imageimage 9  Concentration: The Meditative Absorptions

STEP 4

NEXT IN OUR SEQUENCE of transcendental dependent arising come the meditation steps. We have to understand that meditation as a whole is a means to an end and not an end in itself. This is particularly true of the meditative absorptions (jhāna). At the time of the Buddha meditation was well established in India. The Buddha’s contribution, however, was his realization that concentration was not sufficient; then, as now, it was a widespread belief that the eight meditative absorptions, when perfected, were all that can be achieved on the spiritual path, and were equivalent to becoming one with atman, the all-pervading essence. The Buddha himself practiced and perfected these meditation states, while staying with his two teachers, for six years. He struck out on his own then, because he realized he had not yet come to the end of the path, but he could find no other teacher to instruct him in insight. It is said that all buddhas discover that insight for themselves, and that it takes exactly the same form.

It is essential not to fall into the error of believing that practicing tranquility is unnecessary because insight is the goal. This, too, is a widespread and erroneous belief, and it is not based on the Buddha’s actual instructions. In discourse after discourse he deals with the path of practice to come from our worldly state to liberation, and the meditative absorptions are part of that path. They are a necessary means to this end because through them the mind acquires the ability to be one-pointed, to have enough strength to stay quietly in one spot.

Without that mental power the mind cannot penetrate the depth and profundity of the Buddha’s teaching, where ultimate, absolute truth can be found. Lacking strength, it cannot pierce the layers of illusion but wobbles from one thought to the next. The mind not yet equipped with one-pointedness can gain some insights on a more superficial level, which will help it to become more concentrated.

There is another aspect to the efficacy of the meditative absorptions, which is demonstrated at the very outset of the practice. The first meditative absorption has five factors, or attributes, which counteract our five hindrances in an automatic process. Once we are able to gain access to the first meditative absorption, we are provided with a purification system, which of course also needs support in daily living. This fact alone should provide enough impetus for our concentration.

The five hindrances that the Buddha enumerated are the difficulties that beset every worldling. None of us is immune, and they only slowly and gradually disappear.

The first meditative factor occurs in any meditation, whether absorbed or not; in Pali it is called vitakka, which means “initial application,” or fixing one’s mind on the subject of meditation. Whether this is successful or not, initial application arises every time we try to meditate. This mental action counteracts the third of the hindrances, namely sloth and torpor. When there is sloth and torpor, the mind has no strength at all, not even enough wakefulness to fix itself on the subject of meditation. The more often we put our mind to the subject of meditation, the more we counteract torpor. A mind without clarity also creates sloth in the body; however, it is the mind in particular that we are addressing through the meditation process. The mind that says, “I’ll do it later,” “I’ll do it tomorrow,” “It can’t be that important,” “I’m a bit tired now,” “I can’t really be bothered,” or “I wonder whether there is any use in doing it” is looking for any excuse it can find to avoid meditating. Our minds are habit prone, and it is very difficult to get out of old habits. Establishing new habits means giving ourselves a push, which must not be too hard or too gentle. It has to be balanced, and only we ourselves know where that balance lies.

If initial application does not give rise to sustained application, discursive thinking will follow it. This is exactly what happens in the meditation process when there is no real concentration and nothing to rely on. The initial mind thrust has to be followed by the next meditative factor, called in Pali vicāra. These first two are always mentioned together because meditation is only possible when they are joined. Vicāra means “sustained application,” a description of a mind that is no longer veering off the subject of meditation but staying with it, maintaining concentration. Everybody knows that meditation only works when one can keep the mind on the subject of meditation, but the various difficulties that arise are not always familiar.

The second meditative factor, sustained application, counteracts skeptical doubt. When we can stay with the subject of meditation and do not become distracted, we gain confidence through the experience that, first of all, it is possible; secondly, that we are able to do it; and thirdly, that the results that accrue are exactly as the Buddha said. Until then, doubt arises again and again in the most insidious ways. Skeptical doubt is the enemy of faith and confidence, and therefore of practice; the mind can provide all sorts of ideas, doubts, and excuses—“There must be an easier way,” or “I’ll try something different,” or “I’ll find a better teacher or a better monastery,” or “There must be something that will really grip me.” The mind is a magician: it can produce a rabbit out of any hat.

