Whereas each of the four path knowledges is experienced only once,331 the fruition knowledges can be repeated many times. Meditators practice to reenter and remain absorbed in states that have nibbāna as the object. Just as a meditator can develop mastery with mundane jhānas, the fruition attainment can also be repeated, mastered, and maintained for a long time. These attainments, called supramundane jhānas, provide extraordinarily pure resting states for consciousness.
TABLE 18.2
Cognitive Process that Takes Nibbāna as Object
16. The knowledge of reviewing. The mind will emerge from the fruition attainment, reflect upon it, and analyze the mental factors of the realizing consciousness. This reflection is not an analysis of nibbāna itself; this reflection reviews the cognitive process that realized nibbāna. It is a natural reviewing process that spontaneously follows the path and fruition moments as the mind tries to comprehend this unusual event. It may be as basic as the reflexive inquiry: What was that? The mind knows that what just occurred was not of the same order as anything previously experienced in the realm of mind and matter, and therefore it will naturally reflect. But minutes, hours, or even days after the path and fruition knowledges were attained a meditator with knowledge of the process might use a systematic structure to review the experience in five ways.
(a) Review the path knowledge. Review the process that led to the cessation of conditioned formations and consciousness.
TABLE 18.3
Schedule of the Removal of Defilements
(b) Review the fruition knowledge. Review the bliss and peace experienced in association with the attainment; recognize that this is an experience of freedom. Specifically, you should review the mental factors that arose in association with the consciousness of realization. If cessation occurred while contemplating sensory phenomena, there will be thirty-seven mental factors (thirty-four wholesome factors involved in sensory processes plus the three factors of abstinence in the noble path—right speech, right action, and right livelihood). If cessation occurred while contemplating jhāna factors, the number will vary depending upon the relevant jhāna (this will include mental factors present during jhāna, plus the three factors of abstinence in the noble path—right speech, right action, and right livelihood). Follow the same procedures discussed in chapter 13 to discern mind-door cognitive processes.
(c) Review nibbāna. Gain the certainty that this was not an imaginative, conceptual, or speculative knowledge. It was not a thought about nibbāna, concept of nibbāna, or desire for nibbāna. Instead, consciousness released its habitual reliance upon conditioned psychophysical processes and directly realized nibbāna.
(d) Review the defilements that have been destroyed.
(e) Review the defilements that have yet to be destroyed. The review of defilements that have been destroyed and have yet to be destroyed can be accomplished by reviewing the unwholesome mental factors as discerned in meditation instruction 13.5. After a genuine path attainment, certain unwholesome factors will cease to arise in the meditator’s consciousness. The mind will not conjure them, not even when prompted. Then, throughout your daily life, continue to notice the defilements that still arise and which ones never again trouble you. Know what requires further purification.
WHAT TO DO NEXT?
After an authentic cessation experience, you may wonder what to do next. Do you just continue to meditate the same way as though nothing happened? You will have a few choices to make.
For some meditators, both jhāna and insight practices feel dreadfully coarse now, and there is no wish to engage in them until the experience of nibbāna is repeated or the sublime bliss subsides. During this period, you may gain mastery in this supramundane experience. Apply specific resolves to remain in the fruition attainment for one hour, two hours, or longer. Thoroughly and repeatedly experience the fruition attainment of stream-entry. Although jhāna-like, the realization of nibbāna is not a concentration state. Supramundane attainments are the result of vipassanā and occur through dispassion toward arising and passing phenomena, not fixation upon a chosen object.
During the Buddha’s life, there was an occasion when many monastics confidently declared their realization of liberation. This caused a stir in the nearby town; people did not know if they were boasting false attainments, deluding themselves, or expressing genuine realization.332 The Buddha acknowledged that some monastics had indeed realized final liberation and that others had not, but either way, the meditator should practice to be sure that no lust, hatred, or delusion enters the mind. He likened practice to the care that a man would give to a wound inflicted by a poison arrow. After the arrow had been removed and the poisonous humor expelled by a surgeon, the man must take good care of his health, eat suitable food, wash and anoint the wound, and avoid contamination from dust and dirt that could cause infection. In short, he should take care of the wound so that it will thoroughly heal. Likewise, if you believe that you have had a profound experience of nibbāna and that the arrow of suffering has been removed, it is essential to be diligent and maintain your practice. If you don’t maintain your concentration and protect the wisdom, then any remaining lust, hatred, or ignorance might invade your mind. Even after powerful insight, enlightenment experiences, or profound transformations, we diligently protect the mind with mindfulness.
