mindfulness, its friends and relatives

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[Excerpts from an article in Ajahn Sucitto’s Blog]

What does ‘mindfulness’ mean?

A calm collected emotional state and a clear present-moment attention which can have many applications to improve how a human being functions, and mindfulness (sati) is commonly understood to provide just that. There’s also a referential quality; mindfulness connects present-moment experience to a frame of reference. An example of this is the teaching on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness: 1) Mindfulness of body, 2) Mindfulness of feeling, 3) Mindfulness of, mind-state, 4) Mindfulness of physical and mental processes (M.10, D.22). [These are also called the four frames of reference or four establishments of awareness.]

In this context, mindfulness is the kind of attention that refers bodily experience to the body, feeling is referenced to the realm of feeling, and the current state of mind to the domain of mind, and mental qualities – such as ill-will or goodwill that support mind-states – to themselves, just as they are. One isn’t referring them to ‘Self.’ This reference, clears out the judgemental feeling of Self, ‘How am I seen by others?’ and so on. In the practice of the Four Foundations, mindfulness replaces that tension and reaction to Self, with clarity and a steady calm, that allows mind-states to unravel and the great ‘unbinding’ of nibbāna.

Right view, virtue and attention

Reference to an object in and of itself is then part of what mindfulness offers, but there are other factors – I call them ‘friends and relatives’ who tag along with mindfulness so that motivation and application is clear, and there is the learning from what the frame of reference presents. For instance, take mindfulness in the Noble Eightfold Path with its eight factors: 1) right view, 2) right intention, 3) right speech, 4) right action, 5) right livelihood, 6) right effort, 7) right mindfulness, and 8) right concentration. Mindfulness is only one factor of an unfolding process which begins with right view and leads on through right speech and right action through right mindfulness and into samādhi – right unification of mind. In this process the most important factor is right view – the wise perspective that reminds us that everything we say, do or even think has results, for good or for bad.

Mindfulness then carries right view into living experience; by highlighting the mind-states that are the causes and results of our actions, it gets the mind to see which ones are for our true benefit. The requirement to establish virtue and awareness of the causes and effects of one’s actions indicate that in Dhamma practice, it’s not enough to notice that one’s body is doing something and sensations are arising –there’s a “How?” and a “Why?” Robbing a bank might require clarity, focus and calm, but they wouldn’t be themes for right mindfulness. So, for right mindfulness, the attentive aspect of mind has to connect with felt awareness of one’s approach and intention. This is because taken on its own, attention (manasikāra) is the aspect of mind that is rational, an object-defining tool. This is the function that gets tuned to high degrees of efficiency and speed; enabling people to race through piles of data, rapidly trading stocks and shares.  What they’re not referring to is their own awareness, mind as ‘heart’ or ‘citta’.

Clear comprehension and deep attention

Citta is the mind of feelings and impressions and of ‘how I am’; it is an empathic awareness. It is the all-important focus of mindfulness, because if it is steadied and cleared of wrong views and unknowing, there is liberation. So, mindfulness refers the objects of attention to this mental awareness (or ‘heart’) to know what it is being affected by, and how that affect arises and passes. This knowledge is called ‘clear comprehension’ or ‘full knowing’ (sampajañña); it is a vital relative of mindfulness and in our well-being. Without it, people lose themselves in whatever grabs attention, or get stressed out, leading to anxiety, stress, and depression. Our systems and cultures have lost touch with awareness and its fundamental nature. Instead, the message is that happiness and success only come through chasing and acquiring what’s ‘out there ‘– no inner home, just a centre that remains swampy, hungry and restless.

Right mindfulness is vital; it connects manas, the object-definer, to citta, awareness, the subjective sense. Mindfulness is there in the moment of holding the question ‘How am I with this?’ If we liken the mind to a hand: attention is like the fingers, and citta is like the palm. Fingers can probe, twiddle and touch, but are unable to collect anything. The palm can’t probe and inquire, but it receives, collects and fully feels what the fingers place in it. So citta has a storekeeper’s wisdom – it wants to know what is worth being in touch with, what can be held for one’s welfare. It certainly needs educating, and that is the function of ‘deep’ or ‘wise’ attention (yoniso manasikāra), the attention that selects which sense data mindfulness should bear in mind. There’s so much stuff the mind can get lost in, so deep attention is another friend of mindfulness. It requires skilful intention and clarifies what you’re experiencing. Deep attention means that rather than note every thought that runs through your head, can it be included in one word? Restlessness, anxiety? Irritation, friendliness? Then mindfulness lets it sit in awareness. So, when right view and deep attention guide mindfulness, it draws manas and citta together; you know where your actions and thoughts are coming from, you’re ethically attuned.

Clear comprehension helps you to come to terms with what you’re experiencing. For example, as you attend to how your body feels and how you sense it internally, you establish mindfulness of body. By directing your attention to how your body feels in itself, you establish the embodied sense that gets you grounded and stable. You more fully get to know what the body is about – you know it not as a self-image but as a base of consciousness, and a resource for the mind. As you get embodied, feeling, both physical and mental, becomes more evident. Then if you attend to feeling in itself without rejecting, resisting or sinking into it, clear comprehension makes you less reactive. The mind is left clear and balanced and you don’t have to make a ‘Self’ out of it. Mental feelings and states of mind reveal their true nature: they’re not ‘Self’, not fixed things at all. You get to know the mind; you know it goes through moods, but they change and you can still arrive at clarity.

Samādhi and wisdom

As the various reactions and distractions die down, the fingers of attention and the palm of awareness can meet with no aim other than that meeting. Then you have samādhi – the mind is unified. Through mindfulness, attention comes home to awareness, and finding that this is a very comfortable place to be, intention settles into appreciation and ease. Putting aside self-judgements, an assessment of what is really useful can take place. So, to avoid having its attention hijacked, mindfulness has to be established and made firm. Mindfulness is thus involved with wisdom.