Skeptical doubt shows itself when we cannot fully immerse ourselves in our present situation. Skeptical doubt keeps us back, because we are afraid to lose control or self-importance. When we have a little personal experience of the results of the Buddha’s teachings, our doubts are counteracted, yet not completely eliminated. At least we no longer feel unsure about practicing meditation. We have experienced results and we have also realized that it makes no difference where we practice, as long as we are steadfast. That, too, is important, because we can search for a perfect place, time, situation, or teacher until the end of our lives and never find any of these because skeptical doubt always intervenes.

Initial and sustained application are the first two factors of the meditative absorptions and can be likened to unlocking the door to concentration. All the meditation methods we use are simply keys. There are no good or bad keys, but if we hold a key in our hand long and steadily enough, we will eventually be able to fit it into a keyhole. Turning the key in the keyhole opens the door, which gives us access to what we might call a house with eight rooms. As we step into the entry hall, which the first two meditative factors allow us to do, we can go into the first room. If we continue to practice, eventually the key will be unnecessary, because the door will remain unlocked.

When we enter into the meditative absorptions the mind stretches and becomes pliable, soft, malleable, and expansive. If we stop again, naturally the mind shrinks back to its usual and shrunken limitations. We can compare this with practicing yoga exercises. When we stretch the body persistently we find we can touch our toes with no difficulty, because muscles and sinews have been made pliable. When we stop practicing for six months or so, we have to start all over again; the muscles shrink back to their former tightness.

To stretch the mind—to make it malleable, pliable, and expansive—is necessary in order to encompass the whole of the teachings. When the mind is still limited and shrunken in its capacity, though we live and survive, we will only be able to understand the Dhamma in a limited way. That is quite natural. The Buddha’s path always consisted of study and practice. We must know the direction, but we have to practice to experience mind expansion. Only practice makes it possible to see with an inner vision a reality different from the one we are used to.

The third factor that arises after sustained application is called pīti in Pali, and “bliss” or “rapture” in English. It is an extremely pleasant physical feeling. People practicing meditation often experience this feeling without their knowing what to do with it. Meditation moves in that direction quite naturally. The mind yearns for release from constant thinking and longs to be peaceful and at ease, which is probably the reason for beginning to meditate. What other reasons do people usually have? Hardly any others, except to be able to stop thinking about past problems which could recur in the future, or are present now, and to become peaceful instead. The mind not only yearns for that but also has a subtle recognition that this is the direction it can follow.

Every mind is capable of utter peace and quiet; it is a matter of application and determination. If we apply ourselves and are determined to continue, there’s no reason why anyone should not be able to follow this path. It is the natural progression for every human mind. The blissful feeling is a physical feeling, but the attention at that time is not on the body as such but only on the feeling. What actually happens in meditative practice is this: when we have been attentive to the breath and sustained the attention, the quality of the breath changes. It becomes finer and finer, because the mind has become one-pointed and inwardly directed. It no longer attends to outside matters, only to the breath. Finally the breath seems to vanish, becoming so imperceptible that the mind can hardly find it, or fails to find it altogether.

At that moment, initial and sustained application have been completed and bliss can follow. Seventeen types of pleasant feelings are listed. They are individually different and can also vary from one meditation session to another. Some of them consist of a lightness of the body, as if the body had become weightless. This feeling can be so strong that the person to whom it happens for the first time might look to see if they have risen from the cushion on which they are sitting. Sometimes there is tingling throughout the body, which feels very pleasant, or a feeling of growing taller, or the dimensions of the body may disappear altogether. Whatever the feeling may be, it is always extremely pleasant and therefore effectively counteracts ill will.

When we experience such a pleasant sensation and are able to sustain it (not just momentarily), and also resurrect it at will, then it naturally fills the mind with goodwill. How could one bear ill will toward anyone or anything in the face of this pleasant feeling?

