patient with ourselves, accepting ourselves as we are. That goes

against the grain. We don't want to accept. We want to deny it.

Or change it, or justify it. But acceptance is the essence of

mindfulness. If we want to grow in mindfulness we must accept

what mindfulness finds. It may be boredom, irritation, or fear.

It may be weakness, inadequacy, or faults. Whatever it is, that

is the way we are. That is what is real.

Mindfulness simply accepts whatever is there. If you want to

grow in mindfulness, patient acceptance is the only route.

Mindfulness grows only one way: by continuous practice of

mindfulness, by simply trying to be mindful, and that means being

patient. The process cannot be forced and it cannot be rushed.

It proceeds at its own pace.

Concentration and mindfulness go hand-in-hand in the job of

meditation. Mindfulness directs the power of concentration.

Mindfulness is the manager of the operation. Concentration

furnishes the power by which mindfulness can penetrate into the

deepest level of the mind. Their cooperation results in insight

and understanding. These must be cultivated together in a

balanced ratio. Just a bit more emphasis is given to mindfulness

because mindfulness is the center of meditation. The deepest

levels of concentration are not really needed to do the job of

liberation. Still, a balance is essential. Too much awareness

without calm to balance it will result in a wildly over

sensitized state similar to abusing LSD. Too much concentration

without a balancing ratio of awareness will result in the 'Stone

Buddha' syndrome. The meditator gets so tranquilized that he

sits there like a rock. Both of these are to be avoided.

The initial stages of mental cultivation are especially delicate.

Too much emphasis on mindfulness at this point will actually

retard the development of concentration. When getting started in

meditation, one of the first things you will notice is how

incredibly active the mind really is. The Theravada tradition

calls this phenomenon 'monkey mind'. The Tibetan tradition

likens it to a waterfall of thought. If you emphasize the

awareness function at this point, there will be so much to be

aware of that concentration will be impossible. Don't get

discouraged. This happens to everybody. And there is a simple

solution. Put most of your effort into one-pointedness at the

beginning. Just keep calling the attention from wandering over

and over again. Tough it out. Full instructions on how to do

this are in Chapters 7 and 8. A couple of months down the track

and you will have developed concentration power. Then you can

start pumping your energy into mindfulness. Do not, however, go

so far with concentration that you find yourself going into a

stupor.

Mindfulness still is the more important of the two components.

It should be built as soon as you comfortably can do so.

Mindfulness provides the needed foundation for the subsequent

development of deeper concentration. Most blunders in this area

of balance will correct themselves in time. Right concentration

develops naturally in the wake of strong mindfulness. The more

you develop the noticing factor, the quicker you will notice the

distraction and the quicker you will pull out of it and return to

the formal object of attention. The natural result is increased

concentration. And as concentration develops, it assists the

development of mindfulness. The more concentration power you

of analysis about the distraction. You simply note the

distraction and return your attention to where it is supposed to

be.

Thus the two factors tend to balance and support each other's

growth quite naturally. Just about the only rule you need to

bit. After that, emphasize mindfulness. If you find yourself

getting frantic, emphasize concentration. If you find yourself

going into a stupor, emphasize mindfulness. Overall, mindfulness

is the one to emphasize.

Mindfulness guides your development in meditation because

mindfulness has the ability to be aware of itself. it is

mindfulness which will give you a perspective on your practice.

Mindfulness will let you know how you are doing. But don't worry

too much about that. This is not a race. You are not in

One of the most difficult things to learn is that mindfulness is

not dependent on any emotional or mental state. We have certain

images of meditation. Meditation is something done in quiet

caves by tranquil people who move slowly. Those are training

conditions. They are set up to foster concentration and to learn

the skill of mindfulness. Once you have learned that skill,

however, you can dispense with the training restrictions, and you

should. You don't need to move at a snail's pace to be mindful.

You don't even need to be calm. You can be mindful while solving

problems in intensive calculus. You can be mindful in the middle

of a football scrimmage. You can even be mindful in the midst of

a raging fury. Mental and physical activities are no bar to

mindfulness. If you find your mind extremely active, then simply

observe the nature and degree of that activity. It is just a

part of the passing show within._

Chapter 15

Meditation In Everyday Life

Every musician plays scales. When you begin to study the piano,

that's the first thing you learn, and you never stop playing

scales. The finest concert pianists in the world still play

scales. It's a basic skill that can't be allowed to get rusty.

