Take a Closer Look

My teacher constantly reminded me that all the problems in the world originate from the trio of lobha, dosa, and moha. Keep an eye on them. Watching and keeping these unwholesome qualities at bay will allow the wholesome qualities to arise automatically.

The spectrum of wanting

When there are lots of pleasant physical sensations, we may become greedy for more. Watch this greed while continuing to keep an eye on awareness as much as possible. When the wanting is very subtle and not detectable, you are at least still able to recognize the presence of awareness. With an awareness of awareness, it is harder for the mind to get lost in the pleasant sensations. Additionally, having to work at being continuously aware makes it harder for greed to wallow in the feeling.

Is a physical sensation of hunger in the stomach and wanting to eat the same thing? Without mindfulness, it becomes hard to disentangle these two and it seems like the same thing. As you practice more, you will begin to recognize the differences between a bodily function like the stomach growling and the desire to eat. When you are eating something, do you notice the difference between the taste of the hot-and-sour soup and the feeling that it is something pleasant? Hunger happens in the body or materiality whereas that desire to eat happens in the mind. That pleasant feeling is called vedanā.

Lobha entwines itself around an object. Will it wrap itself around an object and then let it go or will it entwine itself around an object and think, “I can’t let it go, I need it near me, I want it all the time”? How strong is this lobha for this object? Let’s say we see a flower growing on a roadside and some people may note that it’s a lovely flower and keep walking while others may look at the flower and think that they want to keep it for themselves and pluck it. Some attachments are like post-it notes while others are more like superglue!

Let’s deconstruct attachment down to its nature. You may be attracted to a particular person and you think you like the person as a whole. What exactly is it that you like about this person? Do you like their eyes or hair? Do you like the way they behave or the way they smile? Are you attracted to a mental quality? Do you have some idea about this person? Are they kind? Do they evoke a certain feeling that you do not get elsewhere? What particular characteristic is the mind wrapping itself around? Delusion can be so strong that we are initially attracted to a particular characteristic but as we are trapped and move towards the object, we come to believe we like the whole thing. Delusion spreads the view that this whole thing is fantastic! Only one or two characteristics reel us in and then delusion ensnares us whole. Check what catches your own mind and notice the experiences you are trying to recreate or re-experience through this particular product, person or experience.

The wish for everything to be okay

Everyone has a lot of craving, but there is one very strong, but elusive craving. It is the desire for everything in life to be okay. This desire for everything to be okay is very strong and powerful, but we are not aware of it because it hits us at the subconscious level. We grow up thinking that everything must work out the way we want it to and become upset when something tiny goes wrong. The mind immediately becomes frustrated at the slightest hiccup. For example, if we want 10 things and we get all of them, the mind calms down without a problem. If we can’t get one or two out of ten, the mind becomes agitated. If we can’t get half, the mind goes into depression. If we can’t get any, the mind may go crazy.

Don’t expect that everything should be okay. The future is open and there is a 50% chance that the things that we do not want can happen to us. We need to be prepared for this eventuality. What is obvious is that we will age, become sick, be separated from our loved ones and die. Dukkha is certain.

Why is there aversion?

Let’s talk about aversion and the gamut of emotions ranging from sadness, sorrow, and fear, to hatred, anger, ill will, and other forms of aversion. Why is there aversion? Why is it happening? Whose aversion is it? Study this emotion as it arises and as it is happening in order to understand its nature. If there is some kind of understanding already about the nature of aversion, it is very hard for it to grow in intensity.

When you are feeling angry about something, study all aspects of this anger each and every time it arises. Observe the feelings, thoughts, and anything else surrounding this anger. Observe the way the mind was thinking before this anger came up. If you become aware only when anger is already underway, or when it has passed, then you might not notice its causes. You need to see the train of thought that came before this emotion. By this we are not talking about conceptual ideas (i.e. “so and so is making me mad”). If you are aware of the mind directly while it is angry, you can see its causes. Pay attention to the thinking. What is it thinking? How does it think when there is anger? How does the mind think in the absence of anger? With such awareness, you will begin to see causes and effects.

So you see, it’s not enough to just to know whenever something arises. You have to reach the point where you recognize cause and effect at work as well. Without catching the causes, the effects will continue to grow unhindered and anger will grow and grow.

Investigate these things and study the mind’s phenomena at work. Recognize the internal chatter every time there is thinking. What kinds of thoughts are there when you are alone? What kinds of thoughts are there when you are with others? How does the mind think in these circumstances? You need to see all of these things.

Zero to one million

There was a time in my lay life when I had been practicing continuously for a year or so and I hadn’t had a major bout of anger for quite some time. I woke up sick one day and I went to work anyway and managed the family business alone. Little dissatisfactions accumulated throughout the day but I didn’t take the time to work through them or clear them out. Later that night, I asked one of my younger brothers (a doctor) for some medicine and he responded dismissively. That was the final straw. I just exploded, thinking, “How dare he talk to me like this?” I kicked a chair across the room as I was used to doing in my younger days. My family was all sitting around the room at that time and everyone looked stunned.