This is one of the very important aspects of the ability to enter into the meditative absorptions: namely, that no matter what happens in one’s daily life, independent of outside triggers and external conditions, the mind knows it can attain this pleasure, of which the Buddha said, “This is a pleasure I will allow myself.” He contrasted it with the pleasures of the senses, which he deemed gross and dependent upon external conditions. When our pleasures and our joy depend on our sense contacts, we are the victims of outside conditions. Here we may experience the first instance of becoming master of our own situation. We no longer need any outside conditions; all we need is the inner condition of concentration. While this still remains in the realm of dependent arising, we are now, at least to some extent, independent of what goes on around us.

Even though we will still find irksome reactions within us, we nevertheless retain the knowledge that we can return to that place where the mind has found a home. We can compare this with a home for the body. If the body didn’t have a roof over its head, a bed to sleep in, a place to shelter from rain, wind, storm, snow, or sun, but had to live, eat, and sleep on the street, we would be quite disturbed. The mind doesn’t have such a home. While the body may be sitting peacefully in the most comfortable armchair, the mind can be distracted by the most violent problems. While the body has a roof over its head and is fully protected from all the inclemencies of the weather, the mind is by no means protected from the storms of its own emotions. It has no home where it can shelter. Its one desire is to fall asleep, because at least then it only dreams and so is not consciously aware of its problems.

When we are able to enter into the meditative absorptions, the mind has a home where it can retreat and be safe, for the duration of the meditation, from the storms of its emotions. Naturally, these emotions will gradually be purified, because such a pleasant abiding reduces one’s ill will, which also can be called hate or dislike, anger, or resistance—any name will do, as long as we realize that every worldling suffers from these negative emotions.

The Buddha compared being angry with someone picking up hot coals with bare hands and trying to throw them at one’s enemy. Who gets burnt first? The one who’s picking up the coals, of course—the one who is angry. We may not even hit the target we are aiming at, because if that person is clever and practiced enough, he’ll duck, and we shall have burnt hands. The Buddha also said that one who can check risen anger is a true practitioner, just as a charioteer who can check wild horses and bring them back to do their duty is a real charioteer.

This pleasant abiding that results from initial and sustained application to the subject of meditation automatically soothes our negative emotions. The negativities that develop from our reactions to outer “triggers” will not swamp and engulf us as completely as before. We shall still have to work with them as they arise in daily life, but they will be far less of a problem.

Another benefit accruing from meditative absorption is compassion. One naturally wants to help others to attain these states of pleasant abiding, which generate a smooth and harmonious inner life. We are all practiced at tidying and cleaning our rooms and we wouldn’t like to live in a mess, but we also need to clean and tidy up our “inner household.” An inner household that contains a lot of confusion and negative emotions is very difficult to live with, just as it is difficult to live in a household where everything is topsy-turvy. When we smooth out our difficulties, the ease of living becomes apparent. That doesn’t mean that there is no more unsatisfactoriness. As long as there’s an “I,” there’s unsatisfactoriness, but that inner ease greatly facilitates meditation.

A pleasant feeling is naturally accompanied by happiness, which counteracts the fourth hindrance, restlessness and worry. If we are happy in the present, we cannot worry at the same time; neither do we think of the future and its possible problems. One very important result of this meditative experience is that we no longer look for happiness to come to us from outside but realize that it depends solely upon our own efforts. Our worries about the future are totally absurd, because the one who worries does not remain the same person to experience that future. A glimpse into impermanence shows us that clearly. Continuity covers up impermanence but certainly doesn’t alter the fact of it; again and again we are fooled into believing ourselves to be a solid entity. Restlessness also disappears, because having found what one wants, namely happiness, there is nothing to be restless about.

Where could one go to find anything better? As long as happiness still eludes us, we are restless wherever we are, because we are not fulfilled. If we have inner happiness, it no longer matters where we happen to be. Happiness resulting from the initial pleasant physical feeling eliminates restlessness and worry during meditation. Our hindrances are by no means uprooted, but they are certainly laid to rest while we meditate.