Every baseball player practices batting. It's the first thing

you learn in Little League, and you never stop practicing. Every

World Series game begins with batting practice. Basic skills

must always remain sharp.

Seated meditation is the arena in which the meditator practices

his own fundamental skills. The game the meditator is playing is

the experience of his own life, and the instrument upon which he

plays is his own sensory apparatus. Even the most seasoned

meditator continues to practice seated meditation, because it

tunes and sharpens the basic mental skills he needs for his

particular game. We must never forget, however, that seated

meditation itself is not the game. It's the practice. The game

in which those basic skills are to be applied is the rest of

one's experiential existence. Meditation that is not applied to

daily living is sterile and limited.

The purpose of Vipassana meditation is nothing less than the

radical and permanent transformation of your entire sensory and

cognitive experience. It is meant to revolutionize the whole of

your life experience. Those periods of seated practice are times

set aside for instilling new mental habits. You learn new ways

to receive and understand sensation. You develop new methods of

dealing with conscious thought, and new modes of attending to the

incessant rush of your own emotions. These new mental behaviors

must be made to carry over into the rest of your life.

Otherwise, meditation remains dry and fruitless, a theoretical

segment of your existence that is unconnected to all the rest.

Some effort to connect these two segments is essential. A

certain amount of carry-over will take place spontaneously, but

the process will be slow and unreliable. You are very likely to

be left with the feeling that you are getting nowhere and to drop

the process as unrewarding.

One of the most memorable events in your meditation career is the

moment when you first realize that you are meditating in the

midst of some perfectly ordinary activity. You are driving down

the freeway or carrying out the trash and it just turns on by

itself. This unplanned outpouring of the skills you have been so

carefully fostering is a genuine joy. It gives you a tiny window

on the future. You catch a spontaneous glimpse of what the

practice really means. The possibility strikes you that this

feature of your experience. You realize that you could actually

by your own needs and greed. You get a tiny taste of what it is

like to just stand aside and watch it all flow past. It's a

magic moment.

That vision is liable to remain unfulfilled, however, unless you

actively seek to promote the carry-over process. The most

important moment in meditation is the instant you leave the

cushion. When your practice session is over, you can jump up and

drop the whole thing, or you can bring those skills with you

into the rest of your activities.

It is crucial for you to understand what meditation is. It is

not some special posture, and it's not just a set of mental

exercises. Meditation is a cultivation of mindfulness and the

application of that mindfulness once cultivated. You do not have

to sit to meditate. You can meditate while washing the dishes.

You can meditate in the shower, or roller skating, or typing

letters. Meditation is awareness, and it must be applied to each

and every activity of one's life. This isn't easy.

We specifically cultivate awareness through the seated posture in

a quiet place because that's the easiest situation in which to do

so. Meditation in motion is harder. Meditation in the midst of

with less stressful activities.

Yet the ultimate goal of practice remains: to build one's

concentration and awareness to a level of strength that will

remain unwavering even in the midst of the pressures of life in

contemporary society. Life offers many challenges and the

serious meditator is very seldom bored.

Carrying your meditation into the events of your daily life is

not a simple process. Try it and you will see. That transition

point between the end of your meditation session and the

beginning of 'real life' is a long jump. It's too long for most

of us. We find our calm and concentration evaporating within

minutes, leaving us apparently no better off than before. In

order to bridge this gulf, Buddhists over the centuries have

devised an array of exercises aimed at smoothing the transition.

They take that jump and break it down into little steps. Each

step can be practiced by itself.

1. Walking Meditation

Our everyday existence is full of motion and activity. Sitting

utterly motionless for hours on end is nearly the opposite of

normal experience. Those states of clarity and tranquility we

foster in the midst of absolute stillness tend to dissolve as

soon as we move. We need some transitional exercise that will

teach us the skill of remaining calm and aware in the midst of

motion. Walking meditation helps us make that transition from

static repose to everyday life. It's meditation in motion, and

it is often used as an alternative to sitting. Walking is

especially good for those times when you are extremely restless.

