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Friday, December 29, 2023

Do Buddhists believe in a soul?

On another forum, someone asked about Buddhist beliefs about the soul. Below is my brief reply, an expanded version follows.

In Buddhism consciousness is believed to continue after death, and can be reborn, and experiences karma (experiences the consequences of one's action) from previous lives. However consciousness flows/propagates as a sequence of cause and effect and is not a property of some constant separate unchanging thing. Like a wave that flows through water is not separate from the water. The first stage of awakening, stream-entry, occurs when you are freed from identity-view - the belief that the self is a thing.

If you watch the activity of your mind you will notice that thoughts, emotions, impulses arise fully formed into consciousness. We don't really see where they come from or how they are formed. Most people recognize emotions are beyond our control. If you try to meditate you will notice distracting thoughts so you don't control your thoughts either. Even if feel like you are using your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to do that come from?

And the sense of self, as an observer or experiencer or as a role in various situations like school (student), work (employee/supervisor), with family (parent/child/sibling), with friends, as a sports fan, a driver of a car, an owner of a house etc etc, or the characteristics we believe we have, smart/dumb, winner/loser, rich/poor, nice, mean, arrogant/humble or the sensations we experience form moment to moment, hot/cold, comfortable/uncomfortable, smells, bodily sensations etc - all these are constantly changing. And the feeling of self is no different from other thoughts or emotions that arise from unconscious processes.

And if you watch the activity of the mind you see that one thought or emotion or impulse leads to another by association, memory, or reason in a chain of cause and effect with no one in control until something distracts you onto a new tangent.

Without things to observe, to see, hear, smell, touch, (or thoughts, emotions and impulses to observe) there would be none of those sensations occurring. There would be no consciousness of them. Consciousness does not exist separately from the things it is aware of - like a wave in water is not separate from the water.

If you look closely you see there isn't a thing that is a self that you can find nor can you find anyone in control in your mind. These beliefs are formed not by religious dogma but by simple observation of the mind.

Here is an expanded version I wrote for this blog.

In Buddhism, consciousness is believed to continue after the death of the physical body and can be reborn and continue to experience karma (the consequences from one's actions) from previous births. However, consciousness flows or propagates as a sequence of cause and effect and is not a property of some constant separate thing. It is like the way a wave that flows through water is not separate from the water. The first stage of awakening, stream-entry, occurs when a person is free from identity-view - the belief that the self is a thing.

If you watch the activity of your mind, you will notice that thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences arise fully formed into consciousness. We don't really see where they come from or how they are formed. Most people recognize emotions are beyond their control. And when you try to meditate you will notice distracting thoughts arising which shows you don't control your thoughts either. Even if you feel like you are using your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to solve the problem come from? The activity of the mind arises from unconscious processes, in Buddhist terminology these processes are part of what is called "the aggregates of clinging".

It might seem like the unconscious mind, the source of thoughts, emotions, and impulses is the self. But this source is not unified, one part might be sending the impulse to meditate while another is sending out distracting thoughts. One part might be trying to accomplish a purpose to gratify the ego while another might be sabotaging it because of fear of the consequences of success. The unconscious mind is not a unified thing, it is an aggregate of different functions.

And the sense of self, as an observer or experiencer or as a role in various situations like school (student), work (employee/supervisor), with family (parent/child/sibling), with friends, as a sports fan, a driver of a car, an owner of a house etc, or the characteristics we believe we have, smart/dumb, winner/loser, rich/poor, nice, mean, arrogant/humble etc, or the sensations we experience from moment to moment, hot/cold, comfortable/uncomfortable, smells, pleasure/pain or bodily sensations etc, all these are constantly changing. The sense of self or the feeling of being is no different from other thoughts or emotions that arise from unconscious processes. All those selves, the student self, the worker self, the family member self, the sports fan self, the smart self, the nice self, the mean self, the happy self, the angry self, the hot self, the hungry self, come from the aggregates, the unconscious processes that generate other thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences.

When you experience how fleeting all these selves are, you see how unreal each is. Each movement of the mind creates a different self - which one is the real one? Your attachment to self diminishes and you suffer less when you experience this.

And if you watch the activity of the mind you see that one thought or emotion or impulse leads to another by association, memory, or reason in a chain of cause and effect with no one in control until something distracts you onto a new tangent.

Without things to observe, to see, hear, smell, touch, etc (or thoughts, or emotions or impulses to observe) there would be none of those sensations occurring. There would be no consciousness of them. Consciousness does not exist separately from the things it is aware of - like a wave in water is not separate from the water.

If you look closely you see there isn't a thing that is a self that you can find in your body or mind, nor can you find anyone in control in your mind.

Yet, the ego, our idea of the self, is the source of much of our suffering. If we are not shown proper respect, or if we lose a contest, or if we experience some misfortune that makes one seem to be a loser, we suffer because those events hurt our self image, our ego is hurt. If you watch your mind carefully, you will see that most suffering has the ego involved. Feeling successful in life depends on getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want.

But the ego is not a real solid material thing, it is an abstract concept. Yet we act as if it is a real thing that we have to defend from insult and injury. The ego is just a product of the same unconscious processes that produce any thought, emotion, or impulse. When someone can see this in their own mind, when they see how suffering is caused by their egoistic emotions and they recognize that those emotions are not chosen but arise from unconscious processes unasked for and uninvited, they understand that those emotions are not truth, those emotions are not an inevitable aspect of reality. Different people in the same situation might have different emotional reactions. Egoistic emotions are not inevitable like some laws of nature. When people realize that egoistic emotions are not reality, that the ego (the self) isn't a real thing, it becomes much easier for them to let go of egoistic emotions and they suffer much less. Recognizing "It is the ego coming from the aggregates" can end a lot of suffering.

The belief that the ego, the self, is not an actual thing is obtained not from religious dogma, but by simple observation of the mind.


Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Friday, November 17, 2023

Identity-view

https://mohitvalecha.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/stepping-on-a-frog/

Once there was a monk who specialized in the Buddhist precepts, and he kept to them all his life. Once when he was walking at night, he stepped on something. It made a squishing sound, and he imagined he had stepped on an egg-bearing frog.

This caused him no end of alarm and regret, in view of the Buddhist precept against taking life, and when he finally went to sleep that night he dreamed that hundreds of frogs came demanding his life.

The monk was terribly upset, but when morning came he looked and found that what he stepped on was an overripe eggplant. At that moment his feeling of uncertainty suddenly stopped, and for the first time he realised the meaning of the saying that “there is no objective world.” Then he finally knew how to practice Zen.

If you want to know what this story really means you can follow the link.

What I want to discuss here is that this story illustrates an important principle of how to let go of attachments and aversions, how to let go of unpleasant emotions.

The monk was upset when he thought he stepped on a frog, but when he found out it was an eggplant he wasn't upset any more.

When you are upset and it is due to a misunderstanding, if you clear up that misunderstanding, you can let go easily and you won't be upset any more.

When people are upset, usually it is their ego that is making them upset, but they don't notice it because it feels like a normal and unalterable fact of reality that they should be upset in that situation. That is the fundamental misunderstanding of most suffering, we think our emotions reflect reality when they are really produced by the ego, by egotistic and egocentric thinking (identity-view, Sakkaya-ditthi).

But if people examine their feelings and see their reaction is somehow due to egotistical or egocentric thinking, then they realize they are being silly, they don't have to be upset. And they can let go.

Sometimes it's hard to see how our ego is hurting us because these ways of thinking are so ingrained we don't even notice them, we just think "this is reality and it is not always nice." 

But if you can examine your thinking and see how it is really your ego that is causing the trouble, you see it was just a misunderstanding (you thought it was an inevitable aspect of reality but then you realized it was just your ego), and you can let go. Then reality is a lot nicer.

It might be hard to understand how it can be so easy to let go of unpleasant emotions just by recognizing the involvement of ego in suffering, so I will provide an example.

