1. The inward-facing path differentiates between our self and the objects of experience. It is a path of negation, exclusion and elimination: I am not this, not this. In theological terms, it is the Via Negativa; in the Zen tradition, the Great Death. On this Path we discover what we are not. It is the movement in understanding from ‘I am something’ to ‘I am nothing’ the path of wisdom or discrimination. The mind turns its attention away from objective experience towards its own essence or reality. This is the essence of meditation or prayer.
In meditation the simple experience of being aware is extricated from everything that we are aware of and the mind falls inwards. As it does so it is gradually (occasionally, or suddenly) divested of its finite, limited qualities and, at some point, stands revealed as pure mind, original mind or infinite consciousness – the fundamental, underlying reality of the apparent duality of mind and matter.
The culmination of the inward-facing path is the recognition of the presence, the primacy and the nature of awareness – or, in religious language, spirit or God’s infinite being – which transcends all knowledge and experience. However, it is not yet the full experiential understanding in which awareness itself, or God’s infinite being, is known and felt to pervade and saturate all knowledge and experience, and indeed to be its sole substance and reality. It is to recognise the transcendent nature of awareness but not its immanence.
2. The outward-facing path is one of openness, inclusion and allowing: I am this, am this. It is a path in which the apparent separation between our self and anyone or anything is dissolved. It is a path of unconditional love. It is the Via Positiva. It is the Great Rebirth in the Zen tradition. This path is the means by which we recognise the inherently peaceful and unconditionally fulfilled nature of our being. It is the cure for suffering, the direct path to peace and happiness.
In the outward-facing path we recognise that our being is shared with everyone and everything. It is the remedy for conflict and the means by which kindness, harmony and justice are restored to humanity. On this Path we discover what we are. The movement in understanding from ‘I am nothing’ through ‘I am everything’ to simply ‘I’ could be called the path of love. This is also the moment at which the traditional spiritual path of renunciation becomes the Tantric path of embrace and inclusion. It is the moment at which the full spectrum of experience is welcomed, explored and celebrated for what it truly is.
In the final stage of this exploration the distinction between consciousness and its objects collapses completely. Experience is not just known by consciousness; it does not just appear in consciousness; consciousness is all there is to experience. To begin with, as we take our stand knowingly as aware Presence, the mind, body and world recede into the background. When the presence and primacy of our self has been established, objects come close again, closer than close. They dissolve into our self and reveal themselves as none other than the shape that our self is taking from moment to moment. Presence is so utterly and intimately one with every appearance, it says ‘Yes’ so unreservedly to every experience, that it is also known as love.
So, to summarise, we move from the formulation, ‘I am something’ to ‘I am nothing’, from ‘I am nothing’ to ‘I am everything, from’ I am everything’ to ‘I am’ or ‘Awareness is, from there to simply ‘I’ and from ‘I’ to… we truly fall silent there. To begin with, we understand objects as appearing to Consciousness. Then we understand that they appear in Consciousness. Then we understand that they appear as Consciousness. Consciousness knows itself in and as the totality of experience. Once the essential, irreducible nature of the mind has been recognised, and its inherent peace and unconditional joy accessed, it is necessary to face ‘outwards’ again towards objective experience, realigning the way we think and feel, and subsequently act, perceive and relate, with our new understanding.
Excerpts from an article by Nic Higham
[Credit: Rupert Spira The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter – by Rupert Spira Being Aware of Being Aware – by Rupert Spira The Transparency of Things: Contemplating the Nature of Experience – by Rupert Spira Presence, Volume I: The Art of Peace and Happiness – by Rupert Spira Being Myself – by Rupert Spira Presence, Volume II: The Intimacy of All Experience – by Rupert Spira]
A Short Editorial: recent pages of this blog tell the story of how the Buddha’s Teachings in 500 BCE spread from North India by way of the Old Silk Road to the Far-East, and by the 7th Century CE, Buddhism had been accepted in every country in Asia. Also, a mention is made on the extraordinary effort of Early Chinese Buddhists who wanted to study the original Buddhist Scriptures and made the overland journey from Eastern China back to North India on foot, a distance of some 4000 miles, not including the return journey to China. It is noted that travellers on the trade routes also brought Buddhism to the West from North India, through the Middle East and Greece… but there it went no further. Buddhism remained completely unknown in Europe for about two thousand years!
The obstruction was caused by the Early Christian Church, and I think it’s important not to avert the eye from this part of our history because, for one thing, it explains why I’m burdened with Christian guilt even though I been a Buddhist for the last 30 years. I found a book in India that gave me some ease from this heavy weight I’ve been made to carry, and last week the blog had a section on the author, Keith Sherwood’s views on the Christian concept of ‘Separation.’ The following sections of text were not included in last week’s post.
“Although Jesus came preaching that each person was inherently like Him and that they had direct access to the Father (the universal field of energy and consciousness) by surrendering to Him through the person of the Holy Spirit, Christian theology became rigid and dogmatic, emphasizing the form rather than the spirit of Jesus’ teaching. In the Judaic tradition there is the belief that the Hebrew people are chosen by God but have become separated from Him and the Jewish people are inherently different from their brothers, inherently separate. At the heart of these notions is the institutionalisation of separation.
We don’t accept a person’s original state as one of separation, and we don’t accept separation as objectively the truth. Although a person might not experience their inner life consciously and might do those things which constantly push them further from an experience of it, it remains that on the unconscious level they have never been separate and can never be separate from the universal field. S/he exists within the universal field whether they believe it or not, or whether they consciously experience it or not. S/he has always been and always will be in the Tao, Brahma, what Christians call the “mind of Christ.” Moreover, on the unconscious level they continually experience, communicate, and receive nourishment from the universal field.” [Excerpts from ‘Chakra Therapy’ by Keith Sherwood]
So, I’ve come to understand and accept that this is simply how it is. I have to find my way back to ‘the universal field of consciousness.’ In the course of this investigation, I discovered the following piece by Rupert Spira on Yoga Meditation, which has helped me tremendously in freeing the body from ‘the tyranny of concepts and images’ that has its origins in the indoctrination of Christian Separation.
[A note first, by Rupert Spira, about non-duality: “Non-duality is the recognition that underlying the multiplicity and diversity of experience there is a single, infinite and indivisible reality, whose nature is pure consciousness, from which all objects and selves derive their apparently independent existence. The recognition of this reality is not only the source of lasting happiness within all people; it is the foundation of peace between individuals, communities and nations, and it must be the basis for any sustainable relationship with the environment.”]
Many people who have a clear understanding that their essential nature is ever-present, unlimited consciousness, awareness or knowing continue to feel that they are located within and share the limits and destiny of the body.
It’s like the old Zen master who, when asked on his death bed how he was, replied, ‘Everything is fine, but my body is having a hard time keeping up’. Although his mind was spacious and clear, there was still some aspect of his experience that had not yet been fully colonised by his understanding.
