Wisdom Wide and Deep
Page 28
(a) Start with the first phase—a mind-door adverting consciousness. Discern the twelve mental formations. You might begin with consciousness; when you recognize it clearly, discern consciousness and contact; then consciousness, contact, and feeling; then consciousness, contact, feeling, and perception; continuing until you have included all twelve factors: (1) consciousness, (2) contact, (3) feeling, (4) perception, (5) volition, (6) one-pointedness, (7) life faculty, (8) attention, (9) initial application, (10) sustained attention, (11) decision, and (12) energy.
(b) Next, examine the impulsion consciousnesses that are experiencing the eye-sensitive element. Although these occur in the midst of the sequence, these represent the basic experience of the object and will be most clear. Discern the mental factors that are present until you determine which specific factors flavor the cognition.
(c) Notice that the impulsion consciousness is not one steady formation, but arises as a series of repeated momentary events that contain identical factors and respond to the same object (in this case, the perception of the eye-sensitive element). Try to count the seven impulsion consciousnesses.
(d) Similarly, if two registration consciousnesses arise, discern their associated mental formations. The number of factors may vary with the occasional presence or absence of joy and wisdom.
(e) Repeat this discernment until it is clear.
5. Follow the same method using each of the twenty-eight kinds of ultimate materiality discerned in chapter 12 to stimulate a mind-door cognitive process.
SENSE-SPHERE COGNITIVE PROCESS
Since the cognitive process associated with the five sense-spheres (also called the five-door process) is neither inherently wholesome nor unwholesome, meditators must discern the mental factors that contribute to the skillful or unskillful bias of each experience. Exposing these subtle inclinations of perception can transform your relationship to conditioned events, providing a means for purifying habitual patterns, actions, and thoughts.
TABLE 13.8
Mental Formations in Wholesome Five-Door Cognitive Processes
*These factors are variable—they may or may not be present where indicated. Their presence or absence accounts for the variable number of factors for some of the consciousnesses. If a variable factor is present at the start of the series, it will be present for the remainder of the series—if absent at the start of the series, it will continue to be absent.
1 Factors present in the mind-door adverting process must match those in determining consciousness.
2 Factors present in the second series of seven impulsion consciousnesses must match those in the previous series of seven impulsion consciousnesses.
3 Factors present in the second set of two registration consciousnesses must match those in the previous set of two registration consciousnesses.
TABLE 13.9
Mental Formations in Unwholesome Five-Door Cognitive Processes
1 See Table 13.7.
2 Factors present in the mind-door adverting process must match those in determining consciousness.
3 Factors present in the second series of seven impulsion consciousnesses must match those in the previous series of seven impulsion consciousnesses.
4 Factors present in the second set of two registration consciousnesses must match those in the previous set of two registration consciousnesses.
*These factors are variable—they may or may not be present where indicated. Their presence or absence accounts for the variable number of factors for some of the consciousnesses. If a variable factor is present at the start of the series, it will be present for the remainder of the series—if absent at the start of the series, it will continue to be absent.
TABLE 13.10
Mental Formations in Wholesome Mind-Door Cognitive Processes
*These factors are variable—they may or may not be present where indicated. Their presence or absence accounts for the variable number of factors for some of the consciousnesses. If a variable factor is present at the start of the series, it will be present for the remainder of the series—if absent at the start of the series, it will continue to be absent.
MEDITATION INSTRUCTION 13.5
Discerning the Sense-Sphere Cognitive Process
1. Prepare the mind with concentration or jhāna practice.
2. To discern the mental formations, you must first cause a sense-sphere process to occur. To do this, discern the eye-sensitive element, the mind door, and then both together. Concentrate on the color of a group of nearby rūpa kalāpas as they appear in both the eye and mind doors. Cognize the color with wise attention by knowing that this is color.
3. Seeing color will initiate an eye-door cognitive process, followed by many mind-door processes that all take the same color as object. Observe the mental factors found in each stage of the cognitive series. See Table 13.8.
(a) A five-door adverting consciousness: eleven mental formations that include consciousness, seven universal factors, and three occasional factors (vitakka, vicāra, adhimokkha).
(b) An eye-consciousness: eight mental formations that include consciousness and seven universal factors.
(c) A receiving consciousness: eleven mental formations that include consciousness, seven universal factors, and three occasional factors (vitakka, vicāra, adhimokkha).
(d) An investigating consciousness: eleven or twelve mental formations that include consciousness, seven universal factors, and three or four occasional factors (vitakka, vicāra, adhimokkha, and sometimes pīti).
(e) A determining consciousness: twelve mental formations that include consciousness, seven universal factors, and four occasional factors (vitakka, vicāra, adhimokkha, viriya).
(f) Seven impulsion consciousnesses: if unwholesome, there can be sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, or twenty-two mental formations; if wholesome, there can be thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, or thirty-five mental formations.