One day I walked to the grocery store. Often when I would go out for a walk, I would walk in my neighborhood and it would be a pleasant walk. It was a residential neighborhood, there wasn't much traffic, there were birds singing, and cute rabbits in nicely landscaped yards. But that day I needed to go to the store and instead I had to walk on streets with a lot of noisy traffic, past storefronts on streets with litter. It wasn't very nice. I didn't like it. It was better to walk in the residential area than the business district. Then I recognized it was my ego that was upsetting me. This idea that it is better to walk by the houses rather than the busy streets is egoic thinking. The word "better" is saying something about winners and losers. If you have what is better, you are a winner, if you have something worse, you are a loser. I realized it was my ego that didn't like the walk to the store, my ego (the aggregates) wanted to do what was better and not what was worse. When I understood that, the feelings of better and worse disappeared. I (the aggregates) felt like the walk to the store was not better or worse, just different. It had it's own flavor of familiarity, there were people in the cars and stores, it enabled me to get the groceries I needed, etc. It wasn't all good, but it wasn't all bad ether. Really, it wasn't good or bad. The problem was my unconscious egoistic reaction.

This kind of thing can happen many times a day. We have ingrained in our thinking that if we get what we want and avoid what we don't want, we are successful, and if we don't get what we want and can't avoid what we don't want, it is a failure. If you are mindful, if you watch the activity of your mind in meditation and daily life, and can see how every little twinge of dukkha, every little craving or aversion, every little liking and disliking, wanting and not wanting, is your ego is making you suffer, you can let go each time. It sounds simple, but this kind of thinking is so ingrained, it seems like an aspect of reality rather than something you are doing to yourself. You have to be alert to how you feel and then examine your feelings and see what role the egoistic and egocentric thinking (identity-view) is playing. If you do it, you can remove a lot of gloom from reality.

https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/

As Ajahn Chah described them, meditative states are not important in themselves. Meditation is a way to quiet the mind so you can practice all day long wherever you are; see when there is grasping or aversion, clinging or suffering; and then let it go.

Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Perceptual Shifts Caused by Meditation Ease Suffering

When you look at the image above, you might see it as the profile of duck facing toward the left or as the profile of a rabbit facing toward the right. When what you see changes from one to the other, you experience a perceptual shift. Once you see this shift, you can't unsee it.

There are a number of perceptual shifts produced by meditation and mindfulness that lessen suffering and cause changes in behavior. None of these perceptual shifts have anything mystical about them. They are easy to understand intellectually but they are not transformative unless one sees the truth of them in their own mind. For example:

  • Before you begin a meditation practice, you may see events as the cause of suffering. For example, if someone says something unkind, it might hurt your feelings and you would see the person and their words as the cause of your suffering. But after you begin a meditation practice, you may come to see that such events are not the cause of your suffering, the cause of suffering is your reaction to the event. This doesn't mean you ignore problems, it means you can respond to them with compassion and reason rather than out of control selfish emotions.

There are many other types of perceptual shifts caused by meditation and mindfulness

  • At first you may notice that sometimes you are aware of emotions and other times you keep them bottled up inside yourself - suppressed. Later, when you observe the activity of the mind or when you cultivate metta or bliss, you notice there is something inside you like a switch or a valve or a gate that you can open to let emotions flow or close to suppress emotions. You notice that suppressing emotions makes you feel worse - the larger part of suffering comes from resisting emotions rather than the emotions themselves. So you try to keep the emotional gate open as much as possible, in daily life if you can, and when you are trying to concentrate in meditation or in mindfulness.

    Opening the emotional gate doesn't mean obsessing over every unpleasant emotion you can think of or remember. It means that if a situation arises that upsets you, you relax and you look for the emotion being held in, and let it out, let it into consciousness so you are not suppressing anything, and the unpleasant feeling, the "I don't like" or "I don't want" aspect fades.

  • Unpleasant emotions and cravings at first seem involuntary. Later they seem to be more like habits that you engage in inadvertently and with attention and effort you can give up the habit and stop making yourself suffer by staying relaxed, staying mindful in the moment - neither suppressing thoughts, emotions and impulses nor getting carried away by them - not mistaking the stories they try to tell you about good and bad, right and wrong, winning and losing as having anything to do with reality.

  • At first you think emotions are about reality, for example: in such and such a situation it is right to get angry, later you realize those kinds of stories are not reality, they are just a dream about how to make yourself suffer.

  • At first you get upset over problems, you might dislike or get angry at people and events. Later you realize you cannot learn to stop suffering without actually suffering and so you stop judging people and events because they help you to make progress, and because you feel compassion for people who are themselves suffering.
  • At first it seems normal to be immersed in your thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences. Later, after practicing mindfulness in meditation and in daily life, you notice the distinction between mindfulness (observing your thoughts, emotions, impulses and sensory experiences - observing your environment, the sensations in your body, and the activity of your mind) versus being immersed. You see that being mindful, observing, creates a sense of detachment. You see that most suffering comes from immersion. Later the difference immersion and mindfulness becomes more like the difference between dreaming and being awake. Even later you see that the detachment leads to non-attachment, and mindfulness becomes the new default.

  • At first it seems like your mind is you, you think your thoughts, opinions, emotions, and impulses are yours. You think you are using your mind when you try to solve a problem. Later you see that thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and feelings of self arise from unconscious processes, they pop into awareness unasked for, uninvited. You don't see how they are formed or where they come from. Even when you are trying to solve a problem you don't know where the impulse to solve the problem came from. You realize thoughts, emotions, and impulses are not yours, you don't control them. You don't control your mind so your mind cannot be you.

  • Still later, when you observe the activity of the mind, you see that the moment to moment activity of the mind is a constantly changing sequence of cause and effect. An event or a thought may lead to another thought or invoke a memory that might cause an emotion that might produce an impulse etc. etc. You see there isn't anyone in control, all there is just cause and effect.

  • At this point you may feel like you are just an observer of mental activity without any agency, but later you realize observation creates the observer. Without anything to see, there would be no seeing, no observing of sight. This is true for the other senses, and it is also true for all mental activity. Without thoughts there would be no observing of thoughts etc. etc. So you see there is no observer separate from the process of perceiving, no experiencer separate from experiencing. The feeling of being an observer and the feeling of having no self both arise from the same unconscious processes from which all mental activity arises.

  • Another similar perceptual shift happens if you notice your sense of self, your feeling of being, you will notice that it changes from situation to situation. In school you think of yourself as a student. At work you think of yourself as an employee. When you are with your parents, your children, your friends, you have a different sense of self in each situation. When you think of different issues or topics that you often think about, you will notice you have a different sense of self with each of those. The same is true for emotions and emotional issues you experience. And if you keep observing you will see that the feeling of self is actually influenced moment to moment by every sensory experience, by everything you see, hear, and feel. You will see that every moment of experience produces a unique sense of self. This is another way of seeing that experience creates the experiencer. You see there isn't a separate continuous constant self apart from experiencing/observing.

  • Knowing that observing creates the observer you then notice, for example, when you see, if you just see and stay mindful, and you don't get carried away by thoughts, emotions, and impulses, you don't assume, because you see, that there is a seer, you just see without any observer necessary. When you are fully involved in experiencing, there is no experiencer.

  • Initially you think the ego is you, and is the good guy in all the mental stories the mind weaves, and who is someone who must be defended from insult and injury at all costs. Later you realize the ego is an opinion that is the main character in the plot to make yourself suffer. This disenchantment helps you to let go of selfish attachments and aversions arising from egocentrism and egotism.

  • Surrender, accepting emotions, not resisting emotions, is one level of non-attachment.

    But another perceptual shift goes beyond surrender.