Likewise, for many people who have been on a spiritual path for years, if not decades, there is often a discrepancy between their understanding and the way they feel the body and perceive the world. In spite of the fact that we understand that reality is a single, infinite and indivisible whole, made of pure, empty, luminous awareness, we still feel that our body is something solid, dense, limited and located, and that the world is something other than ourself, at a distance from ourself, made out of solid, dense, inert stuff called matter.
The purpose of yoga meditation, or the outward-facing path, is to realign the way we feel the body and perceive the world with non-dual understanding. This realignment of our experience takes place naturally over time, but the purpose is to cooperate with that process. In this exploration we are only interested in the felt experience of the body – not the idea, the image or the memory of the body – and the actual experience of the world – that is, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.
For many people, their feeling of the body is so profoundly filtered through their idea or image of the body that it seems to conform to it. So, in these contemplations we go deeply into the raw experience of the body, tasting it from the inside, liberating it from the tyranny of concepts and images, experiencing it as it is – transparent, empty, luminous, weightless, free – without the slightest rejection of any aspect of experience.
Likewise, we learn to perceive the world in a way that is consistent with the non-dual understanding, namely, that everything is the activity or vibration of consciousness, which, filtered through the limitations of our own minds, appears as a multiplicity and diversity of objects and selves.
This is the vision of the world presented by the great poets and artists. They are the free-thinkers for whom the unity of being has not been eclipsed by the apparent multiplicity and diversity of objects and selves, each separate and distinct from one another. As the German poet Lisel Mueller said, ‘I will not return to a universe of objects that do not know each other, as if islands were not the lost children of one great continent’.
Artists are those who are free enough and humble enough not to mistake the limitations of their own mind for reality, but who realise that what we see is but a partial view of reality. That’s why William Blake said, ‘The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way’. The world is not what we see; it is the way we see.
Consider the possibility that nature or reality is the imagination or activity of one universal consciousness that assumes the form of each of our minds, through which it refracts itself into an apparent multiplicity and diversity of objects and selves.
William Blake, again, said, ‘Every bird that cuts the airy way is an immense world of delight enclosed by the five senses.’ In other words, the pure delight or joy that accompanies the knowledge of simply being – that is, consciousness’s knowledge of itself – refracts itself through the limited faculties of thought and sense perception and appears to itself as objective experience, without ever actually being or becoming anything other than its own infinite, indivisible self. As the Sufis say in religious language, ‘Wherever you look, there is the face of God’.
Rilke expressed the same idea, in his Sonnets to Orpheus, ‘Dare to say what “apple” truly is. This sweetness that feels thick, dark, dense at first; then, exquisitely lifted in your taste, grows clarified, awake and luminous, double-meaninged, sunny, earthy, real – Oh knowledge, pleasure –inexhaustible.’
Through yoga meditation, we attempt to feel the body and perceive the world in a way that is consistent with the understanding that the universe is the activity of a single, infinite and indivisible whole, made of pure, empty, luminous consciousness. This is the means by which we feel and live the non-dual understanding at all levels of our experience.
I have this eyesight difficulty (AMD) that’s here to stay it seems. When I browse through my old books from before it got to be like this, I’m looking for something that has a slightly larger font, and a wider space between lines (US publications are best), and if a particular book gets my attention, but the readability of it is not good, I can sometimes find it in the right format online and read the part that I need on screen, with enlarged font and spacing. There is the likelihood of headaches peering closely at text on a backlit screen but I can take some precautions.
So, I found what I was looking for: ‘Chakra Therapy’ by Keith Sherwood, printed in 2011. I’d decided to finally get round to learning about the Chakras but it stayed mostly unread because there were some Christian references in the contents list that at a glance put me off. It was this that caused me to put the book aside all those years ago. The fact is, I’m an isolated lapsed Christian living with the Thais for 30 years as a Buddhist in a Buddhist country, and no actual contact with Western people.
Since I decided to follow the Buddha’s Teaching, long ago, the “Thou Shallt Not” shadow of the Church of Scotland, I experienced as an adolescent, still conditions my thought. I forget that this book was written for people living in a Western culture looking out from there into the same universal field we are all part of. There’s a familiarity about this that pulls me out from my contained reality status, living in someone else’s country and into a kind of recognition I can’t find words for yet.
The book is about interacting energy fields and “the universal field,” the atman, meaning “pure consciousness,” or “self,” since the unified field is the true identity of everything in nature. A flicker of attention here because, for me, the sense of Self is illusory in the anthropocentric sense of the word. However, I’ve come round to seeing it another way; if I think of it as Brahma/Atman, devoid of any individualizing influence, no problem because I can wear my Advaita Vedanta hat to blend in with the surroundings.
‘You are an energy being. Each individual is composed of a system of energy fields which interact with each other and the environment they interpenetrate. The universe is permeated by these fields and a human being can be thought of as a localization or concentration in the universal field.’
I understand this immediately and there are these bursts of energy as I read the text. For a moment there’s a sense of joyful déjà vu… I know this fundamentally! But then there’s confusion; all those years ago I chose not to pursue it, unwilling to engage with something I knew nothing about, embedded in my Western separationism and now I’m stuck with age-related eyesight difficulty and headaches (PHN). It’s the Judeo-Christian Tradition I was born into: “The notion that humans are incomplete and that they can become separated from the universal field is held as an objective reality in the Judeo-Christian world.” That’s what it is! The book straightens out tangled thoughts about Christianity I’ve been burdened with for years
“The doctrine of separation, which is at the root of orthodox theology and is the cause of so much misunderstanding and unnecessary suffering, is the foundation of orthodox psychology as well. Orthodox psychology built its towers on the shoulders of Newtonian and Cartesian thought which saw separation as the natural condition.”
There are so many worthwhile sections on separation and duality here but I need to paraphrase this text to get it to completion. Man faced a continual striving between what was base in his nature and what was noble. He chooses to identify with what is noble in his character and reject what is base which includes the inevitable repression of those elements in his character which he considers ignoble. They are rejected, and rather than being integrated, they are judged, sentenced and become the “others” within himself.