An hour of walking meditation will often get you through that

restless energy and still yield considerable quantities of

clarity. You can then go on to the seated meditation with

greater profit.

Standard Buddhist practice advocates frequent retreats to

complement your daily sitting practice. A retreat is a

relatively long period of time devoted exclusively to meditation.

One or two day retreats are common for lay people. Seasoned

meditators in a monastic situation may spend months at a time

doing nothing else. Such practice is rigorous, and it makes

sizable demands on both mind and body. Unless you have been at it

for several years, there is a limit to how long you can sit and

profit. Ten solid hours of the seated posture will produce in

most beginners a state of agony that far exceeds their

concentration powers. A profitable retreat must therefore be

conducted with some change of posture and some movement. The

usual pattern is to intersperse blocks of sitting with blocks of

walking meditation. An hour of each with short breaks between is

common.

To do the walking meditation, you need a private place with

enough space for at least five to ten paces in a straight line.

You are going to be walking back and forth very slowly, and to

the eyes of most Westerners, you'll look curious and disconnected

from everyday life. This is not the sort of exercise you want to

perform on the front lawn where you'll attract unnecessary

attention. Choose a private place.

The physical directions are simple. Select an unobstructed area

and start at one end. Stand for a minute in an attentive

position. Your arms can be held in any way that is comfortable,

in front, in back, or at your sides. Then while breathing in,

lift the heel of one foot. While breathing out, rest that foot

on its toes. Again while breathing in, lift that foot, carry it

the floor. Repeat this for the other foot. Walk very slowly to

the opposite end, stand for one minute, then turn around very

slowly, and stand there for another minute before you walk back.

Then repeat the process. Keep you head up and you neck relaxed.

Keep your eyes open to maintain balance, but don't look at

anything in particular. Walk naturally. Maintain the slowest

pace that is comfortable, and pay not attention to your

surroundings. Watch out for tensions building up in the body,

the movement. Feel each individual muscle as it moves.

Experience every tiny change in tactile sensation as the feet

press against the floor and then lift again.

Notice the way these apparently smooth motions are composed of

complex series of tiny jerks. Try to miss nothing. In order to

heighten your sensitivity, you can break the movement down into

distinct components. Each foot goes through a lift, a swing; and

then a down tread. Each of these components has a beginning,

middle, and end. In order to tune yourself in to this series of

motions, you can start by making explicit mental notes of each

stage.

that you don't miss any. As you become more aware of the myriad

subtle events going on, you won't have time for words. You will

find yourself immersed in a fluid, unbroken awareness of motion.

The feet will become your whole universe. If your mind wanders,

note the distraction in the usual way, then return your attention

to walking. Don't look at your feet while you are doing all of

this, and don't walk back and forth watching a mental picture of

your feet and legs. Don't think, just feel. You don't need the

concept of feet and you don't need pictures. Just register the

sensations as they flow. In the beginning, you will probably

have some difficulties with balance. You are using the leg

need for a sense of self. There is only the sweep of tactile and

kinesthetic sensation, an endless and ever-changing flood of raw

experience. We are learning here to escape into reality, rather

than from it. Whatever insights we gain are directly applicable

to the rest of our notion-filled lives.

2. Postures

The goal of our practice is to become fully aware of all facets

of our experience in an unbroken, moment-to-moment flow. Much of

our body. The technicolor cartoon show inside our head is so

of the mind and it gets no further. Buddhists have developed an

exercise to open the floodgates and let this material through to

consciousness. It's another way of making the unconscious

conscious.

Your body goes through all kinds of contortions in the course of

a single day. You sit and you stand. You walk and lie down.

You bend, run, crawl, and sprawl. Meditation teachers urge you

to become aware of this constantly ongoing dance. As you go

through your day, spend a few seconds every few minutes to check

deeply, it can revolutionize your experience. It taps you into a

whole new dimension of sensation, and you feel like a blind man

whose sight has been restored.

3. Slow-Motion Activity

Every action you perform is made up of separate components. The

simple action of tying your shoelaces is made up of a complex

series of subtle motions. Most of these details go unobserved.

