Wisdom Wide and Deep
Page 32
The Abhidhamma expands the considerations of conditionality to analyze twenty-four causal relationships that govern the interaction of material and mental phenomena through three primary modes: (1) conditioning states that produce, support, or maintain other states, (2) conditioned states that arise and are maintained by conditions, and (3) conditioning forces that are the particular ways that conditioning states function as conditions for the conditioned states.243
Many causal relationships can be discerned. There are some ways in which matter supports mental factors; for example, the material ear organ supports the mental formations related to a sound. There are situations in which mental factors affect and sustain materiality, such as when the craving, ignorance, and kamma in a previous lifetime serve as a cause for conception. There are innumerable situations in which mental and material factors intertwine to create mutually dependent conditions enabling conscious experience to arise. From one viewpoint, an immediately preceding state may be a causal factor, such as when the sight of a limping child serves as the proximate cause for the arising of compassion or when your tongue comes into contact with a salty biscuit and triggers an experience of pleasant taste. From another perspective, associated factors may be contributory causes; for example, the five aggregates must arise together, not individually, and the four elements never arise independently but always as a material group. States occurring in the distant past might produce a result in the future, as when a crime committed at one time may ripen into incarceration later. Sometimes the absence of preceding states is a supporting cause, such as when the ending of one consciousness creates the opportunity for a new moment of consciousness to arise. In reality, a multiplicity of intertwined and mutually dependant conditions come together to produce the birth of any phenomenal event; nothing arises due to a single cause. There are always multiple causes and multiple fruits.
FIVE DISTINCT METHODS
The traditional training incorporates five distinct methods for exploring dependent arising drawn from teachings in the Pali Canon.244 Just as someone may uproot a creeper vine by starting at its end, or by pulling it from the root, or by taking hold of its center and tugging one way or the other, a meditator may examine the interdependent and causal relationships from various perspectives.
1. The first method starts at ignorance and progresses to the twelfth link, death. The meditator notices that because of ignorance, volitional formations come to be; because of the arising of volitional formations, consciousness arises; because of consciousness, the sixfold sense base comes to be; and so on.
2. The second method investigates the process starting from the central link of feeling and then observes the links that conditioned feeling and will lead to craving, clinging, becoming, and a new birth.
3. The third method starts at the stage of death and traces the sequence in reverse order from death back through to ignorance (aging and death arise dependent upon birth, birth arises dependent upon becoming, becoming arises dependent on clinging, and so on).
4. The fourth method highlights the role that wrong view plays at each stage in the process from craving back through to ignorance (craving arises because of ignorance, feeling arises supported by ignorance … formations arise due to ignorance).
5. The fifth method emphasizes a discernment that reveals that:
(a) because of five past causes, five present effects arise
(b) because of five present causes, five future effects arise.
The meditation sequences that follow conform to the training approach that Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw instructed me to develop, beginning with the fifth method and followed by the first method. These exercises provide a structure for contemplating a multiplicity of causes for each event, sufficient for revealing the dynamic, interdependent, and empty nature of experience. Each of the five traditional approaches, however, describes a valid way to discern causal relations.
To understand these processes and root out ignorance, you will trace the causal relationships back through time. You will discern conditionality from many angles and across many lifetimes, observe how unwise and wise attention affects experience, recognize the unmistakably dependent nature of existence, and identify the causal forces that propagate rebirth. Your current life has neither transmigrated from a previous realm of existence, nor has it arisen randomly; rather, your life is a result of causes.245 By observing the subtle intertwining of past conditioning with present-moment choices, you’ll see for yourself that your life is not determined exclusively by past actions, and yet is not totally under your control. Equipped with this direct knowledge of how causes and effects operate in your own kammic stream, you’ll learn to respond wisely to whatever conditions arise in your life.
Successful completion of the meditative contemplations will bring the realization that there are only causes and effects in the past, in the present, and in the future. There is no separate self that exists outside constantly changing dependently arising conditions. Nothing exists independently. There is no being who is created and no creator who exists apart from causes and effects. Mental and material processes arise moment-by-moment through contingent relationships. Just as curd is formed from milk, could not arise without milk, but is not milk, our existence arises due to causally related conditions.
The unusual meditation exercises that follow may be challenging or appear repetitive for the casual reader. The ability to discern ultimate realities as demonstrated through the successful completion of the lessons in chapters 12–14 is a prerequisite for accomplishing the detailed exercises described below. In addition, most people will need a qualified teacher to avoid conceptual pitfalls and to steer the discernments toward a liberating knowledge when practicing these techniques. You may choose to skip the meditation instructions that follow and simply continue reading the insight meditation teachings in the next chapters. You can return to these meditation instructions when there is an occasion to practice them in retreat with the guidance of teachers skilled in this method.
MEDITATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR EXPLORING THE RELATION BETWEEN PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE CAUSES AND EFFECTS
The following systematic meditation instructions are designed to provide experiential knowledge that expands the teachings on past and future formations. The first five meditation instructions in this section apply to the fifth method for discerning causes and effects. Many of the instructions may appear repetitious; however, each slight change in the sequential contemplation highlights a causal relationship that becomes the focus of that discernment. Each causal relationship in the sequence should be repeatedly contemplated while seeing the functioning of mental and material processes. This careful examination constitutes a direct perception of the dependent arising of phenomena.
MEDITATION INSTRUCTION 15.1
Discerning the Causes for This Human Birth
1. Establish your concentration to the highest level that you have attained, and discern materiality and mentality both internally and externally by reviewing the exercises in chapters 12 and 13
2. Next, make an aspiration for a desirable rebirth. For example: “by the fruit of this jhāna concentration, may I be reborn in a heavenly realm,” or “may the kammic fruit of this meditation be a contributing cause for opportunities to practice the Dhamma in my next lifetime,” or “may the merit of this practice produce a healthy and wealthy human life.”
3. Then reestablish your concentration and discern the materiality and mentality associated with your aspiration for a rebirth. Discern materiality and mentality that are occurring externally as well.
4. Try to distinguish the five essential causal components: ignorance, craving, clinging, the mental formations associated with the meritorious action, and the kamma potency created by those formations (see Table 13.7 to review mental factors present in unwholesome states). For example:
(a) Ignorance is the wrong view that conceives of a being, whether that being is a human or a deity. A consciousness affected by wrong view will probably
have twenty mental formations. If it is accompanied by equanimity and devoid of rapture, it will have only nineteen, but if it is dulled by sloth and torpor, it could contain twenty-one or twenty-two. Discern the unwholesome formations associated with ignorance. See Table 13.7 for mental formations associated with unwholesome states.
(b) Wanting the experience of a heavenly realm or the comfort of health and wealth as a human being is craving. A consciousness affected by craving will have nineteen to twenty-two mental formations. Discern the unwholesome formations associated with craving.
(c) Clinging to the experiences that are craved is the pertinent grasping. A consciousness affected by clinging will have nineteen to twenty-two mental formations. Discern the unwholesome formations associated with clinging.
(d) The volitional formations that occur with the meritorious action will probably have thirty-one to thirty-five mental factors. Discern those wholesome mental formations.
(e) A kamma potency will be produced by the mental formations associated with that meritorious deed. Try to sense the force of the kamma potency embedded in the intentional action. Specifically, discern the mental formations that arise in the seventh impulsion consciousness, and see how the powerful seventh impulsion consciousness, supported by the preceding mind-moments, produces kamma potency.
These five aspects (ignorance, craving, clinging, volitional formations, and kamma potency) highlight the wholesome kammic formations and the surrounding unwholesome formations that produce a future life.
5. Once again, make the aspiration for your next life, and recognize the unwholesome force of ignorance, craving, and clinging, and the wholesome mental formations and kamma potency associated with that aspiration.
6. To trace these forces back in time, discern the sixty-three rūpas in your heart base and a present mind-door cognitive process. Discern the mentality and materiality (either as mentality and materiality, or by employing the five aggregates structure). Then examine the processes that occurred when you made the aspiration a moment earlier. Next discern the mental and material process that occurred a few minutes before that when you were developing concentration, such as occurred when you were perceiving your meditation object. Use your clear and powerfully concentrated mind to direct your attention backward in time. Then pick up sense-door or mind-door processes that occurred earlier—ten minutes ago, one hour ago, two hours ago, several hours ago, yesterday, several days ago, several weeks ago, several months ago, a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, and so on. Examine sense-door processes such as the smell of oatmeal during yesterday’s breakfast or the coolness that you felt when you washed your hands last week. Examine mind-door processes such as the irritation that you felt while waiting for an appointment last month, the delight that arose when you entered the retreat, or the experience of concentration in a previous meditation session. Examine each past experience as just mental and material formations; don’t embellish the formations with complex concepts or personal stories. Continue in this way, tracing your life back to the fetal and embryo stages, by discerning mental and material processes.
Have no concern for concepts. If you happen to see images (things, people, a snapshot of yourself at a younger age), break down the compactness of the images, beings, and concepts to discern their constituent mental factors and material elements.