(g) Two registration consciousnesses: eleven, twelve, thirty-two, thirty-three, or thirty-four mental formations.
After these registration consciousnesses pass, a series of life-continuum (bhavaṅga) consciousnesses will link the sense-sphere process with a subsequent mind-door process that takes the same color as object and follows the three-part pattern as previously described for mind-door processes. The quantity of mental factors in the mind-door process will parallel the factors found in the preceding determining, impulsion, and registration consciousnesses:
(a) A mind-door adverting consciousness
(b) Seven impulsion consciousnesses
(c) Two registration consciousnesses
4. Repeatedly examine the eye-door process until you are satisfied. Then apply the same discernment to formations with the other four sense doors: ear, nose, tongue, and body.
5. After the wholesome states are clear, discern unwholesome states by following the same procedure with the five sense objects, but pay unwise attention to the objects. For instance, when you perceive color, view it as an object for personal gratification; when you hear a sound, consider it enduring; when you recognize a tangible object, interpret it as a possession. When wrong view enters the field of perception, the resulting mental formations will be unwholesome. Explore this process to discover the precise character of unwholesome states. See Table 13.7.
6. After the meditation session concludes and you are walking around, working, talking, eating, or showering, notice how you encounter experience. Observe the quality of the mind that is calmly playing with a child, gratefully receiving a compliment, awkward at a party, excited before an interview, jealously watching a friend. Mental formations arise in every conscious moment and affect your relationship to experience. Try to apply what you have learned in the refined environment of meditation to bolster the purity of your response during cruder daily encounters.
Once you have thoroughly explored the internal processes that occur when consciousness meets an object, you can extend the discernment to realize the nature of all men
tality, both internal and external. In chapter 12, you deconstructed the matter of the world into its subtle constituents beginning with your clothes, then gradually perceiving the chair and floor, and then incrementally extending the discernment to expose the subtle matter that composes the building, the ultimate materialities in the town, region, world, and universe. Now you can follow a similarly thorough investigation of the world of mind. This is not your personal mind, but mentality, anywhere and everywhere in the universe.
MEDITATION INSTRUCTION 13.6
A Real World
1. Concentrate the mind.
2. Review the discernment of materiality (meditation instruction 12.6).
3. Review the discernment of mentality internally (meditation instruction 13.5).
4. In a similar way, now discern the cognitive processes that are occurring externally, that is, in minds other than your own. Use other beings in general as the base; don’t try to penetrate a particular person’s consciousness. Just direct your attention to external mentality to perceive an eye-sensitive element and a color. Proceed with the discernment according to the steps in meditation instruction 13.5 without concern as to whose eye-sensitive element you might be apprehending. You will discover a world of mental and material phenomena—impersonal attributes and functions that can be analyzed.
5. Continue this process alternately discerning internal and external phenomena at all the sense doors, incrementally extending the discernment further and further away. For example, you might first direct your external discernment toward beings that are present in the building where you sit, then extend to beings in the neighborhood, town, region, country, hemisphere, planet, and so on. Thoroughly discern the ultimate mental and material processes that occur in each consciousness moment throughout the infinite universe.
6. Finally, conclude the investigation by meditating upon the totality of mental and material processes as just that: phenomena. See that there is no I/you, woman/man, sister/brother; see concepts as mere designations that have no ultimate reality.
The painstaking exercise of identifying, defining, and analyzing the subtle nuances of cognitive processes illuminates refined strata of mental experience. However, you do not need to turn this into an exercise in mathematics, obsessively counting and correlating mental factors with charts. If you are reading this book as an overview, it is enough to understand the basic sequence. Then, when you are training in retreat with the guidance of a teacher, the nuances and specificities of these formations will become both useful and clear.
Yet even a cursory review of this material may reveal interesting insights into the nature of mentality and habitual mental patterns. You might learn to quickly recognize the heaviness and rigidity that is associated with a mind-state devoid of the nineteen beautiful universal factors that include tranquility, lightness, malleability, workability, and so on, and use this sensation as a signal to dispel unwholesome states whenever they arise. You might sense the danger rooted in delusion that accompanies the wandering mind and resolve to interrupt habitual daydreaming. Seeing that greed and hatred never arise in the same mind-moment, that rapture and anger are equally incompatible, and that every unwholesome state includes restlessness and shamelessness of wrongdoing can provide clues to unpack the deeply conditioned roots of action and kamma. By studying the mind, factor by factor, and state by state, you will become attuned to the distinctions between states both during formal meditation sessions and also during dynamic daily encounters. By teasing out the factors that compose mental states, you will see the ways in which you might be sustaining or countering the basic root tendencies of greed, nongreed, hatred, nonhatred, delusion, and nondelusion. Empowered with this knowledge of mentality, you will be able to change any patterns that disrupt the peaceful clarity of your mind.