ASPIRING FOR FURTHER ATTAINMENTS
After the attainment of stream-entry you may wish to commit to further your practice and wear away the fetters of greed and hatred. With a strong resolve to realize the second stage of enlightenment, continue to contemplate mental and material processes as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not-self. Practice vipassanā in the various ways presented in chapter 17. The quality of attention might fall back to the third or fourth knowledge, in which primarily the middle of the objects is perceived. You may feel as though your ability to see phenomena is no longer sharp; the arising and perishing phases may not appear as crisply nuanced now. Although lingering qualities of joy, buoyancy, and energy may suffuse your mind and body with a sense of well-being, practice can feel coarse. By contemplating the impermanent, suffering, and not-self characteristics again and again, the momentum of dispassion will gradually increase until it draws the mind through the same sequence of insight knowledges. Although they will be generally the same insights into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self, dispassion will deepen and the path moment purifies the mind at a deeper level. When a second path experience occurs, it radically weakens the fetters of greed and hatred such that these defilements can hardly arise again; only the underlying tendencies toward desire and ill will remain.
Similarly, when aspiring for the third and fourth stages of enlightenment, deeper insight into the impermanent, unsatisfactory, and selfless nature of all conditioned things will heighten dispassion and propel the mind yet again through the sequence of knowledges. Each level of path attainment will uproot the corresponding fetters and purify the mind.
The sequential training in virtue, concentration, and wisdom expressed through these sixteen knowledges, ten fetters, and four stages of enlightenment may inspire, humble, or intimidate readers. If the progression appears daunting, don’t worry about memorizing every detailed list, sequence, and formula. Attainment occurs with the ending of the fetters, and peace is known through a purity of release. Enjoy the direct and precise nature of this practice. It will guide you to an intimate and unmistakable encounter with reality. This training has been undertaken by generations of meditators, and it leads directly to a sublime, peaceful, and ultimate awakening.
CHAPTER 19
Of Lasting Benefit: Practice in the
Midst of Daily Life
Lose the greed for pleasure.
See how letting go of the world is peacefulness.
There is nothing that you need to hold on to,
And there is nothing that you need push away.
—SUTTA NIPĀTA333
THE TELEPHONE RANG. An eager salesman was promising me that
I would gain “the peace of mind I deserve” if I just purchased an extended warranty for my car today. We might wish that peace could be so easily acquired, but peace won’t be found through insurance policies, wealth, or relationships. Until you know and trust an effective route to authentic happiness and peace you may spend a vast amount of your life indulging in serial joys and momentary comforts. You might seek beautiful sights to store in memory for later review or cultivate an array of friendships in order to feel warmly loved throughout your life. Even though you know that attachment to changing phenomena is suffering, you might still find yourself spellbound when the first tulips open in your springtime garden, swooning over the taste of buttered mashed potato, or racing to capture a spectacular sunset view on film. Most people seek security and satisfaction by consuming, possessing, and preserving beauty and pleasure.
The Buddhist tradition recognizes the deeply conditioned characteristic of craving, and it also demands that we take responsibility for our perpetuation of it. There was an instance when a diligent disciple of the Buddha, though living a virtuous meditative life, distracted himself by admiring and smelling the blooming lotus flowers in a nearby pond. A celestial being (deva), endeavoring to steer the monk from this lingering attachment to sensory pleasure, admonished him to refine his restraint. Realizing that even innocuous pleasures such as smelling flowers can perpetuate craving and clinging, the monk welcomed the deva’s reprimand and invited him to intervene anytime. But the deva refused to watch over him to correct his faults, insisting that the monk must take responsibility for himself.334 Likewise, we must each take responsibility for our own desires, for the hindrances that obsess our minds, for the restlessness and distraction that plague attention, and for the consequences of our actions. It is not that sensual pleasures are evil; they simply do not have the capacity to satisfy us. Genuine peace occurs when we relinquish every conceivable attachment. As the Buddha taught, “Dry up the remains of the past, and have nothing for the future. If you do not cling to the present, you shall go from place to place in peace.”335
PRACTICE AT HOME
Some readers might wonder how this methodical approach could relate to the struggles of daily life and may doubt if it is even possible for laypeople to do this practice. Actually it is quite possible and, surprisingly, not so very difficult. But it does require consistent effort, clear intention, and conducive conditions. Decide that you really can take time for practice, then sit down and begin. Turn off the radio, silence your phone, log off the internet, and get your buttocks on the cushion and your attention in the present moment. Just as the hen sits on her eggs until the chicks are ready to break out from the shell, you must diligently cultivate concentration and insight until you experience the fruit of release.
When I was first introduced to this systematic meditative training, replete with detailed exercises and explanatory charts, I felt overwhelmed. Only after slowly engaging with the practices, in multiple retreats over the course of several years, did the path appear welcoming, like a series of well-placed steppingstones and bridges, a trail that others have traveled before me. It is a method that is both economical and elegant—a direct path to nibbāna. The liberating teachings are practical—they work—and are worth the effort and diligence needed to maintain them.