In meditation retreats we are supported by the energy of patient persistence, without getting side-tracked by self-criticism or doubt. Mindfulness has to be established and re-established through patience and a lot of kind encouragement so that the fingers of attention don’t keep grabbing hot coal! Knowing what burns or stabs the heart, or entangles it, is up to each of us to find out. Keep that patient persistence going, mindfulness needs enthusiasm, or ‘eagerness’. In this way persistence (viriya) and eagerness (atapi) become two more members of the mindfulness team. Don’t get put off by the idea of making an effort, because right energy comes from interest and fullness of heart, not blind will. When something gives us good results or is interesting to do, then energy is not a problem. So, we need to recall and be mindful of why we do what we do, whether that’s cultivating samādhi or cooking a meal; keep it relevant. Get interested in how your mind or body work, use mindfulness with interest; then the application of right effort is a way of it coming more fully into your life. With mindfulness you learn how to train, encourage, gladden and soothe the mind in a range of activities.

Investigation

The Buddha presents the examples of two cooks; both present their master, the king, with his meal – but one does and one doesn’t notice what food the king enjoys. The one who doesn’t notice serves the same food every day, regardless – and gets fired. The one who notices what food the king chooses from the meal; continues to refine the meal he prepares in line with what most satisfies his master – and gets promoted (S.47.8). The point is that mindfulness needs to attend to ‘the sign of the mind.’ This is beautiful: as it clears itself of its burdens and inner conflicts, the citta will present subtle signs of luminosity, ease, vastness or stillness. Any of these may be a key to be picked up, held and explored. So, we need to look and feel more deeply into what meditation theme the citta picks up readily and enjoys.

‘Picking up the sign of the mind’ is the entry to the mystical experience, when the heart attunes to a felt sense that isn’t coming from one’s normal personality programs. The required fine-tuning comes through another of mindfulness’ friends, one that tastes the mental qualities that support any state of mind. This is ‘investigation of qualities’, dhammavicaya. It has to be applied to the citta as in: ‘What effect is this having on my mind?’ or ‘What is there at the periphery of attention?’ Through investigation, unnecessary feelings get weeded out, such as: forcefulness, ambition, or ideas about what we should be experiencing. All are replaced by a more subtle invitation into Truth. In this way, citta educates manas in the ways of directly-experienced wisdom. And manas pays back by casting that wisdom into concepts that form the storehouse of one’s contemplative know-how.

As a member of a team, mindfulness frees the mind from the burden of self-consciousness, self-hatred and self-orientation – the shift that is the heart of awakening. For some it will bring fresh life to its forgetful Buddhist parent. And for others it’s an open opportunity. Eventually how we use it is our own ongoing responsibility.

Ajahn Sucitto

Image source and Malcom Huxter text on Mindfulness

https://insighttimer.com/blog/mindfulness-in-buddhism-secular-meditation/

notes on nibbāna 3

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Excerpts from: The Magic of the Mind: An exposition of the Kāḷakārāma Sutta by Ven. Kaṭukurunde Ñāṇananda Mahathera: Suppose a magician should hold a magic-show at the four cross-roads; and a keen-sighted man should see it, ponder over it and reflect on it.

The news of the magician’s arrival has spread far and wide, and eager crowds are now making for the large hall where he is due to perform today. You too buy a ticket and manage to enter the hall. There is already a scramble for seats, but you are not keen on securing one. for you have entered with a different purpose in mind. You have had a bright idea to outwit the magician – to play a trick on him yourself. So, you cut your way through the thronging crowds and stealthily creep into some concealed corner of the stage.

The magician enters the stage through the dark curtains, clad in his pitchy black suit. Black boxes containing his secret stock-in-trade are also now on the stage. The performance starts and from your point of vantage you watch. And as you watch with sharp eyes every movement of the magician, you now begin to discover, one after the other, the secrets behind those “breath taking’ miracles of your favourite magician. The hidden holes and false bottoms in his magic boxes, the counterfeits and secret pockets, the hidden strings and buttons that are pulled and pressed under the cover of the frantic waving of his magic-wand.

Very soon you see through his bag of wily tricks so well, that you are able to discover his next ‘surprise well in advance. Since you can now anticipate his ‘surprises’ they no longer surprise you. His ‘tricks’ no longer deceive you. His ‘magic’ has lost its magic for you. It no longer kindles your imagination as it used to do in the past. The magician’s ‘hocus-pocus’ and ‘abracadabra’ and his magic-wand now suggest nothing to you – for you know them now for what they are, that is, ‘meaningless’. The whole affair has now turned out to be an empty-show, one vast hoax – a treachery.

In utter disgust, you turn away from it to take a peep at the audience below. And what a sight! A sea of craned necks, eyes that gaze in blind admiration; mouths that gape in dumb appreciation; the ‘Ah!’s and ‘Oh!’s and whistles of speechless amazement. Truly, a strange admixture of tragedy and comedy which you could have enjoyed instead of the magic-show, if not for the fact that you yourself were in that same sorry plight on many a previous occasion.

Moved by compassion for this frenzied crowd, you almost frown on the magician as he chuckles with a sinister grin at every applause from his admirers. “How is it,” you wonder, “that I have been deceived so long by this crook of a magician?” You are fed up with all this and swear to yourself “Never will I waste my time and money on such empty shows, Nev-ver. The show ends. Crowds are now making for the exit. You too slip out of your hiding place unseen, and mingle with them.

KāḷakārāmaSutta

At one time the Buddha was staying at Saketa in Kalaka’s monastery:

“Whatsoever in the world that is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after and pondered over by the mind – all that is known to the Tathāgata [Tathāgata is the word the Buddha uses in the Pāli Canon when referring to himself or other Buddhas], but the Tathāgata has not taken his stand upon it, or made an approach by way of craving or views. He sees a form with the eye, but in him there is no desire and lust (for it) He hears a sound with the ear…… smells a fragrance with the nose. He tastes a flavour with the tongue, touches a tangible with the body, cognizes an idea with the mind, but in him there is no desire-and-lust; he is well released in mind.

“Thus, a Tathāgata does not conceive’ of a visible.” [refers to the stage in sense perception when one egotistically imagines or fancies a perceived ‘thing’ to be out there in its own right, which results in a subject-object dichotomy perpetuating the conceit: ‘self,’ ‘I’ and ‘mine’] The Tathāgata does not conceive’ of a thing as apart from sight;’ he does not conceive of an unseen: He does not conceive of a ‘thing-worth-seeing’;’ he does not conceive about a seer.