The writer describes how he learned the principles of psycho-spiritual integration a little at a time and thus remembered those hitherto lost and unwanted parts of himself and could recollect “the others” buried within himself. The energy imprisoned within began to be released and the system by which this was developed is presented here in this text, out of necessity in order to understand and integrate the seemingly contradictory parts of how he managed to do it. (More about this later)
Inherently
Ultimate bodhicitta is basically Buddha Nature. We all have Buddha Nature. Every being, every sentient being has Buddha Nature. Every being IS Buddha Nature; not has, but IS Buddha Nature. We are all Buddha Nature; we all are Buddha. […]
Buddha Nature can never be defiled; it can never be polluted. No matter how much darkness, how much evil we might do, or think, or say, for however long, never, ever, ever can contaminate the nature of the mind. The nature of the mind is beyond all that. Inherently we are completely pure. Inherently we are completely light, no worries. [Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo]
[Editor’s note: I was reading about Fa Xian, the Sixth Century Chinee Buddhist monk who, at the age of sixty, walked overland to India and I thought what is it that drives a person to do something extraordinary like that? Then I listened to Ajahn Sucitto’s Dhamma talk given at the ordination of a young monk and he was talking about the ‘call’ or the whisper that doesn’t have a sound and it doesn’t come from thought. It’s the citta, a special quality you could call faith – except that it doesn’t come from a belief in anything. It seemed to me that the ‘call’ in Ajahn Sucitto’s talk is what Fa Xian heard or became aware of. So, I transcribed some parts of Ajahn’s talk and that is attached at the end of the Fa Xian story for you to decide.]
FAXIAN
Faxian, also referred to as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien and Sehi, was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India to acquire Buddhist texts. Faxian’s visit to India occurred during the reign of Chandragupta II. He entered the Indian subcontinent through the northwest. His memoirs describe his 10 year stay in India. He visited the major sites associated with the Buddha, as well the renowned centers of education and Buddhist monasteries. He visited Kapilvastu (Lumbini), Bodh Gaya, Benares (Varanasi), Shravasti, and Kushinagar, all linked to events in Buddha’s life. Faxian learned Sanskrit, and collected Indian literature from Pataliputra (Patna), Oddiyana, and Taxila in Gandhara. His memoirs mention the Hinayana (Theravada) and emerging Mahayana traditions, as well as the splintering and dissenting Theravada sub-traditions in 5th-century Indian Buddhism. Before he had begun his journey back to China, he had amassed a large number of Sanskrit texts of his times.
On Faxian’s way back to China, after a two-year stay in Sri Lanka, a violent storm drove his ship onto an island, probably Java. After five months there, Faxian took another ship for southern China, but again it was blown off course and he ended up landing at Mount Lao in what is now Shandong in northern China, 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of the city of Qingdao. He spent the rest of his life translating and editing the scriptures he had collected. These were influential to the history of Chinese Buddhism that followed. Faxian wrote a book on his travels, filled with accounts of early Buddhism and the geography and history of numerous countries along the Silk Road, as they were, at the turn of the 5th century CE. He wrote about cities like Taxila, Pataliputra, Mathura, and Kannauj in Madhyadesha. He also wrote that inhabitants of Madhyadesha eat and dress like Chinese people. He declared Patliputra to be a prosperous city. He returned in 412 and settled in what is now Nanjing. In 414, he wrote (or dictated) Foguoji (A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms; also known as Faxian’s Account). He spent the next decade, until his death, translating the Buddhist sutras he had brought with him from India.
[Excerpts from a Dhamma talk by Ajahn Sucitto showing on You Tube, link at the end of this text.]
This ordination ceremony is the beginning, the entry point, and we can all perhaps resonate with the sense that there’s an occasion here. Someone is making a declaration to put aside the normal, the ‘knowns,’ the familiar forms of the domestic situation, the job, the family. Put aside having things my own way, we come to serve.
All these opportunities, we gave them up. We gave them up because they weren’t taking us far enough. Something else started to call; a sense of the ‘call; it’s something that’s not about what normally shapes our lives. Something else begins to whisper, or call in a louder voice than all that. It’s Faith – doesn’t mean a belief in anything. The way I understand it is, my home is in the world of sense consciousness; sight, sound, touch, hearing, odours, fragrance and the measuring mind, the thinking, planning, opinionizing, dogmatic, believing, mind. It moves around the other senses, deciding, judging, comparing, contrasting and reflects upon itself, thinks about its thoughts, thinks about its ideas, thinks about its psychologies. It’s very engrossing, gets very dense and becomes a territory called ‘Mine.’
Other people are in their world. It’s Her world or it’s His world – not My world. There’s conflict, disappointment, frustration. Everything is flooded with dogma media, chat shop, chat shows, chat rooms. People chat, chat, chat, opinions about this, opinions about that; this-that, this-that, Right-wing, left-wing, middle wing, going up, going down and the whole thing blabbing away and you’re thinking about your own opinions about yourself.
Then there is the ‘Call’ – not necessarily a sound, it’s some sense of, ‘I want to get out of this, even though I’m looked after, well fed. I’m not being brutalized. I’ve got a car or a flat or a partner’. Even though I’ve got a reasonable deal in life, compared with some people, I’m still not satisfied and this isn’t taking me anywhere that really makes my life feel bright, clear, confident. And that something begins to dawn, a sign of Faith.
The Buddha said its root condition is actually not a belief in anything but the realization that things don’t work, nothing fits… there’s got to be something better than this (dukkha). Maybe this is the point where we begin to recognize some sense of ‘I am,” a sense of being that’s not a thought, it’s not a possession, it’s a sense that’s not associated with sight, sound or all the other senses. This is the citta, it’s a kind of an immaterial quality whereby we’re able to review and get a perspective on what the six senses are bringing in.
That’s what enables us to recognize this is not my true home, this is the building, these are the clothes, that is my name on the passport but it’s is not my true home. My home is something more fundamental. We begin to recognize as soon as we step back from just adopting what’s seen or heard or thought, that it’s enough to just barely notice it. This is hearing, this is a sound, this is a sight, or this is a thought. This is feeling stirred-up, this is feeling disappointed, this is feeling irritated, this is feeling glad. We step back from it and notice there’s an awareness of it, and there’s something else here that could support you – not easily revealed without quite a considerable amount of cultivation, purification, and clearing away and firming up of this experience, this, citta, the awareness; firming it up till it becomes a refuge and the Buddha said this is the refuge, there is no other refuge.
Early on, in my own situation, my own life, I had the certainty that something wasn’t working, even though I was ticking all the boxes and I was in Thailand and that was supposed to be interesting and fun and so on. But, no… it wasn’t working, what do I do next? So, I stumble into one of these meditation sessions, meditate for Fifteen minutes. I thought well… it’s worth a try. Just sit and be with your breathing for Fifteen minutes, but…‘Whoa!’ The mind was going all over the place and I couldn’t watch one breath. But I was able to recognize there was something there that was able to see my mind going like a crazy monkey. This is, of course, the citta (awareness). ‘Okay I don’t know about that right now, what I need to have, is the encouragement and support to get that measuring mind, with all its wishes and wills, tethered down. So, I’ll go to a monastery. When I go there, I won’t have so much sense impact and so many choices.’