Awareness only kicked back in when my older sister asked, “What’s happening to you with so much meditation?” I then saw the whole process internally and externally. I saw the frightened faces around me and realized how I had disrupted my surroundings. I also saw the whole mental process from a very tiny grain to this explosion. It became very obvious how negative this anger was. There was not one bit of wholesomeness anywhere.

Seeing all of this in one big picture, I made a vow that I wouldn’t let something like this happen again. I learned not to continue along a line of thinking when I saw dissatisfaction arising in the mind. Instead I would switch to watching the feeling associated with that thinking. From then on, I would clear the anger out even when I noticed a little bit of anger. Nothing else mattered except to pay attention to even the smallest hints of anger and I would work with samatha (tranquility meditation) and / or vipassanā depending on the situation. Anger could go from a scale of zero to one and back to zero. I worked with zeros and ones, never letting it accumulate further.

Ask yourself why when you find yourself getting angry at something. Question why you continue to be angry and why you are getting even angrier. There’s fuel somewhere. With many people, anger would go straight from zero to one to one million! Instead of cooling it with water, we’re all dousing this anger with gasoline! So whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, of course it would grow!

Delusion

There are always subtle defilements underneath and delusion is always there. Delusion is there whenever wisdom is not there. It is only in those brief moments when wisdom is present that delusion is not present. How many times does the idea of “I” not happen? You may notice it for a brief moment then delusion comes in to cover the wisdom up immediately.

Moha is darkness and you have a thief’s tiny flashlight. When you turn it on, it will light up a small area in front of you and you’re probably satisfied with that. You may think, “Oh, I know a lot now.” What about everything that you do not notice? It’s vast and you only know what you know, but you do not know what you do not know.

Restlessness

You don’t need to try to restrict or rein in a restless mind. Just recognize that if the mind is scattered, that it is scattered. The fact that you recognize it means that something is already at work. Just know gently without getting lost in the thinking. The mind is like a monkey, going from tree to tree. How easy is it to control a monkey? Not so easy! Trying to control restlessness requires more energy and concentration, and will fuel even more restlessness. Remember that this thinking has nothing to do with you. You just want to know every time the mind thinks and be happy that there is awareness of this mental state. When the right attitude comes in and you acknowledge that a scattered, restless mind is not a problem, then the mind will become more stable.

If you know every time there is thinking, you (the meditating mind) don’t get drawn into the thinking, right? You will get caught up in the thinking when you don’t realize what is happening. Instead of taking the storyline as your object, just know that the thinking mind has arisen. When one new thought has happened, you know. When another new thought has arisen, you know. Many, many new thoughts will arise. Then you begin to observe that the mind that you thought was yours is not yours. The mind is mind, not “mine” or “me.”

Going through roadblocks

It’s natural to have challenges arise in daily life and you may respond to these obstacles in different ways. You may solve the problem in the moment to make yourself feel better temporarily, but that brief relief won’t uncover the Second Noble Truth or the cause of suffering. Remember that there is no flyover or underpass on the Noble Path; you have to go through town with whatever experience that arises. The lessons are all laid out for you, and you have to recognize it as a lesson, a chance to work with the obstacle and come to a realization that can free you. The real benefit of the Dhamma is in having looked at defilements and having understood them, to approach the same tasks with wisdom. We do not stop engaging with life issues. When the mind truly comes to understand something that is wrong as wrong, it will not repeat the same mistake again. Understanding will then mature and you can handle life issues wisely.

We want to realize that it is the mind and its machinations that make us unhappy. Some yogis tell me that they practice mettā to counteract judgments and comparisons but practicing this will not uproot the cause of suffering. Mettā is like a balm but does not take away the wound. It’s more useful when you recognize how painful it is to judge. The purpose of living with awareness is to really know how things really are and to understand. Hopefully that understanding will free us from those defilements. So next time, do not use mettā as an antidote for that because then you won’t see the truth of what is happening.

We should be interested in the relationships within us: the interplay of objects, the state of mind, wisdom, defilements, and awareness. These are the relationships that we want to take care of. People out there and what they are doing are concepts. Moreover, objects out there are not doing anything but minding their own business. But this mind is not minding its own business and getting into all sorts of trouble. This is the relationship we want to take care of and this is what the practice is all about.

Even if we were sitting somewhere and not speaking to or wanting to speak to anyone, we are still relating to our surroundings. Awareness should be observing this relationship. There is no need to fix the relationship that is already happening but we do want to be aware of what is happening. There is a temporary end to suffering and there is an ultimate end to suffering and we have to pay the price accordingly. Some things come easily and are cheaper. We will have to pay a higher price for something more valuable.