    If you observe the activity of your mind, you may see that the stream of consciousness is simply a sequence of cause and effect. One thought or emotion, or impulse, or memory, leads to another until something sets you off on a new tangent. There isn't a unifying entity to be found in the various independent unconscious processes that produce the stream of consciousness (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, feelings of self and no self). And you may also see how the ego, (the idea of that entity which can't be found generated by those unconscious processes) is involved in most suffering - you understand how suffering arises in your mind - it arises from impersonal processes, you do not choose it or ask for it, it isn't you or yours, it isn't an objective truth. When you see it this way, there can be a perceptual shift, and you see there isn't anyone in a position of responsibility that could be identified to surrender, accept, or not resist.

    After the perceptual shift, you don't feel like there is anything that needs to be accepted because it isn't on you. You no longer see yourself as the central figure in the story to which suffering is happening because the premises on which suffering is based are undermined.

    You suffer less because you see that the old way of thinking, the thinking that produced the suffering, was based on a misunderstanding of the cause of suffering and on a misunderstanding of what the self is.

    You realize you suffered because you felt some responsibility for something. But when you recognize that feeling was based on misunderstandings, you suffer less.

These perceptual shifts come from observing the activity of the mind, in meditation and in daily life, and observing how dukkha arises and fades and how the ego is involved in dukkha (this is equivalent to observing the three characteristics and dependent origination). These perceptual shifts result in less suffering and in changes in behavior. They change one's approach to dealing with problems, and reactions to problems involve less emotional lashing out. They allow people who want to be more rational and compassionate to be so, people who don't desire those qualities will not automatically gain them by making these perceptual shifts although some might change their attitude if they do make these perceptual shifts.

Summary

When you watch the activity of the mind you see that:

  • Emotions are not reality. You don't have to believe the story that says you should, for example, be angry.

  • The situation is not the problem, the problem is your reaction to the situation.

  • When you notice unpleasant emotions and cravings arising, you find you can relieve much suffering by opening your emotional gate - by accepting emotions rather than suppressing them.

  • Unpleasant emotions and cravings that at first seem involuntary later seem to be more like habits that you engage in inadvertently and with attention and effort you can give up the habit without suppressing them.

  • You cannot learn to stop suffering without actually suffering and so you stop judging people and events because they help you to make progress, and because you feel compassion for people who are themselves suffering.

  • Thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and feelings of self arise from unconscious processes, they are not yours, you don't control them. You don't control your mind so your mind is not you.

  • The moment to moment activity of the mind is a constantly changing sequence of cause and effect, there isn't anyone in control, all there is just cause and effect.

At this point you may feel like you are just an observer of mental activity without any agency,

  • But then you notice without anything to see, there would be no seeing, no observing of sight. Observation creates the observer.

  • Every moment of experience produces a unique sense of self. Experience creates the experiencer. There isn't a separate continuous constant self or apart from experiencing/observing.

  • When seeing just see. When you are fully involved in experiencing, there is no experiencer.

  • The ego is an opinion that is the main character in the plot to make yourself suffer. This disenchantment helps you to let go of selfish attachments and aversions arising from egocentrism and egotism.

    Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Tranquility and Insight

The Buddha taught that tranquility and insight are two qualities of mind that should both be cultivated.

Tranquility yields immediate benefits - you should feel tranquil after your first meditation session. Insight yields benefits that accumulate over time. As you observe the mind, you gradually learn how to let go of attachments and aversions.

In my view, tranquility involves two factors: relaxation and quieting the mental chatter. Relaxation occurs when the parasympathetic nervous system is active the sympathetic nervous system in inactive. Mental chatter is reduced when the default network in the brain is inactive and the experiential network in the brain is active.

The parasympathetic nervous system can be activated and the sympathetic nervous system can be deactivated with relaxing meditation.

The default network in the brain can be deactivated and the experiential network can be activated through relaxed concentration in meditation and through mindfulness in daily life. When the mind is focused on something occuring in present moment, the experiential network becomes active and the default network becomes inactive. The focus can be on an object of meditation as in the relaxing meditation in the previous paragraph, or it can be some type of mindfulness practice.

Tranquility is beneficial in itself (most people would prefer to feel tranquil and serene rather than stressed and upset)

And tranquility also assists in developing insight. When the mind is tranquil you do not get distracted and carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, or the ego so you can observe the activity mind much better when the mind is tranquil. Observing the activity of the mind is how insight is acquired.

Insight can be explained in various ways and different people take different approaches to it. My approach to insight is to understand suffering so that one can reduce it as much as possible. The way to do this, in my opinion is to observe the activity of the mind.

In my opinion the essence of Buddhism is that it tells how to bring about an end to suffering. It seems to me the simplest way to do that is to cultivate tranquility and then observe the activity of the mind, see how suffering arises and fades and then use that knowledge to reduce the amount of suffering you experience.

In a very simple way of saying it, insight comes from observing suffering arising and fading which is the same as noticing when tranquility is disturbed and then returning to tranquility.

My approach is similar to that of Ajahn Chah which Jack Kornfield described as:

As Ajahn Chah described them, meditative states are not important in themselves. Meditation is a way to quiet the mind so you can practice all day long wherever you are; see when there is grasping or aversion, clinging or suffering; and then let it go.

My article on Observing the Mind describes how I recommend cultivating insight.

I've written about how fully letting go of emotions requires paying attention to even faint emotions that are barely on the edge of consciousness and bring them into awareness, and also feeling the full depth of emotions. Over time these two skills become an automatic habit and the result is like having the door to emotions entirely and constantly open so that when an unpleasant emotion arises you are just waving goodbye to it as it passes out the door. It isn't exactly pleasant, but the emotion doesn't hang around and cast a cloud over reality either. This is like the way Shinzen Young describes the Bhanga-nana (dissolution) the stage after A&P where, as he describes it, you see arising and fading as simultaneous. The consequence is that those unpleasant emotions don't linger in the back of your mind causing trouble. That comes from bringing them out and feeling them to their full depth. Without all that trouble, without the dukkha aspect of all things causing you suffering, what remains is ... nice.

I don't claim to have perfected this and I don't know if it leads to the perfect 100% end of suffering, but it is ... nice.

A lot of time spent observing the mind and dukkha in particular (in meditation and daily life) is needed to get to this point. At first suffering seems involuntary, then after a lot of observation you begin to feel more like it is a habit that you are doing automatically, so you begin to try to change your habit. You notice that suppressing doesn't really help, relaxing while feeling emotions to their full depth does help, and bringing them out fully into consciousness even if they are just faint inklings in the back of the mind helps too. Somewhere in there can be a lot of very unpleasant feelings coming out so you don't try to do it all at once, you give yourself a rest when you need to - meditation that produces tranquility can help. And emotions can hide under layers of other emotions so sometimes you have to dig through the layers to find what you need to let go of. But in time you get out a lot of baggage and become somewhat desensitized, and eventually bringing out and letting out becomes a habit and you notice your mood is a lot lighter and it's ... nice.

Ultimately, letting go means being relaxed and while bringing into consciousness and feeling to their full depth (in their entirety) feelings that are unpleasant, so faint they are barely conscious, or buried under layers of other emotions, and not getting carried away by thoughts emotions, impulses, sensory experience, or ego, so that they don't take over your mind and body. Being relaxed with a quiet mind while observing the mind makes this possible.


Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Practicing Mindfulness in Daily Life

Practicing mindfulness in daily life is a way of meditating in daily life. It means being relaxed and in the present moment - not being lost in thought or trying to solve problems or worrying about the future or analyzing the past, or being carried away by your impulses and emotions. When practicing mindfulness and you find your mind wandering you bring it back to the present just as you do during meditation.

There are many many different ways you can be in the present moment. You can use a different technique at different times and in different situations.

  • The simplest technique is to just be aware of what you are doing as you are doing it.

  • Or you can notice your breathing like you are meditating.

  • You can notice each movement you make. You can say to yourself a word or two to describe each movement such as "stepping", "reaching", "grasping", "moving", "placing", etc.

  • Or notice or count your steps when walking.

  • You can notice everything you see or hear or feel.