So, I got there, and thought well, it’s testing to just unplug, but I could do this for a couple of weeks. I could sense something stirring, something awakening because when I left Thailand to get a new visa, things were different. I had decided to spend a couple of months travelling around in Malaysia and Indonesia, but all I wanted to do was sit and meditate. So, I went back to the monastery and decided to stay there for a while. They didn’t have anagārika in the place I was, so I became a sāmaṇera. After six months I decided to stop thinking about how long I was planning to stay there because the measuring mind cannot comprehend what’s going on or where this is coming from, you just have to trust the process.
And that’s what it is, essentially; something wants to do this, something wants to wake up. This is special, this is sacred, and it comes from that Call. There’s the mind, then there’s the body. So what does the body reveal by itself? The body is not seen or heard, by itself. It has a sensitivity to it that is twofold. There is a tactile sense; it’s always being touched by furniture and clothes. Other times there’s just space all around except for say the sensation of feet touching the ground.
The body also has an inner sense which deals with things like being intense, relaxed, excited, angry, sick and in this very body is the beginning of my world. My world begins right here, and this is where you travel, right through to the end. It’s here that we practice breathing, sensing the energy of the body moving within the body. How the body brightens up when we breathe in and gets calm when you breathe out – basic meditation, and that quality of brightening and subsiding is not a physical sense it’s an energetic sense. In this you’ve got something that will never leave you as long as you’re alive. It acts as an inner refuge. where we can contemplate our emotions and thoughts and yet not get caught up in them. When we feel things like worry, anger the body reacts. Anger flushes into our face, fear cramps around our belly, excitement thumps into our heart.
As for thinking, there are all these forms of contact that stir, arouse, disappoint, excite and present possibilities of grasping. Thinking is the king and leader. At the drop of a hat, the thinking mind will proliferate immense scenarios of ‘my’ world and immense pantomimes of other people and their world. A major part of our training, is how to notice the tendency to proliferate and to realize this is what we need to get free from.
There is a way, and this way is supported by the presence of the body which doesn’t proliferate, has no future, no past, does not establish me and mine. It establishes life, and we take refuge in life itself, as long as this life lasts. It’s an extremely helpful tool where the citta gets support gets stabilized by that presence of body. It keeps you grounded. You tune into that and you can sense thoughts, sights, sounds moving around. Their nature is to come and go, they’re interchangeable they’re insecure. And you’ve got this (body and mind). And this practice is centred on meditation,
This is an enormous practice, really when it comes down to it, your cultivation, your meditation is meeting in these places we would normally grasp, normally rush, normally tighten. Meeting these places where reflexes start firing and at that very point, come into awareness and presence and let’s see what we can do.
That’s practice… practice is about driving to the airport… leaving you think, a good two hours to get to the airport but you hit a traffic jam. Watching the clock go tick, tick, tick, and here we are, insecurity, uncertainty… I can’t make what should happen, happen! Ah practice, practice is about cultivating that point where we start to learn about situations that we would normally find infuriating, difficult and we begin to rephrase it… a chance for equanimity to be developed. A chance for patience to be developed, good. These tremendous strengths, patience, equanimity, resolutions mean you keep returning time and time again to your ground which is steady which will always look after you, which will carry you through life and into death and beyond.
This solemnizes our occasion; this makes it all worthwhile. I wish you all the best.
The Silk Road opened around 139 BCE when China was unified under the Han dynasty. It is thought however, that significant trade occurred for about 1,000 years beforehand. In terms of the development of Buddhism, these early times were notable because of King Ashoka (reigned 322-185 BCE in North India), best known for his renunciation of war, after the conquest of the Kalinga in 261 BCE, and subsequent conversion to Buddhism. He carved Dhamma lessons into cliff rock, onto pillars, and in caves throughout India (some are still visible today), in the hope that he could provide inspiration and guidance to the people of his extensive kingdom. Three languages were used, Prakrit, Greek and Aramaic. The Prakrit inscriptions were written in scripts which a commoner could read and understand; the practice of honesty, truthfulness, compassion, benevolence, nonviolence, and considerate behaviour toward all.
After the death of King Ashoka, Buddhism in India went into decline. There was a large-scale reform in Hinduism led by Adi Sankaracharya and the Buddha became a part of Hindu history as an avatar of Vishnu. Another factor for the decline was the Muslim invasion of India and Islamic destruction of Buddhist temples, shrines, and institutions, at Taxila and Nalanda universities. Buddhist monks sought refuge in Nepal and Tibet.
By this time however, the Buddha’s Teachings had found their way to Central and East Asia by way of the Old Silk Road. The “silk road” itself was an interconnected network of Eurasian trails followed by caravans transporting Chinese silk and other goods to and from China, through Central Asia to the Middle East and Mediterranean countries (distance 6,400 kilometres, 4,000 miles). Few individuals crossed the entirety of the Silk Road, instead relying on a succession of middlemen based at various stopping points along the way. In addition to goods, the network facilitated an exchange of ideas, religions, especially Buddhism.
Buddhism is associated with the rise of the Kushan Empire, present-day Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India. Kushan coins show that all along the Silk Road kings and rulers had built monasteries and temples. This combination of patronage, the founding of monasteries, and the rise of Buddhist scholarship all contributed to make Buddhism a very significant presence all over Central Asia.
The greatest success in the spreading of Buddhism came with its introduction to China, where it reinvigorated the existing philosophy, culture, and literature. The Silk Road also reached Korea and Japan. Its encounter with Daoism and Confucianism helped establish deep roots among the peoples of East Asia. Here Buddhism became a religious and spiritual presence as well as the catalyst for greater links with Eurasia.
From the 4th century onward, Chinese pilgrims also started to travel on the Silk Road to India, the origin of Buddhism, in order to get improved access to the original scriptures, the most famous of these is Xuanzang. At age 27, he began his seventeen-year overland journey to India, making his way through various central Asian cities, and through to Northern India. He also spent some time at Nalanda Buddhist monastic university (mahavihara) in ancient Magadha in modern day Bihar, India where he studied with the monk, Śīlabhadra.
On his return to China in 645 CE, Xuanzang was greeted with much honor but he refused all high civil appointments offered by the still-reigning emperor, Emperor Taizong of Tang. Instead, he retired to a monastery and devoted his energy to translating Buddhist texts until his death in 664 CE. According to his biography, he returned with “over six hundred Mahayana and Hinayana texts, seven statues of the Buddha and more than a hundred śarīra relics (pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are apparently found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters).
During the fifth and sixth centuries C.E., merchants played a large role in the spread of Buddhism. The moral and ethical teachings of Buddhism were found to be an appealing alternative to previous religions. As a result, merchants supported Buddhist monasteries along the Silk Roads. In return, the Buddhists gave the merchants somewhere to stopover. Merchants then spread Buddhism to foreign encounters as they travelled. Merchants also helped to establish diaspora within the communities they encountered and over time, their cultures were based on Buddhism. Because of this, these communities became centers of literacy and culture with well-organized marketplaces, lodging, and storage.
