EXPERIENCING METTĀ AND KARUṆĀ
Yogi: Sometimes people ask me whether I miss my family. I don’t miss them but I don’t know why. We have a normal family life; there are no serious problems or conflicts. So my question is: Does this practice over time eliminate the craving for affection, the missing of one’s family, and all other affectionate emotions?
SUT: Yes, that’s possible, not because of practising this, but because there is some understanding. When the defilements decrease you can still love people, your parents, your family, your friends, in fact you know how to love them better. There is no more attachment, and therefore feelings like mettā and karuṇā naturally grow. In other words, the defilements decrease and these wholesome minds grow.
Yogi: It feels to me that before it was conditional love but now it’s unconditional love.
SUT: Yes, that’s right. Whenever you experience unconditional love you only give and you don’t expect anything in return.
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Yogi: Some Buddhist traditions emphasize the importance of understanding the relationship between awareness and compassion. Could you say something about the relationship between awareness and mettā or karuṇā when we are resting in awareness?
SUT: When there is no dosa, it becomes possible to practise mettā. This is a natural development; all brahma-vihāras can be practised when there is no dosa. When there is no dosa, when both awareness and wisdom are present, the object of our attention will trigger off one of the brahma-vihāras. It will be mettā in the case of someone who is our ‘equal’, i.e. someone who is in a similar situation to us; karuṇā in the case of someone who is suffering more than us; muditā for someone who is more successful than us; and upekkhā if we are faced with a situation we cannot do anything about.
It is really important to understand that to the extent that there are defilements in the observing mind our reactions to events and people will be unskilful. Wisdom can only arise to the degree that the observing mind is free of defilements and this will enable us to relate skilfully to others. This is why I am more interested in wisdom than in practising the brahma-vihāras. I used to do a lot of mettā practice but no matter how much I practised, I still had dosa, I was still an angry person and anger could get out of control.
I have had some deep understandings while observing dosa which now enable me to deal with it skilfully. I still get angry but wisdom always prevents dosa from growing out of proportion.
DOUBT OR NO DOUBT
Yogi: How can we differentiate between doubt as a hindrance and skilful doubt, doubt which helps us clarify things?
SUT: If the doubt is unskilful, it causes more confusion and agitation; it makes you feel less and less comfortable. A skilful doubt will make the mind curious; it will put it into an investigative mood. Personally, I would not call that doubt anymore; it is more like a sense of adventure: I don’t know or I am not certain and therefore I want to find out.
SAMATHA OR VIPASSANĀ
Yogi: Part of me is still holding on to the idea that I should be practising for strong concentration. There has been a sense of conflict about that because of everything I have heard about how the mind needs to be calm and concentrated in order to have any insight. That has been making me doubt the way that the practice goes here, so I have this unresolved feeling about it.
SUT: To achieve the kind of high concentration necessary for samatha meditation you have to focus on one object only. Vipassanā samādhi does not depend on an object for its stability. Vipassanā samādhi comes from right view, right attitude, and right thinking which, together with continuity of awareness, give the mind stability. This kind of samādhi is called sammā-samādhi.
Yogi: Why did the Buddha instruct his bhikkhu disciples to go to the forest and practise jhāna?
SUT: He did not say this to everybody. He would encourage those who had been practising samatha for years or lifetimes — and therefore had built up a personality inclined towards samatha — to continue and go deeper. Those disciples who were strong in wisdom, in awareness, in effort, or in faith were given practices suited to their inclinations.
When your mind is very agitated, you can of course practise samatha until it has calmed down again. Especially beginners will have to resort to this occasionally. It is simply a skilful means to help us on our path. If you are skilful you can use any means which helps you move towards the ultimate goal of understanding the nature of things.
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Yogi: I heard you talk about vipassanā samādhi but I still don’t understand. What exactly is vipassanā samādhi and how can we develop it?
SUT: Samatha samādhi is gained by focusing on one object again and again. In order to develop vipassanā samādhi, you need to have wisdom. This can be right information and/or what you have understood through your own reflection and experience. Because of this wisdom, the mind neither wants nor pushes away anything. Because of this wisdom, the mind feels stable; there is no reaction in the mind. This is vipassanā samādhi and it is only from this kind of samādhi that insight can arise.