[The terms ‘thing-worth-seeing, -hearing, -cognizing etc’ are pointing to the habit we have of imputing inherent value or substance to perceptions, thoughts and emotions. Without such imputation they do not possess any such solidity or worth]. Thus, the Tathägata being such-like in regard to all phenomena seen, heard, sensed and cognized, is ‘Such’. These modes of conceiving represent ‘the plane of voidness'(suññatabhumi).

“This barb I beheld, well in advance, whereon mankind is hooked, impaled. I know, I see ’tis verily so’- no such clinging for the Tathāgatas. Having seen this barb well in advance:” janami passami tatheva tam: A phrase often cited in the Pali Canon as representing the stamp of dogmatism characteristic of speculative views.

A clue to the difficulties experienced by the Buddha in coming to terms with the world, may be found in your own unusual experience at the magic-show. To all intents and purposes, you saw the magic performance. Yet, there are difficulties involved in any unreserved affirmation or denial. The position of a Tathägata who has fully comprehended the magical illusion that is consciousness, is somewhat similar. He too has seen all the magical performances in the form of sense data enacted on the stage of consciousness. And yet he is aware of the limitations in any categorical affirmation or negation. Whereas the worldling is wont ‘to take his stand upon’ the knowledge he has “grasped’, the Tathagata regards that tendency as a ‘barb’ in spite of (or because of) the fact that he has ‘fully understood’. In other words, he has seen the magic-show so well as to ‘miss the show from the wording’s standpoint.

The question of ‘seeing what-is-shown’, brings us to the relationship between sign and significance. Sense-perception at all levels relies largely on signs. Sense-objects are therefore signs which have become significant in themselves owing to our ignorance that their significance depends on the psychological mainsprings of greed, hatred and delusion. This, in other words, is a result of reasoning from the wrong end (ayoniso manasikara) which leads both the philosopher and the scientist alike into a topsy-turvydom of endless theorising.

If, with mindfulness and wisdom, the tendency to ‘go out’ into perceptions, thoughts and emotions is restrained, and one just allows seeing to be seeing, hearing to be hearing etc., the whole papañca-drama does not get launched in the first place [papañca: conceptual proliferation]. The heart then rests at ease, open and clear; all perceptions conventionally labelled as ‘myself or ‘the world’ are seen as transparent, if convenient, fictions.

[Note on the word Atammayata:

Literally it means ‘not made of that,’ and refers primarily to the quality of experience prior to, or without, a subject/object duality arising. This insight leads us into a contemplation of the relationship of the apparent subject and object – how the tension between the two generates the world of things and its experiencer, and more importantly how, when that duality is seen through, the heart’s liberation is the result.]

Image source and a text on papañca:

https://conciergepsychologyla.com/blog/papanca/

notes on nibbāna 2

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Excerpts from “The Island: An anthology of the Buddha’s teaching on Nibbana” Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro

Atammayata

The term atammayata cannot be found in the Pali Text Society Dictionary. Readers will find it difficult to discover references to it in scholarly works, whether they come from West or East. The meditation masters of Tibet, Burma or Zen do not seem to be interested in it. Mention it to most Buddhists and they will not know what you are talking about. Yet there is clear evidence in the Pali Canon that the Buddha gave this word significant meaning.

Atammayata appears in a number of Pali suttas and each context suggests that the term has important meaning. The traditional commentators’ standard explanation, although vague, describes it as the awakened state of the Arahant, or fully awakened, perfected being. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, from Suan Mokkhabalarama in southern Siam, first took note of this word about thirty years ago. The contexts in which he found atammayata convinced him that its meaning is important.

The word literally means ‘not made of that.’ It can also be rendered as ‘non-identification,’ focusing on the subject side of the equation. Other translators have it as ‘non-fashioning’ or ‘unconcoctability’ – thus hinting more at the object dimension of it. Either way, it refers primarily to the quality of experience prior to, or without, a subject/object duality arising. This insight leads us into a contemplation of the relationship of the apparent subject and object – how the tension between the two generates the world of things and its experiencer, and more importantly how, when that duality is seen through, the heart’s liberation is the result.

Looking now at the Buddha’s words to Bahiya: Bahiya repeatedly asked the Buddha to teach him the Dhamma even though it was an inconvenient time for the Buddha: “It is difficult to know for certain, revered sir, how long the Lord will live or how long I will live. So, sensing the urgency in Bahiya’s demeanour, the Buddha gave the following Teaching: “ In the seen there is only the seen, in the heard, there is only the heard, in the sensed there is only the sensed, in the cognized there is only the cognized: This, Bahiya, is how you should train yourself. ”

“When, Bahiya, there is for you in the seen only the seen, in the heard, only the heard, in the sensed only the sensed, in the cognized only the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no ‘you’ in connection with that. When, Bahiya, there is no ‘you’ in connection with that, there is no ‘you’ there. When, Bahiya, there is no ‘you’ there, then, Bahiya, you are neither here nor there nor in between the two. This, just this, is the end of suffering.” [ ~Ud 1.10] Bahiya realized full enlightenment even as he heard the few words of this teaching, kneeling in the dust and clamour of Savatthi  town that morning; and furthermore, true to his own sense of the fragile nature of existence, moments later he was impaled by a runaway cow and breathed his last.

This abandonment of subject/object dualities is largely contingent upon the correct apprehension of the perceptual process, and thus the breaking down of the apparent inside/outside dichotomy of the observer and the observed. A spectacularly thorough analysis of the perceptual process and the inability to find oneself anywhere within it (as demonstrated in the brief teaching to Bahiya) is to be found in a key text that revolves around the Buddha’s pressing of Ananda, his closest disciple and ever-watchful attendant, to describe exactly where his mind is: “It is the fault of your mind and eyes that you flow and turn. I am now asking you specifically about your mind and eyes: where are they now?” [~ the Śūraṅgama Sūtra]. The investigation is scrupulous in the extreme, with the trusty Ananda repeatedly being confounded by the Buddha’s wisdom – as he regularly was. Every nuance of object, sense organ and sense consciousness, every possible dimension of subject and object, are explored and demonstrated to be no abiding place for an independent identity. At its conclusion the analysis arrives at the same conclusion as the teaching to Bahiya: any clinging whatsoever to this/that, here/there, subject/object, inside/outside or anything in between is synonymous with dukkha; abandon such clinging and dukkha necessarily ceases.