At the Mediterranean end of the Silk Road, the Greeks were the first Europeans to embrace Buddhism, centuries before the advent of Christianity, and there is evidence that the first sculptors to depict the Buddha in the form of statues were of Greek descent. These were the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha himself. Before this innovation, the Buddha was only represented through his symbols (an empty throne, the Bodhi Tree, Buddha footprints, the Dharmachakra, the Dharma Wheel).
Buddhism flourished under the Indo-Greeks, the Milindapañha (English publication: available: ‘Questions of Milinda’) dated between 100 BC and 200 AD, is a dialogue between the Indian Buddhist sage Nāgasena, and the 2nd century BC Indo-Greek King Menander I of Bactria, in Sāgalā, present-day Sialkot. The book speaks of the encounter of two civilizations — Hellenistic Greece and Buddhist India — and is of continuing relevance as the wisdom of the East meets the modern Western world. King Milinda poses questions about dilemmas raised by Buddhist philosophy that we might ask today. And Nagasena’s responses are full of wisdom, wit, and helpful analogies.
Great Buddhist scholars always looked at the Silk Road as a connecting thread with what they regarded as the founding values of Buddhism. With the 7th Century invasion of Islam in Central Asia, the transmission of Buddhism started to disappear. An increasing Muslim dominance all along the route made it difficult for Buddhist monks and pilgrims to travel between India and China, and the Silk Road transmission between Eastern Buddhism and Indian Buddhism eventually came to an end.
Buddhism recovered in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), the “golden age” of Chan (known today as Zen). Chan Buddhism spread south to Vietnam as Thiền and north to Korea as Seon, and, in the 13th century, east to Japan as Japanese Zen. Pure Land Buddhism also became popular during this period and was often practiced together with Chan.
(More next week)
Buddha Daibutsu, Kamakura
Header Image: 4th Century Chinese pilgrim monk, Xuanzang
The Buddhist concept of anattā appears in a thought window: “non-self” – no unchanging, permanent self or essence can be found in any phenomenon. And to begin with, there is the story of Vajira, a Buddhist nun (bhikkhuni), one of the earliest women adepts in Buddhist history. While Vajira was meditating, she was confronted by Mara, a malignant celestial demon king, and he asked about the origin and creator of her “Being”, i.e., her soul. She responded by comparing one’s “Being” to a chariot, showing that it had no permanent existence but was made up of constituent parts: Is it the wheels, the framework, the ropes, the spokes of the wheel?’ None of these things are the chariot but the aggregate of such physical parts composed in certain ways is conventionally understood as a chariot. Just as, with an assemblage of parts, the word ‘chariot’ is used, when the 5 aggregates (khandas) are present in a human, there’s the convention ‘a being.’
Returning to present-times, the following is a transcript of parts of a dougsdharma video by onlinedharma.org: “As the chariot is being taken apart, at what point in the dis-assembly does the chariot cease to be a chariot? Consider the assertion of non-self: What we are is a complex process, a causally inter-related set of parts essentially that creates a sense of self over a period of time. This radically displaces our ordinary everyday sense of self, replacing it with a much wiser and deeper understanding of the way things really are. I would assert that a similar kind of thing happens when we contemplate the complexity of artificial intelligence because, after all, it’s got to have these incredibly complex trained neural networks behind it. In the same way we might say human utterances come out of a very complex network of neurons – literal neurons rather than artificial neurons in a computer.
Let’s look again at how a person is like a chariot made up of parts, in particular five parts which are known as the Five Aggregates. [1. form (the body) 2. sensations (vedana) 3. perceptions (sañña) 4. mental activity or formations (sankhara) 5. consciousness (viññāna)]
All of these five groups of processes are causally interrelated and causally interacting. That causal interrelation among these five different parts is what creates our idea of a self, a person. Then, it’s important to remember that each of these parts can be broken down into further parts.
Form, the human body, can be broken down into the elements and each of the four mental parts can be broken down into subparts. It’s a complex interrelation of many different parts that are basically coming into being and going out of existence over a period of time.
A lot of this I think, mirrors and reflects what we are seeing now in artificial intelligence; that the self is no different from a very complex causally interreacting machine except for the biology part of it. Now, certainly we can’t see a computer’s mental parts just as we can’t see the mental parts of another human being that is standing in front of us – we infer them based on the behaviour of the object in front of us.
If we see the person in front of us behaving in the way a normal person does, we assume that they have a mind, they have mental parts. Now we may think that the artificial intelligence programs around us are too simple, that they don’t quite meet the criteria of sentience or intelligence. It’s possible we believe that, maybe we’re right, that’s true. But if it is, I would submit that we only need to wait because these programs are getting exponentially more complex, more powerful over time, new versions of these programs will be coming out in the next few years and so these points we’re going to have to meet in the future and probably in the near future.
I think nothing displaces our literal sense of self more than the contemplation of these kinds of artificial intelligences. And the idea that we can now create something that is in certain very deep respects indistinguishable from a human in the way that it interacts with the world. Following that line of thought, I decided to ask one of these programs, the most famous publicly available one which is ChatGPT a question about this about what it made of this relationship between contemporary advances in artificial intelligence and the Buddhist concept of non-self and it had an interesting response.”
Some experts have suggested that the development of advanced AI could challenge our conventional notions of self and identity, raising questions about what it means to be conscious and self-aware. For example, if we were to create an AI system that was capable of learning and evolving in ways that resembled human cognition, would we consider that system to have a ‘self’ or a sense of identity?
In this sense the Buddhist concept of non-self could be seen as a helpful framework for understanding the relationship between consciousness and self in the context of AL. By recognizing that the self is not a fixed unchanging entity, bt rather a dynamic and ever-evolving process, we may be better equipped to grapple with the challenges and opportunities presented by advances in AI and related technologies,
So, I’ll just leave that response there and say that we ae living now in pretty amazing times.”
The Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta ‘is the second discourse delivered by the Buddha. The first is the Four Noble Truths. In Buddhism, the term anattā refers to the doctrine of “non-self” – that no unchanging, permanent self or essence can be found in any phenomenon. While often interpreted as a teaching denying the existence of a self, anattā is more accurately described as a strategy to attain non-attachment by recognizing everything as impermanent, while staying silent on the ultimate existence of an unchanging essence. According to Peter Harvey, while the Suttas criticize notions of an eternal, unchanging Self as baseless, they see an enlightened being as one whose empirical self is highly developed. This is paradoxical, in that “the Self-like nibbana state” is a mature self that knows “everything as Selfless”. An Arahat, states Harvey, has a fully enlightened state of empirical self, one that lacks the “sense of both ‘I am’ and ‘this I am'”, which are illusions that the Arahat has transcended. [Wikipedia]
There are many presentations of the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, the following is one of my favorites. It was published only a few days ago by Tashi Nyima in The Great Middle Way and is the inspiration for this post. Click on the link at the end of this text to find the original.