It is absolutely essential that we meditate with the right information (sutamayā paññā) working at the back of our minds and that we apply our own intelligence (cintāmayā paññā). We need to apply these two kinds of wisdom in order to get insight (bhāvanāmayā paññā), the third kind of wisdom. If the first two kinds of wisdom are not well developed, the third will not arise.
If we focus only on one object, the mind cannot think much anymore and the faculty of awareness is weak. What happens is that the mind does not think of unwholesome things, but neither can it think of anything wholesome and therefore wisdom also becomes weak. For that reason, whenever we are applying a samatha kind of samādhi, insight cannot arise. If we really want to develop insight, we need to practise with vipassanā samādhi.
In order to develop any right samādhi, we need to have the right attitude and continuity of awareness. Without right attitude we cannot have samādhi and the mind always feels some agitation. Having a wrong attitude means that there is some liking or disliking in the mind, and that destabilizes the mind. Samādhi means having a stable mind. Right effort does not mean putting in energy, but practising with patience and perseverance.
Vipassanā is a practice you need to keep doing for the rest of your life. You cannot stop and rest. If, however, you use a lot of energy, you will not be able to keep practising all the time. You need to keep in mind that this is a long-term practice which needs to be done steadily. Just do as much as you can, but do it steadily.
If we use too much effort we cannot sustain this kind of practice, and though we go on retreat again and again for many years we may not gain any insight at all. When we do any kind of work over a long period of time we will learn many things about that field of work, but when we engage in that same kind of work only occasionally for short periods of time we will never gain a high level of proficiency.
Vipassanā is a learning process. In order to truly understand something we have to investigate that subject over a long period of time. If we look at something for a short time only, deep understanding cannot arise; our understanding will remain superficial. Since we need to do this practice long term, we have to learn to do it consistently. Right effort means perseverance. We understand that this practice is important and so we keep doing it persistently. Right effort is called ‘right’ because there is a lot of wisdom present.
THE MIND THAT KNOWS
Yogi: When we are not aware, the mind still knows. Can you say something about the mind that knows — even though we are not aware?
SUT: That’s a natural process, that’s what the mind does. In English this mind is often called the unconscious but in terms of practice it is just a process that we either can or cannot be aware of. The process is happening all the time; we are either conscious of it or not.
Yogi: But it is probably still bigger than our consciousness.
SUT: Yes, it is a stronger mind.
Yogi: Is that always the case? Is what we call the unconscious mind always stronger or bigger than our conscious mind?
SUT: It is stronger in the sense that it is a natural, automatic, and free-flowing process. Let’s take the example of pain. The mind experiences resistance, a reluctance to be with the pain. In meditation we will make a conscious effort to be with the unpleasant feeling, whereas the unconscious mind does not want to do that. If the unconscious mind is very strong, it will get into a big conflict with the conscious mind. Yogis will start moving in funny ways on the cushion; they will start swaying or their legs will start shaking, etc. This happens because the unconscious mind has taken over and moves the body to alleviate the pain. The yogis will only be aware of the conscious mind which is trying to sit still and bear the pain. They are often not aware that they move, or they say that the movement just happens by itself. They don’t understand how their mind is working.
Yogi: Will the unconscious mind create a memory when the conscious mind is not aware, and can you later bring into consciousness what you were not aware of?
SUT: Yes, that is possible. Experienced yogis have reported that they have suddenly become able to remember many past incidents of their lives, some of which happened when they were toddlers. They say that these memories had not been accessible to them before.
Yogi: I have had memories coming up from childhood myself. They were unpleasant memories and so they came with very painful feelings. But I am not certain whether these memories are accurate. I am asking myself whether these things really happened to me or whether I made them up. I don’t trust myself in this. Part of me is wondering whether I need to know, part of me really wants to know. Could you say something about this?
SUT: It is not so important whether the content of your memory — the story-line — was real or not. You meditate in order to understand the way the mind works. We can never be sure about the stories but we can always see and understand the principles of how the mind works.
Some people experience a lot of distress when they have old memories come up during meditation. When we are young we are full of delusions, we attach very strongly to our negative experiences and so when such memories come up they have a very strong and painful impact on us. As we progress in our practice, many suppressed memories will surface and we have to learn to let them come up and deal with them.