In order to promote the overall habit of mindfulness, you can

There is much here to be experienced. View your posture as you

are sitting and feel the handle of the cup between your fingers.

Smell the aroma of the tea, notice the placement of the cup, the

tea, your arm, and the table. Watch the intention to raise the

arm arise within your mind, feel the arm as it raises, feel the

cup against your lips and the liquid pouring into your mouth.

Taste the tea, then watch the arising of the intention to lower

your arm. The entire process is fascinating and beautiful, if

you attend to it fully, paying detached attention to every

sensation and to the flow of thought and emotion.

Intentionally slowing down your thoughts, words and movements

allows you to penetrate far more deeply into them than you

otherwise could. What you find there is utterly astonishing. In

the beginning, it is very difficult to keep this deliberately

slow pace during most regular activities, but skill grows with

time. Profound realizations occur during sitting meditation, but

even more profound revelations can take place when we really

examine our own inner workings in the midst of day-to-day

and others.

We will find a great deal of this information surprising, much of

it disturbing, but all of it useful. Bare attention brings order

4. Breath Coordination

In seated meditation, our primary focus is the breath. Total

concentration on the ever-changing breath brings us squarely into

the present moment. The same principle can be used in the midst

of movement. You can coordinate the activity in which you are

Ideally, meditation should be a 24 hour-a-day practice. This is

a highly practical suggestion.

it, quickly, efficiently, and with a minimum of fuss. You don't

stand there in a dither, and you don't run off to a quiet corner

so you can sit down and meditate about it. You simply deal with

it. And in those rare circumstances when no solution seems

possible, you don't worry about that. You just go on to the next

thing that needs your attention. Your intuition becomes a very

practical faculty.

5. Stolen Moments

profit. Every spare moment can be used for meditation. Sitting

anxiously in the dentist's office, meditate on your anxiety.

Feeling irritated while standing in a line at the bank, meditate

on irritation. Bored, twiddling you thumbs at the bus stop,

meditate on boredom. Try to stay alert and aware throughout the

6. Concentration On All Activities

You should try to maintain mindfulness of every activity and

perception through the day, starting with the first perception

when you awake, and ending with the last thought before you fall

asleep. This is an incredibly tall goal to shoot for. Don't

and let your abilities grow over time. The most feasible way to

go about the task is to divide your day up into chunks. Dedicate

a certain interval to mindfulness of posture, then extend this

mindfulness to other simple activities: eating, washing,

dressing, and so forth. Some time during the day, you can set

aside 15 minutes or so to practice the observation of specific

types of mental states: pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral

feelings, for instance; or the hindrances, or thoughts. The

specific routine is up to you. The idea is to get practice at

your experience. Let the one slide naturally into the other.

Your body is almost never still. There is always motion to

observe. At the very least, there is breathing. Your mind never

stops chattering, except in the very deepest states of

concentration. There is always something coming up to observe.

If you seriously apply your meditation, you will never be at a

loss for something worthy of your attention.

the fire that purifies your practice of deception and error, the

acid test that shows you when you are getting somewhere and when

you are fooling yourself. If your meditation isn't helping you

to cope with everyday conflicts and struggles, then it is

shallow. If your day-to-day emotional reactions are not becoming

clearer and easier to manage, then you are wasting your time.

And you never know how you are doing until you actually make that

test.

The practice of mindfulness is supposed to be a universal

practice. You don't do it sometimes and drop it the rest of the

time. You do it all the time. Meditation that is successful

escape. Thoughts and emotions, activities and desires, the whole

show. He watches it all and he watches it continuously. It

matters not whether it is lovely or horrid, beautiful or

shameful. He sees the way it is and the way it changes. No

aspect of experience is excluded or avoided. It is a very

thoroughgoing procedure.

If you are moving through your daily activities and you find

yourself in a state of boredom, then meditate on your boredom.

Find out how it feels, how it works, and what it is composed of.