In the Vedanta, we read that to be wholly and exclusively aware of Brahman is at the same time to be Brahman. The origins of this seem to lie in a theory of sense perception in which the grasping hand supplies a dominant analogy. It takes the shape of what it apprehends. Vision is similarly explained: the eye sends out some kind of ray which takes the shape of what we see and comes back with it. Similarly thought: a thought conforms to its object. This idea is encapsulated in the term tanmayata, ‘consisting of that’: that the thought of the gnostic or meditator becomes con-substantial with the thing realized. [~ Richard Gombrich] That is to say, with the opposite quality, in a-tammayata, the mind’s ‘energy’ does not go out to the object and occupy it. It neither makes an objective ‘thing’ or a subjective ‘observer’ knowing it; hence ‘non-identification’ refers to the subjective aspect and ‘non-fabrication’ mostly to the objective. The reader should also carefully bear in mind the words “The origins of this idea…” and not take the Vedic concept and imagery as representing the Buddhist use of the word entirely accurately. In the state of atammayata, in its Buddhist usage, there is no actual ‘becoming con-substantial’ with the thing that is being known…

In the final triad of the nine insights as outlined by Ajahn Buddhadasa, three qualities describe the upper reaches of spiritual refinement: sunnata – voidness or emptiness; tathata – thusness or suchness; atammayata – nonidentification or ‘not-thatness. When the qualities of emptiness and suchness are considered, even though the conceit of identity might already have been seen through, there can still remain subtle traces of clinging; clinging to the idea of an objective world being known by a subjective knowing even though no sense of ‘I’ is discernible at all. There can be the feeling of a ‘this’ which is knowing a ‘that,’ and either saying “Yes” to it, in the case of suchness, or “No” in the case of emptiness. Atammayata is the closure of that whole domain, expressing the insight that “there is no ‘that.” It is the genuine collapse of both the illusion of separateness of subject and object and also of the discrimination between phenomena as being somehow substantially different from each other.

Of the ten obstacles or fetters (samyojana) that stand in the way of enlightenment, the ninth is uddhacca – restlessness. The restlessness to which this refers is not the fidgeting of the uncomfortable meditator; it is the subtlest of feelings that there might be something better over there or just in the future; a feeling that ‘that’ (which is out of reach) might have more value in some way than ‘this.’ It is the ever-so-insidious addiction to time and its promises. Atammayata is the utter abandonment of this root delusion: one sees that in ultimate truth there is no time, no self, no here and no there. So rather than “Be here now” as a spiritual exhortation, perhaps instead we should say: “Let go of identity, space and time,” or: “Realize unlocated, timeless selflessness.”

The aim of all these teachings on atammayata is to show us that the dualities of subject and object (‘me and the world’), do not have to be brought into being at all. And when the heart is restrained from ‘going out,’ and awakens to its fundamental nature, a bright and joyful peace is what remains. This is the peace of Nibbana.

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki

/File:Dazu_rock_carvings_baoding_buddhas.JPG

notes on nibbāna

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Ajahn Sumedho

A difficulty with the word ‘nibbāna’ is that its meaning is beyond the power of words to describe. It is, essentially, undefinable. Another difficulty is that most of us are conditioned see Nibbāna as something unobtainable – as so high and so remote that we’re not worthy enough to try for it. Or we see Nibbāna as a goal, as an unknown, undefined something that we should somehow try to attain. if you work hard, keep the sīla, meditate diligently, become a monastic, devote your life to practice, then your reward might be that eventually you attain Nibbāna – even though we’re not sure what it is.

Ajahn Chah would use the words ‘the reality of non-grasping’ as the definition for Nibbāna: realizing the reality of non-grasping. That helps to put it in a context because the emphasis is on awakening to how we grasp and hold on even to words like ‘Nibbāna’ or ‘Buddhism’ or ‘practice’ or ‘sīla’ or whatever. The Buddhist way is not to grasp. But that can become just another statement that we grasp and hold on to. It’s a Catch 22: No matter how hard you try to make sense out of it, you end up with this limitation of language and perception.

You have to go beyond language and perception. And the only way to go beyond thinking and emotional habit is through awareness of them, through awareness of thought, through awareness of emotion. ‘The Island that you cannot go beyond’ is the metaphor for this state of being awake and aware, as opposed to the concept of becoming awake and aware.

In meditation classes, people often start with a basic delusion that they never challenge: the idea that “I’m someone who grasps and has a lot of desires, and I have to practice in order to get rid of these desires and to stop grasping and clinging to things. I shouldn’t cling to anything.” That’s often the position we start from. Eventually, we realize that no matter how much we try to get rid of desire and not grasp anything, no matter what we do – become a monk, an ascetic, sit for hours and hours, attend retreats over and over again, do all the things we believe will get rid of these grasping tendencies – we end up feeling disappointed because the basic delusion has never been recognized.

This is why the metaphor of ‘The Island that you cannot go beyond’ is so very powerful, because it points to the principle of an awareness that you can’t get beyond. It’s very simple, very direct, and you can’t conceive it. You have to trust it. You have to trust this simple ability that we all have to be fully present and fully awake, and begin to recognize the grasping and the ideas we have taken on about ourselves, about the world around us, about our thoughts and perceptions and feelings.

The way of mindfulness is the way of recognizing conditions just as they are. We simply recognize and acknowledge their presence, without blaming them or judging them or criticizing them or praising them. We allow them to be, the positive and the negative both. And, as we trust in this way of mindfulness more and more, we begin to realize the reality of ‘The Island that you cannot go beyond.’

When I started practising meditation, I felt I was somebody who was very confused and I wanted to get out of this confusion and get rid of my problems and become someone who was not confused, someone who was a clear thinker, someone who would maybe one day become enlightened. That was the impetus that got me going in the direction of Buddhist meditation and monastic life. But then, by reflecting on this position that “I am somebody who needs to do something,” I began to see it as a created condition. It was an assumption that I had created. And if I operated from that assumption then I might develop all kinds of skills and live a life that was praiseworthy and good and beneficial to myself and to others but, at the end of the day, I might feel quite disappointed that I did not attain the goal of Nibbāna.