This is not me’
Any form, feeling, perception, volition, or consciousness whatsoever that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near, is to be seen as it actually is with right discernment: ‘This is not me. This is not mine. This is not my self.’
Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciples of the Noble Ones grow disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, they become dispassionate. Through dispassion, they are fully released. With full release, there is the knowledge, ‘Fully released.’ They discern that ‘Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.’”
𑁋Buddha Shakyamuni, Anattalakkhana Sutta
[The following is a reblog of excepts from a post first published here ten years ago, titled Redefining the Question] April 12, 2013, 04:00 New Delhi: There’s no doctrine of God-worship in Buddhism, in Christianity, there is only belief – ‘I believe (I believe) in God. There’s no real teaching on how to understand life, the world. In Buddhism, there is the Anattā Teaching; the separate ‘self’ is an illusion, ‘a cluster of memories, thoughts, habits and conditioning’, maintained due to this basic human tendency to hold on to stuff. It’s not about self, it’s not about our origin, our Creator or what we are made of, it’s about how the whole thing works. It’s a 2600-year-old teaching about learning how to see what our hang-ups are, and easing the burden of emotionalism and wrong-view.
It’s not about living for our(selves): seeking, acquiring and hoarding, it’s about generosity, relinquishment and giving it all away. It’s about mindfulness and the way things exist, rather than what exists. It’s about realities that fit into our world today, exactly as it was in ancient times. The Buddha anticipated modern physics: all matter is energy; beings exist as “bundles of energies” (five khandhas). It’s not about ‘self’, it’s about non-self, anattā, it’s about consciousness, viññāna, and the perennial question: what is consciousness? Without a basic understanding of what the Buddhist non-self is, it’s impossible to contemplate the existential ‘is-ness’ of consciousness.
I go to lie down for an hour or so; still not yet dawn. Watch the in-breath/ out-breath, conscious of the sound of the ceiling fan above me in the shadows, constant spinning cycle that somehow says something about the weight of the rotary blades. It looks like how it sounds: a spinning propeller of an old-fashioned aircraft – consciousness of the visual image. Always there’s consciousness of something: consciousness of the smell of coffee and a breakfast crust of toast in the kitchen, the taste of it; consciousness of the soft bedding I’m lying in. There’s consciousness of thought and then there’s consciousness of no-thought – my perception of it… consciousness without an object, the still mind, unsupported consciousness – unconditioned? The non-dual perspective is that it’s like this anyway….
“The “empirical self” is the citta (mind/heart, mindset, emotional nature), and the development of self in the Suttas is the development of this citta.” [Peter Harvey, ‘The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism.’] Consciousness without an object in the sense that it is different from the basic functions of interacting with the world through sensory organs: eye, ear, nose, skin, mouth and mind; different from the state of being conscious of what’s going on in the body/mind organism, phassa, as a result of responses to the world outside. Not consciousness of… just consciousness itself – what is this? Is this the kind of consciousness that’s needed to find the answer to the question or to redefine the question, maybe, or whatever… is it the true self?
‘…this true self is also the fundamental source of all attachment to being and becoming… attachment to the allure of this primordial radiance of mind that causes living beings to wander indefinitely through the world of becoming and ceasing.’ [Luangta Maha Boowa]
[Editorial Note:I’ve been re-reading “Autobiography of a Forest Monk” by Venerable Ajahn Thate 1902-1994 [The book is available online, look for the link at the end of this text]. Ajahn Thate’s autobiography was originally published in 1974, on his seventy-second birthday. He was involved in monastic life from an early age, through his family, and it interests me to read that he studied “indigenous Dhamma and Korm scripts” at the age of nine.]
I asked my wife Jiab about this and she recognised the word ‘korm,’ saying that when she was a child, she had seen these Buddhist texts, inscribed in Indo-Cambodia characters. So, for the first time I found a direct reference to the extent of Buddhist Teaching coming from Northern India into Thailand.
Wikipedia tells me that Buddhism was introduced into Southeast Asia [“the golden peninsula”], in the 3rd century BC, by way of monks sent by King Ashoka in India. This resulted in a mixture of Mahayana Buddhism, Brahmanism and indigenous animistic religion in the region and that continued until the 13th century CE when Theravada Buddhism became the state religion of Cambodia. One of the kings had sent his son to Sri Lanka to be ordained as a Buddhist monk and study Theravada Buddhism according to the Pali scriptural traditions.
After 10 years the prince returned to Cambodia and promoted Buddhist traditions according to the Theravada training, he had received, galvanizing and energizing the long-standing Theravada presence that had existed throughout the Angkor empire for centuries. More than 900 temples were built in Cambodia and Thailand, Mahayana Buddhism and Hindu Khmer Empire dominated much of the Southeast Asian peninsula. After the slow diminishing of Buddhism in India, Buddhist monks came from Sri Lanka and slowly converted the Buddhism in Burma to Theravada tradition. This was followed by the introduction of Theravada Buddhism in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Theravada tradition later replaced the previous forms of Buddhism and was made the official state religion in Thailand with the establishment of the Thai Kingdom of Sukothai in the 13th century AD.
Returning now to Ajahn Thate’s autobiography, his monastic life began at the age of eighteen with novice ordination and at twenty-two he became a monk; however, the young Ajahn Thate had already been on tudong in the forests with older monks and was quick to learn the hazards. At the time, they monks were following the trails and narrow footpaths deep in the forest asking hill tribe people if they had seen their teacher, Ajahn Mun.… and I’d like to pick up the narrative this time at 22.2:
“There had been no news of Ven. Ajahn Mun for two years. That left the two of us, Ven. Ornsee and myself, to seek him out and our wanderings through the forests and mountains were all aimed at this… about half way along the trail we heard the roar of a tiger not far away from us. I was almost frightened to death by the idea of a tiger being so close but I didn’t let on to my friend — he had been born and raised in an agriculturally developed area and so didn’t know the sound of a tiger. If I had told him, I knew I would instantly draw him into my state of trepidation. Going beyond the range of the tiger’s roar we lost the trail and so were forced to find a place to spend the night in the jungle. I was so afraid of the tiger that I lay sleepless throughout the night. There was a heavy dew and it was extremely cold yet my friend lay there snoring loudly all night. While I was terrified with the thought that the tiger might hear him and we would be killed — he blissfully slept through it all.
On another occasion I had left Ven. Ornsee and went off to stay alone. One day I heard a tiger roar and became so terrified by its noise that I began to tremble and shake so much that I couldn’t sleep and my meditation wouldn’t settle down at all. Some local people helped to chase it away by firing threatening shots with their guns and by hurling firebrands at it. It fled for a moment but then came back again. In the early morning, when the villagers were going out to work in the fields, they would sometimes spot the tiger crouching in the jungle ahead of them. They would then run away — although I never heard that it had done any harm to anyone.
