Monday, February 13, 2017

Post # 25-Meditation as advocated in Buddhist  Practice- Part 4- Insight Meditation

In Post # 24 we discussed serenity meditation as a platform for developing Vippasana (insight meditation).
What the Buddha taught for liberation was a path; the Noble Eightfold Path. It is a practice of eight inter-related factors. It is a path of insight into the nature of reality, a path of truth realization. We must learn to recognize superficial or apparent reality, and also to penetrate beyond appearance so as to perceive subtler truths, then ultimate truths, and finally to experience the truth of freedom from suffering.
In Post #22 and Post # 23 we discussed some reference made to Meditation by learned practitioners. I have, to the best of my ability, extracted from the discourses made by these learned teachers  the main points contained in them to share with you. I will in this Post attempt to highlight some salient points on Insight (Vipassana) Meditation.  Vipassana is the oldest of Buddhist meditation practices. The method comes directly from the Satipatthana Sutta, a discourse attributed to Buddha himself. Vipassana is a direct and gradual cultivation of mindfulness or awareness. 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.

Mindfulness is the English translation of the Pali word Sati. Sati is an activity. 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. Mindfulness is mirror-thought. It reflects only what is presently happening and in exactly the way it is happening. There are no biases. 

The object of Vipassana practice is to learn to pay attention. 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. 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 practice must be approached with this attitude. The experience would be viewed with a focussed and concentrated mind, disaggregating it to its components to see what they really are and thus understanding the true nature of the experience. 

The first level of disaggregation in vippassana for true understanding of the living being, is the present moment experience of materiality and mentality, by separating body and mind as aggregates for observation.  The Sathara Sathi Pattana Bhawana, the four foundations of mindfulness, enables us to develop this subtle but quality awareness of present moment experience. That is by having mindfulness of body, feelings, states of mind and dhammas (mind objects/phenomena) as experienced in the present moment.

Ven.Dhammajiva says that -“if we recount how many thoughts our mind experiences with or without any intention we will realize that more than 90% of thoughts are stray, unintended and unrelated to any substantial mind related process. These are unintentional or uninvited thoughts, yet they give us pain of mind and other emotional upheavals. The untrained mind suffers a great deal due to these. Therefore cultivating a balanced mind is essential so that we can face these and to know these formations as and when they appear".

We investigate the truth about ourselves not out of intellectual curiosity but rather with a definite purpose. We become aware of the conditioned reactions, the prejudices that cloud our mental vision, that hide reality from us and produce suffering. We recognize the accumulated inner tensions that keep us agitated, miserable, and we realize they can be removed. Gradually we learn how to allow them to dissolve and for our minds to become pure, peaceful, and happy.   

If we are to benefit from the truth, we have to experience it directly. Only then can we know that it is really true. The only way to experience truth directly is to look within, to observe oneself. All our lives we have been accustomed to look outward - what is happening outside, what others are doing. We have rarely, if ever, tried to examine ourselves, our own mental and physical structures, our own actions, and our own mentally created world that we live in.
Results of this meditation manifests at three levels. At the 1st level the meditator develops the skills required to be aware, be mindful and have clear comprehension (sihiya, sathiya, and sathi sammpajanya) of experiences of the present moment, as they unfold.  Usually these experiences of the present moment, prompt the person to react in the way he/she has got accustomed to. Our past life experiences/mental formations (Sankara) determine the nature our reaction. These Sankaras have their own conditioning root causes. When the root causes are flavored by unwholesome traits the Sankaras are unwholesome in quality and vice versa.

This reaction, by way of thought, word or deed gets impressed in our mind as a new life experience. This joins the past ones to get established as a new Sankara. These sankaras condition our Bhawa (the determining cause that gives rise to re-becoming). This Bhawa, conditions our rebirth in Samsara ( the eternal cycle of rebirths)..