Fortunately, the whole direction of monastic life is one where everything is directed at the present. You’re always learning to challenge and to see through your assumptions about yourself. One of the major challenges is the assumption that “I am somebody who needs to do something in order to become enlightened in the future.” Just by recognizing this as an assumption I created, that which is aware knows it is something created out of ignorance, out of not understanding. When we see and recognize this fully, then we stop creating the assumptions.

Awareness is not about making value judgments about our thoughts or emotions or actions or speech. Awareness is about knowing these things fully – that they are what they are, at this moment. So, what I found very helpful was learning to be aware of conditions without judging them. In this way, the resultant karma of past actions and speech as it arises in the present is fully recognized without compounding it, without making it into a problem. It is what it is. What arises ceases. As we recognize that and allow things to cease according to their nature, the realization of cessation gives us an increasing amount of faith in the practice of non-attachment and letting go.

The attachments that we have, even to good things like Buddhism, can also be seen as attachments that blind us. That doesn’t mean we need to get rid of Buddhism. We merely recognize attachment as attachment and that we create it ourselves out of ignorance. As we keep reflecting on this, the tendency toward attachment falls away, and the reality of non-attachment, of non-grasping, reveals itself in what we can say is Nibbāna. If we look at it in this way, Nibbāna is here and now. It’s not an attainment in the future. The reality is here and now. It is so very simple, but beyond description. It can’t be bestowed or even conveyed; it can only be known by each person for themselves. So, we have to continue bearing with our emotional reactions and allow things that arise to cease, to appear and disappear according to their nature, then we find our stability not in achievement or attaining, but in being – being awake, being aware.”

I’m reminded of the Buddha’s response to Kappa’s question in the Sutta Nipāta:

“For the sake of those people stuck in the middle of the river of being, overwhelmed by death and decay, I will tell you where to find solid ground.

    “There is an island, an island which you cannot go beyond. It is a place of nothingness, a place of non-possession and of nonattachment. It is the total end of death and decay, and this is why I call it Nibbāna [the extinguished, the cool.

    “There are people who, in mindfulness, have realized this and are completely cooled here and now. They do not become slaves working for Māra, for Death; they cannot fall into his power.”~ SN 1092-5 (Ven. Saddhatissa trans.)

“Excerpts from an Introduction by Ajahn Sumedho to ‘The Island,’ Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro

beginningless time (part 2)

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Gary Horvitz

The individual aspect of karma, how we are ensnared in habits of mind is what comes with us from previous lives. It follows us into this life and influences what we create now by conscious or unconscious action. This is the material of our practice, the essence of our personal version of delusion. To have any influence over our unique way of navigating time—and identity—our practice must orient to the level of our habitual view and decisions about time. Imagine breaking the spell of time. Suddenly we have a different view of what is enough or what is too little.

Samsara is also dying and recreating itself in every instant. We are all doing it together. We are all subject to its terms. We perpetuate those terms with every conscious act. Being asleep to micro-events of our lives, we are wanderers, constantly re-creating ourselves without realizing our true relationship to what we take for granted as ‘events.’ If we are to have any influence on the terms of living in samsara, this is where our attention must go. The more we become aware of Awareness and our common entrapment, bringing that into our daily life, the more we might regard our predicament as a perpetual purgatory. The inner character of every instant always seems just beyond our grasp. What’s more important is to realize that by this very knowing we are always presented a choice of view and of conduct. Even so, the discipline we apply to resting effortlessly in our daily existence and the attention we bring to the activity of mind is all influenced by the fundamental limitation to which we are all subject. That limitation is time.

The flow of our individual negotiation with time is what Mahayana might call relative karma. It’s relative by virtue of the artificiality of viewing ourselves in isolation from others, separate from the collective field, the universe of sentient beings. The bodhisattva is an enlightened being devoted to serving others and concerned with the welfare of all. Such a being has seen through the array of habitual decisions about time and untangled from them entirely. S/he has developed Awareness transcending time, entering a unitary dimension including collective activity, thought, and behavior. The accomplishment of the bodhisattva is to remain stable within the absolute condition of all beings while acting as an open heart at the relative level to elevate their karmic condition; that is, retaining a degree of individuality while acting for the collective. In the case of the bodhisattva, maintaining this balance is entirely natural, completely effortless.

The notion of collective karma, group, tribal or ethnic karma, organizational karma, national or even planetary karma, is not a Western distortion. There are many references to the idea of collective karma in Buddhist literature. To think this way is not a departure from Buddhist orthodoxy. From a relative view, such decisions certainly do occur at the group, tribal, national, and global level. A national leader may commit acts of violence. Whether the karmic seeds of such actions spread to individual members of the group may depend on whether that leader is supported or opposed. Since membership in the group is continuously changing from one day to the next or one year to the next, we cannot assign karmic effects to those members a year or a generation later for the actions of their predecessors. But if there is no such thing as an independent actor and if causality itself is difficult to pin down, how can we explain any of this?

When attempting to tease out the factors effecting developmental decisions and collective actions, we inevitably encounter conflicting values and the difficulty of assigning their relative importance, the relative participation of individuals in hierarchies of relevancy and influence. What is the greater good or the greater harm? Such views occur within the relative realm. The question remains: how to expand our view to access the inter-subjective, the deeper and unspoken common agreements that define a group? How else can we discern what is happening at the interbeing level of process and decision-making to evaluate or realize the developmental potential of the whole? Our discomfort may be eased by remembering that such complex karmic conditions are rooted in beginningless time.

From the absolute view, all phenomena being equal, there is no such thing as good or evil. These distinctions dissolve as we uncover the activity of mind assigning such attributes to what is no other than a value-free arising. This is very difficult to grasp, let alone accept, given our religious, social, and cultural conditioning. Yet all phenomena are both ‘here’ in the relative sense of time, judgment, and evaluation and are also ‘not here’ in the sense that the ground from which they arise is not conditioned on conventional reality whatsoever. Such arising is based on something else entirely—a pure, unobstructed, unconditioned ‘space’ in which, paradoxically, neither time nor space have any meaning at all.