No matter how I tried to sit in meditation, it just didn’t seem to come together. At that point I was still unaware that it was all to do with my fear of the tiger. My whole body would be soaked in sweat. “Hey!”, I thought, “what’s all this about then? I’m cold and yet I’m still sweating”. I tried removing the blanket wrapped around me and saw that I was still trembling. I felt exhausted with not being able to progress with my meditation. Then I thought of lying down to rest a little and refresh myself, ready for future efforts. At that very moment, I heard the tiger roar out and my whole body started shivering and shaking, as if I had a malarial fever. It was then I realized that this was all due to my fear of the tiger’s roar.
I sat up and established mindfulness, settling the mind in stillness on a single object and ready to sacrifice my life. Hadn’t I already accepted death? Wasn’t that the reason for my coming to live here? Aren’t tiger and human both a fabrication of the same four elements? After death, won’t both end in the same condition? Who eats whom — who is the one who dies and who is the one that doesn’t die? When I was willing to relinquish and investigate in this dauntless, single-minded way, I could no longer hear the noise of the tiger.
Whenever I afterwards heard the tiger’s roar, my mind remained quite unconcerned. I now saw it just as air reverberating from a material form, causing sound. Ever since childhood, I had had a natural tendency to be easily upset, being of a rather nervous disposition. The sound of the tiger had brought up some past conditioning that had caused my unconscious fear. During that night I again heard the tiger roar from a nearby mountain top and this helped to concentrate my mind in seclusion. I called up the virtues and qualities of the Lord Buddha as my meditation object and from this arose knowledge of a strange and marvellous nature, in different ways never imagined or experienced before.
[Excerpts from an interview with Anthony Morgan, originally published as “Finding Refuge” in the Spring 2023 edition of THE PHILOSOPHER]
Anthony Morgan (AM): Working with the body is central to your teachings, so I was hoping you could start by saying a few things about how a material body interacts with a seemingly immaterial mind, also known as the mind-body problem
Ajahn Sucitto (AS): This would depend on what we mean by “mind” and what we mean by “body”! Since Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” we have tended to take the mind to be the thinker, but in Buddhism thinking is only an aspect of mind and does not encompass all that mind is. For a start, thinking is not the experience that gets liberated, and, frustratingly for intellectuals, nibbana is non-conceivable so the final goal of Buddhism is not something you can get a satisfactory idea or a theory around. In fact, many of the Buddha’s teachings are conceptually rather paradoxical, something that we find especially emphasised in the Zen tradition. The Buddha himself frequently points to the dangers of conceiving, highlighting how the world is in a trap of nama (naming and conceiving), and sees release from concepts as central to the liberation that he was teaching. If we pause to think about what this may mean not to conceive, it is pretty mind-blowing! It can be very difficult to even imagine what this may be like.
So, the thinking mind certainly has its relevance, but is by no means the total sum of mind or even the aspect of mind that could be liberated. Thinking is an activity of mind, and the organ of this is called mano, but the broader (and in my opinion much more useful) word used to describe mind is citta which can be translated as “mind” or “heart” or “awareness”. Citta is that which is liberated, although it is worth looking at what exactly this might mean. For there is not an entity that is liberated but the very configuration of citta is freed from all configurations! It’s rather like the question of what a fist is like when you open your hand. It’s not that it’s not a fist – its just that you never even knew what an open hand was.
Another way I like to think of citta is as the experience of “I” before “am”, an “I” that has no predicate or object: a sense of complete subjectivity with no object or image. I think that many people with even basic meditation experience will momentarily touch into this sense that there is somebody or something here that is behind the thinking, something that knows it is thinking. We can say what it feels like or what it does, but we can’t find it. We could say, then, that citta is the subject behind any of the adjectives or descriptions that happen. But as a result of avijjā (or ignorance), this is generally not what is seen. What is more clearly seen are all the activities into which citta gets organized or configured, and these activities are of two fundamental qualities.
The first quality is receptive activity through which citta feels, perceives, is affected, is touched, shivers, spins, sinks, and so on. And the other quality of citta is responsive activity: it reacts and responds, either carefully or carelessly, either with mindfulness or without. So citta is both affective and responsive, and both of these elements result from the citta being activated. We might say that one of the results, even the final result, of Buddhist mind training is the ceasing of this activity. To the uninitiated, this may sound like death or numbness, but it is actually acute (even unimaginable) sensitivity and exquisite peacefulness. Within this, the citta has no object and is not conceiving or formulating anything. Another way of trying to explain this is that the ear hears sounds but by itself does not like or dislike the sound: this is what the mind does. What, then, is the quality of hearing as distinct from the heard? Is it acute? Is it attentive? Mind training is a process of developing citta to the point at which one is aware of the “mindingness” of things rather than the objects, to the point at which the objects themselves fade in significance, and all that is left is a supreme “minding” which is no activity other than to be awake.
Turning to body, we can look at it from two perspectives. Firstly, it is a big hunk of meat and bones and hair that can be perceived as old or young, attractive or unattractive, and so on. This body can be studied externally or can be cut open and inspected from the inside. It grows old, falls ill, and it dies. But there is another way of experiencing the body other than as an object, and this is revealed when we consider the vitality of the body. It feels alive, numb, tense, relaxed, and so on. What are these sensations? We can hardly just reduce them to activation of body tissues, so, broadly speaking, we could call it nervous energy. Or we might call it bodily intelligence: this is not a conceptual intelligence, but a capacity to be affected and respond just as the mind does. Consider a toddler learning to balance itself. This is not something that can be figured out as an idea in the head; rather, the body learns how to balance itself. In this way, it is very similar to citta: it is both affective and responsive, and has an intelligence to it.
There are plenty of everyday examples that show how these two aspects – body and mind – are correlative. If we feel angry in our minds, we feel heated and aroused in our bodies. If we feel grief or depression, our chest can feel hollow, and the body can feel very heavy and sluggish. So, we can all acknowledge that our emotions register in our body, and that in this sense body is not distinct from mental activation. The problem for the average person, however, is that they do not know how to disengage the body from mental signals. Because of the compulsive activation of the thinking mind with its correlative effect upon the body, there is a cumulative impact upon the body which takes the form of stress, agitation, pressure, and so on. One central element of meditation is to work on this intimate relationship between mind and body, and it aims to reverse the often deeply entrenched negative feedback loops between the thinking mind and the feeling body. Meditation especially enhances the parasympathetic system as we are attuning wisely with the aim of understanding how stress in this system can be alleviated
[…] Meditation allows us to contemplate the responses that are coming up in our minds in relation to a set of events. Cultivation of mindfulness (sati) allows us to bring things to mind in a sustained way such that we can investigate everything from the thinking process to the quality of attention and intention itself. This is refined kamma, the kamma of meditation, and is certainly not something we see in the animal kingdom, nor is it something that we can assume we as humans will possess simply by virtue of being human; rather it is an ability that must be cultivated and trained.
