Anapanasati–the path to the deathless (week four)

Although this is the last week we will formally devote to learning the basics of the classic Buddhist meditation practice of anapanasati, as you may already appreciate, learning and practicing meditation is open-ended. Over the next months and years we will be honing and refining the practice. The seeds of the subtle points will blossom into gorgeous flowers of insight and joyous repose.

This week we will put all that we have learned together into what one prominent Thai meditation teacher has called the condensed anapanasati instructions. My own teacher in Sri Lanka, totally independent of these condensed instructions which I shall share with you below, came up with a similar abbreviated approach.

The reason an abbreviated approach is necessary is simply to address the needs of folks like you and I (unless you are a full-time meditator). Classically anapanasati was taught by the Buddha to his monks and nuns, and his instructions were geared to folks who had the time and dedication to practice all the sixteen steps he taught. Many teachers continue to instruct dedicated students, both lay and monastic, in these sixteen steps. However, as most of us find ourselves in circumstances quite different from the ones in which the  first recipients of these teachings found themselves, there are, thankfully, keen teachers who have abbreviated the steps down to a manageble few. Before we get to the condensed instructions, let’s have a look at what these sixteen stages and steps entail in the classical presentation. I have taken the chart below from the excellent Wikipedia entry for “Anapanasati.”

“Formally, there are sixteen stages - or contemplations - of ānāpānasati. These are divided into four tetrads (i.e., sets or groups of four). The first four steps involve focusing the mind on breathing, which is the ‘body-conditioner’ (Pali: kāya-sankhāra). The second tetrad involves focusing on the feelings (vedanā), which are the ‘mind-conditioner’ (Pali: citta-sankhāra). The third tetrad involves focusing on the mind itself (Pali: citta), and the fourth on ‘the truth’ (Pali: dhamma). 

Satipatthana	Anapanasati	Tetrads
1. Contemplation of the body	1. Breathing long	First Tetrad
	2. Breathing short
	3. Experiencing the whole body
	4. Tranquillising the bodily activities
2. Contemplation of feelings	5. Experiencing rapture	Second Tetrad
	6. Experiencing bliss
	7. Experiencing mental activities
	8. Tranquillising mental activities
3. Contemplation of the mind	9. Experiencing the mind	Third Tetrad
	10. Gladdening the mind
	11. Centering the mind in samadhi
	12. Releasing the mind
4. Contemplation of Dhammas	13. Contemplating impermanence	Fourth Tetrad
	14. Contemplating fading of lust
	15. Contemplating cessation
	16. Contemplating relinquishment
Table 1.The Four Satipatthanas and the Sixteen Phases of Anapanasati.

 

Now you can simply have a look at this chart and not spend too much time on it. It very well may give you a headache! What follows is one very down to earth way to cover all the important bases in one sitting. Please take your time reading the description below. We will spend some time referring to it as the weeks go by. But there is no further instruction–this is it. Now it’s time to put the tush to the cush. 

These instructions were given by the remarkbale Thai woman Upasika Kee Nanayon sometime in the early 1960’s. The first ever collection of her talks was publised by Wisdom publications in 2005. I can’t resist including some promotional material about this invaluable book from the publisher’s website.

Pure and Simple
The Extraordinary Teachings of a Thai Buddhist Laywoman
Upasika Kee, Author
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Author

Upasika Kee was a uniquely powerful spiritual teacher. Evocative of the great Ajahn Chah, her teachings are earthy, refreshingly direct, and hard-hitting. In the twentieth century, she grew to become one of the most famous teachers in Thailand-male or female-all the more remarkable because, rarer still, she was not a monastic but a layperson.

Her relentless honesty, along with her encouraging voice, is one reason so many contemporary Buddhist teachers recall Upasika Kee so fondly, and so often.

Pure and Simple, the first widely-available collection of her writings, will be gratefully received not only by those who knew Upasika Kee, but by anyone who encounters her for the first time in its pages.

 

I have taken the liberty of bolding statements which I believe are crucial in understanding these remarkable teachings. 

 

An excerpt from “Breath meditation condensed” by Upasika Kee Nanayon, from her book Pure and Simple
The Extraordinary Teachings of a Thai Buddhist Laywoman (pages 43 to 55).

“Now, as for how we do breath meditation: The texts say to breathe in long and out long - heavy or light - and then to breathe in short and out short, again heavy or light. Those are the first steps of the training. After that we don’t have to focus on the length of the in-breath or out-breath. Instead, we simply gather our awareness at any one point of the breath and keep this up until the mind settles down and is still. When the mind is still, you then focus on the stillness of the mind at the same time you’re aware of the breath. 

At this point you don’t focus directly on the breath. You focus on the mind that is still and at normalcy. You focus continuously on the normalcy of the mind at the same time that you’re aware of the breath coming in and out, without actually focusing on the breath. You simply stay with the mind, but you watch it with each in-and-out breath. Usually when you are doing physical work and your mind is at normalcy, you can know what you’re doing, so why can’t you be aware of the breath? After all, it’s part of the body. 

Some of you are new at this, which is why you don’t know how you can focus on the mind at normalcy with each in-and-out breath without focusing directly on the breath itself. What we’re doing here is practicing how to be aware of the body and mind, pure and simple, in and of themselves… 

Start out by focusing on the breath for about 5, 10, or 20 minutes. Breathe in long and out long, or in short and out short. At the same time, notice the stages in how the mind feels, how it begins to settle down when you have mindfulness watching over the breath. You’ve got to make a point of observing this, because usually you breathe out of habit, with your attention far away. You don’t focus on the breath; you’re not really aware of it. This leads you to think that it’s hard to stay focused here, but actually it’s quite simple. After all, the breath comes in and out on its own, by its very nature. There’s nothing at all difficult about breathing. It’s not like other themes of meditation.