  • You can focus your attention on your emotions. (That can be helpful, but overdoing it, dwelling on unpleasant emotions can be unhelpful.)

  • Read slowly so you can read mindfully.

  • Do puzzles or play word games slowly so you can do them mindfully.

  • One way to practice mindfulness in daily life is to watch the activity of your mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, and sense of self the ego) and the feelings in your body that accompany emotions and impulses. Take note when dukkha arises and observe it. Notice what causes it to arise and what causes it to fade. Notice how the sense of self (the ego) is always changing and is often intimately involved in dukkha. In this way you observe the three characteristics: dukkha, impermanence (arising and fading), and anatta (there is no permanent unchanging self), and you learn to break the sequence of dependent origination by relaxing and letting go at the moment of dukkha arising. Being relaxed helps you notice when dukkha arises because you see how dukkha disturbs your relaxed state, and it help you notice when you let go because you return to the relaxed state.

The benefits include breaking the habit of believing the stories your thoughts, emotions and impulses tell you about reality, that you have to be afraid, or angry or jealous, or this or that. When you are free from those mental habits, you can react to life with wisdom and compassion rather than out of control emotions.

In order to have the presence of mind to stay mindful in daily life you need to have a calm quiet mind. Relaxing meditation is very helpful at producing such a quiet focused mind.

In the artcle Enlightenments, Jack Kornfield explains that Ajahn Chah has a very similar philosophy:

His approach to enlightenment was not based on having any particular meditation experience, no matter how profound. As Ajahn Chah described them, meditative states are not important in themselves. Meditation is a way to quiet the mind so you can practice all day long wherever you are; see when there is grasping or aversion, clinging or suffering; and then let it go.

How Mindfulness Eases Suffering

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn explains:

And the interesting thing — and this is the study — when they put people through eight weeks of MBSR [mindfulness based stress reduction], this narrative network decreases in activity and this experiential network increases in activity and they become uncoupled. So they’re no longer caught together in such a way. So this one can actually attenuate and liberate you a little bit from the constant thinking, thinking, thinking — a lot which is driven, of course, by anxiety and, "What’s wrong with me?" The story of me is often a depressing story. And a fear-based story. We’re like driving the car with the brake on, with the emergency brake on. And if we learn how to just kind of release it, everything will unfold with less strain, with less stress and with a greater sense of life unfolding rather than you’re driving through it to get to some great pot of gold at the end, which might just be your grave.
                                                 

The Four Establishments of Mindfulness

Practicing mindfulness continuously all day (for at least a week) is, for practical purposes, equivalent to the third or fourth stage of awakening.

In the Sattipatthana Sutta, The Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, The Buddha said: "Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for a week, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html

MN 10 PTS: M i 55 Satipatthana Sutta: The Foundations of Mindfulness translated from the Pali by Nyanasatta Thera ... Thus he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects internally, or he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects externally, or he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects internally and externally. He lives contemplating origination factors in mental objects, or he lives contemplating dissolution factors in mental objects, or he lives contemplating origination-and-dissolution factors in mental objects.[25] Or his mindfulness is established with the thought, "Mental objects exist," to the extent necessary just for knowledge and mindfulness, and he lives detached, and clings to nothing in the world. ... Verily, monks, whosoever practices these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for seven years, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge (arahantship) here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning.[28]

O monks, let alone seven years. Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for six years... five years... four years... three years... two years... one year, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning.

O monks, let alone a year. Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for seven months... six months... five months... four months... three months... two months... a month... half a month, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning.

O monks, let alone half a month. Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for a week, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning.

Because of this it was said: "This is the only way, monks, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the destruction of suffering and grief, for reaching the right path, for the attainment of Nibbana, namely the four foundations of mindfulness."

One could interpret this as stating that for practical purposes continuous mindfulness is equivalent to awakening. For practical purposes, when you maintain mindfulness continuously throughout the day you are awakened.

This might sound too good to be true,  but the catch is that practicing mindfulness continuously in daily life is not an easy thing to do and it takes a lot of time and effort and practice to be able to do it.

But there is a very good reason why practicing mindfulness fully during daily life should have such a good effect.

We already have skills we need to let go of attachments and aversions and we use them quite often, but we don't recognize what we are doing in context.

But when you are mindful in daily life, you see how there are some attachments you let go of easily and you see what it is that you do when you let go. And with that recognition and insight, you can apply those skills to stronger and stronger attachments and improve your ability to let go of attachments.

And when you are mindful in daily life you see how there are some aversions you easily let go of and accept those things you don't like or don't want. And you see what it is that you do when you let go. And with that recognition and insight, you can apply those skills to stronger and stronger aversions and improve your ability to let go of aversions.

Continuous mindfulness in daily life would also seem to be a clear way to measure your progress on the path.


Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Friday, July 28, 2023

Letting Go

Contents

Introduction
Hints for Letting Go
More on Letting Go
Experiencing Emotions to Their Full Depth
Letting Out and Letting Go
Returning to Tranquility is a Way to Recognize You Have Let Go
Liking and Letting Go
A Two Pronged Approach
Letting Go and the Ego

Introduction

This post contains hints for letting go of unpleasant emotions and cravings. It is a process you get better at with practice.

Emotions for the purpose of this discussion are emotions that arise in the mind in response to thoughts or situations. This excludes emotions due to purely biological causes such as some types of anxiety and depression. Biological causes include genetics, poor diet, and developmental processes that while learned are, for practical purposes, permanent. For example, stress in childhood can result in permanent changes in stress hormone receptor levels that continue throughout adulthood.

Often with biologically caused non-cognitive emotions there are layers of cognitive emotions that occur in reaction to them. Meditation and mindfulness can help elimnate those added layers. In some cases this may make the non-cognitive emotions seem more like physical sensations instead of a cloud over reality, they become much easier to bear. A similar phenomenon can occur with physical pain, when the mental anguish surrounding physical pain is eased, the pain is easier to bear.

The full list of steps (below) is for stronger emotions. For little things, sometimes you can just be aware of them, let them express themselves, relax, and they fade in a matter of a second or two.

And if you start to feel overwhelmed with a lot of strong emotions, you can take a break from observing emotions.

Letting go does not mean eradicating. An emotion you have let go of may be triggered again in the future. In time, the strength of an emotion may decrease as you let go of it after repeated triggerings.

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Hints for Letting Go

To let go of unpleasant emotions:

  1. Remember the problem is not the situation, the problem is your reaction to the situation. (That doesn't mean you should ignore situations, it means if you are non-attached you can respond with reason and compassion rather than out of control emotions.)

  2. Let out the emotion. Let yourself feel it to its full depth. Notice the physical sensations in your body that accompany the emotion. In many cases this only takes a second and the emotion is over and that's all you have to do. If you are mindful then with experience you will find yourself noticing emotions bubbling up and finding yourself deliberately recognizing you have to let them out, and you do let them out, you experience them to their full depth in your mind and body, and then they fade right away as you expect.  If the emotion or the feeling of stress or tension continues you can go on to the next steps.

  3. Dig through layers when necessary. Sometimes the root of the problem is hidden behind other emotions and you have to dig through one or more layers of emotions to understand the root of the problem

  4. Relax. If you can't just relax, try taking a deep breath, or breathing in a relaxed way. Notice if you feel muscle tension and try to relax the tension. Moving the muscles a few times can help release tension.

    If there are certain muscles that tend to get tense when you are upset, like your jaw, or back, or shoulders, pay attention to those muscles throughout the day and try to keep them relaxed. Emotions express themselves in part through our posture, facial expressions, and tone of voice, etc. They do this by influencing muscle tension. You can't let go of an emotion completely if you have muscle tension caused by the emotion. Sometimes we unconsciously tense our muscles to suppress thoughts and emotions. When that happens, you might not be able to fully let out an emotion until you relax the muscle tension. If there are some emotions that you can't seem to let go of, you might find that relaxing the muscle tension in your frequently tense areas can allow you to be able to let go of them.

