August 2004 Edition
"Brethren,
be earnest, mindful, virtuous and steadfast in your aim.
Guard ye your thoughts." - DN ii 120
The new edition of our course
January 2005 sees the release of the new version of our Meditation Course and registration is now available. The main text is based on the tried and tested format that has been offered since 1997 and serves as a practical introduction to samatha (tranquility) and vipassana (insight) techniques from the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. Intended primarily for beginners, the 90 day course is also suitable for experienced meditators who wish to explore different aspects of the tradition. The emphasis is on building a sustainable and balanced meditation practice. The course software and the support site have been redesigned to improve user-friendliness. The CD version includes newly recorded guided meditations. The course is led by Andrew Quernmore, an experienced meditation teacher based in England.
Registration details are available at:
Distractions in Breath Meditation
A course participant writes:
I understand clearly the need to note any distraction and return to the breath. There seem to be various types of distractions though that are more complicated. For example, what about external distractions you can't do much about? Sometimes during sittings perhaps my neighbor will decide it's time to trim his bushes, or the milk truck will tour the neighborhood with it's loudspeakers blaring. Even if these sorts of distractions are intrusive and persistent, is it better just to try to hold onto the breath for dear life, trying to ignore what's there? What if that's the only time one has available to meditate? Is it best just to do what we can under whatever conditions are present?
I also have a postural issue: my head tends to droop forward. This isn't a problem for me only in meditation. I do tuck my chin slightly, thrust the skull towards the ceiling, etc. Trouble is, apart from creating lots of physical tensions, it pretty quickly starts feeling like a mindfulness of skull position rather than breath. On the other hand, to not attend to it just means sitting in a terrible posture. Another distraction. Then, as I was counting today, I realized sometimes even this feels like a distraction of sorts. I mean, I find it much more difficult to focus on the sensations of breath when I'm having to count between them, and I find I'm dealing with the counting as much as trying to watch the breath. When I'm just observing the bare breath the counting often carries into the breath itself, so the whole exercise ends up being sort of like count management. With counting it actually takes me a lot longer to get concentrated ...in fact, I don't usually settle in at least until the third part.
Andrew replies:
What might be termed 'environmental distractions' - external sounds, smells, changes in temperature, etc., only become distractions from our meditation object when we choose to allow them to take precedence over it. I'm not being critical, just remarking that, of themselves, they are like most other phenomena that have been sensed - substantively no different from a persistent thought or a mental image. Like any common mental distraction, they should generally be recognized as something that is different from the object we have committed to observe for the finite period we have available. At the beginning, it is certainly difficult to compete with environmental phenomena like loud sounds and extremes of temperature, but little by little we shall develop sufficient concentration to maintain more focus on the simple meditation object we have chosen. We can never create the perfect environment for meditation; there will always be stimuli which can potentially cause our attention to wander. It is skilful, though, to make any physical changes that are possible to minimize any very obvious obstacles. In a very noisy environment, for example, there is nothing to prevent the new meditator from using ear plugs if that helps. As the meditator comes closer to one-pointedness upon the meditation object, then any 'props' he or she has been using can gradually be withdrawn. Many new meditators fantasize about how easy things would be if they could just exit from the city and head off to the hills to meditate in a meditation hut. Trust me, there are just as many - if not more - things there that can become distractions. The quietest meditation hut will have its strange creaks and draughts; the most unspoiled forest may have snakes, leeches and lots of biting insects for the meditator to get used to. Wherever we are, the same discipline is required. The basic problem of distraction is an attitudinal one. It is not something that can be solved instantly - even with the strongest willpower - but if we are gentle and treat the distractions lightly (give them a friendly nod, as you continue past them) we will gradually find them to be less of a hindrance. Don't make them an enemy; returning to the object is a gentle pursuit, not a battle.
The distraction of physical discomfort can first be addressed by making any sensible changes to your posture that seem necessary. There is absolutely no obligation to even attempt a traditional meditation posture. You can sit in a chair, use a meditation stool, pad yourself with firm cushioned support - use whatever is necessary to find a position that is going to be reasonably comfortable and keep you alert for a moderate period of time. Meditation training is primarily a mental activity; it really does not matter at all how we look while we are practising. Try thinking of how you approach other tasks where you need to remain fairly still for a period of time. How do you choose to set up your physical posture to remain comfortable during them? Perhaps you could adopt the same position for your meditation practice, for a while?
As I remarked earlier in the course, physical discomfort during our sessions (once we have paid attention to any musculoskeletal difficulties) is largely mentally created. The mind goes looking for distraction and can usually quite easily find it in a twinge here and an ache there. We need to take a balanced approach: it is sensible to consider what can be done to make our sittings more comfortable, but it is not sensible to allow our sessions to become a war against minor discomfort that is mind-made. Learning to discriminate between real physical discomfort (about which we can and must do something) and mind-made distraction (for which we already have a strategy of notice and return) is one of the most useful breakthroughs that a meditator can make.