If you are angry, meditate on the anger. Explore the mechanics

of anger. Don't run from it. If you find yourself sitting in

the grip of a dark depression, meditate on the depression.

mind is kept in a state of meditative readiness. The tiniest,

most ordinary perception can be the stimulus: a view of the moon,

the cry of a bird, the sound of the wind in the trees. it's not

so important what is perceived as the way in which you attend to

that perception. The state of open readiness is essential. It

could happen to you right now if you are ready. The tactile

sensation of this book in your fingers could be the cue. the

sound of these words in your head might be enough. You could

attain enlightenment right now, if you are ready._

Chapter 16

What's In It For You

You can expect certain benefits from your meditation. The

initial ones are practical, prosaic things; the later stages are

profoundly transcendent. They run together from the simple to

the sublime. We will set forth some of them here. Your own

experience is all that counts.

Those things that we called hindrances or defilements are more

than just unpleasant mental habits. They are the primary

manifestations of the ego process itself. The ego sense itself

is essentially a feeling of separation--a perception of distance

between that which we call me, and that which we call other.

This perception is held in place only if it is constantly

exercised, and the hindrances constitute that exercise.

perception every time they are exercised. Mindfulness perceives

things deeply and with great clarity. It brings our attention to

engage in it. When a child burns his hand on a hot oven, you

don't have to tell him to pull it back; he does it naturally,

without conscious thought and without decision. There is a

reflex action built into the nervous system for just that

purpose, and it works faster than thought. By the time the child

perceives the sensation of heat and begins to cry, the hand has

already been jerked back from the source of pain. Mindfulness

works in very much the same way: it is wordless, spontaneous and

utterly efficient. Clear mindfulness inhibits the growth of

hindrances; continuous mindfulness extinguishes them. Thus, as

Traditionally, Buddhists are reluctant to talk about the ultimate

nature of human beings. But those who are willing to make

descriptive statements at all usually say that our ultimate

sympathetic joy come flooding forward. As meditative mindfulness

develops, your whole experience of life changes. Your experience

of being alive, the very sensation of being conscious, becomes

lucid and precise, no longer just an unnoticed background for

your preoccupations. It becomes a thing consistently perceived.

Each passing moment stands out as itself; the moments no longer

blend together in an unnoticed blur. Nothing is glossed over or

taken for granted, no experiences labeled as merely 'ordinary'.

Everything looks bright and special. You refrain from

categorizing your experiences into mental pigeonholes.

Descriptions and interpretations are chucked aside and each

moment of time is allowed to speak for itself. You actually

listen to what it has to say, and you listen as if it were being

heard for the very first time. When your meditation becomes

the stark and simple experience of moment-to-moment existence.

cannot be described adequately. Words are not enough. It can

only be experienced. Breath ceases to be just breath; it is no

longer limited to the static and familiar concept you once held.

You no longer see it as a succession of just inhalations and

exhalations; it is no longer some insignificant monotonous

experience. Breath becomes a living, changing process, something

alive and fascinating. It is no longer something that takes

place in time; it is perceived as the present moment itself.

Time is seen as a concept, not an experienced reality.

This is simplified, rudimentary awareness which is stripped of

all extraneous detail. It is grounded in a living flow of the

present, and it is marked by a pronounced sense of reality. You

know absolutely that this is real, more real than anything you

have ever experienced. Once you have gained this perception with

is. You become a very perceptive individual. From this vantage

point, all is seen with clarity. The innumerable activities of

mind and body stand out in glaring detail. You mindfully observe

the incessant rise and fall of breath; you watch an endless

stream of bodily sensations and movements; you scan a rapid

succession of thoughts and feelings, and you sense the rhythm

that echoes from the steady march of time. And in the midst of

In this state of perception, nothing remains the same for two

consecutive moments. Everything is seen to be in constant

transformation. All things are born, all things grow old and

die. There are no exceptions. You awaken to the unceasing

passing away. All of life, every bit of it from the

infinitesimal to the Indian Ocean, is in motion constantly. You

perceive the universe as a great flowing river of experience.

As you continue to observe these changes and you see how it all

fits together, you become aware of the intimate connectedness of

all mental, sensory and affective phenomena. You watch one

thought leading to another, you see destruction giving rise to

emotional reactions and feelings giving rise to more thoughts.

Out of this living laboratory itself comes an inner and

unassailable conclusion. You see that your life is marked by

disappointment and frustration, and you clearly see the source.