Untangling Decision-Making Angst
Do you struggle with decision-making, wondering how to decide what is best? Do you sometimes do things that are destructive, even when you know that they are wrong? By teasing out the basic components that compose experience, and examining mental factors associated with a decision to act, you will understand what propels addictive, callous, or disrespectful conduct, and what supports wise action.
Before you make your next decision, whether it is a minor daily selection, a major career move, or an important health issue, examine your mind. If you sense the presence of restlessness and the associated unwholesome factors, wait before you decide what to do. Resolve not to decide or act when unwholesome states dominate. Spend some time cultivating calmness, kindness, and mindful awareness, and then pose the dilemma again for fresh consideration. If you sense that mindfulness and the associated wholesome factors are supporting the decision-making process, trust your intention as you determine your course of action.
In the chapters that follow, we use these ultimate constituents of matter and mind (defined here and in chapter 12) as the building blocks of a nuanced and profound approach to insight meditation. With the objects and processes carefully defined and analyzed, when you plunge into the contemplations of insight meditation you will discover a thrilling clarity and liberating potential built upon this direct perception of the subtle components of mind and matter.
Distinguishing Choiceless Awareness from the Wandering Mind
Were you surprised to learn that mindfulness can never arise along with greed, hatred, or delusion, and that restlessness can never arise in a wholesome state? Look into your own mind and see if it is true.
Identify times in the day when your mind tends to wander, such as when walking the dog or eating a snack. Occasionally dissect the habitually wandering mind and see what mental factors it contains. What mental factors sustain a romantic fantasy? You may discover that the pleasure of fantasy is merely the agitation caused by pīti, while the state is devoid of the deeply wholesome factors of mindfulness, tranquility, equanimity, nongreed, nonhate, uprightness, and faith.
Notice the object and quality of attention. When exploring hatred you may see that when mindfulness arises there is wise attention, perhaps taking the mental factors associated with hatred as the object of consciousness; when hatred consumes the mind there will be unwise attention to a hated object. Attention may rapidly flicker between cognitive processes that are characterized by mindfulness or by hatred, but hate and mindfulness cannot arise in exactly the same moment.
At times in daily life, and also in meditation, you may allow the mind to relax with an undirected, choiceless quality of awareness. What is the experience of genuine relaxation? What specific mental factors constitute an experience of relaxation? Notice if choiceless awareness is supporting the development of associated wholesome states, or if the mind slides into unwholesome states of restless imaginings, laziness, fear, or conceit. Let your observations inform the degree to which you direct, restrain, and focus your attention, or creatively respond to the stimuli of living.
CHAPTER 14
A Magic Show: Emptiness of the Five Aggregates
Everything could disappear in an instant.
Materialities are like balls of foam,
Feelings are like bubbles,
Perceptions are like mirages,
Volitions are like banana trees,
Consciousnesses are like magical illusions.
—SAṂYUTTA NIKĀYA207
ACHILD MAY ARRANGE her crayons in several different ways, for instance, according to hue, tone, size, age, saturation, or personal associations. However they are arranged, the set includes all her crayons. Individuals devise filing systems for their home computers and may organize documents by date, topic, function, author, category, or idiosyncratic associations. However they are arranged, they encompass the collection of electronic documents. Similarly, any group of material can be organized into different categories using different classification systems, but, when taken together, remain the same collection of material. Our next step is to divide every material element and mental constituent that was discussed in chapters 12 and 1
3 into pragmatic classification schemes that will serve as the structure for systematic contemplation. Commonly used categories are the (1) the two categories of materiality and mentality; (2) the five aggregates of materiality, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness; (3) the twelve bases, which include six sense doors and six sense objects; (4) the eighteen elements which include six sense doors, six sense objects, and six sense consciousnesses; and (5) the twelve factors of dependent arising.208 A skilled teacher may guide you to use one or another model, depending upon temperament, conditions, and the purpose of the exploration.209 Each model presents a complete approach to insight; each encompasses every conceivable mental and material experience. This chapter highlights the second scheme in the above list, the model of the five aggregates.
THE FIVE AGGREGATES OF EXPERIENCE (KHANDHA)
The scheme of five aggregates organizes the very same constituents of material and mental phenomena that you discerned through the exercises in chapters 12 and 13 into a fivefold model of experience: (1) materiality, (2) feeling, (3) perception, (4) mental formations, and (5) consciousness. When we identify with the functioning of these intrinsically impersonal aggregates or cling to a formation of self-grasping, we suffer from the delusion that these five aggregates are mine, I, or myself.
Psychophysical processes arise and pass at lightning speed, hence the Buddha compared the five aggregates to ephemeral bubbles, lumps of froth, banana trees, illusory mirages, and magic tricks—such is the insubstantiality of self constructions. In this meditation we examine each aggregate individually and observe how the five function as an inseparable unit.