Ajahn
Brahmavamso is a senior monk at Bodhinyana Monastery in Western
Australia. The following piece has been extracted from a talk given
prior to an all-night meditation vigil, during which meditators have the
opportunity to develop and learn about concentration.
Samatha meditation is about calming the mind down, calming the bodily
activities, calming the speech and calming the activities of the mind.
It's quite interesting to notice that when one faces a retreat situation
one looks for activity: sitting in meditation one looks for things to
do, for things to occupy the mind, rather than just being peaceful and
quiet.
It's very easy to see that if my own mind thinks in a certain way, my
body acts accordingly. That is a very useful reflection, because it
means that there is more than one way to quieten the mind. Rather than
just quietening it down in formal meditation, one can practise samatha
meditation by restraining the speech and the actions in one's daily
life. If one can restrain oneself in those situations - whether it is
cleaning, washing up, walking, coming and going - then, when it comes
down to sitting cross-legged on the meditation cushion, it is much
easier to restrain the activities of the mind.
To develop samatha, first of all get hold of the breath - so you can see
it. In order to do this you have to restrain other activities, the
things that come up into the mind that tear you away from your object of
meditation - whether it's thoughts or plans, or feelings of pain in the
body, you have to restrain your mind from going out to those things, and
stay with the breath. Once you can see the breath clearly, then you can
actually calm it down and find what effort is required to make it smooth
and light and the mind peaceful. This is the first practice in
traditional anapanasati.
You may have noticed that whenever the mind is calm, the body doesn't
give you so much of a problem. If you can get into a quiet state of mind
quickly when you first sit down meditating - while the body is at ease,
before the knees start to ache and the back becomes sore - then the body
won't disturb you throughout the rest of the meditation. So quieten the
body first of all, and then go to the breath and get hold of it wherever
it is. It doesn't matter where the breath is - where the sensation is -
wherever it is, see it there and catch hold of it and don't allow it to
disappear. It is an effort - it's attaining or going towards something,
doing something, rather than just letting go too quickly and doing
nothing - rather than just watching the mind wander here there and
everywhere; that's really not what the practice is all about. Quietening
the mind down first of all is a prerequisite for any wisdom to arise.
There is a sutta which is the extension to the Paticcasamuppada. It
extends what happens after dukkha; it doesn't stop there. According to
that sutta, dukkha is the cause of the arising of faith, the arising of
confidence in the teachings - the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four
Noble Truths. Once one sees dukkha, then one realises that there is
something to be done. I often find with teaching that people don't
practise. They don't do anything, for the one reason that they don't see
any dukkha - or rather, they don't recognise it in their lives. They
don't see the suffering or the cause of the suffering - the place where
the suffering is - and therefore they never do anything.
So it's obvious that dukkha is the very cause for people to arouse
themselves and say, 'Right, I'm going to do something about this!'
That's the confidence saying, 'No longer am I going to run around, going
to other places, looking for other teachers, doing other things - here
is the problem. I'm going to stick to this spot, and sort it out!'
That's when that link happens, that's the start of doing something about
the problem of human existence. That's really recognising dukkha,
recognising where it comes from, and doing something about it.
Once one has that fundamental faith - that confidence - to stop, to stay
in one place and face up to the problem, then the next step is joy. This
joy comes from understanding that here is the problem, and here is the
way out of it; there is something you can do. Joy gives rise to interest
(piti), which is really wanting in one's heart to do something about it,
and this fuels the energy for the practice.
Then comes happiness (sukha). When you really start to practise, you
feel physical happiness, just by refraining from doing all those things
that cause dukkha. That much gives happiness. This is where the
transcendental dependent arising starts to get interesting, because the
factor of sukha is the cause for the arising of samadhi. If one hasn't
got happiness, then there is very little chance for sarnadhi to arise.
If one is having a very hard time - an unhappy time - and the mind is
very closed, there is no way that samadhi can arise. Samadhi can only
come from the basis of happiness. This is where talks can be really
useful - they can inspire you and give you that interest, and from there
you can gain samadhi and see for yourself.
The next step from samadhi is seeing things as they are. Now this factor
comes after sarnadhi, not before it; it's not the cause of samadhi, but
the result of it. The only way you can see what is going on is when the
mind is quiet, concentrated. The reason that one doesn't see things the
way they are outside of a quiet clear mind is because the mind is under
the influence of defilements - greed, hatred and delusion. These are the
things that distort our perception. You all know that when we are angry
it distorts our perception of a person or a place. If we are angry, this
monastery is the last place we want to be. Then the next day, when we
are happy and the sun is shining, it is a wonderful place! The same
monastery, but the defilements distort our perception - desire distorts
our perception. When one doesn't see clearly, how can one see things as
they really are - how can one understand what is going on? Avijja
[ignorance] distorts perception. So to see things as they really are,
one has to clear the mind of these things that distort the perception -
if only for a short while. In that short while, one can see the way
things are.
I've always felt that the idea of insight meditation can be a misleading
one. Often it has been the custom or the fashion to say that samatha
meditation is 'dangerous', because you can get stuck in jhanas
[meditative absorptions]. But how many people do you know who have got
jhanas - let alone are attached to them? At least if you have a jhana,
if you are very peaceful and getting blissed out, you know one place
where the defilements have temporarily subsided. At least you are
getting somewhere, you are doing something. Also, it is the nature of
jhanas - of the quiet mind - that after one comes out of these states,
the mind is clear, and nine times our of ten wisdom will arise. There is
a danger there that you can get attached to jhanas, but the danger is
not that much.