For an untrained person, a thought arises and they feel that they have to do something about it: either they have to work it out and resolve it or try and push it away and distract themselves from it. There are strong driven energies that push them towards a rather limited range of chosen options. Through meditation, we develop the ability simply to hold a thought in mind, which then allows us to investigate it or to take it apart or to quieten it down. There is no requirement to agree with or disagree with the thought, to block it or follow it; rather we can look into it and deconstruct it. This process frees us from a lot of personal bias which so often determines our actions, and opens up greater freedom of action simply because we are no longer acting as a result of panic or drives or compulsions or habits or assumptions.
But this is not the end of the story. For while this training allows for a far greater choice of action because the mind is acquiring greater skills in how to respond, it also allows us to lessen the kinds of intentions that lead to action as we learn how to remain quiet and take our time. Through this the mind can learn to open up new dimensions that we could not access or even conceive of when it was being busy and active. This is the deactivated citta that is experienced as sublimely peaceful and pleasant. Through accessing this, we begin to cultivate freedom from kamma itself as the mind is no longer rehashing old stuff, regurgitating its old assumptions and programs, and generating new comments and tactics. Meditation involves recognizing that a thought or feeling has arisen, and neither suppressing it nor following it but deconstructing it. How can I open to this? How can I relax around it? How can I let it arise and pass through without snagging on it? Through this process, it will begin to deconstruct itself, and this is like a long-running conversation in our mind that is finally allowed to come to an end. This is the cessation of kamma and a glimpse of nibbana, which is the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice.
Editor’s note: Continuing on the Forest Monk theme, I was looking into the followers of Ajahn Mun and came across Ajahn Thate (1902 – 1994), a contemporary of Luang Pu Dune, born in the same geographical area. There is a short e-book: “Steps Along the Path” by Phra Ajaan Thate Desaransi (Phra Rajanirodharansi) translated from the Thai byThanissaro Bhikkhu in 1994. When Ajahn Thate was active (1930s), the whole of the North – North East of Thailand was a vast area of original forest, stretching across the borders of Burma and Cambodia.
I’ve selected a few paragraphs and excerpts from the book here, that are insightful re: meditation development, in particular one-pointedness:
(2) “… train the mind to develop concentration (samādhi) and absorption (jhāna) through the practice of tranquillity meditation. Once the mind is adept at maintaining a steady focus, we can then develop clear insight (vipassanā) based on an understanding of the Three Characteristics of inconstancy (aniccā), suffering (dukkhā)), and (anattā) not-self. This will lead us to pure knowledge and vision of things as they actually are, and thus to release from all things detrimental and defiling.
3. For Buddhism, the true aim in developing concentration and absorption is to gather one’s mental energies and make them steady and strong in a single point. This then forms the basis for the knowledge and discernment capable of gaining true insight into all conditions of nature and eliminating all that is detrimental and defiling from the heart. Thus, stillness of mind is developed not simply for other, external purposes, such as the various fields of science. Instead, it’s meant specifically for use in cleansing the heart of such defilements as the five Hindrances (nivarana) But when you have practiced to the point of proficiency, you can use your stillness of mind in any way you like, as long as that use isn’t detrimental to yourself or to others.
4. In training the mind — which is a mental phenomenon — there is tutoring, first by listening to the explanations of those who are already skilled. Followed by a determination to practice in line with those explanations, basing your initial efforts on a sense of trust and conviction if your own independent explorations into cause and effect don’t succeed.
By and large, people who start out by exploring cause and effect on their own don’t reach their desired goal because they lack the proper approach. They miss the true path, tending instead to be biased in favor of their own opinions. To develop first a sense of trust in the individual giving the training and in the practices in which one is being trained until the mind is firm and unwavering, and then to begin exploring and figuring things out, in line with the way they really are: This is what will give satisfactory results.
This is because any beginning exploration of cause and effect is usually a matter of looking at things from the outside, following external influences — i.e., “This person says that… That person says this.” But to investigate and explore cause and effect exclusively within the bounds of the body — i.e., “What is this body of mine made of? How does it come about so that its parts are complete and able to perform their functions well? What is it to be used for? What keeps it going? Is its fate to develop or to deteriorate? Is it really mine?” — and then, going on to mental phenomena — “Do greed, anger, delusion, love, hatred, and so forth, arise at the body or at the mind? What do they come from? When they arise, are they pleasant or stressful?” — to reason and explore things strictly internally in this way is, in and of itself, training the mind.
But if your stillness of mind isn’t yet strong enough, don’t go reasoning in line with the books you may have read or the things you may have heard other people say, because even though you may think things through, it won’t lead you to the truth. In other words, it won’t lead you to a sense of dispassion and detachment. So instead, explore and investigate things in line with the causes and effects that actually arise from the mind in the present.
5. The mind investigating and figuring things out in line with its own personal reasonings in this way will tend to focus exclusively on examining a single spot in a single object. This is called one-pointed concentration. This is a gathering of the mind’s energies so that they have great strength, able to uproot attachments — mistaken assumptions — and to cleanse the mind so that it is, for the moment, bright and clear. At the very least, you will experience peace — an extreme sense of well-being in body and mind — and perhaps knowledge of one sort or another: knowledge of a strange and striking sort, for it arises, not from mental imaginings, but from the causes and effects of the truth acting in the present, in a way that has never happened before. Even if it is knowledge of something you may have suspected all along, only now is it your own, making your mind bright, driving away all doubt and uncertainty about matters that may have been occupying your thoughts. You will say to yourself with a sense of deep satisfaction and relief, “So that’s how it is!”
Those whose sensitivities are dull, though, won’t be convinced and delighted with their knowledge until someone else confirms it or they see teachings of the Buddha in books bearing witness to what they have learned. This is in line with the fact that the Buddha’s followers are of various sorts.
This type of knowledge — no matter how much or how wide-ranging it is — won’t weigh on your nerves. On the contrary, it’s a form of calm and true well-being that will greatly brighten and refresh your nerves. At the same time, it will refine your mind and manners in a way that will be very inspiring to others. Whatever you say or do, you will do mindfully, with hardly any careless lapses. Once this happens to you, you should then try to maintain all these traits and not grow careless or complacent.
[Note: We can pause the text here in order to investigate “one-pointedness.” Some Dhamma Footsteps’ readers may remember Ajahn Brahm’s reference to the subject in “Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond.” Click on this Link:https://dhammafootsteps.com/2022/05/06/the-second-and-third-jhanas/
"To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. . . I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them." – Elliott Erwin (Documentary photographer)
dhamma footsteps 
You must be logged in to post a comment.