These reactions arise out of your own inability to get what you

want, your fear of losing what you have already gained and your

habit of never being satisfied with what you have. These are no

longer theoretical concepts--you have seen these things for

yourself and you know that they are real. You perceive your own

You see the pain of loss and grief, you watch yourself being

forced to adjust to painful developments day after day in your

own ordinary existence. You witness the tensions and conflicts

inherent in the very process of everyday living, and you see how

superficial most of your concerns really are. You watch the

progress of pain, sickness, old age and death. You learn to

marvel that all these horrible things are not fearful at all.

They are simply reality.

unsatisfactory nature of all existence. You begin to perceive

dukkha at all levels of our human life, from the obvious down to

the most subtle. You see the way suffering inevitably follows in

the wake of clinging, as soon as you grasp anything, pain

inevitably follows. Once you become fully acquainted with the

do not block these phenomena, you just watch them, you see them

as the very stuff of human thought. You search for that thing

you call 'me', but what you find is a physical body and how you

have identified your sense of yourself with that bag of skin and

bones. You search further and you find all manner of mental

phenomena, such as emotions, thought patterns and opinions, and

see how you identify the sense of yourself with each of them.

over these pitiful things and you see how crazy that is. You

rummage furiously among these various items, constantly searching

for yourself--physical matter, bodily sensations, feelings and

emotions--it all keeps whirling round and round as you root

through it, peering into every nook and cranny, endlessly hunting

for 'me'.

Your whole view of self changes at this point. You begin to look

upon yourself as if you were a newspaper photograph. When viewed

with the naked eyes, the photograph you see is a definite image.

When viewed through a magnifying glass, it all breaks down into

an intricate configuration of dots. Similarly, under the

penetrating gaze of mindfulness, the feeling of self, an 'I' or

'being' anything, loses its solidity and dissolves. There comes

a point in insight meditation where the three characteristics of

existence--impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and selflessness--

come rushing home with concept-searing force. You vividly

experience the impermanence of life, the suffering nature of

human existence, and the truth of no self. You experience these

things so graphically that you suddenly awake to the utter

futility of craving, grasping and resistance. In the clarity and

purity of this profound moment, our consciousness is transformed.

The entity of self evaporates. All that is left is an infinity

of interrelated non-personal phenomena which are conditioned and

ever changing. Craving is extinguished and a great burden is

lifted. There remains only an effortless flow, without a trace

of resistance or tension. There remains only peace, and blessed

Nibbana, the uncreated, is realized.

End _

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Venerable Henepola Gunaratana was ordained at the age of 12 as a

Buddhist monk at a small temple in Malandeniya Village in

Kurunegala District in Sri Lanka. His preceptor was Venerable

Kiribatkumbure Sonuttara Mahathera. At the age of 20 he was

given higher ordination in Kandy in 1947. He received his

education from Vidyalankara College and Buddhist Missionary

College in Colombo. Subsequently he traveled to India for five

years of missionary work for the Mahabodhi Society, serving the

Harijana (Untouchable) people in Sanchi, Delhi, and Bombay.

Later he spent ten years as a missionary in Malaysia, serving as

religious advisor to the Sasana Abhivurdhiwardhana Society,

Buddhist Missionary Society and the Buddhist Youth Federation of

Malaysia. He has been a teacher in Kishon Dial School and Temple

Road Girls' School and Principal of the Buddhist Institute of

Kuala Lumppur.

At the invitation of the Sasana Sevaka Society, Venerable

Gunaratana came to the United States in 1968 to serve as Hon.

General Secretary of the Buddhist Vihara Society of Washington,

D.C. In 1980 he was appointed President of the Society. During

his years at the Vihara, he has taught courses in Buddhism,

conducted meditation retreats, and lectured widely throughout the

United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

He has also pursued his scholarly interests by earning a B.A.,

and M.A., and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the American University.

He taught courses in Buddhism at the American University,

Georgetown University and University of Maryland. His books and

articles have been published in Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and

the United States.

Since 1973 he has been buddhist chaplin at The American

University counseling students interested in Buddhism and

Buddhist meditation. He is now president of the Bhavana Society

in West Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley, about 100 miles from

Washington, D.C. teaching meditation and conducting meditation

retreats.