Any sequential system, defined by stages and levels, holds the danger of triggering ambition for success, fear of failure, or unrealistic expectations. Although I frequently hear meditators blame the systematic nature of the practice for their perceived lack of progress, the fault is not inherent to a structured approach. The problem usually lies in the defilements. Meditators must unravel any unwholesome tendencies toward conceit, impatience, anger, arrogance, indolence, or doubt. If you fail to attain jhāna after reading this book and trying these exercises, don’t despair—most people need an intensive retreat that is specifically dedicated to jhāna training. If the nuances of the ultimate realities bewilder you, don’t worry—most people need the guidance of teachers who are trained in these rigorous practice methods. If you have not clearly discerned causal links between lifetimes, don’t give up—many people need to deepen concentration again and again in order to successfully discern these subtle processes.
The stages that are presented in a linear format in this book are often practiced in alternation. You might apply concentration to insight, for instance, and then use insight to inform deeper concentration. If worldly responsibilities prevent you from establishing the seclusion needed for absorption, don’t be discouraged—with or without the seclusion of jhāna, great benefits accrue through this meditation practice. It is, however, a rigorous training that will require renunciation, diligence, and dedication.
If you are concerned that undertaking a systematic approach will cramp your personal style, understand that I deliberately emphasized an exhaustively methodical approach in this manual in order to present a thorough training guide, to encourage the establishment of a strong foundation, and to articulate a clear path of awakening. Although the rigorous systematic style can be annoying at times, it is simply an attempt to curtail the common tendencies to indulge personal idiosyncrasies, preferences, conceit, or laziness. A sloppy training can thwart success. You will not, however, be stuck doing systematic exercises for the rest of your life. Once you have established deep concentration, discerned ultimate realities, and tasted the liberating potential of insight, you will be well endowed with the skills to playfully and intuitively moderate and explore life according to the needs, conditions, and interests of the moment.
How successfully you progress through a systematic method and how well you maintain the practice in daily life will depend upon the way that you choose to live. A frequently recited Buddhist verse encapsulates the most basic instructions: “Do no evil, engage in what is wholesome, and purify your mind; this is the teaching of the Buddhas.”336 Throughout each day, innumerable opportunities invite compassionate, skillful, and wise action; your life provides many occasions to abandon harmful attitudes and actions, and to cultivate wholesome states. Every moment presents an opportunity to bring mindfulness and wisdom into your responses to living. How you engage with your daily life will affect your quality of attention and facility with meditation.
You can create a lifestyle that supports your interest in concentration and insight. Notice what your attention is drawn to while driving, eating, waiting, or relaxing. Do you find ease in tranquility and calmness or do you fill the quiet moments with entertainments and fantasies? If you are often seduced by television and movies, or become frantic with work and relationship dramas, it may be difficult to quiet the mind and see clearly. If you come home tired and crave the passive entertainment of a TV movie, you might encourage your discipline by recalling the disciple of the Buddha who pined away an entire night of meditation lamenting that he was missing a festival.337 Although the Buddha’s generation did not contend with video games, television, telephones, or computers, they too had to overcome the temptation of sensual pleasures and the fruitless quest for comfort. Every single day you make choices about how to spend your time, how to direct your mind, and how to live. If you value clarity, don’t drink. If you value truth, don’t lie. If you value peace, don’t intend harm to others. Whatever your family, work, economic, and social responsibilities may be, you have an enormous influence over how you engage with your own life’s conditions. What kind of life are you creating for yourself? Is it the life that you want to live?
How Did I Spend Today?
For many years I asked myself a simple but explicit question each night before I went to sleep: Did I spend today well? Gradually and consistently bring your life into full alignment with your deepest values by sparking a daily inquiry into how you are living. Some days the inquiry may stimulate considerations of virtue, morality, and precepts as you ponder the ethical implications of choices you made. Sometimes the reflection may bring joy when recalling spontaneous acts of compassion and generosity. Sometimes urgency will aris
e, with resolve to not waste this precious life with the trivial accumulation of temporary comfort, social status, or the laziness that permits the mind to wander into fruitless worry or daydreams. Sometimes the question will invite hidden lessons and valuable insights to emerge. By asking a general reflective question, you steer the course of your development; then, you won’t look back disappointed at the time of your inevitable death wondering, “What did I do with this life?”
Every endeavor demands some sacrifice—by choosing one item on a restaurant menu, you implicitly abandon all the other delicious dishes. Although many meditators can successfully attain jhāna in a retreat structure, fewer people are willing to alter their daily lifestyle to permit regular absorption. Even after attaining deep states on retreat, most people need some basic conditions to maintain access to jhāna in daily life, including virtuous action, honesty, avoiding television and agitating entertainments, a minimum of two hours a day in meditation (preferably more), and the genuine desire to sojourn, from time to time, in the bliss of seclusion. This requires a considerable degree of commitment and effort, but it is a remarkably small sacrifice to make for the fruits that this practice provides.
Daily Insight
Although it can be challenging to consistently see the subtleties of mind and matter during active daily life, you can certainly carry much of what you have learned through intensive meditation into your awareness of activities, choices, emotions, thoughts, and events. You can experiment with integrating the understandings and practices gleaned from your in-depth explorations into your life.
Wisdom Wide and Deep Page 45