7. When you reach the stage of conception there will be only three kinds of materiality present in that first moment of life: the heart base kalāpas, body kalāpas, and sex-determining kalāpas; each consists of ten kinds of rūpas. Discern those thirty kinds of rūpas. For a human birth the initial mental formations will be wholesome. Discern the mental formations associated with this first moment of life.
8. As you glimpse the threshold between lifetimes, you may notice an ultrasubtle stage of death. Just a little further beyond you will find mental and material formations connected to your kammic stream but belonging to a previous existence.
Discern the sixty-three rūpas in that past being’s heart base and discern the cognitive process that is occurring there. Sensitivity to external sensory stimuli will have faded in the dying process, so the final mental process will be a mind-door process active only in the heart base through the functioning of body faculty, mind faculty, and life faculty.246
9. What is the object of the last moment of consciousness in the previous life? Do you see an image, shape, symbol, object, color, impression, sign, or nimitta? You will find that the same object will be present in five mind-moments:
(a) a near-death moment that occurred just prior to the death of the first past life,
(b) the first moment of consciousness at conception for this present life,
(c) a series of life-continuum consciousnesses that follow immediately after conception,
(d) the life-continuum consciousnesses that arise throughout the course of this present lifetime and link cognitive processes,
(e) the eventual death moment when this present life span ends (you will see this after you discern your death through a forthcoming exercise).
Look back and forth across the transition between your present life and your past life until you can discern the consistent object of this subtle consciousness. Many different images may appear around the time of death, so you should check again and again to be sure that the action that you discerned actually produced the effect of the subsequent lifetime. The image that appears in the last mental process may represent the ripening of an action done much earlier in the lifetime. Examine the material and mental stream until you find the actual time during the lifetime that the significant action was performed, and then identify the ignorance, craving, clinging, and mental formations that are associated with that action.
10. Contemplate the five past causes as the primary causal forces active in the production of materiality at conception. For example, reflect:
Five past causes:
(a) Because of the arising of ignorance (you will find nineteen to twenty-two mental formations), the materiality at conception arises (you will find thirty kinds of materiality). Ignorance is the cause, materiality is the effect.
(b) Because of the arising of craving (you will find nineteen to twenty-two mental formations), the materiality at conception arises (you will find thirty kinds of materiality). Craving is the cause, materiality is the effect.
(c) Because of the arising of clinging (you will find nineteen to twenty-two mental formations), the materiality at conception arises (you will find thirty kinds of materiality). Clinging is the cause, materiality is the effect.
(d) Because of the arising of volitional formations (you will likely find thirty-two to thirty-five mental formations), the materiality at conception arises (you will find thirty kinds of materiality). Volitional formations are the cause, materiality is the effect.
(e) Because of the arising of kamma potency (you will likely find thirty-two to thirty-five mental formations), the materiality at conception arises (you will find thirty kinds of materiality). Kamma potency is the cause, materiality is the effect.
11. To discern the causes that produce mentality in conception, consider:
Five past causes:
(a) Because of the arising of ignorance (you will find nineteen to twenty-two mental formations), feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness at conception arise. Ignorance is the cause; feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are the effects.
(b) Because of the arising of craving (you will find nineteen to twenty-two mental formations), feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness at conception arise. Craving is the cause; feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are the effects.
(c) Because of the arising of clinging (you will find nineteen to twenty-two mental formations), feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness at conception arise. Clinging is the cause; feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are the effects.
(d) Because of the arising of volitional formations (you will probably f
ind thirty-two to thirty-five mental formations), feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness at conception arise. Volitional formations are the cause; feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are the effects.
(e) Because of the arising of kamma potency (you will probably find thirty-two to thirty-five mental formations), feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness at conception arise. Kamma potency is the cause; feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are the effects.
Three present causes:
(a) Because of the arising of heart-base materiality (discern thirty types of rūpas arising at conception), feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness at conception arise. The material base is the cause; feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are the effects.
(b) Because object arises, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness at conception arise. Object is the cause; feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are the effects.
(c) Because of the arising of contact (with associated mental formations), feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness at conception arise. Contact (with associated mental formations) is the cause; feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are the effects.
As you meditate upon the workings of kamma, you will recognize two significant relationships: (1) because of past causes (ignorance, craving, clinging, volitional formations, and kamma potency), five present effects arise; and, (2) because of the five present causes, the five future effects will arise.
The effects describe the constituents of a resulting experience and may be organized according to the five aggregates model (materiality, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness) or the model of dependent arising (consciousness, mentality/ materiality, sixfold sense base, contact, and feeling).