Any new practice will have its share of 'built-in' distractions. The very novelty of adopting a new technique or changing our habits and how we sit gives us plenty of opportunity to move away from the meditation object. Working with change, like this, holds some deep lessons of its own if we watch our reactions to it. If, again, we keep that lightness of approach - "there you go again; you're not the object, back I go" - we will spend less time fighting distraction and more time observing our chosen object. We have committed to working in a certain way for a fixed period. If we are determined to give it our best shot every time, the mind will become less tenacious in seeking out new ways to drag us away from our chosen activity.
With the breath object, one useful antidote to many forms of distraction that can arise is to try to become more interested in the characteristics of the breath itself. Treat absolutely every inhalation as a unique experience; observe it as precisely as possible.
With metta
Andrew
The Safeguard
of the Canonical
Texts (The Buddha was once staying at Bhoganagara,
near the Ananda Shrine, and spoke of the tests that should
be applied to any claims about the Doctrine.)
Herein, bretheren, a brother might say thus : "Face to face, friend,
I heard this from the Exalted One : face to face with him I received it,
thus : 'This is the Norm. This is the Discipline.
This is the message of the Master.' " "At such and such a residence
are dwelling a company of brethren, and among them an elder, a leader of
men ; and face to face with
them did I hear (thus and thus) ..." "At such and such a residence are dwelling
elder brethren, of wide general knowledge, who have received the teachings, who
have learned the Discipline by heart, who have learned
the Discourses by heart. Face to face with those elders did I hear
and receive this, thus: 'This is the Norm. This is
the Discipline. This is the Master's message.' " "At such and such a residence dwells a single
elder, of wide general knowledge, who has received the teachings, who has
learned the Norm by heart, who has learned the Discipline by heart, who has
learned the Discourses by heart ... Face to face with
that elder did I hear this ... " Well, brethren, you should neither joyfully
accept that brother's words, nor should you reject them : but without either
joyful acceptance or utter rejection you should carefully take those words, word
by word and syllable by syllable, and lay them side by side with
the Sutta and compare them with the Vinaya. And if they do not conform
to the Sutta, do not tally with the Vinaya, - then you may go to this conclusion
: "Surely, this
is not a saying of the Exalted One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One.
It has been wrongly grasped by this
brother." Thus saying, brethren, you should reject it. But if those words do conform to the
Sutta and do tally with the Vinaya, you may go to this conclusion : "Surely,
this is the saying of the Exalted One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened
One. Rightly grasped has it been by this brother." So
saying, you should accept it as such, brethren.
(condensed from Anguttara Nikaya ii 167)
Our Buddhist Heritage
For the past few months, this Newsletter has been exploring a little of the history of Early Buddhism. We conclude our series here. Earlier chapters are available by following the Newsletter link on our website.
Early Buddhism
by T.W. Rhys Davids (1843-1922)
CHAPTER 7
ADOPTED DOCTRINES
(Continued) - COSMOGONY, WHEEL OF
LIFE
The Kalpas and World-Systems. - Another Indian idea had a great influence on the Buddha's view of life. Just as the doctrine of Karma brought every Indian thinker face to face with immeasurable periods of time, in the past more especially, but also in the future; so the views as to the world brought him face to face with immeasurable realms in space. In the oldest Buddhist texts it is taken for granted that there are ten thousand world-systems, in which expression ten thousand merely means an incalculably large number. They are arranged throughout space in groups of three; and are subject to a continual process of disintegration and evolution. The time occupied by one such process, that is from the commencement of the dissolution to the completion of the restoration, was called a Great Aeon, or Maha Kalpa. And each Great Aeon was divided into four Incalculables, Asankheyyas. In later books the details are worked out with a wealth of numbers running into millions. In the older texts we find only the general scheme still quite vague in its immensity. The scheme has not been traced in pre-Buddhistic writings; but, for reasons too long to specify here, I have no doubt it was, in its essential points, older than the rise of Buddhism.
I venture to think that these ideas of the immensity of time and space, of the insignificance, compared with the universe, of our own world-system ; of the essential unity between man and all animals (and even plants); of the immense periods of the disintegration and reconstruction of each world-system; of the fact that all things, the whole universe, is in a process of becoming, must have contributed very largely to the conclusions reached as to the immense peril and evil of transmigration, as to the complete hopelessness of looking for any salvation in any other world, as to the essential necessity of a system of mental and moral training, self-mastery, becoming, that would ensure security and happiness here and now. This conclusion will probably be considered inevitable by those who recollect how large a part the then current ideas of cosmogony played in the scholastic theology of Europe; and how great was the change brought about generally in European thought by the new ideas as to the position of our world, and as to the evolution of man. The details of the Buddhist scheme, as worked out in later times by the commentators, are all quite wrong. The general scheme itself, as held in the Buddha's time, is not accurate. But it was so very much nearer to the actual facts than the theory held, in the sixth century B.C., anywhere else in the world, that it would certainly lead to historical error were we to omit to attach to it a very great importance in our estimate of the probable reasons for the growth of early Buddhism.
