Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
3. Focusing the mind on examining Dhamma concepts will address both of the above issues. This is called “insight meditation” or Vipassanā.
I agree, yet, for some of us, the concentration needed to successfully do vipassana is out of our skills. I will share my experience.
As a side note: more than a year ago I did a Goenka 10 day retreat. From the fifth day it was really hard for me. I probably had the same “struggling” meditations hours than “successful” ones. Nevertheless the calm effect I’ve got were really noticeable, and more lasting I imagined. This was not due to the vipassana, but the fact that the mind rested for 10 days, without engaging in activities or speech. The insight I got from the retreat was close to zero. I experienced a lot the fact that in no two consecutive moments you never really feel the same sensations in the body, and even a persistent 20 minutes pain can disappear for no good reason. But, to be honest, I already knew, and experiencing such things, as far as I’m concerned, didn’t bring me anything. After the retreat, I did not practice the Goenka Vipassana, not even once, nor the watching the sensations at the tip of the nose, the Goenka anapana. I must say the organization was perfect, and they delivered exactly what they promise in their website – which nowadays it is already a big deal.
After the retreat I investigated a bit, since I knew almost nothing about buddhist meditation or vipassana. In Burmese, Goenka retreats are not that popular. The most popular meditation style seems to be the vipassana method taught by Mogok Sayadaw. Lal, do you know about Mogok? It is hard to find material in English. It seems he teaches legit vipassana – but I can’t asses it. I read one book that covered in brief their entry level 10 day retreats – and it was one of the most useful reads I’ve got about meditation. One of the peculiarities, of the Mogok meditation teaching, is that prior any meditation they teach the core of the Buddha Dhamma. Not merely the four noble truths and the three marks, but the path, the hindrances, the seven factors, the PS, a simplified list of the 52 cetasika of the Abhidhamma, and more. Then the meditator practice vipassana, is asked to pay attention to the citta and dhammas that come up, and recognize the arising and passing aways of the cetasikas (but not labeling a la Mahasi).
_______
The problem I have when I try to do real vipassana is that by examining citta and dhammas my mind ends lost in itself. The only way for me to be able to consistently do real vipassana and keeping right yoniso attention, is by putting distance between the observer mind and the observed mind. Otherwise the mind collapses on the mind and I lose the recollection/mindfulness/sati. The only solution I know is to put a neutral object between the observer mind and the observed mind.
The two objects that work for me is the breath or the feeling of the earth element (this is, the pressure I feel in the feet against the soil when walking, or the legs and the soil when sitting). The only purpose of also paying attention to the breath/earth along the mind, is the same that if I were to put a paper in front of my eyes with the phrase “keep being sati of the mind” written on it. Without such physical reminder, I lose the sati, my mind drifts away from meditation, and eventually I found myself daydreaming with no direction, sometimes about mundane things, another times about stuff related of the teachings themselves.
The earth element has the good qualities that it is gross and almost impossible to lose it. The breath element has the good qualities that helps me to understand more clearly the rythm and doings of the mind, however, if I am doing some activities I tend to lose the breath too, even the breath is too of a subtle object for me.
_/|\_
2 users thanked author for this post.
On the observe vs controlling. Observe and controlling in current Theravada are thought as something opposite, but I feel they can be read as the same verb – at least in most places. One has more passive connotation, the other more active. You can read it as “observe, and control if needed”. For control you need to observe. By properly observing you have [yoniso attention + sati] according to the teachings – and thus already kind of controlling what you observe.
Using the simile of the horses and the charioteer that Buddha used, like in the dhammada ch 7, that talks about arahants, verse 5 “he, whose sense are pacified like horses well-controlled by the charioteer …“. When one is in the first stages of the gradual training, during sattipatthana, the charioteer will have to exert a high degree of control at all times, the mind and body are wild, therefore he will need to strongly pull the reins over and over again. When one is really advanced in the training, the charioteer just need to keep watch over the tamed and pacified mind and body, holding the reins with a relaxed grip.
Even in daily talk, “control the kid!” and “observe the kid!” has the same meaning: in both phrases you are being commanded to watch that the kid behaves properly and is safe. If the kid is wild, you may need to hold the hand and control it directly. If the kid is well behaved, you can let him go free, and just observe he doesn’t go further from you. Since most of those kind of instructions are delivered to bhikkus, my guess is that observe is used, they already got a base. However, over the canon you can see the Buddha using “observe the mind”, “keep watch over the mind”, “control the mind”, and similar to refer to the very same fact that one must take care that the mind behaves according the dhamma.
On the breath. I feel that use the breath can be useful, not for the insight it provides, but because is a kind gross “accelerator pedal” which is tied to the mind. “The mind is extremely subtle and difficult to grasp, alighting on whatever it pleases. It is good to tame the mind, A tamed mind brings happiness” (dhammapada). I feel that the main benefit of watching the breath is to help oneself to not lose sight of the citta and the thoughts that arise and ceases without being dragged by them. In other words, to help you to recognize the working of the mind. Not sure what Lal would think.
_/|\_
1 user thanked author for this post.
Thank you for your replies, I appreciate your effort. I am aware that what I am asking is something that probably cannot really be answered, nevertheless I wanted to know your opinions on the matter.