Unless we ‘clear things up’, unless we really look at all the regrets and whatever other unpleasant stuff that the mind presents us with from our past, it will be very difficult to make any further progress. We need to learn our lessons. There is no shortcut. If we don’t learn our lessons when they present themselves, they will come up again and again until we give them our attention and learn from them. We have to earn our understandings; insights don’t happen by accident.
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Yogi: You have been talking about the awareness as the working mind and viññāṇa as the knowing mind. You have talked quite a lot about the working mind. Could you talk a little about the function of the knowing mind?
SUT: Viññāṇa or consciousness is the mind that arises together with the object. As far as practice is concerned, you can only be aware of it, you cannot use it because it happens automatically with every contact. We can be aware of what is happening because the working mind — which I usually call the observing mind — is present. But you also need to remember that the other aggregates (khandhas) are working alongside consciousness; they always work together simultaneously.
Yogi: Is it sometimes helpful to tune into the viññāṇa? If so, would you call this mindfulness of the viññāṇa?
SUT: Yes, you can take it as an object and explore it. It is necessary that we explore the functions of all the aggregates. How does consciousness work? How does feeling work? How does perception work? How do mental formations work?
Consciousness is rather stupid; all it does is be conscious. The same goes for feeling; it just feels. Perception just recognizes things or events. Why can you remember and recognize someone even if you only saw him once before?
Yogi: Because perception automatically did its job.
SUT: Exactly! It does this whether you are aware of it or not.
Yogi: It seems to be much more difficult to remember names.
SUT: Yes, perception has its own peculiar character. Sometimes it remembers many details, other times very few. Things it is not interested in, it will not remember very well at all.
WITH OPEN EYES
Yogi: You advised me to meditate with open eyes. I find this very difficult and tiring because I am constantly distracted by things, particularly by people moving.
SUT: When you meditate with your eyes open, don’t look at things, and just recognize that there is seeing going on. Don’t look at anything!
Our minds are used to focusing. We are very skilful at it because we do it all the time. The problem is that we don’t recognize that we are focusing. We are trying to meditate but we don’t really understand what meditation is.
Instead of trying to understand how the mind is working, how the mind is paying attention, we go out to those things. We look at the objects and think this is meditation. Since the mind is expert at taking concepts as objects, it focuses on them and we forget what we are supposed to take as meditation objects. So don’t look at anything. Be aware of seeing and be aware of your awareness.
WHEN THINGS ARE GOING WELL
Yogi: Early this morning I had a great lying down meditation and so I did another lying down meditation before lunch because I thought the mind was in a good way and this was a good thing to do. But five minutes into my lying down meditation I realized that I was just trying to repeat what happened earlier on in the morning. I realized that I was not really open to the new experience because I was trying to repeat.
SUT: That’s good; this is something you need to know! You need to recognize your wrong attitude, this is also an understanding, this is also wisdom! It is just as important as knowing your right attitude.
Yogi: Oh that’s great, I can’t lose.
SUT: Make it a habit to reflect on your state of mind not only when things aren’t going well but also whenever they are going well! Ask yourself questions like: “What is happening?” “How is the mind working?” “What attitude is present?” “Why are things going so well right now?” You need to recognize the factors that are contributing to the positive state.
When you do this kind of checking while things are going well, you are adding another kind of wisdom. If you don’t do this, the mind takes the good states for granted. It thinks that this is just a natural flow, that this is just the way it is. When it takes it for granted, it indulges in it, it sort of very secretly starts enjoying it, and then it will try to recreate the same experience. So don’t forget to reflect on the reasons why things are going well!
DEVELOPING INTUITION
Yogi: Is intuition important in this practice?
SUT: Yes it is. It is necessary. Intuition is natural intelligence; it is using your innate intelligence. Where do you think that intuition comes from?
Yogi: I think that intuition is the natural mind, the mind that is not created by ‘me’.
SUT: Actually, there are many experiences and incidents in our lives which feed into our intuition. People whose mindfulness is very continuous have very strong intuition.
Yogi: But intuition can be wrong. Why is that?
SUT: Intuition depends on wisdom and information, on the understanding of causes and effects. Only when we understand all the causes that lead to a particular effect can our intuition be 100%.
NIBBĀNA IS HARD WORK
Yogi: What is Nibbāna? How does it arise?