    If necessary, use meditation techniques that include both physical and mental relaxation techniques to help you relax. I find that when I completely relax, I do not feel any unpleasant reactive emotions. Relaxing and staying relaxed when you are upset about a current situation or worried about the immediate future can be very hard. But if you practice relaxing, you can get better at it.

  5. Try to lighten your mood. Sometimes that means just remembering not to take things too seriously, it can be noticing the pleasant feeling of being relaxed, it can be metta, or piti (joy), or sukha (tranquil happiness) produced by meditation. I don't recommend pushing metta, piti, or sukha to high intense levels. It can be fun when you first learn how to do it, but I find that becomes tedious and it is nicer just to keep them going at a low level. If you find that any of these techniques have a bad effect on your mood you should cut back or stop doing them and focus more on relaxation.

  6. Let your barriers down and your borders expand. This is hard to explain in words, it is a feeling one gets, sometimes produced by meditation, where one feels like one is merging into their environment or letting go of their identity. It is not necessarily intense like a psychedelic trip, it can be subtle, but it can be part of letting go because when we are upset the opposite occurs. We put up barriers and contract our borders. We withdraw. We feel separate from others and our environment. To let go, you have to reverse this withdrawal, to reintegrate with our environment.

  7. Return to a feeling of non-attachment to self. There are different ways to do this, you can try to drop any type of egotistical or egocentric feeling (feel humble and drop any attitudes or poses of outrage, arrogance, anger, pride, defensiveness, victimhood etc). And if you can feel like you don't have a self, you can do that.

  8. If you are meditating or practicing mindfulness in daily life, return to the object of meditation or mindfulness, and notice if any continuing or lingering emotional sensations fade as you do this.
It can be helpful to meditate or practice mindfulness in daily while trying to be relaxed, with a lightened mood however you choose to do that, with your barriers down and your borders expanded, and feeling non-attached to self if you have a way to do that.

This way you can practice letting go even if you don't have anything specific to let go of. Then if something comes up you have the skill/habit to let go - if you can remember to do it.

Also, it's a way of just being non-attached.

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More on letting go

Steps 2,3,and 4 are often elusive because they involve using the nervous system very differently. Especially for strong emotions when thoughts, emotions, impulses, and ego can take over your mind and body. 

This part of letting go involves:

  • A. Being mindful of the activity of the mind.

  • B. Noticing an emotion arising - letting yourself feel it.

  • C. Interrupting dependent origination before you get carried away. This is where

    • you decide not to let thoughts, emotions, impulses and ego take over your mind and body,

    • or where you decide not to make yourself suffer,

    • or you decide it is nicer to feel peaceful than upset,

    • or that tranquility is more restful and being upset takes too much energy and effort,

    • or you just get fed up feeling like crap and you stop,

    • or you decide to put your inner adult in charge instead of your inner child.

    • or you surrender to reality, you stop resisting facts of reality or facts about yourself that you don't like.

    • When you observe the three characteristics and you see that all mental activity and all things in the physical world are impermanent, not-self (not me or mine), and unsatisfactory, it creates disenchantment and weakens attachments and aversions.

      Repeatedly observing the three characteristics shows you that you can't always control everything, not your mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, ego), not your body, not material things, not other people, we can't always avoid what we don't want and we can't always have what we want.

      Eventually it sinks in, particularly when you are suffering, that attachments and aversions are pointless because we can't control everything and clinging does not help us get what we want or avoid what we don't want. It just causes suffering. Changing our attitude, relaxing, letting go, accepting we just have to muddle through life one way or another, biding our time, not feeling responsible for things we don't control, relieves us of much suffering. And there is really no alternative, the alternative is a delusion and involves much more suffering.

      We can still plan as best we can and try as best we can, but without clinging, we can plan and act with compassion and reason rather than selfish emotions.

      Notice how a slight change in attitude eases suffering and then cultivate that attitude. Notice, particularly when unpleasant emotions or cravings arise, how this attitude eases suffering.

  • D. Relax while noticing lingering emotions and allowing yourself to feel them to their full depth. This is when you accept your emotions, it's when you let yourself feel them and they sometimes fade, it prevents suppression, it's when you let go. After this you can go back to Step C or on to Step 5 or do both. With step 5 rember not be be attached to feeling good all the time.

Steps A, B, and D seem to me to use the nervous system very differently than step C.

A, B, and D involve not interfering just observing, they are passive.

Whereas C involves using the nervous system actively to interrupt the sequence of dependent origination.

In a sense you have to reverse course twice. In steps A and B you observe passively, in step C you take an active part, then in D you become a passive oberver again.

This is one reason letting go can be so hard. You have to switch your mental attitude twice, you have to do very different things with your nervous system which takes time and attention and intention at the same time a strong emotion is likely to take over before you get the chance to do or to think of doing any of that.

But being aware of the process at this level of detail can help, it can help if you understand, are conscious of, what you want to try to do..

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Experiencing Emotions to Their Full Depth

When observing emotions, I find it helps to try to experience the full depth of the emotion in the mind and in the body. This involves understanding the cause / trigger for the emotion and noticing the sensations in the mind/body that accompany the emotion. The "end" of an emotion is not at the end of a period of time, the end is at the full depth. When you experience it all the way to the bottom, the emotion then begins to fade (although it might be triggered again in the future). If you don't experience it to the full depth, it lingers on in time - consciously or unconsciously.

I find it's like various bodily functions, like for example burping. At first you might notice a vague sense of unease, then if you pay attention, you feel the pressure of gas in your stomach, then you burp, and the unease passes, and you feel a sense of relief.

The experience might not exactly be pleasant, but there is that sense of relief at the end. And with it comes the knowledge that finding that bottom is the key to letting go.

With emotions this can change your attitude toward unpleasant emotions and cravings. Instead of something to avoid or push away, they become something to look for, in order to clear them away, to remove those vague (or not so vague) feelings of unease and to feel the relief that comes from experiencing them to their full depth. When you do this, you also see that much of suffering comes not from the emotions themselves but from resisting them, rejecting them. When you stop reacting to them in that way a lot of mental anguish associated with them stops occurring.

How someone would put this into practice would depend on the specifics of the person, the emotion they are experiencing, and their particular situation at the moment. Often it just takes a few seconds to acknowledge the emotion relax, and let go (until it is triggered again). Other times it might require full attention to dig through layers of emotions one hidden behind another. Some people with strong (traumatic) emotions might want to go through that process gradually rather than all at once. Relaxation, metta, sukha and other positive emotions produced by meditation can help counterbalance the unpleasant emotions that arise during meditation. Also it can be a mistake to dwell on an unpleasant emotion without letting go. So how to handle an emotions is a fine balance each person has to work out for themselves and their particular situation.

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Letting Out and Letting Go

There is an intimate relationship between letting go and allowing yourself feel reactive emotions. Reactive emotions are emotions that occur in response to a thought or situation. That may sound like a contradiction - you have to let yourself feel an emotion before you can let it go - but that's the way it works. Otherwise you leave the emotion unexpressed, suppressed, you can't really let go unless you let it out.

It's like when you feel nauseous and burp and then feel better. You feel an unpleasant emotion arising, you intentionally let it out, you feel it, then you can let go, it passes, you relax, you feel okay, and you don't get carried away by thoughts and emotions dwelling upon it.  With practice this becomes a very deliberate, conscious and familiar process.

The reactive emotion might not be gone permanently, it could recur, but for the moment you feel better than holding it in, you don't cling to it, it doesn't make you tense or irritable.