1 So whoever spoke a perfect Magadhi Prakrit at that time also understood all three Sutta interpretations – Uddēsa, Niddēsa, Paṭiniddēsa completely with all its keys.
2 How is an Arahant, and only an Arahant, able to extract the true meaning from the remaining original scriptures2 The “the keys to interpret the texts” are in the Tipitaka. However, those “keys” are not apparent to anyone else but Ariyas.
I understand and agree with both points.
- First of all there’s the issue of the language Magadhi Prakrit. As everything else, it kept changing, evolving, and the language of the Pali Canon was eventually only used in the context of Buddhism teaching. This happened in Sri Lanka, as you said, as well as in all India – according experts.
- To fully understand the teachings one needs to realize them, experience them, not just get an intellectual picture. So, I agree, that not matter how the teaching are preserved, if there are no arahants in the world, there is not going to be a complete understanding of them in the world.
Now, the fact that the teachings have been degraded, is something to be expected, and told by the Buddha. There is one thing I wasn’t able to convey in my original posts: I was concerned about the key meaning of the fundamentals of the teaching. The basics like anicca, dukkha, anatta – and not supramundane topics.
I agree with you both that until one is not an arahant one does not even really comprehend the three marks, because if one fully comprehends them one gets disenchanted by the world, stop acting due ignorance, remove ignorance, and finally attain arahanthood. But at the same time, let’s be realistic, I am a puthujjana: if somebody, ariya or not, tells me “anicca is impermanence“, I can grasp the meaning of anicca, even without really understanding its consequences. In the same way, if somebody, ariya or not, tells me “anicca is the impossibility for sustaining our experience according to our wishes“, I can grasp the meaning of anicca, even without really understanding its consequences. In this case, anicca, the Abhidhamma has properly preserved its meaning. So, my questions was, how is that this is not the case for other fundamental key terms?
For example, the following comment “I do not understand how was not possible to preserve the patiniddesa. It is not like Buddha partake in developing an extense philosophy. .” does not make sense.
P.S. For example, if one starts with the wrong idea that “Anapanasati” is “breath meditation” then no matter how many suttas they read, they will NEVER make any progress.
Lal, I think you missunderstood what I was trying to say. Buddha talked about the handful of leaves for helping people to build the raft and get out. If he intended to fully explain the universe, and talked about dozens or hundreds of handful of leaves, there would be hundred times more concepts. That is what I meant by not extense – specially, if one is concerned on the basics like the four noble truths and the eightfold path, and not on more advanced topics like how thoughts arise in the citta, how kalapas interact, and stuff like that.
One thing is the deep of Buddha’s teaching like the four noble truths, which for most of us will take not lives, but eons, to digest and realize. Quite another is the quantity of the key terms essential to get a proper picture of the eight fold path. In the past two weeks I have been reading a lot of the website, mostly PS and related sections, taking notes. Most of the notes are on the different usages of the different terms, and how identify the proper meaning depending on the context where they are found – I am trying to make a cheatsheet for when reading the suttas.
So, my question was just what reasons could be imagined for explaining that in the Pali canon, for basic terms like anatta, viññana, namarupa, salayatana, are not properly defined depending on the different contexts where they are found, and so. This is something you do in this website, and I assume it is not in the cannon because there are a lot of Theras who have thoroughly studied the cannon and their understanding of such terms doesn’t see.
As you know, there are a lot of Theras, almost all of them!, who read Anapanasati as mere breath meditation. They got this interpretation by reading the Suttas and commentaries with full faith in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Shanga. Yet, what a big miss understanding. It is tragic. And this tragedy the source of my question… from my ignorance I can’t help but think that a big deal of missunderstandings could have been easily avoided if the keys to understand the Canon were obvious even for the ignorant. You explained properly in few words
“Āna” is taking in. “Assa” is the same as “āna”, and “passa” is the same as “āpāna”. When cleaning the room, the child needs to get rid of the clutter (passa) but also can take in (assa) something like a flower vase to make the room look more pleasant or to take in a chair that can be useful. So, one does not throw away everything or take in everything. One must be selective in taking in “good things” and throwing away “bad things.” That is where mindfulness comes in. That cannot be done with breath.
This were just my thoughts. _/|\_
However, meditation is NOT restricted to “formal meditation,”
Yes, by all-day meditation, I meant what I try to do since I wake up until I go to sleep.
1 user thanked author for this post.
I used a linux text processing and copypasted to the wordpress textbox. It looked nice in the visual tab, but once submitted the <br /> appeared. Then I edited removing the <br /> from the visual, but they were added again. Then I removed the <br /> on the text tab and appeared again. Maybe I should have deleted in the text tab the <br /> and the <br />?
The next time I will use Google Doc.
Thanks for your understanding _/|\_
You are right. The suttas refer to a maximum of seven “bhava,” which differs from “jati” or births.
Yes, I read that sections about the difference of bhava and jati. I was just giving another example of things I have learned from this website.
I don’t understand this question. Why wouldn’t I write about anything that would be important? All the fundamental/critical concepts Waharaka Thero discussed are on the website.
I was just asking whether all those things that Waharaka Thero discovered, and commonly ignored by most Buddhists, were all covered in this website. Thank you for your confirmation. I just wanted to be sure.
So far, I have read about twenty of your posts of puredhamma. Now, I will be systematically read all of the puredhamma posts in the next one or two months.
1 user thanked author for this post.