For instance, if you’re going to practice recollection of the Buddha, or buddho, you have to keep on repeating buddho, buddho, buddho.

Actually, if you want, you can repeat buddho in the mind with each in-and-out breath, but only in the very beginning stages. You repeat buddho to keep the mind from concocting thoughts about other things. Simply by keeping up this repetition you can weaken the mind’s tendency to stray, for the mind can take on only one object at a time. This is something you have to observe. The repetition is to prevent the mind from thinking up thoughts and clambering after them. 

After you’ve kept up the repetition - you don’t have to count the number of times - the mind will settle down to be aware of the breath with each in-and-out breath. It will begin to be still, neutral, at normalcy.

This is when you focus on the mind instead of the breath. Let go of the breath and focus on the mind - but still be aware of the breath on the side. You don’t have to make note of how long or short the breath is. Make note of the mind staying at normalcy with each in-and-out breath. Remember this carefully so that you can put it into practice. 

Here I’d like to condense the steps of breath meditationto show how all four of the tetrads mentioned in the texts can be practiced at once. In other words, is it possible to focus on the body, feelings, the mind, and the Dhamma all in one sitting? This is an important question for all of us. You could, if you wanted to, precisely follow all the steps in the texts so as to develop strong powers of mental absorption (jhana), but it takes a lot of time. It’s not appropriate for those of us who are old and have only a little time left. 

What we need is a way of gathering our awareness at the breath long enough to make the mind firm, and then go straight to examining how all formations are inconstant, stressful, and not-self, so that we can see the truth of all formations with each in-and-out breath. If you can keep at this continually, without break, your mindfulness will become firm and snug enough for you to give rise to the discernment that will enable you to gain clear knowledge and vision. 

So what follows is a guide to the steps in practicing a condensed form of breath meditation… Give them a try until you find they give rise to knowledge of your own within you. You’re sure to give rise to knowledge of your very own. 

The first thing when you’re going to meditate on the breath is to sit straight and keep your mindfulness firm. Breathe in. Breathe out. Make the breath feel open and at ease. Don’t tense your hands, your feet, or any of your joints at all. You have to keep your body in a posture that feels appropriate to your breathing. At the beginning, breathe in long and out long, fairly heavily, and gradually the breath will shorten - sometimes heavy and sometimes light. Then breathe in short and out short for about 10 or 15 minutes and then change. 

After a while, when you stay focused mindfully on it, the breath will gradually change. Watch it change for as many minutes as you like, then be aware of the whole breath, all of its subtle sensations. This is the third step, the third step of the first tetrad: sabba-kaya-patisamvedi - focusing on how the breath affects the whole body by watching all the breath sensations in all the various parts of the body, and in particular the sensations related to the in-and-out breath. 

From there you focus on the sensation of the breath at any one point. When you do this correctly for a fairly long while, the body - the breath - will gradually grow still. The mind will grow calm. In other words, the breath grows still together with the awareness of the breath. When the subtleties of the breath grow still at the same time that your undistracted awareness settles down, the breath grows even more still. All the sensations in the body gradually grow more and more still. This is the fourth step, the stilling of bodily formations. 

As soon as this happens, you begin to be aware of the feelings that arise with the stilling of the body and mind. Whether they are feelings of pleasure or rapture or whatever, they appear clearly enough for you to contemplate them. 

The stages through which you have already passed - watching the breath come in and out, long or short - should be enough to make you realize - even though you may not have focused on the idea - that the breath is inconstant. It’s continually changing, from in long and out long to in short and out short, from heavy to light and so forth. This should enable you to read the breath, to understand that there’s nothing constant to it at all. It changes on its own from one moment to the next. 

Once you have realized the inconstancy of the body - in other words, of the breath - you’ll be able to see the subtle sensations of pleasure and pain in the realm of feeling. So now you watch feelings, right there in the same place where you’ve been focusing on the breath. Even though they are feelings that arise from the stillness of the body or mind, they’re nevertheless inconstant even in that stillness. They can change. So these changing sensations in the realm of feeling exhibit inconstancy in and of themselves, just like the breath. 

When you see change in the body, change in feelings, and change in the mind, this is called seeing the Dhamma, i.e., seeing inconstancy. You have to understand this correctly. Practicing the first tetrad of breath meditation contains all four tetrads of breath meditation. In other words, you see the inconstancy of the body and then contemplate feeling. You see the inconstancy of feeling and then contemplate the mind. The mind, too, is inconstant. This inconstancy of the mind is the Dhamma. To see the Dhamma is to see this inconstancy. 

When you see the true nature of all inconstant things, then keep track of that inconstancy at all times, with every in-and-out breath. Keep this up in all your activities to see what happens next. (Note by Tom: the translator of this text has chosen to translate the Pali word anicca as inconstancy; you may be more familiar with the choice of ‘impermance’ for the Pali term anicca.)

What happens next is dispassion. Letting go. This is something you have to know for yourself. 