Not all emotions are reactive emotions. Some emotions are due to biological causes such as some forms of anxiety and depression I don't think it is possible to let go of these kinds of emotions. Some emotions are associated with memories of traumatic events. These can be very hard, if not impossible to let go of. When you have an emotion you can't let go of in the way described above, you can sometimes find some relief when meditation produces (and mindfulness in daily life maintains) a quiet, relaxed, contented state which reduces mental anguish - the emotions may still be there but they are more like physical sensations than a cloud over reality. With these kinds of emotions it might not always be helpful letting yourself feel them hoping to let go of them in the way described for reactive emotions, if you dwell on them too much in a certain way I think you can reinforce them the way focusing on pleasure reinforces itself to produce the 1st jhana. But sometimes it can help to try to do a relaxing form of meditation or mindfulness such as breathing in a relaxing way while you feel or think of the emotions - this can help you desensitize yourself to the emotions if you can be relaxed while doing it. Each person has to work out for themselves the right balance between feeling them, understanding them, and not dwelling on them. Not dwelling on them after being open to them, using samatha techniques to reduce mental anguish could be considered a different way of letting go for these types of emotions.

I think of it as a dual approach. Using meditation techniques to reduce mental anguish, to produce tranquility (samatha) and insight techniques to be mindful, notice reactive emotions arising, and let go of them. I suspect this is one reason why Buddha told his students to cultivate both samatha and vipassana.

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Returning to Tranquility is a Way to Recognize You Have Let Go

When practicing meditation or mindfulness or at other times, letting go may involve:

  1. Starting from a pleasant relaxed state, when nothing is bothering you consciously or unconsciously (with experience you can tell when there is something just below the surface that is interfering with you achieving a pleasant relaxed state)

  2. You notice dukkha arising (often by a physical sensation in your body accompanying the thoughts and emotions) and ...

  3. You relax back to the pleasant relaxed state. You decline to get upset. You know you aren't suppressing anything because there is no tension. You remain in the pleasant relaxed state, you are still unbothered.

  4. If you fail to let go, if you can't let go, because the emotion is too strong, you can do the meditation or whatever practice gets you to the pleasant relaxed state.
If you are not in a pleasant relaxed state when dukkha arises, it is hard to tell if you are really letting go because you don't have a clear "unbothered" feeling to return to, to tell you that you have let go.

That's why I think it is so useful to have some way to produce a pleasant relaxed contented "unbothered" state. So you can clearly see dukkha arising, and so you can tell you are letting go. If you are already suffering from dukkha, it's harder to notice new dukkha arising and it's harder to tell if you have let go of it.

I suspect this is why the anapanasati sutta involves calming the body (steps 3 and 4), producing joy (step 5), tranquil happiness (step 6) , and calming the mind (step 8) and gladdening the mind (step 10), before letting go (step 16). And that is why it is recommended to practice all the steps in order during every session.

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Liking and Letting Go

We have opinions about most things. We usually either like something or dislike something. Sometimes we are neutral. Noticing the dukkha aspect of things we don't like is easy. But the dukkha aspect of things we like is also there, wanting something, fear of loss, or regret after a pleasant experience is over. All of these things are unpleasant, they create stress but one can let go of them, relax the stress. Sometimes these are so subtle, or we are so accustomed to them we don't notice the unpleasantness. Whether you notice it or not, between liking an disliking there is a lot of mental activity causing suffering. People can be in a bad mood, without knowing why, almost out of habit because of subtle dukkha they are not really conscious of. But if you can be mindful in daily life, and notice how so much mental activity involves liking and disliking and feel how they both cause suffering, you can start to relax away the tension they produce, let go of the unpleasant reaction in your mind and body, and start chipping away at a huge amount of suffering that you have been doing to yourself without noticing simply out of habit. Noticing the physical sensation in our body that accompany emotions can make you more sensitive to dukkha arising. Try to notice if your thoughts involve liking/wanting or disliking.

As you learn to notice dukkha arising from liking/wanting and disliking, and learn to relax and let go of it, you get better at it, better at being relaxed, and you learn to notice dukkha arising before it becomes too strong to let go of, before it carries you away with thoughts and emotions that distract you from mindfulness. You gain confidence in your ability to end suffering. You see that you can even let go of things that produce strong reactions if you catch them early and keep letting go, relaxing tension, as they pop up again and again (rapid letting go). With enough practice it becomes a new habit, you can change your habit from making yourself suffer to letting go of suffering. Without all those things dragging down your mood, you feel much better.

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A Two Pronged Approach

Meditation and mindfulness practice is a two pronged approach.

Relaxation meditation and mindfulness quiet the mental chatter and that in itself reduces suffering since the mental chatter is often worrying about the past, future, or current problems. Just quieting the mind (tranquility) in meditation and mindfulness in daily life and making that a habit reduces suffering a lot. It makes letting go of attachments and aversions easier and natural - it's nicer to stay tranquil than to get upset.

This is why I tell people they should meditate for the benefits they get from it today, not because of some benefit they hope get in the future. There are cumulative benefits from meditation, but in my opinion if you are not getting tranquility from the first time you meditate, you are not getting the full benefits from practice and the long term benefits will not be a full as they could be.

The other prong is being mindful of dukkha arising and learning to deliberately let go (insight) of attachments and aversions. And this practice is facilitated by a tranquil mind.

This is another reason for cultivating both samatha (tranquility) and vipassana (insight) as the Buddha taught his disciples to do. They work very well together.

Overall there are several overlapping practices I recommend:

  • Meditation to promote relaxation. This also helps quiet the mental chatter.

  • Meditation to quiet mental chatter. This can be sitting or walking etc.

  • Mindfulness in daily life. Quiet the mental chatter, maintain serenity produced by relaxation and meditation, observe the mind, practice letting go.

  • Observing the mind during meditation and mindfulness.

  • Practice letting go (see above, relax, lighten your mood, let down barriers and expand your boundaries) as a generic state of mind, as well as for specific issues that arise in the mind.

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Letting go and the Ego

Our sense of being successful depends on getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want. That means the ego, the sense of self, is bound up in every experience of wanting, liking, and disliking we have.  Observing this in your own mind is helpful in letting go of attachments and aversions.

Because our sense of being successful depends on getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want, letting go of any attachments and aversions necessarily involves letting go of the ego, ie letting go of attachment to self.

Every time you let go of a distracting thought during meditation or mindfulness practice you are letting go of your attachment to your thoughts. Like letting go of any attachment, this is also letting go of attachment to self. When you practice meditation and mindfulness you are practicing letting go of attachment to self.

When the mind is tranquil and there is very little thinking of liking and disliking, of wanting and not wanting, there is very little of self involved.

When there is very little self abiding in the mind, the mind less susceptible to a attachments and aversions. There is no one to be attached or averse.  Egotistical reactions are diminished, suffering is less.

This gives tranquility a kind of inertia. It takes a strong force, a strong emotion, a strong attachment, to dislodge it.

This is an example of why samatha and vipassana are not really separate practices, they are two qualities of mind that should coexist and can be developed together. And it is why, if you are troubled by egotistical attachments, practices that produce tranquility can provide relief.

This is why renunciation and generosity are part of the six-stage gradual training. Letting go of what you like is sometimes called self-denial, it is letting go of self. In a way it's a literal denying there is a self.

Virtue, another part of the six-stage gradual training which includes the precepts, right speech, right livelihood, and right action may also involve letting go of what we like or what we want or accepting what we don't like or don't want, and that can be another form of self denial.

In fact all dukkha, all mental anguish, all liking, disliking, wanting, not wanting, is an opportunity to practice letting go of the ego, letting go of attachment to the self, to things that might be considered "me" or "mine". You have to know what you are attached to, ie ego, in order to let go. When you understand that all dukkha, all reactive emotions, are ego based, it is easier to let go.

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Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Dukkha and Nirvana

Contents

How I Define Dukkha
What Does "The End of Suffering" Mean?
Nirvana
Techniques That Ease Suffering
How to Measure Progress

How I Define Dukkha (Suffering)

I define dukkha (the Buddhist term for suffering) as what I will call cognitive suffering (and is sometimes referred to as "reactive emotions"). This is suffering that arises in the mind in response to thoughts or situations. This excludes physical pain and it excludes mental suffering due to purely biological causes such as some types of anxiety and depression. Biological causes include genetics, poor diet, and developmental processes that while learned or acquired are, for practical purposes, permanent. For example, stress in childhood can result in permanent changes in stress hormone receptor levels that continue throughout adulthood.