If all phenomena are the same, arising independently of any judgments or projections, then karma is defined by our intrinsic conditioning (or hardwiring) to see the world in polarities. The Vajrayana and Dzogchen definition of true liberation is that all phenomena, the continuous effervescence of everything, is instantaneously recognized as the expression of essence nature (emptiness) before any attributes can be assigned or any value judgments can be made. Everything remains free of memory or plans, free of past or future. Liberation is the instantaneous evaporation of all attachment, reversing the continuous ‘flow into oneself,’ becoming free of all polarities, free from any tendency—or even capacity—to make such distinctions, which is to say, the extinction of time. Such a capacity may not seem very useful in the relative world…unless we recall the union of the Two Truths operating as one Mind, flowing out of ourselves, giving ourselves to both the time-bound and timeless nature of every act, regardless of whether extended or received.

About “Just Passing Through”

https://substack.com/@garyhorvitz

beginningless time (part 1)

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Gary Horvitz

From the view of awakened mind, the term beginningless is a non sequitur. It names a condition that cannot exist. Yet Hindu and Buddhist teachings refer to the karmic panorama of numberless lives stretching into beginningless time. As with the word infinity, a condition having no beginning and no end has no reference points whatsoever. We have no way to understand beginningless other than from a conventional definition of time. Beginningless is the best we can do to refer to the nonexistence of time altogether.

Modern physics theorizes the beginning of the universe (the beginning of time) to be the Big Bang, but there’s no reason to assume the Big Bang denotes a beginning of consciousness. When modern science speaks of consciousness, it’s a reference to ego-awareness. When Buddhists speak of beginningless time, they are referring to what preceded the beginning of the known universe and what will remain after it.

Time is nature’s way of preventing everything from happening all at once.

—Woody Allen

Allen may not be a quantum Jedi master, but he was onto something. In a quantum universe, some things do happen simultaneously, a condition called ‘entanglement’ in which atoms at a distance seem to ‘know’ each other and mimic behavior. But those entangled atoms arise from the same source. Relative consciousness can only imagine ‘everything’ as seemingly unrelated discrete events, jumbled together without order, arising in random fashion, crowding each other out as they compete for ‘space,’ clamoring for the limited resource of our attention in the chaos of phenomena. This would be an inaccurate view. As quantum theorists suggest (Bohr and Barad), there is no such thing as an objective event removed from the observer. Theoretically, events only arise as a function of our interaction with them. It would be more accurate to assume all events are intra-actions. There is no objectivity we can claim. We are engaged with co-arising phenomena in an endless flow of becoming and disappearing. It’s difficult to comprehend this reality. To the relative mind, this flow appears as the instantaneous partition of perception into binary categories (this and that, etc), imputing relative qualities to everything. We are constantly making up ideas and concepts about perception, including thoughts in relation to the timing of ‘events’ we perceive or imagine existing.

Is there any true substance to time at all? Not really. From a practical view, like money, time is a currency we use to organize our lives, our relationships, to prioritize and make sense of our self-care and interactions. Like money, its value is arbitrary, shifting on a daily or even moment-to-moment basis according to our changing priorities, health, age, and personal pursuits. Have you noticed how the value of money is also elastic, shifting just as quickly according to our material circumstances? Time is another tool we employ to create permanence. Our aggregate accomplishments over a lifetime may be viewed as a record of our relationship with permanence. It’s a key component of consensus reality, to be sure, but it’s also no more real than money.

Absolute reality is not some unconventional form of time, unfamiliar to us as we hurry to our next destination. There is no sequence of events. There are no events. There are no discrete moments; no procession from one thing to another because there is only one thing (which is not a thing at all): everything, free of any limiting or defining conditions—cognizant awareness, emptiness that knows itself. It is time-less. All that arises is a manifestation of the spontaneous dynamic unceasing creativity of Being without limitation or variation. The term beginningless is a conception arising from a relative view, intrinsically based in time, dubiously limited by karma. Normally, we are not capable of another view.

How might we extricate ourselves from the reflexive time-based mode of mentation to create space in our universe for a timeless view? The Sanskrit meaning of samsara is ‘continuous flow’—the repeating cycle of all the transitional events of human existence: birth, life, death, and rebirth. The root of the word samsara means ‘flowing into’ or ‘wandering through.’ It could also be thought of as spinning in circles. If we only thought of the transitional events (birth, death, and reincarnation) as features of samsara, we would be overlooking the continuous flow of moment-to-moment ‘events’ in between these major transitions. We are continuously wandering, always spinning into ourselves. Can we imagine anyone ‘flowing out of themselves?’ Why yes, we can. I would put the saints of history into this category, people completely flowing out of karma, out of themselves, whose entire beings come to represent an absolute and common truth: Jesus, Buddha, Rumi, Padmasambhava, Longchenpa, Mother Teresa, Meister Eckhart, Sheikh Ibn Al-Arabi, Garab Dorje, Neem Karoli Baba, Nisargadatta, Ramana Maharshi, Thich Nhat Hanh and so many more. What the hell, I’ll even include Dolly Parton—strictly in a spiritual sense. These are enlightened beings. The rest of us are still flowing into ourselves.

Despite quantum theory calling the substance of karma into question, we still regard karma as the essential feature of samsara. Our habits of thought and our immediate actions fuel samsara as we helplessly fall into duality over and over in a continuing moment-to-moment dependent co-origination of the phenomenon we call time. Our conceptual frameworks reflect the ways we are embedded in time. Language also reflects these conceptual frameworks.

Part 2 next week 09 June 23

About “Just Passing Through”

“https://garyspontaneouspresencenet.substack.com/p/table-of-contents-and-introduction?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

consciousness and non-duality

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Excerpts from a talk by Rupert Spira, titled, “Non-duality and the Nature of Consciousness.” [YouTube: starts at 28.32]

When we dream at night, our mind imagines a whole world within itself. However, it cannot perceive the dream world directly – in order to do this, the dreamer’s mind must localise itself within its own dream as a separate subject of experience. From the perspective of the character in the dream, the dreamed world is outside of her own mind. The name that she gives to the stuff out of which this world outside of herself is made, is ‘matter’. Everything inside herself, her thoughts, images, feelings, perceptions and so on, she refers to as ‘mind’. Everything in her experience seems to corroborate this view. When she closes her eyes the world she sees, that is, the dreamed world – although, she doesn’t know that it is a dreamed world – disappears and when she opens them again, it reappears. She reasonably concludes from this that whatever it is that is seeing or knowing the world, is located behind her eyes, in her brain. From this basic assumption she builds a model of consciousness located in, limited to, and derived from the brain.