This is what condensed breath meditation is like. I call it condensed because it contains all the steps at once. You don’t have to do one step at a time. Simply focus at one point, the body, and you’ll see the inconstancy of the body. When you see the inconstancy of the body, you’ll have to see feeling. Feeling will have to show its inconstancy. The mind’s sensitivity to feeling, or its thoughts and imaginings, are also inconstant. All of these things keep on changing. This is how you know inconstancy… 

If you can become skilled at looking and knowing in this way, you’ll be struck with the inconstancy, stressfulness, and not-selfness of your “self,” and you’ll meet with the genuine Dhamma. The Dhamma that’s constantly changing like a burning fire - burning with inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness - is the Dhamma of the impermanence of all formations.

But further in, in the mind or in the property of consciousness, is something special, beyond the reach of any kind of fire. There, there’s no suffering or stress of any kind at all. This thing that lies “inside”: You could say that it lies within the mind, but it isn’t really in the mind. It’s simply that the contact is there at the mind. Only the extinguishing of all defilement will lead you to know it for yourself. There’s no way you can really describe it.

This “something special” within exists by its very nature, but defilements have it surrounded on all sides. All these counterfeit things - the defilements - keep getting in the way and take possession of everything, so that this special nature remains imprisoned inside at all times. Actually, there’s nothing in the dimension of time that can be compared with it. There’s nothing by which you can label it, but it’s something that you can pierce through to see - i.e., by piercing through defilement, craving, and attachment into the state of mind that is pure, bright, and silent. This is the only thing that’s important. 

But it doesn’t have only one level. There are many levels, from the outer bark to the inner bark and on to the sapwood before you reach the heartwood. The genuine Dhamma is like the heartwood, but there’s a lot to the mind that isn’t heartwood: The roots, the branches and leaves of the tree are more than many, but there’s only a little heartwood. The parts that aren’t heartwood will gradually decay and disintegrate, but the heartwood doesn’t decay. That’s one kind of comparison we can make. It’s like a tree that dies standing. The leaves fall away, the branches rot away, the bark and sapwood rot away, leaving nothing but the true heartwood. That’s one comparison we can make with this thing we call deathless, this property that has no birth, no death, no changing. We can also call it nibbana or the Unconditioned. It’s all the same thing. 

Now, then. Isn’t this something worth trying to break through to see?…”

refining the breath (anapanasati, week 3)

In the first two groups of skills we learned methods of relating to the breath by following and by consciously regulating the breath. One purpose of these exercises is to engage our attention by giving our-self something to do with the breath. By following and by counting/ regulating we bring into play more complex challenges, and involve greater dimensions of our attentional apparatus. We may also find the breath more interesting. One of the turning points in this practice is discovering a new world opening up beneath our noses! It’s rather amazing how engrossing the simple process of breathing in and out can become when we focus and marshal our latent powers of attention.

Thich Nhat Hahn is said to have remarked that he has spent over fifty years practicing mindfulness of the breath and he finds it more and more fascinating.

I am reminded of a poem by Kabir:

I do not know what manner of God is mine.
The Mullah cries aloud to Him: and why ? Is your Lord deaf?  The subtle anklets that ring on the feet of an insect when it moves are heard of Him.

Our attention can become so refined, so gently acute, yet in a soft and pleasant way, that we feel as if we could hear the ringing of the subtle anklets on the feet of insects as they walk–and perhaps we might actually be able to if there were such marvelous creatures.

The refinement of our attentional skills generalizes into a wealth of benefits in our daily life, both mundane and sacred. We naturally become less restless, our capacity to turn our gaze and hold it on the discomfort of others increases and we are less driven to withhold our attention from others. We can focus more clearly on the task at hand. We can cut through the fog of everyday confusion effortlessly. We tap into a place within where clarity and appropriateness rule the land. The list is endless, the benefits infinite.

We’ll now look at a third set of techniques to heighten our attentional powers:

Step three:

Guarding the breath at one point, and

Giving rise to an imaginary image at the guarding point.

First, we establish a “guarding point”–this can be the rims of the nostrils or the area of the upper lip. (I am using here terms suggested by the late Thai meditation teacher/monk Ajahn Buddhadassa). Some texts suggest the tip of the nose. Find for yourself where you feel the breath sensations at the area of the nose most precisely. An ancient metaphor is used as a teaching device in this regard: an animal grazer who naps in the afternoon while his herd grazes the fields, when he wakes rather than go searching for his animals he heads down to the shore of the nearby pond where he knows his animals will congregate in the late afternoon to have a drink, he simply goes to the shore of the pond and waits for the animals to show up.

Similarly, rather than go out searching for breath sensations we simply go to the shore of the pond, the guarding point of the breath, and wait for the breath to show up. We get comfortable and simply hang out at the area of the nose and wait for the breath sensations to turn up.

After we gain some experience with guarding the breath at one pont we can begin to work with the imaginary image. This is simply another device to increase our attentional skills and to draw out interest to the breath. By creating a mental image the texts inform us we are refining or “smoothing” the breath. The use of the image has been found by the thousands of meditators who have come before us to increasingly hold our attention while simultaneously calming our mind. To do this consistently and quietly draws out deeper levels of attentional skills and refines the entire breathing process.

The imaginary, or mental image, can be any shape or form. One of my teachers in Sri Lanka spoke of a tiny sphere of light that sparkled in dark blue and green hues. Some folks might spontaneously create an image form the natural world, a tiny sunrise, sunset, or a waxing or waning moon. Others might chhose a candle flame, a puff of cotton or smoke, or a gossamer-thin curtain softly blowing in the breeze of the breath.