The Wheel of Life. - There is found in several places in the Canon the following formula:-
1. On account of Ignorance,
the Sankharas.
2. On account of the Sankharas,
Consciousness.
3. On account of Consciousness, Name and Form.
4. On account of Name and Form, the six
Provinces (of the six senses).
5. On account of the six
Provinces, Contact.
6. On account of Contact,
Sensation.
7. On account of Sensation,
Craving.
8. On account of Craving,
Attachment.
9. On account of Attachment,
Becoming.
10. On account of Becoming,
Birth.
11, 12. On account of Birth, old
age, and death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair.
This formula, called the Paticca-Samuppada (origination through dependence), is repeated, and certain explanations of the terms used are given. But there is nowhere any explanation, intelligible to modern ideas, as to why each link in the chain causes the next, or even as to the exact meaning of the words. The consequence is that no two scholars agree as to its interpretation. I have discussed it in my American Lectures, but am not particularly enamoured of my explanation. It seems to me to be an attempt (and, of course, an unsuccessful one, for the notion is wrong) to describe the way in which the Karma in one life makes an individual in the next. If that be so, clauses 1 and 2 refer to the previous, clauses 3-9 to the present, and clauses 10 to 12 to the future birth.
Now Professor Jacobi has shown that in Yoga and Sankhya writings some centuries later than the Buddha there are found expressions somewhat similar to these, though not arranged in a chain, and referring to successions of psychological experience in a single birth. The technical terms used are indeed not the same, and it sometimes requires no little subtlety to harmonise them. But there is enough similarity to show that similar ideas as to the succession of psychological states were current in non-Buddhist schools of thought at the time when those writings were composed. The Buddhist formula stands outside the main tenets of the system, like mistletoe on an oak, and could be cut out without modifying the system in any appreciable degree. The theory of the action of Karma in producing a new individual was certainly borrowed. It would seem very likely that this chain, designed to explain the process, was also either borrowed, or adapted, from some previous chain.
Ecstasy. - Another point of Buddhist teaching adopted from previous belief was the practice of ecstatic meditation. In the very earliest times of the most remote animism we find the belief that a person, rapt from all sense of the outside world, possessed by a spirit, acquired from that state a degree of sanctity, was supposed to have a degree of insight, denied to ordinary mortals. In India from the Soma frenzy in the Vedas, through the mystic reveries of the Upanishads,and the hypnotic trances of the ancient Yoga, allied beliefs and practices had never lost their importance and their charm. It is clear from the Dialogues, [For instance, Majjhima, i. 163-166.] and other of the most ancient Buddhist records, that the belief was in full force when Buddhism arose, and that the practice was followed by the Buddha's teachers. It was quite impossible for him to ignore the question; and the practice was admitted as a part of the training of the Buddhist Bhikshu. But it was not the highest or the most important part, and might be omitted altogether. The states of Rapture are called Conditions of Bliss, and are regarded as useful for the help they give towards the removal of the mental obstacles to the attainment of Arahatship. [Anguttara, iii. 119.] Of the thirty-seven constituent parts of the Buddha's teaching they enter into one group of four. To seek for Arahatship in the practice of ecstasy alone is considered a deadly heresy. [Digha, i. 38.] So these practices are both pleasant in themselves, and useful as one of the means to the end proposed. But they are not the end, and the end can be reached without them. The most ancient form these exercises took is recorded in the often-recurring paragraphs translated in my Dialogues of the Buddha (i.84-92). More modern, and much more elaborate, forms are given in the Yogavacara's Manual of Indian Mysticism as Practised by Buddhists, edited by me from a unique MS. for the Pali Text Society in 1896. In the introduction to this last work the various phases of the question are discussed at length.
There are other points on which earlier thought and practice had prepared the way for Buddhism. And as we know approximately both the date of the Buddha's activity, and that of the earliest Buddhist texts, these points of resemblance will be of the greatest value when a history of philosophy in India comes to be written. But the ones here mentioned are perhaps those of most importance. And we may conclude in the words of Professor Huxley, at the end of his exposition of early Buddhism [Romanes Lecture, London, 1893, p. 21.] :-
'A system which knows no God in the Western sense, which denies a soul to man; which counts the belief in immortality a blunder, and the hope of it a sin; which refuses any efficacy to prayer or sacrifices; which bids men look to nothing but their own efforts for salvation; which, in its original purity, knew nothing of vows of obedience and never sought the aid of the secular arm; yet spread over a considerable moiety of the old world with marvellous rapidity, and is still, with whatever base admixture of foreign superstitions, the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind.'
The Vipassana Fellowship Newsletter is published about 10 times each year and is sent only on request and to previous participants of our courses. Vipassana Fellowship is an organisation dedicated to the dissemination of accurate and useful information on Buddhist meditation practices as found in the Theravada tradition. Our next mailing will be in September. Our site can be accessed via the vipassana.com and vipassana.org domains.
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