Often with biologically caused non-cognitive emotions there are layers of cognitive emotions that occur in reaction to them. Meditation and mindfulness can help eliminate those added layers. In some cases this may make the non-cognitive emotions seem more like physical sensations instead of a cloud over reality, they become much easier to bear. A similar phenomenon can occur with physical pain, when the mental anguish surrounding physical pain is eased, the pain is easier to bear.

In many cases people know when they are suffering, but with wanting or liking (craving) people often overlook the suffering involved in those feelings. Wanting what you don't have, fear of losing something you like, actually losing something you like, and regret when something nice ends, are all unpleasant.

I include in my definition of suffering, (in addition to emotional feelings such as mental anguish, stress, anxiety, worry, hate, anger, jealousy, craving etc.) mental effects such as being excessively focused on thinking about a problem, as well as physiological effects such as muscle tension and other physical sensations such as a lump in the throat, a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach etc.

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What Does "The End of Suffering" Mean?

Above I have described the limits on the types of suffering Buddhist practice and help with. In addition, the greatest freedom from suffering possible would only be attained at the highest stage of awakening, but there there is no guarantee any particular person can reach that stage in a lifetime. There are very few people alive today who would qualify as having attained the highest stage. And even at the highest stage you are not 100% free from suffering. This is called nirvana with residue and is due to the consequences of being a biological organism. Nirvana without residue, 100% freedom from suffering, can only occur after death.

When awakened masters are questioned about emotional displays, they say things like "it's the aggregates that were crying". Other people have said, "You still have emotions but they don't stick in your mind." Or "You still have emotions but you don't overreact."

The eight-fold path is a path to the end of suffering, anyone can walk on that path, but it doesn't mean everyone can reach the end of the path. There is a trail up Mount Everest, but not everyone can reach the summit.

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Nirvana

Nirvana is the absence of any trace of dukkha. Any meditation and mindfulness practice has to address all aspects of dukkha in order for it to produce nirvana. It is not unusual to experience nirvana temporarily. However, permanent nirvana is difficult, if it is even possible for a living person to achieve. While we have not achieved perfection we can try to be non-attached as best we can. Sometimes this means accepting some or all of these aspects of dukkha without judgement or reacting to them.

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Techniques that Ease Suffering

Techniques that ease suffering:

  • Relaxation: After I do a type of relaxing meditation, nothing bothers me. Relaxing is a skill you can cultivate and bring into daily life.

    There are a few items I have included in this list that can have a good effect on easing suffering even though they aren't strictly "techniques":

    • Nutrition - Poor nutrition or the wrong diet can be a cause of unpleasant emotions. In order to get the most out of meditation and mindfulness practices it helps to understand how diet effects your mind and to optimize your diet as much as possible. This may not be the same for everyone but there is a lot of information on the internet on the subject of diet and mood that people can study. Personally, I have found that getting the right balance of carbohydrates and protein is very helpful. And I have found there are effects of diet on clarity of mind (the effect is hard to describe in words this is the best can do) and a tendency to fall into a meditative state naturally which makes practicing in daily life easier (the converse is a tendency to be stuck internally/mentally in thoughts emotions, impulses and ego). And I have found the ability to produce piti (rapture) and sukha (tranquil happiness) are also affected by nutrition.

    • Slow down. Being too busy can create stress. It can undo all the good effects of meditation and mindfuliness.

    • Don't take things so seriously. Sometimes we get caught up in the details of life and forget we don't have to be so intensely immersed in everything (including mindfulness and other practices). Sometimes a reminder to step back, lighten up, let go of the intensity, and relax (relax the body, breathe in a relaxed way, and do things in a relaxed way) can be helpful.

  • Quieting the mind with meditation and mindfulness eases suffering by deactivating the default network in the brain. This effect will carry over into daily life after a session of meditation, but practicing mindfulness in daily life is a surer way to keep it going. When you are fully mindful in the present moment, you are not worrying about the future or regretting the past.

  • Observing the activity of the mind.

    • Notice when dukkha arises, and stop the sequence of dependent origination by letting go without suppressing anything. 

    • Observing the three characteristics, dukkha, impermanence, and anatta leads to disenchantment which weakens attachments and aversions.

  • Digging through layers of emotions.

  • Stop trying to have a perfect moment. I've tried to explain this but I don't know if it will mean anything to other people.

  • When someone practices meditation and mindfulness over a period of years, they work through the mula kleshas - the three poisons, attachment, aversion, and delusion - and they may find that they are much less disturbed in stressful situations.

  • Producing metta or piti or sukha can elevate your mood.

I have experienced various types of feelings/insights where it seems like I don't have a self. I am not sure if these are causes or effects. If you feel like you don't have a self you might think that makes you non-attached to self and would ease all sorts of attachments. However I can't tell if that is true or if is actually the meditation and mindfulness that produces the feelings of not having a self that also produces non-attachment. A feeling or insight is not a technique but I am including it here as a place holder for people to consider. It might be true that the same "amount" meditation will give you the same reduction in suffering (by one or more of the processes described above) whether or not you feel like you don't have a self.

The above techniques can be used individually but produce a stronger effect when used in combination. One can practice relaxing meditation regularly and also use a technique that is relaxing while practicing mindfulness in daily life. When one notices dukkha arising during meditation or during daily life, one can stop the sequence of dependent origination by returning to mindfulness. When one comes up against a particularly resistant attachment or aversion one may find benefit from looking for deeper layers of emotions.

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How to Measure Progress

As you progress along the path of meditation and mindfulness ...

  • You experience less suffering. Attachments and aversions are fewer and weaker including attachments to nice feelings produced by meditation and attachment to awakening.

  • Behavior is less selfish, less self-centered, more tolerant. You consider the other person's point of view. Behavior is based more on reason and compassionate than selfish egocentric emotions. 

  • You are able to be more mindful during daily life

  • You gain more experience of how the practice leads to progress which leads to greater understanding of how the meditation and mindfulness techniques produce results which leads to more effective use of techniques. 

  • You realize that the "situation" is not the source of suffering, the source of suffering is your reaction to the situation. That doesn't mean you ignore problems, it means you can respond to problems with compassion and reason rather than selfish emotions.

  • As you notice more and more progress, you realize you would not have learned to let go without triggers that alerted you to attachments and aversions. You understand without life's "difficulties" you would not make progress, and that changes your attitude toward unpleasantness.

  • You stop judging your emotions. Thinking our emotions are good or bad, or right or wrong, is the cause of much of our suffering. When you stop judging your emotions you are spared all that suffering. That doesn't mean we ignore or suppress emotions. It means we can feel them, understand what they are telling us, and try to let go of them with compassion for ourselves rather than getting caught up in a story and reacting with selfish emotions.

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Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Monday, May 1, 2023

Observing the Mind

In an internet discussion on stream-entry, I posted an explanation of a way to cultivate vipassana (insight) and how vipassana fits into a Buddhist practice of meditation and mindfulness. I have included an edited version of the post below. The Buddha taught his students to cultivate two qualities of mind samatha (traquility) and vipassana (insight). Cultivating tranquility involves relaxing the body and calming the mind, vipassana involves observing the activity of the mind. By calming the mind first, one is able to see more clearly what is going on in it without getting distracted or carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensations.

In this post I am going to discuss what is contained in the early Buddhist texts of the Pali Canon, the earliest recorded teachings of the Buddha. Other writers have different views and different definition of stream-entry. I don't have an opinion on which is better or if others are better at something different. Also when I refer to "suffering" or "unpleasant emotions" I mean reactive emotions which are emotions that occur as a response to thoughts or situations.