We work with any of these four techniques as we feel it is appropriate. I would suggest that we do not frequently toggle between techniques, rather we dedicate a session to perhaps one or two techniques–such as following the breath and working with a mental image at the end of the session. One could spend much fruitful time just with one technique until we feel comfortable with it. 

How the breath influences our mind states (anapanasati, week 2)

The practice of anapanasati is categorized into four groups, known as tetrads. These four tetrads correspond to the main teaching of the Buddha regarding mindfulness-the four foundations of mindfulness. We begin by practicing with the first tetrad, or foundation of mindfulness-the body. When we speak about experiencing the breath we are actually regarding the breath as a subset of the body.

The first exercise, following the breath, helps train our attention to track the natural process of breathing. While tracking the breath we can reserve perhaps 10 or 20 % of our awareness to notice the qualities of the breath. For example, we may note in our mind if the breath is: 

Long 

Short 

Smooth 

Coarse

Fine 

We can now add this component to our practice of following the breath-to be aware of the qualities of the breath as it is. We can add to this list of qualities of the breath with short descriptions of our own. Now we can proceed to

Step two: how the breath influences emotions 

In step two we experiment with conscious manipulation of the breathing to see how the breathing affects the body and the emotions. We all have heard that when we are upset that we should “take a deep breath.” What is suggested here is to intentionally slow the breathing down to see for ourselves from within the meditative experience indeed how it is the breath influences our emotional life.

One technique that is often taught to help us experience a long breath is “counting.” We mentally count the duration of a normal meditative breath (for example we find we breathe to a slow count of four). We then consciously and slowly extend the count incrementally to five, then six, perhaps to seven or eight. The exhalations are always of the same duration as the inhalations. 

The key to this exercise is to see and know in an intimate way how it is the breath affects our mind states. First we see what effect a conscious long breath has. Then we see what effect a conscious short breath has on our mind states. 

The last two aspects of this first tetrad are to see how the actual breath we are breathing influences our mind states, and to contemplate the breath in order to deliberately calm the body. 

As with most meditation instructions, they take on a fuller dimension when practiced over time.

beginning anapanasati (week 1)

Before describing the structured approach to anapanasati which I learned in Thailand and Sri Lanka, please take some time and read or review chapter 14 of the indispensable book Mindfulness in Plain English by Ven. Henepola Gunaratana (pages 149 to 156) entitled Mindfulness versus concentration. This chapter is an excellent overview of vipassana meditation and it clearly describes the two principle skills of mindfulness (sati) and concentration (samatha).

There are many ways to approach the practice of anapanasati. I will present one of the ways that I was taught (in Thailand), which uses a structured, step by step method. Please try not to become discouraged by this fact: there are sixteen discrete steps. We will go through them all, but I will pay particular attention to the first four. At the end of our study and practice of the sixteen steps we will learn what has become known as the condensed form — an easy way to practice.  But please try to practice each of the steps as best you can before attempting the easy form, as it will make more sense and be more fruitful this way.

Step One–following the breath

Sit in a comfortable posture. Allow yourself to settle into the posture. Now try to locate sensations in the body associated with the natural process of breathing in and breathing out. See if you can sense these sensations in the area around the nose or nostrils. Also see if you can feel the natural rising and falling of the abdomen in response to the natural process of breathing in and breathing out.

Now imagine or feel that the breath begins at the nose and “travels” down to the base of the abdomen. Don’t let any knowledge of anatomy interfere with this simple exercise. Just allow yourself to feel the breath originating at the nose and traveling down to the navel as one in-breath.

Now imagine or feel that the breath travels from the navel back up to and out of the nose as one out-breath.

We simply try to attend to this movement of one in-breath and one out-breath. We try to see if we can do this continuously, as if we were following the breath down to the navel and then following it back up and out of the nose. See if you can do this with smaller and smaller gaps in your awareness, so that after a while (a few days or a week) you feel you can stay with the breath more and more.

The breath goes in, we follow it down, we feel that it stops down there for a moment, it pauses, and then it goes back out. Our job is simply to stay on the trail of the breath.

That’s all. Practice this for the entire duration your meditation session. See if you can sit comfortably for 25 minutes per session (or a little longer if you wish).

We’ll discuss this first step at our next class.

the slippery slopes of sleepiness and doubt (five hindrances, week 4)

Traditionally this group of hindrances has been called “sloth and torpor.” While greed, aversion and restlessness are rather loud visitors, this group tends to slip in when no one is watching. Everyone experiences these mental states in one form or another-guaranteed. The problem with this group is that if their presence is not recognized in short order, it quickly becomes too late for any mindfulness as we become seduced by lethargy. Our mind becomes dull and we are effectively “asleep at the wheel” — and unable to even recognize we’ve fallen into a somnolent slumber.

As with all of these obstructing forces, as we get to know them intimately, we begin to see how they work, how they sneak in, and we get better and better at staying awake and alert. The best way to work with sloth and torpor is so catch them just as they are staring to creep into the field of our awareness and nip them in the bud. If simple awareness of their presence doesn’t send them packing, then you may have to rub your face, take a 30 second stretch break, or get up and have a sip of tea. A great way to combat sleepiness in meditation is to do a few minutes of standing or walking meditation.

The most devastating hindrance of all, though, is often doubt. This is a mind state which simply implores “why are you doing this ?!” This is why for many folks it is important to stay motivated by meditating with a group. Other possibilities are to listen to inspiring audio talks and to read articles, books or teachings by respected teachers.

We turn our attention now in week four to beginning a structured approach to anapanasati–mindfulness of breathing (please click in the “anapanasati” category to your right).