But where there is a danger in this Western world is in vipassana,
because you can get notions about vipassana from a book. You can read an
idea and straight away you think, 'Now I understand.' This is where one
really attaches. You think, 'This is the way it is. I've seen the way
things are' - when the mind hasn't been clear enough to get beyond the
defilements. Delusion is ruling the day, the defilements have caught you
again. Vipassana which comes outside of a quiet clear mind is not to be
relied upon. That is the danger of vipassana. So, often it is more
dangerous to be stuck with a view, than to be stuck enjoying a jhana. If
one is pracrising samatha, at least one knows if it is being successful
or not. One can tell very clearly, very easily if the mind is quiet or
not. With vipassana it may be difficult to know if the insight that has
arisen in your mind is true or not - whether you really are seeing
things the way they are, or whether you are deceiv- ing yourself. That
is the big danger with delusion - delusion is delusive! It tricks you.
So one does the practice: one cultivates happiness, cultivates samadhi,
cultivates seeing the way things are - this basic insight. You will know
if it is insight, if it gives rise to dispassion. You can ask yourself
if you still get angry, if you still get irritated; if you still have
desire and greed, and really want things - whether it's personal
attainments, or fame in the monastery for being the great meditator, the
best cook . . . if these are the things you really want, then you still
have not really seen the way things are. If it really is insight, it
creates dispassion (nibbida) in the mind.
Nibbida gives rise to a more intense form of dispassion, called viraga.
Raga means lust, that which attaches you to the things of the world, or
things of the mind: viraga is the giving up of that desire or delight in
the things of the mind, or things of the world. The next step up from
that is freedom, vimutti - liberation. That's not the last step,
actually. Interestingly, the last step after vimutti is the knowledge
that one has been released - not the sort of dithering about if one is
enlightened or not, but knowing clearly the state of your mind. Like in
the suttas, the monks didn't say, 'Well... um. . . yes.. .I think I'm
enlightened'! The monks who were enlightened just said so. The Buddha
just said so: 'There's no more birth, nothing more to be done.'
So when it comes down to reality, one does need to do something. One
does need to put forth effort into practising - to quietening the mind
down: in daily life, and also when one is sitting. If you try, and it
doesn't become calm straight away, it's because one is pushing in the
wrong places. People say sometimes that they have been trying to calm
the mind down to make it peaceful, and it doesn't work - but there is a
way to calm the mind down. Just because a person does it wrongly -
doesn't know the way to quieten the mind - doesn't mean it doesn't work.
One can calm the mind down, but to be able to do that you have to know
when to push and when to pull; if you do all pushing and no pulling it
doesn't work. You have to know the state of your mind, and also what you
are doing. You have to know how much to hold on to the breath - to know
when you are holding on too tightly to the point where you become tired
and tense. If you find that you can't calm down, investigate the reason
why. One of the reasons may be because you haven't invested the time or
the effort. How many hours are there in the day, and how many of those
hours do we spend sitting watching the breath?
One may be sitting, but how often does one watch the breath? It's quite
easy to see the reasons, although it might not be a particularly nice
thing to admit or own up to - but there it is. So one tries to be quiet
in the day, and in the mind - to quieten down the external activity as
well as internal activity, to be peaceful.
To actually practice samatha - to have success in meditation - not only
do you need effort but you also need right view, a bit of wisdom or
panna. It's panna which teaches quietness, and quietness that teaches
panna. The two go together, like friends walking along a path hand in
hand. Indeed, you cannot just practise samatha through an effort of
will; you have to know where that will is to be directed. If you just
direct it haphazardly, it is not strong enough - it's never sustained
long enough to have any effect. The will needs to be directed through
panna, knowing the right place to push - how much, for how long, and
where.
So to say that the practice is just mindfulness is to miss the point:
it's the whole Eightfold Path. Sometimes these days samadhi is the poor
relation in the Eightfold Path. That's why I'm emphasising it here. The
other ones can be overestimated. So it's really good to be honest with
oneself, and ask just what is going on: is one's mind quiet, or is it
noisy? When you are listening to a talk can you shut up inside, can you
be peaceful? Can you listen to words without arguing about them? These
are just ways of seeing where one is - then one can do something about
it. It's not that hard to quieten the mind down, and it's really worth
doing!
Paticcasamuppada is the Buddha's teaching of 'dependent arising'. This
teaching occurs in several places in the Sutta Pitaka and describes how
suffering is engendered dependent on supportive conditions. The process
is initiated by ignorance and wrong views in the mind. In the Upanisa
Sutta, the analysis goes further: the Buddha points out that for those
who wish to awaken, suffering itself is a supportive condition for the
arising of commitment to a spiritual path, and eventually to liberation
itself.
The normal formulation is of twelve linking factors; from the twelfth,
suffering, the Upanisa Sutta proceeds thus:
"Suffering is the supporting condition for faith, Faith is the
supporting condition for joy, Joy is the supporting condition for
rapture, Rapture is the supporting condition for tranquillity,
Tranquillity is the supporting condition for happiness, Happiness is the
supporting condition for concentration, Concentration is the supporting
condition for the knowledge and vision of things as they really are, The
knowledge and vision of things as they really are is the supporting
condition for disenchantment, Disenchantment is the supporting condition
for dispassion, Dispassion is the supporting condition for emancipation,
Emancipation is the supporting condition for the knowledge of the
destruction of the asavas (the most deeply-rooted obstructive habits)."
Samyutta Nikaya II, 29
Forest Sangha Newsletter: October 1991, Number 18
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