The dreamed character would never question her model of reality, but for two experiences; suffering on the inside and conflict on the outside. Little does she realise that both experiences, the suffering and the conflict, are the inevitable consequence of her belief that the consciousness she essentially is, is limited by the body contained within it. Of course, when the dreamer wakes up, she realises that the dreamed world was simply how the content of her own mind appeared to itself from the localised perspective of the dreamed character that she seemed to be within her own dream.

Now, consider the possibility that what appears to us as our environment in the waking state is in fact a dream state for universal consciousness – it is how universal consciousness appears to us from our limited and localised perspectives. You could say, the same pattern we observe in dreams is taking place in the waking state one level up, so to speak, where universal consciousness is dreaming or imagining the universe within itself and simultaneously localising itself in the form of each of our minds. From this perspective it perceives its own activity as the universe as we know it. In other words, the universe as we know it results from the interaction of two segments of reality; the universal and the individual, just as the dreamed world comes into apparent existence when the dreamer’s mind interacts with a part of itself, namely the dreamed character.

Why is it necessary for the universal consciousness to overlook or forget, or ignore itself in order to bring forth manifestation within it? Why cannot universal consciousness simply perceive the world directly? Because to do so would require viewing the world, indeed viewing the universe from every possible point of view within it, which would result in innumerable images superimposed one on top of the other. To see an object, it is necessary to do so from the localised perspective of a single subject. As such, consciousness localises itself in order to actualise what lies in potential within it, in form. It gives birth to existence within itself in the form of the subject-object relationship. However, this comes at a price, consciousness brings forth manifestation within itself by overlooking or forgetting itself by collapsing or contracting into an apparently separate subject of experience and in doing so it loses touch with its innate peace and joy. It sacrifices itself for the sake of its creation.

Just as a mother sacrifices herself to bring forth her child, consciousness pays for itself with its own innate peace and happiness. It is for this reason the longing for happiness, peace and love, burns in the heart of all people. What we really seek is not an experience to be added to us, what we really seek is to be divested of all that makes us feel we are temporary, finite selves, separate from one another, separate from nature, separate from God and returned to our natural condition.

Does a tree in the forest exist if no-one is perceiving it? This question cannot be satisfactorily answered because it is founded on a false premise, namely that the tree exists as such when it is being perceived. Suspend the idea that the tree has its own stand-alone existence and consider the possibility that what we perceive as a tree is simply the way a particular segment of the activity of universal consciousness appears when it interacts with another segment of itself, namely the finite mind. In other words, the world as we see it is the result of an interaction between infinite consciousness and the finite mind.

We half-create the world in the sense that we impose the limitations of perception on its reality. We half-perceive it in the sense that its reality exists independently of each of our minds and precedes its being perceived by us. So, what we see when we look at the world is its pre-existing reality, infinite consciousness modulated by our finite mind. The world as such owes its reality to infinite consciousness. It borrows its appearance from the finite mind.

It is what William Blake, in the 19th Century meant when he said: “… ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way, is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five…” (71) Every object is an immense world of delight that is of the nature of pure consciousness, which is peace and joy itself, filtered through, or enclosed by our faculties of perception. It is perception that reduces the infinite to the finite, or more accurately, makes what is truly infinite from the localised perspective of each of our minds appear as the finite.

William Blake, on another occasion said: “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” The narrow chinks of our cavern are the limited faculties of our senses. Our senses as such, are not a clear window on to reality, they mediate reality through their own limitations, conferring on to reality the limitations that properly belong to the human mind, rendering reality in a way that is consistent with the limitations of that mind, divested of the limits that sense perception confers on reality. Reality shines as it is, infinite and in human experience the infinite shines in the form of peace, joy, love and beauty.
[YouTube: ends at 40:00]

“… And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”

:[Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth, July 13, 1798]

Image source: https://unsplash.com/@jeremybishop

consciousness is

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Excerpts from a talk by Rupert Spira, titled: “Non-duality and the nature of consciousness.” [YouTube: starts at 3:43] Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRUgkSJZ-8M

Consciousness is that which knows or is aware of our experience. So, whatever we are experiencing, we are aware of it; our thoughts, sensations in the body, the sound of somebody talking, or the view of our room seen from where we are sitting. Whatever it is that knows our thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions is not itself a thought, feeling, sensation or perception. It is consciousness or awareness – I use the words consciousness and awareness synonymously.

Most people completely ignore consciousness in favour of the content of their experience, thoughts, feelings, sensations, activities, relationships and so on. And yet, without consciousness there would be no experience. Consciousness is that which makes all experience possible but is not itself, an experience. All experiences appear and disappear but consciousness remains consistently present. The consciousness or awareness with which we are aware of our current experience is the same awareness with which we were aware of our experience when we were two-year-old children.

Consciousness is the changeless factor in all changing experience, it is never aged or modified or tarnished by experience. The reason why experience is felt as one smooth, continuous flow, rather than a series of disconnected experiences, is because they are unified by the presence of consciousness, just as a movie is not experienced as a series of intermittent images on account of the screen from which it derives its seeming continuity. In other words, what we consider to be continuity in time, is in fact the ever presence of consciousness.

Consider the space within which all experience arises, try to find an edge to the field of awareness within which your experience takes place. We believe that awareness has a border or an edge only because we believe it to be contained within the body, and our feelings simply conform to and substantiate that belief. But if we stay close to the evidence of experience, the body and world are experienced as a flow of sensations and perceptions all contained within awareness.

Everything appears in awareness which is not limited to the individual mind, or the sum total of all minds, human or otherwise. Indeed, the individual mind is one such mind in the infinite field of universal awareness. Whilst awareness is the innermost aspect of our self, at the same time it has no personal qualities. It is the essence of our self but sharing none of the limitations of our objective experience, it is impersonal and infinite, imminent and transcendent.

Awareness is self-aware just as the sun is self-luminous, consciousness knows itself just by being itself, just as the sun illuminates itself just by being itself. Consciousness never ceases to be aware of itself but its awareness of itself is so thoroughly mixed with content of experience, that it ceases to know itself as it essentially is and knows itself in a modified form. The primary and essential nature of our self, pure consciousness, becomes mixed with and seemingly qualified by the content of experience. The infinite becomes or seems to become the finite, the eternal appears as time.