Questioning the story-teller (five hindrances, week 3)

The practice this week has been to see how these five categories of forces within the mind keep us spellbound in their narrative. The key to working with the hindrances is the simple understanding that a hindrance is only a hindrance when we are caught by it, when we believe the story the story-teller is telling.

The past two weeks we have begun to survey the landscape of our minds to see how these seductive mind states work. When we look at them, investigate them, and bring them into our practice, they become the object of meditation. As objects of meditation we can then observe them impartially. The tools for doing this are contained in our handy meditator’s toolkit and are summarize by the acronym: R A I N (see previous posts).

Believing the story the hindrances tell us is a universal stumbling block to the development of a settled mind (let’s use the Pali term for this -samatha). We’ve already discussed the importance of the first step in the process -R for recognition. We absolutely have to known when they are operating, as otherwise we can spend an entire session lost in their delusional web.

As we become familiar with these inner forces, we prepare to bring greater acceptance to meet them. Acceptance is a crucial step in working with a hindrance because we cannot come to understand what desire is, or what fear is, if we are constantly pushing it away or holding it so tightly that we won’t let it express itself within us.

If we won’t let them be what they are we will not be able to experientially know the  obstacles for what the are. Until we begin to do this skillfully, we will remain to some degree caught in holding on to them (which is itself a form of desire) or pushing them away (a form of the flip side of this force–aversion).

Most of us will go through periods of remaining stuck in relating to a hindrance until we work through the sticky unconscious energy which still keeps the mental force in play. This takes patience and great tenderness. It’s simply to be aware of the material, stay engaged impartially, and to hang in there and see how it dances its dance. The skill here is to stay engaged with what I like to call benevolent indifference.

It is very important to understand that acceptance doesn’t mean acquiescence, nor does it imply resignation or submission. Acceptance in this sense really means fully opening, being with, whatever is happening without talking sides, with a kind of dispassionate curiosity that is also active and not at all passive. The activity of acceptance is simply the bubbling nature of the heart that feels what it feels and is alive and free to feel.

The next aspect of the basic process is I for investigation. This is simply another way of describing the activity of mindfulness. It is the quality of seeing something just as it is. It is the quality of allowing this to reveal itself just as it is.

We’re not really describing different steps in a linear process, rather we are describing levels of engagement within the activity of the practice of mindful awareness.

We could say that acceptance is allowing the hindrance into awareness. Investigation of the hindrance is seeing how it works on us. But at the same time it is not a process of self-analysis, as in a psychological skill. This awareness is always bare of added inner commentary or story-telling about the hindrance. We refrain from telling a story about the story teller, and simply know on a pre-verbal level that what is happening is a ruse, a smokescreen, and we ride it out tenderly and patiently.

Investigative mindfulness is simply a curiosity about what is being experienced at this moment. Investigation allows us to see what the hindrance is and to truly come to understand for ourselves: This is what sense-desire, or any other hindrance, is. This is how I am now experiencing it in my body and mind right now. And this is how it is affecting me right now.  These are the conditioned thought trains that are habitually spun out by an aversive mind state, for example. This skill has huge implications for how we recognize and deal with mind states outside of formal sessions of meditation, as you can imagine. 

Homework for this week

Continue your formal sessions of meditation.

We will be introducing more and more aspects of the classic samatha practice -anapanasati over the next few weeks. For this week, see if you discover what the process for breathing in and breathing out feels like for you in the area of the nostrils or upper lip (find for yourself where you may feel the sensations of the breath most clearly in the region of the nose).

When you recognize the presence of a hindrance and allow it into awareness, and begin to investigate it with the bare sustained attention of mindfulness, allow yourself to silently question whether this mind state is permanent or whether it is changing. If you determine it to be changing, try to see how it is changing-are there sensations associated with it that are changing moment to moment, for example. Investigate in what other ways it may or may not be changing as it is happening in the moment.

See if you can detect any feeling-tones in the body associated with the hindrances. For example, what feeling-tones in the body are associated with your experience of aversive mind states? With desirous mind states? With tired or sleepy mind states? With confused mind states?

Inquire furher–how does awareness of the feeling-tones affect the stability of the hindrance?

Reinforce the core skill of knowing when to simply ignore insignificant mental chatter and when to use your tool kit (RAIN) to investigate and work through the sticky mind states that we need to regard as our five inner treasures (the so-called hindrances), as it is through the skillful working through of these gifts that we can proceed into the deeper, uncharted waters of joy, ease, tranquility and insights into the ultimate nature of our mind and the world.

Have a great week.

name that tune: using mental labels with the hindrances (week 2)

 Working with the hindrances–week two.

“You are going to run into problems in your meditation. Everybody does. Problems come in all shapes and sizes, and the only thing you can be absolutely certain about is that you will have some…  Difficulties are an integral part of your practice. They aren’t something to be avoided… 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.”

Opening lines of Chapter 10 of the hands-on meditation manual “Mindfulness in Plain English” by Ven.  Gunaratana

We may have seen this week in our practice and our life how so much of our mental/ emotional life is operating out of pure knee-jerk conditioning. Very often before we have become aware of a disturbance in our meditation we have already traveled far along a well worn path of liking/ disliking. This “seeing” is a beginning to a process that unfolds into very deep, permanently transformative areas we call “insight”. This is how this practice came to be known in South Asia as “vipassana”, or insight meditation (the Pali word vipassana has been translated as “to see clearly”).