We can look at it in this way: if we have a garden full of weeds and let them grow as they please, they will eventually use up all the nourishment from the soil and completely overshadow the flowers and vegetables, taking away food, sun, and water from them. If the weeds have deep roots, as some have, and are therefore difficult to uproot, the only thing to do is to cut them down. As we cut them down, they become weaker and weaker, no longer using up all the nourishment and overshadowing the good plants. This is exactly what happens in meditation. We do not uproot the hindrances, but we cut them down. As we continue to cut them down again and again, they become so feeble and small that eventually it is no longer such an enormous task to uproot them. Of course, we must practice every day, because—as every gardener knows—weeds always grow more easily than flowers and vegetables; constant vigilance is needed in every garden, be it a physical one or the garden of our hearts and minds.

The fifth factor that arises at the time of the first meditative absorption is one-pointedness. As long as there is one-pointedness, one can remain concentrated. One-pointedness counteracts our desire for sensual gratification. Luckily, we are unable to do two things with our mind at the same time. When we are one-pointed and totally absorbed in a pleasant feeling or in happiness, we have no other desires. At such a time, any pain in the body is without significance. It is not an object of attention, so there is no wish for greater physical comfort. We don’t look for other pleasant sense experiences, because a far greater pleasure than ever before is being experienced.

The first four meditative absorptions, of which I have just explained the first, are called the rupajhānas. Rupa means body, materiality, corporeality. In English we can call them “fine-material absorptions,” because all the states that arise are known to us in a similar, but far less refined, way. Although quantitatively and qualitatively of much less significance, these experiences are part of our makeup.

We have all experienced very pleasant bodily feelings. The ones arising in meditation are different and yet familiar, although superior in every way. When such feelings occur for the first time, people often shed tears of joy. However, the mind might say, “Goodness, what’s that?” which effectively disrupts concentration so that one has to start all over again.

When the breath becomes so fine that it is almost impossible to detect, the pleasant physical feeling follows, and our attention is focused on it. When that dissipates, either because concentration lapses or the meditation is over, two things should be remembered before we open our eyes. We experience then and there the impermanence of even the most pleasant feelings. We have absolutely no objection to experiencing the impermanence of unpleasant feelings, but we have a great deal of objection to the impermanence of pleasant feelings. Yet both are equally impermanent. As we progress in insight we will see what an important factor it is to recognize the dissipation of this very pleasant feeling and actually watch it dissolve.

To watch the dissolution of one’s subject of meditation is a further step in insight. First, we experience the arising and the ceasing; now in our meditation practice we can watch the disappearance. At that moment, the dissolution does not generate any dislike or unhappiness, because the mind still carries its meditative ease within. However, in the beginning a common reaction is, “What a pity! I hope I can get that feeling back.” When the mind reacts in this way, we have to realize that this denotes attachment. We need to watch the dissolving of the pleasant feeling in the knowledge that this is a law of nature manifest before our own inner vision.

The second important point of attention is recapitulation. We need to resurrect all the steps we have taken in the whole of that meditation, so that eventually we can always follow that particular method of concentration. Everyone will find their own special trigger which is unique to them, although the meditation progression itself is universal for all human minds. One needs to remember whether any action or thought has been different this time, even before entering the meditation room: whether one has used a different posture, or, when starting the meditation, whether one has used a different meditation approach. Eventually, one will find the necessary trigger so that one can always enter the “first room” of this house with no difficulty at all just by sitting down in the meditative posture. The mind is habit prone; if it has done something often enough it will continue to do it, unless we deliberately change our mental habits.

In the beginning we need the necessary meditation practice, the methods that will be our key to open the door, but within them we must find something that is of particular help to us. That element can be physical or mental, concerned with posture or with thoughts. We may need confidence in ourselves, in the teaching, and in the teacher. Those who listen carefully to the instructions and follow them usually have the best results. Comparisons and inner arguments are not helpful. We need a trusting mind, such as children have who are eager to learn.