SUT: The Buddha said that a mind without greed, aversion, or delusion is Nibbāna. In other words, a mind without defilements can see Nibbāna. A mind without greed, aversion, or delusion is a mind full of wisdom and such a mind can understand Nibbāna.
Yogi: Does that mean that we can experience moments of Nibbāna when the defilements are temporarily gone?
SUT: Yes, that’s possible. It is called momentary freedom. The more wisdom we have, the more often we can experience such moments of freedom and the faster our wisdom grows. A mind which gets strengthened in this way will have a lot of wisdom, but yogis often find it very difficult to express this in words.
When we have vipassanā insights, insights into ultimate reality, we do not understand Nibbāna. Do you know why?
Yogi: No idea.
SUT: Because all objects of vipassanā insights are mental and physical processes (nāma-rūpa) and these are conditioned phenomena. As these vipassanā insights become stronger, they will eventually reach a stage called magga-ñāṇa. Only a mind which possesses this level of wisdom will be able to understand Nibbāna.
Yogi: So you see it as a very gradual gaining of wisdom, it is not just a sudden awakening?
SUT: Yes. Experiencing Nibbāna is not an accident, you don’t fall into it. As with everything else, only when all the conditions are fulfilled, the effect will follow. This is the doctrine of anatta.
Yogi: How about people who practised a lot in previous lifetimes? Might they not be able to remember this and suddenly become enlightened?
SUT: Which previous life? Yesterday? Yesterday is a previous life, tomorrow is the next life! Conceptually speaking there is a next life but in terms of ultimate reality there is just the next mind. Every mind is one life. A mind full of awareness, concentration, and wisdom, moment to moment, is fulfilling the pāramīs.
We won’t get Nibbāna for free; we will have to work for it. So never be content with what you have understood. The moment we feel satisfied with ourselves, we lessen our efforts.
LETTING THINGS UNFOLD NATURALLY
Yogi: When I woke up this morning I still felt really tired. I asked myself whether I should stay in bed or get up and practise. I could hear others move and get ready to go to the Dhamma hall and I therefore started feeling that I should join them. I could not make up my mind and began to feel restless. This happens to me quite often and it also brings up doubt about my ability to practise. Could you give me any advice on how to deal with such situations?
SUT: Don’t worry about what other people do or what they might think about you. Just look at your own situation very carefully. Do you need more sleep? Are you really tired? Would it be better to get up to practise or perhaps just sit up in bed? If you cannot make up your mind, just accept that. Simply stay in this ‘space’; recognize and accept what is happening. It is OK to feel indecisive, confused, or restless. Look at this mind state and try to learn from it. Whenever it happens, this is your practice.
Yogi: But don’t I need to make a decision at some stage?
SUT: Thinking that you need to make a decision will only make things worse. If you can just stay with such a mind state and keep observing it, the mind will eventually settle down and make its own decision. Never try to force an issue. Just acknowledge, accept, and keep observing until things unfold naturally.
Yogi: OK, but what about doubt?
SUT: Doubt arises when there is dissatisfaction with the way things are and also when there is a conflict in the mind about what should or should not be done. The best thing you can do is, again, just acknowledge and watch it. Wait patiently, don’t get involved but just keep recognizing continuously what is happening. Continuity of awareness brings stability of mind and understanding of what is happening. This will enable the mind to ‘automatically’ come up with the right decision or solution.
Yogi: Hmm, sounds like a great deal of hard work to be done. I think I will need a lot of practice to be able to really let this process unfold.
SUT: Yes, you have to be patient. Don’t force yourself. All you need to do is to keep practising. Of course you need to be really interested, to be really curious to find out for yourself.
THE BENEFITS OF THE PRACTICE
Yogi: What are the benefits of this practice?
SUT: In a nutshell: You will experience and be able to understand things you have neither experienced nor understood before.
REAL HAPPINESS
SUT: Do you practise meditation because you want to be happy or because you want to understand?
Yogi: That’s a very good question — but I don’t know.
SUT: As long as our goal is happiness there is bound to be some desire to be happy. If there is happiness there is also unhappiness; you cannot have the one without the other. Only when there is true understanding, will there be real happiness. Not the kind of happiness people want to indulge in, but a happiness that arises because you are at peace with things as they are.