By the way the Pali word for hindrance is Nivarana (not Nirvana), which means covering. So we could consider the hindrances as mental or emotional coverings or perhaps (in light of so many recent political goings-on) as cover-ups. This implies that the mind and heart are naturally peaceful and open but that they get covered up, or covered over, by these hindrances. This may help us see why there is so much emphasis on being gentle in working with this material, because the mind, we could say, wants to open if only we allow it to, and not further mess it up. This helps us appreciate the later teachings found in the Mahayana sutras describing original, or intrinsic, enlightenment .

As we get more accustomed to making meditation a daily habit, we inevitably begin to settle down more and more in the actual practice of contacting the breath, spending more and more moments hanging out with the breath, and calming the mind. We need to examine how to begin to fine-tune our work with the hindrances so we can mine them for optimal benefit.

This week, consider these new assignments:

1. Try to devote all your meditation sessions to working with the breath as the focus (rather than body sensations or sounds).

2. Go over in your mind the list of the names of the five hindrances. Get to know their names. I like this practice because to me it feels that I am participating in line of meditators going back nearly three thousand years who learned the subtleties of the practice through memorization. I do feel that if you know their names by heart that you may be more able to name them as they spin their web in the quiet space of meditation practice.

a. Sense-desire, lust or greed

b. Hatred, anger, aversion or fear

c. Sloth and torpor or sleepiness and sluggishness

d. Restlessness and worry or agitation in the mind and body

e. Doubt or uncertainty           

3. Get to know how they present themselves within your practice. This is a lifetime’s work. This is where your journal comes in handy.

Last week we learned of a four step process to recognizing the hindrances which is summarized in the acronym RAIN (recognition, acceptance, investigation, and non-attachment). What I find so amazing about this process of meditation and working with the hindrances is that the process is conceptually simple yet has the capacity for a lifetime of refinement.

This week I wanted to address the first step in this process-recognition.

As a general rule, try to keep yourself settled on the moment by moment process of knowing the breath-feeling it, settling onto it. The core skill this week is learning when to dismiss a hindrance vs engaging it.

Perhaps a thousand times in any given period of meditation we may find ourselves distracted by a wandering mind that is seemingly activated by memories or sounds or body sensation or smells. We begin to know intuitively which kinds of distractions are genuinely mildly bothersome and need to be gently disregarded and which do need our attention.  Many of our initial experience of the hindrances can be effectively and wisely disregarded. We do strive to keep the breath in the foreground and all the flotsam and jetsam of the mind in the background.

If something keeps coming back after you redirect your attention away from it, or if has emotional overtones, we do need to progress to using the RAIN model.

4. Start to use the technique of mental labeling. When you feel intuitively that a hindrance is not just a fleeting piece of mental fog and has emotional overtones, or is not easily appeased through gentle ignorance, begin the process of recognition by labeling what is happening. If it is just a minor storm of undifferentiated thought you could use the generic label “thinking.” If there is a predominant emotional tone, simply use the best word that comes to mind to describe it (don’t obsess about the choice of labels! - a soft whispered “sadness,” “anger,” is all that is called for). They key to working with the labeling technique is to use it gently. You don’t want to use the label as a club to knock the hindrance unconscious. An easy, relaxed labeling of the an emotion or other mind (”joy,”, “frustration,” “car sound, “happiness”, “gecko”, “boredom,” “desire,” etc) helps us immensely to stay awake and alert in the present moment.  

5. Please continue to use the suggestions for integrating your mindfulness practice in your daily life in the category “mindfulness in daily life” to your right. See if you can find a tie in from your work with the hindrances in meditation and in your daily life–for example, if you have been dealing with a lot of distractions in your meditation, you my want to see if there are any triggers to distraction(both in and out of meditation).  Do you have patternsin the kinds of feelings of thoughts that may be triggers to becoming lost in in them? As you notice the patterns, does the noticing of them  change how easily you get pulled into their gravitational field?

I would like to offer these two short excerpts from two contemporary meditation teachers about this power of mindful awareness we are working to develop.

“Mindfulness itself does not condemn or condone any particular emotional reaction. Rather, it is the practice of honestly being aware of what happens to us and how we react to it. The more aware and familiar we are with our reactions, the easier it will be to have, for example, uncomplicated grief or straightforward joy, not mixed up guilt, anger, remorse, embarrassment, or judgement. Emotional maturity comes, not from the absence of emotions, but from seeing them clearly. Mindfulness helps us to be as we are without further complications. If we can be accepting of ourselves in this way, then it is much easier to know how to respond appropriately with choice rather than habit.”

~ Gil Fronsdal.

“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.”

Ven. Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English.

Awakening mindfulness in your daily life

Excerpted from: Beginning mindfulness: Learning the way of awareness, by Andrew Weiss.

Here are some possible ways to reinforce mindfulness in your daily life. During your first week of practice, please pick one or two and give them your wholehearted attention. You can use conscious breathing - awareness of breath - as a foundation to encourage daily-life mindfulness, just as you use it as the foundation for your sitting and walking meditation practice. Each week’s home play includes adding another daily-life mindfulness activity to your daily routine, so you will be referring back to this list frequently as you go along.

When you wake up in the morning, allow yourself some slow, mindful breaths before you get out of bed. See if you can be aware of your breathing and of making the transition from sleeping to waking. Be aware of the sound, the quality of light, or the darkness. Feel each in-breath calm your body and mind, and each out-breath release any tension or thoughts you’re holding. Try smiling and see what happens.