One of the marks of stream-entry according to the Pali Canon is freedom from doubt about Buddhist practice. When you have stream-entry you understand how the practice leads to the end of suffering. There are many things people confuse with stream-entry but there are some things that clearly indicate you don't have it, and if you have doubts, you don't have it.

Another mark of stream-entry is freedom from identity view. Freedom from identity view means you don't think the self is a thing. There are a lot of different types of experiences that people have where they feel like they don't have a self. Not all of them are useful. Some are interesting or fun to experience but not really useful or worth maintaining. The ones that are useful involve ending suffering. So if it helps you ease your own suffering then you should have no doubt about what what to do with it, how to use it.

In Buddhism, in the Pali Canon, it is taught that letting go is the seventh and last factor that is required for awakening. Letting go of attachments and aversions is a cause of awakening.

Freedom from identity view also means you are not attached to anything that could be interpreted as "me" or "mine" for example: your life, you body, your mind, your thoughts, your opinions, your family, your possessions, your house, your car, your social status, your ethnicity, your nationality, being smart, getting what you want, winning, being better than someone else, etc etc.

So when you are able to let go of all attachments and aversions that might be considered "me" or "mine" including all those I listed above, you will be free from identity view.

The way to let go of attachments and aversions is also explained in the Pali canon (in the anapanasati sutta). You meditate to calm the body (steps 3 and 4), emotions, and mind (step 10), then and only then, when your body, feelings and mind are calm - this includes producing joy (piti step 5), tranquil happiness (sukha step 6) and gladdening the mind (step 10), you observe the mind. I recommend this type of meditation as preparation for observing the mind:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html

One method of observing the mind is to observe the activity of the mind in meditation and with mindfulness in daily life.

  • Observe thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences and the sense of self. Sensory experiences include, for example: seeing, hearing, touch, smell, hot/cold, pain/pleasure anything you experience with your senses outside or inside your body. The sense of self is explained below where its constantly changing nature is explained.

  • Notice the physical sensations in your body that accompany emotions.

  • Notice how suffering arises in the mind when emotions occur in reaction to situations, thoughts, or memories.

  • It is easy to see that disliking and not wanting are unpleasant, but also notice that liking and wanting are unpleasant. Wanting something you don't have is unpleasant. Worrying about losing something you like is unpleasant. The feeling of impatience is unpleasant. And the feelings of regret and loss after a pleasant situation has ended are unpleasant.

  • Also notice how your ego is involved in so many unpleasant emotions.

  • Notice that your sense of being successful depends on getting what you want/like and avoiding what you don't want/don't like, and so your ego, your sense of self, is involved in liking, wanting, disliking and not wanting.

  • Also notice how your sense of self (identity) is constantly changing. From one moment to the next you might think of yourself as a student, or a friend, or a parent, or a worker, or a manager, or a music lover, or a musician, or a person of your nationality or ethnicity or a sport fan, or an athlete, or someone who engages in a specific hobby, a winner, a loser, smart, stupid, better, worse, etc. etc. Your identity, your "self", is not a constant unchanging thing.

  • Notice there are different ways of experiencing self. Notice how they change from time to time. Some of them include:

    • How you feel about yourself, the kind of person you think of yourself as, pride, shame, winner, looser, smart, stupid, knowledgeable, ignorant, angry, tolerant, happy, sad.

    • The kind of person we think others see us as.

    • Our place in society: child, parent, student, employee, supervisor, member of a team, friend in a group of friends. Our nationality or ethnicity.

    • Notice how your self as an entity that exists is defined by everything we experience, our thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, bodily sensations, and sense of self all define how we view our self. These are all changing constantly from moment to moment. Moment to moment awareness blurs into an impression that there is a continuous self even though that awareness keeps changing from moment to moment so the feeling of self is constantly changing.

  • Notice even the feeling of being an observer as well as any other feeling of self is just like any other thought or feeling. It is not separate from the activity of the mind, it is not separate from experience, it arises into awareness from the same unconscious processes that produce other thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, bodily experiences.

  • Notice that every time your mind wanders in meditation it shows you that you don't control your own mind. If you can't control it, if it is independent, how can it be you or yours? And if you can observe it, it must be outside yourself, it isn't you. Your thoughts emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences arise from unconscious processes unasked for, uninvited, they are not you or yours. Even if you feel like you are using your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to solve the problem come from? You might think you are just an observer but that sense of being an observer, the sense of self, is just like any other thought or feeling, it arises from unconscious process, it isn't you or yours. Buddha called consciousness a magicians trick.

  • Notice your stream of consciousness, notice how thoughts emotions and impulses form a sequence of cause and effect, each one triggering the next. Experience each to its full depth, then let go. Try to see how decisions to move your body are made. Asking where did this [thought/emotion/impulse] come from? Somehow it all seems to function autonomously.

    This is how we get fooled into thinking there is a continuous unchanging self. When we don't look closely it feels like there is a self, when we look closely at the activity of the mind we see there isn't any "self" we can find. We make an assumption that we are in control, we assume it is our will that is the cause, that the self is the will, but when we look closely we see it is just cause and effect operating autonomously.

    And if all is cause and effect, if we can't find a self, then the idea of separation is meaningless, if there is no self, there is no other.

    But the illusion is so strong, attachment to self is so strong, so ingrained in our thinking and behavior, that even though you can see how the illusion forms, you can still suffer from attachments and aversions because of its influence.

    Recognizing the link between the illusion and suffering helps to weaken the attachment, disenchantment with identity view weakens its hold on us. When you observe dukkha arising in the mind, and see how identity view: the ego, the sense of self, the sense of self importance, egocentricity is involved, and how getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want is central to our belief that the self is a success or failure, that helps to weaken the attachment.

  • Notice that when you relax, emotions fade, suffering fades, without anything being suppressed. Suffering, mental anguish, is a state of mind, when the mind/body is relaxed it is not in a state of anguish. If you're not sure how to relax, try taking a deep breath, or try breathing in a way you find relaxing. Also try to notice if there is muscle tension in your body and move those muscles a few times to release the tension. You can also do relaxing meditation to help relax and let go of emotions. If you can't relax, try metta or piti or sukkha.
When you observe these things, you are observing the three characteristics (suffering [dukkha], impermanence, and not-self) which helps you to develop detachment that leads to letting go. And when you do let go, when you relax instead of letting thoughts, emotions, and impulses take over your mind and body, you are interrupting the chain of dependent origination.

By practicing this way, you can learn to gradually let go of attachments and aversions and this leads to the end of suffering. In the Pali Canon (in the Satipatthana Sutta) it is also clear that after awakening you still have to practice meditation and mindfulness in daily life - calming and observing the activity of the mind and letting go of reactive emotions. When the Buddha taught mindfulness he says (paraphrasing) "a monk dwells practicing like this..." and goes on to describe meditation and mindfulness techniques. The Buddha and the monks lived practicing meditation and mindfulness. It becomes part of life, it is not something you can stop after some attainment. Buddha never stopped practicing meditation and mindfulness in daily life or ever indicated a stage during life when you could stop it.

By "the end of suffering" I mean you do not suffer from reactive emotions. You are experiencing nibbana with residue. The "residue" is due to the fact that you are still in a body. You will feel pain and unpleasant sensations. Some emotions like some kinds of anxiety and depression are caused by biological factors that mental techniques cannot eliminate. However, when you are non-attached, you will find you have a quiet contented feeling that you dwell in during which there is no mental anguish. In this situation, in the absence of mental anguish, pain is much easier to bear and those emotions that remain seem more like physical sensations than a cloud over reality, so they are much easier to bear also. Whether it is possible to master this to 100% perfection is a matter of controversy. My view is that it might be possible for some people so I don't rule it out. Most people today do not practice the full teaching of the Buddha and it is not realistic to expect to attain 100% perfection in that situation. But even short of 100% perfection, this practice is immensely beneficial to well-being.


Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.