In order to meditate well, one has to be comfortable in body and mind. One of the preconditions for mental ease is joy. When one sits down to meditate, one truly wants to become still and quiet, without tensions in body or mind. Rigidity of the body is detrimental to expansion of the mind.

While concentration cannot yet be sustained, we must use all that arises to gain insight into ourselves, because greater insight also produces greater calm. The potential of the mind for concentrated one-pointedness exceeds any other mental capability. We can design a rocket to go to the moon and make it work very well, and still be extremely unhappy. The ability to concentrate the mind and to be one-pointed brings that inner poise which is not disturbed by external conditions. In the meditative practice, poise arises from inner happiness; a person who is unhappy cannot remain within, but will look for outside stimuli.

QUESTIONS

STUDENT: Is there any difference in method between the first and second factor of absorption?

AYYA KHEMA: First comes initial application and then sustained application. Determination and being comfortable with oneself are preconditions. It helps to recognize that meditative concentration is the epitome of human endeavor, and that everything else pales in comparison. The method of watching the breath does not change.

S: Is it a sort of organic condition between the two factors?

AK: Yes. All five factors follow each other organically and integrate with each other.

S: Rather than switching techniques?

AK: That’s right.

S: When I was in Thailand, I managed to reach the first meditative absorption. I had a feeling that my body wasn’t mine any more, that I just had to take care of it as another living thing. I didn’t feel ownership, just responsibility.

AK: But that was after you came out of the absorption, not during it?

S: Yes. Is that common?

AK: It was a very important insight.

S: I was frightened by it all. I had the feeling that something that had shown me great happiness was also going to show me the opposite, and I felt death coming. I realize now that it was the death of the ego that was actually coming.

AK: Were you able at that time to discuss this with a teacher? No? That’s a great pity. Was it long ago?

S: It was nineteen years ago.

AK: Nineteen! Can you remember anything that you did to get into the meditative absorption, and could you do it again?

S: Yes, I remember. I would have to shut myself in a house for a week and try every method.

AK: It doesn’t have to be that drastic.

S: I don’t actually remember how I got to that point. The experience itself is the clearest experience of my whole life—as if it had happened yesterday. I have never been able to repeat this.

AK: You didn’t have the necessary guidance at the time. Once having done it, there will be off and on moments, but you can do it again. Can you remember any little thing that helped you?

S: After I felt that I had voided my body and my mind so that I was empty, I took a mirror and looked the “I” in the eye, and all at once I knew there wasn’t anybody there.

AK: After you looked into the mirror, you were able to do the meditation?

S: I sat outside and was sort of humming in unison with nature, and it was the first time in my life I had ever felt harmonious. There was no longer a sense of desperation and chronic disappointment.

AK: How about this experience of looking in a mirror and seeing that there is actually nothing but the eye looking? Repeat something like that, and then sit down with the feeling of “There’s nothing to worry about, let me just get on with it,” and see if that helps. You can even bring the mirror in here. There is nothing to be scared of. Terror of appearances is one of the stages of insight. Terror of all that exists is a later insight.

The meditative absorptions are not unusual or so difficult that they are beyond our reach. The mind has a natural yearning for the peace they can provide.

S: Can you do vipassanā while concentrating on the breath?

AK: There are hardly any meditation methods that do not have the possibility of tranquility and insight, samatha and vipassanā. A method is a method by any name, and they are designed to complement each other.

S: Do I know when I am doing vipassanā on the breath, as opposed to samatha?

AK: When you are labeling your distracting thoughts, you are gaining insight into your own thinking pattern and procedure. You’re also seeing the impermanence, the arising and ceasing of these thoughts, that there is nothing you can hang on to. There is absolutely no stability in them. If you put your attention on the fact that the breath is impermanent, and that its continuity hides its impermanence, that’s insight.

If you can stay with the breath and sustain application, you are working toward calm. We use both directions because most people are unable, in the initial stages of meditation, to gain real calm or real insight. A little calm brings a little insight, and vice versa. So we always work on both levels, and eventually both come to fruition. Calm is the means, insight is the goal.