As you rise from bed, be aware of your feet making contact with the floor. Notice how different your body feels in the lying-down, sitting, and standing postures. Be aware of your weight on your feet, of the floor supporting your body, and of the motion of your feet and legs as you begin to walk.

Try eating breakfast without reading the newspaper or watching television. If possible, eat silently for all or part of your meal. Before you eat, allow yourself to breathe in and out three times and bring your awareness to the food in front of you.

Take a few minutes, either at home or on your way to work, to notice something enjoyable about the morning: perhaps the sunlight or the rain or the face of a child or a flower or the sounds of birds or the wind. See if you can allow yourself and your surroundings to inhabit the same space.

On your way to work or school, or to appointments or your other daily errands, try to be mindful of your traveling. Be aware of your walking, your sitting on the subway, your strap hanging on the bus, or your sitting while you are riding in a car. If you are driving a car or riding a bicycle or motorcycle, try to be aware of your driving or riding. Take a few mindful breaths to relax your body and mind. Do your best to allow your steps and actions to be peaceful ones.

If you drive a car or ride a motorcycle or bicycle, use a few mindful breaths to calm you and bring you in tune with your vehicle and the act of driving or riding before you turn on the ignition or right after you mount your bike. Notice how you’re holding your body, and let your breathing help you relax your shoulders, soften your face. See if you can break the pressure of pushing to get where you are going and simply enjoy the process of getting there. When you see a red traffic light, allow that to be a reminder of mindfulness and an opportunity to come back to your breath; relax your face and see whether a smile is possible. When someone cuts you off, try using awareness of your breath to calm your anger and fear.

When you get to work or school, or wherever you go on your daily tasks, practice some mindful breathing when you arrive and before you begin your work. If you are at a desk, try sitting down and taking some mindful breaths before taking out your work or talking with your fellow workers or students. If you are at a computer workstation, try taking three mindful breaths before turning on your computer. If you are shopping, pause before the entrance to the store and take three mindful breaths to calm and orient you before you walk in. Allow your body to relax before you begin, and see whether a smile is possible.

Several times during the day, allow yourself to become aware of your breathing and re-center yourself. Use these occasions to become aware of your body and to let your breath quiet your mind. See if you can allow a smile to bloom.

When you walk somewhere, try to be aware of your breathing and your steps. Are they peaceful steps or harsh ones? Can you allow yourself to slow down and make a trip to the bathroom an occasion for walking meditation?

Many things happen every day that you can use as reminders of mindfulness: the doorbell, the telephone, sounds on your computer, turning on a light, flushing a toilet, and so on. Let each one be an occasion to notice your breathing and allow some mindful in- and out-breaths. When the telephone rings, let it ring two or three times before you answer it. This is a great contradiction to our conditioning. Remember, if they really want to talk with you, they won’t hang up! One of my students who spends a lot of time in meetings uses picking up his pencil as a reminder of mindfulness and even had special pencils made up that have Breathe embossed on them.

Approach your lunch and dinner with the same mindfulness with which you approached breakfast. A few mindful breaths before you start eating might be helpful. During the meal try to be aware of chewing your food. Pause between swallowing one bite of food and picking up the next one. Spend at least five minutes of your meal in silence. If you do have a conversation, keep the topics light and supportive; especially try to avoid arguments or angry exchanges.

During your lunchtime, allow yourself some enjoyable time in addition to your meal. Talk with a friend, perhaps, or take a walk. Whatever you do, as you do it, see if you can be aware of your breathing. Slow yourself down, and relax.

When you are ready to leave your day’s activities, take a moment to appreciate what you’ve done that day in being mindful in your work or school or day’s tasks. Consider how you can build on that the next day.

Help to make your trip home a transition time by slowing down. Walk mindfully and be aware of your breathing. Try to allow a smile to be there. Notice the quality of the air, and see if you can accept it for what it is - cold, hot, wet, dry - without resisting it or trying to make it different. Allow your attention to be with your surroundings.

Try being aware of your feelings and thoughts as you approach home, and take a few mindful breaths before you open the door. Make this transition a conscious one, and notice what it feels like to be home and how that feels different from being at work or school or at your daily tasks.

If you watch television at night, why not turn down the sound during commercials or between programs? Close your eyes, and allow yourself some mindful breaths. Get up and take a mindful walk to the kitchen or bathroom. If you’re reading, try stopping every half-hour. Close your eyes for a minute or so, and bring your attention back to your breath; become more aware of the room and the noises or silence of your home. If you’re with your family, try giving yourself some mini-occasions to breathe mindfully and relax.

As you go to bed and prepare for sleep, take some mindful breaths, become aware of the bed supporting you, and allow yourself a smile. Feel the muscles of your body relaxing as you sink into your bed. Try letting go of the past day’s activities and of your anticipation of tomorrow. See whether you can end the day with a smile.

Anything that reminds us to bring our attention to the present moment is immensely valuable. Becoming aware of my discursive thinking or the sound of the telephone ringing, engaging in daily-life mindfulness activities of any type - all have the capacity to assist me to be in the present moment, to be truly mindful. The next time you find that your mind is wandering, try returning to your breath; you return to the present moment, and mindfulness is there, even if only for an instant. Doing this is a key to good practice.

Home Play Formal practice: Create a sitting meditation place for yourself at home. Try doing sitting meditation for five minutes in the morning after you get up and for five minutes in the evening, either after dinner or before bedtime. See whether you are a morning sitter or an evening sitter. Perhaps you are both! Morning sitting sets us up well for our day. Evening sitting helps us clear the thoughts and feelings that have come up during the day. During your five minutes of sitting, try using the exercises of mindfulness of breathing.