As our objective is to limit the Samsaric process, we have to control the Bhawa forming Sankaras. We saw in an earlier post, that it is possible to intervene to control our reactions, which go to form our life experiences.  The skills developed by this meditation will be used first to exercise Yoniso Manasikara (acting mindfully and wisely with clear comprehension according to Dhamma) to intervene as necessary in the present moment to control the Bhawa forming Sankaras. This is Samma Sathi ( Right Mindfullness) in practice. The skill and practice you acquire by this means helps you to be more successful in worldly/daily life, by getting about your chores mindfully. On the spiritual side these endeavors will help you to progress in reaching world transcending states (marga pala).

At the 2nd level, after developing the skills required to be aware, be mindful and have clear comprehension of experiences, as they unfold, we learn to look at present moment experience with focused attention on the experience itself. We open the way to see the real nature of the present moment experiences or nature of existence by being mindful of the body as a body. That is one's awareness is fixed on what the body, feels, knows, and experiences etc. in the present moment. Similarly one keeps awareness on what the mind  feels, knows, and experiences etc. in the present moment This is developing Yatha Bhutha Nanaya, the wisdom of seeing the true nature of things.

With this awareness deepening and treating each experience analytically and dissecting into its factors, the understanding we have of a body is really seen to be a composite of many components.  In Pali it is referred to as Rupa-skanda (heap of body composites) acting together. This experiential realization is the opening to Vippassana Panna or insight wisdom. In a similar way the present moment experience of the mind as it is applicable to perceptions (Sanna), feelings (Vedana), volitional formations (Sankara) and consciousness (Vinnana) , also manifests as heaps of respective parts referred to in Pali as Sanna Skanda, Vedana Skanda, Sankara Skanda, Vinnana Skanda. The five aggregates. Thus the being is seen as a composite of five groups of factors or aggregates. One also sees that this present moment experiences do not render any other factor such as I or me, establishing that there are only the five aggregates and nothing else that is undergoing such experiences.

Further due to avidya (not knowing) we tend to develop some wrong views about these aggregates, such as – these aggregates are mine; they are me or I exist in them etc.  Dhamma describes these views as arising from the unwholesome roots of Thanna (craving), Manna (ego), Ditti (wrong view), resulting in a Sakkaya Ditti, a concept of I/Me/Mine. This Sakkaya Ditti gives rise to desire, attachment and clinging, to these aggregates. The being thus manifests as the five aggregates of clinging - Pancha Upadana Skanda.  

You will therefore realize that this is a very important meditation exercise related to the essence of Buddha Dhamma that we can engage in during the development of the Noble Eightfold Path.

The 3rd level of contemplation of the present moment experience is where one realizes that these experiences are constantly subject to change. This is seen as impermanence (annitta). These experiences arise not due the will or determination of a 'Being' experiencing them but happen due to causes and conditions. Thus they are seen as non-self (annatha) as taught in the Dhamma. In turn therefore one begins to realize that the experiences in the present moment or living as we experience the present moment, takes place only in the five aggregates, the Rupa Skanda, Sanna Skanda, Vedana Skanda, Sankara Skanda, and Vinnana Skanda without the participation of a I or me. Because this ‘living’ as we experience in the present moment is always in a state of change (viparinama) and happens due to causes and conditions and not due to a will of a 'being' who has them in his/her control, it is seen as unsatisfactory or Dukka  as referred to in Dhamma.   Thus this total state is recognized in Buddha Dhamma as, the impermanent, un-satisfactory and non self nature (thilakshanaas the true nature of things. This is the most fundamental of Buddha’s teaching and has to be fully realized. This meditation method is a unique discovery by the Buddha. Let us discuss the process of achieving this realization in another Post.

In this Post and Post # 24. I have presented what was extracted from the text referred to earlier. These to my mind are the salient points about Buddhist Meditation. Although this is not exhaustive they should serve as motivators to practice Meditation. I will in the next Post discuss “Practicing Buddhist Meditation at Home” 

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