Informal practice: Take one item from the list of daily-life mindfulness activities. Do your best to remain mindful every time you do that activity throughout the week. Notice how your relationship to that activity changes over time with your mindful attention.

intro to the five hindrances (week 1)

Supplemental readings and listening for the Five Hindrances topic

CD: The Five Hindrances, a talk by Eugene Cash available at the weekly meetings. 

Reading: The following chapters from Mindfulness in Plain English:

Chapter 10 –Dealing with Problems.

Chapters 11 and 12 –Dealing with Distractions,

Introduction to the Five Hindrances

The five hindrances are an important topic. I chose it as the first topic of this study period as understanding the hindrances and learning how to skillfully work with them opens doors to understanding the fundamental topics we will consider later on. The door that opens is the door of the settled mind. The five hindrances are common obstacles nearly everone encounters in their mediation practice, at one time or another.

The five hindrances, as taught by the Buddha, are:

1. Sense-desire, lust or greed

2. Hatred, anger, aversion or fear

3. Sloth and torpor or sleepiness and sluggishness

4. Restlessness and worry or agitation in the mind and body

5. Doubt or uncertainty

As we will see, the process of mindfulness meditation empowers us to identify them when as they arise, and gives us strategies to work with them, so we can let them go and go on to deepen our meditation practice.

We can also see the five hindrances as familiar states of mind that come up all the time, not just when we are meditating, and temporarily block our expression of love and compassion for ourselves and for others.

In the Pali language of ancient India, in which are preserved the teachings of the historical Buddha, the term for these five hindrances is nivarana. The meaning of nivarana is a covering. We could say that the hindrances are mental or emotional coverings of the natural state of the heart and mind, which in one early text the Buddha said was luminous, free and immensely peaceful and serene.

This gives a clue as to how to practice with the hindrances: what we need to do is carefully and gently uncover the natural luminous peace of the mind.

The magic of mindfulness is that we learn to gently turn our non-judgmental awareness toward whatever is most prominent in the mind. When ill will, for example, becomes predominant, we simply turn our meditative attention towards it, so the feeling of anger or ill-will becomes the object of meditation. As we do this with gentleness and patience, anger ceases to be a hindrance, and it slowly evaporates, revealing a deeper aspect of the mind and heart as it does so.

A hindrance is only a hindrance when we are caught by it, when we fall into the trap it creates for us into believing the story it tells us. When we are caught up in them, they interfere with the development of a settled mind.

How to work with the hindrances

As we read the above chapters in Ven. Gunaratana’s book and as we listen to Eugene Cash’s talk, it becomes clear that the primary instruction fro dealing with each hindrance is essentially the same. There are subtle differences we encounter as we get into to each one. Here is the elegance of the primary instructions:

First to recognize it, then to meet it with acceptance, nonjudgmental investigative mindfulness, and the quality of unbiased curiosity or nonattachment.

One way to remember this process is through the acronym RAIN. This wonderful teaching tool has found its way into wide usage and was first articulated by the contemporary vipassana teacher Michele Macdonald.

R stands for recognition

A stands for acceptance

I stands for nonjudgmental investigative mindfulness

N stands for unbiased curiosity or nonattachment.

When we relax into our practice of meditation, all these four qualities are naturally present in the innate quality of mindfulness. Mindfulness is simply the quality of allowing our present moment’s experience to reveal itself to us just as it is.

We don’t do mindfulness, rather we allow mindfulness. It a simple receptivity to what is.

Homework for this week:

Begin a routine of regular sitting meditation. Start out modestly. You can use a timer and set it for 15 minutes, then work up incrementally so you can sit 25 minutes (or more, if you like) in a session. Using a timer relieves you of the bad habit of checking the clock.

At the beginning, aim to sit more days than not in a week (4 out of 7 days). Try to see this as a good hygienic habit, like brushing your teeth (mental hygiene).

If you are new to meditation I  would suggest you use the CD of 3 twenty-minte guided meditations by Jon Kabat-Zinn. You might want to experiment alternating the guided meditations or simply picking one and staying with it for the whole week.

As you progress in sitting meditation, try to make the your meditation your own, by dropping the crutch of a guided mediation on CD and starting to set off on your own independent practice. Do follow the general instructions for mindfulness meditation,  but without the aid of a CD. This will be very helpful as we begin to develop our faculty of concentration in the Anapanasati practice.

Please look over the practices in the “Mindfulness in Daily Life” category on this blog and pick one or two activities described there for extending your mindfulness outward from your sitting cushion or chair.

Buddhist attitude toward anger

This says all you need to know about working with anger.

“The Buddhist attitude is to take care of anger. We don’t suppress it. We don’t run away from it. We just breathe and hold our anger in our arms with utmost tenderness. Becoming angry at your anger only doubles it and makes you suffer more.

The important thing is to bring out the awareness of your anger to protect and sponsor it. Then the anger is no longer alone, it is with your mindfulness. Anger is like a closed flower in the morning. As the bright sun shines on the flower, the flower will bloom because the sunlight penetrates deep into the flower.

Mindfulness is like that. If you keep breathing and sponsoring your anger, mindfulness particles will infiltrate the anger. When sunshine penetrates a flower, the flower cannot resist. It is bound to open itself and reveal its heart to the sun. If you keep breathing on your anger, shining your compassion and understanding on it, your anger will soon crack and you will be able to look into its depths and see its roots.”

Thich Nhat Hanh