If we pose the question, what is consciousness and resist the temptation to answer that question with a word, our attention is gently invited away from its contents and in most cases gradually, occasionally suddenly, it sinks back into its source the presence of awareness from which it arises. This sinking of the mind into the heart of awareness is the essence of meditation… the highest form of prayer.  [ends at 24:39] Continues next week 26 May 2023.

image source: https://unsplash.com/@turner_imagery

infinite consciousness and the finite mind

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Excerpts from a talk by Rupert Spira, titled “What is Reality?”

As a person, you have emerged from the universe, your body has been born from the earth so whatever you are as a person essentially must be the same as the universe from which you emerged. For the same reason… what a wave essentially is must be the same as what the ocean essentially is, because it is an emergence of that ocean. The reality of yourself and the reality of the world must be the same, the question then is what is that reality?

That reality is that which truly is. An illusion is not something that does not exist, it is something that does exist, but is not what it appears to be. Unlike, or instance, a square circle – not only does a square circle not exist, it doesn’t even appear as an illusion. What, then is an illusion? A landscape in a movie is an illusion, it does exist as something that is obviously there, but it is obviously not a real landscape. All illusions have a realty to them, and there must be something about the landscape in the movie that is real.

ln order to find out what is real we need to somehow penetrate through the illusion and touch its reality. We go up to the landscape in the movie, touch its reality, and we find the screen. We do exactly the same with this experience we are having, sitting together in this room. It is undoubtedly real, all experience is real, there is no such thing as an unreal experience. So, what is real about our current experience of the world? It could be an illusion, which doesn’t mean to say it’s not real, and doesn’t mean to say it doesn’t exist. It just means it may not be what it appears to be.

The way the world appears to be is directly correlated with our sense perceptions, our minds have the capacity of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling and reality appears to us in the form of sights, sounds, tastes, textures and smells. There is a direct correlation between the perceiving apparatus and the world as it appears to be in accordance with the limitations of the apparatus through which it is perceived. So, do these sights, sounds, etc., we see out there, do they have their own standalone reality or do our minds confer upon them their appearance? For instance, what would the thing in itself be if we were to remove everything from it that our minds project on to it; the sights, sounds, tastes, textures, smells and concepts, perceiving and thinking, what would be left of reality? There would be no forms because these forms are what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. What would remain would be undoubtedly present, without any form it would be being itself – some would say, God’s being. When you go directly to that being in yourself you find the awareness that shines in each of us, the knowledge that ‘I am.’

The experience that I am is not mediated through thought or perception; I know that I am, I am not imagining it. So, is the ‘I’ that knows that I am, the same ‘I’ that knows I am, or is your being known by something other than itself? Are there two ‘I’s in you, one that is and the other that knows you are? It’s the same ‘I’, there is only one ‘I’ in you. Your being knows itself; it is self-aware. Here you could say that the Ultimate Reality of the universe is aware being, which is consciousness, and what we perceive as the world is the activity of reality, called Reality Consciousness, that moves or vibrates within itself, and that movement or vibration of consciousness, appears when viewed through our sense faculties as the physical world. When you fall asleep at night the activity of your own mind appears as a physical world from the perspective of a separate subject of experience in that world. So, what appears to us as a physical world is the activity of a universal mind or consciousness, whose nature is consciousness, not matter. It only appears as physical matter when perceived through the sense perceptions of a separate subject of experience within that world. There’s a beautiful line from Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” dated July 13, 1798

“ [from line 106]…all that we behold from this green earth; of all the mighty world of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, and what perceive; well pleased to recognise in nature and the language of the sense, the anchor of my purest thoughts…”

This stunning realisation that, of this green earth, what we perceive is half created by us, half perceived by us. What he’s saying is that the reality of the world precedes the finite mind and is independent of it., and the mind creates its appearance but perceives its reality.  Our sense faculties, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling create the way the word appears, the way reality appears to us. We perceive the reality of the world, we don’t create it, it’s already there.

To put it into more contemporary language, the world as we experience it is very close to quantum physics and I don’t want to go too far in this direction because I’m not a scientist. The world as we perceive it results from an interaction of infinite consciousness and a finite mind – a finite mind being a localization of infinite consciousness.

When we conceptualize independently existing selves and things, there is a separating-out… but it’s not what it seems. There’s something about this in Ian McGilchrist’s book “The Matter with Things.” He says: “Relationship precedes relata.” By this, he means relationship precedes things. What it means is that normally we think there are things – things come first, and then there are relationships between things. He’s suggesting it’s the other way round, there is relationship between the whole infinite consciousness and the finite mind and it is the interaction between these two that creates the appearance of things. So, things come about as a result of this interaction, rather than the relationship being created by the things. But don’t think Reality is just a dead, inert being or consciousness, it moves, it is moved but the whole cannot see itself … let me try to demonstrate first why the whole cannot see itself.

Look at this glass I’m holding, you see this glass from a single point of view and therefore see it as a single glass. If you were to take a snapshot of your view of the glass, then change your seat and go to the other side of the room, take another snapshot of the glass and superimpose the two images, like transparencies, one on top of the other, you’d now have two glasses looking roughly the same but it would begin to look blurred. Now, say you did that four times, eight times, 16 times, 32 times and you superimposed all the images on top of each other, it would begin to look like a Cubist painting, the integrity of the glass would begin to disintegrate, you’d see all different angles of the glass. Now keep on doing that, 64 times, 128 times, 200, 400, and so on from different points of view in space. The image would get darker and darker until it would be utter darkness and that’s why the whole cannot perceive reality, it cannot perceive the world directly – there’s no form.

From the point of view of the whole, consciousness has no view of the world directly, it cannot perceive itself directly, it just knows its own being but that being doesn’t appear in any form. In order for its movement to be perceived or known, it must be perceived or known through a localised perspective. That’s what each of our minds are; a localized point of view within consciousness, from which it is able to perceive its own movement, its own activity as an apparently physical world. The activity of consciousness is there prior to the finite mind but the finite mind lends the world its appearance. Hence the world that we experience is an interaction between these two segments of reality. It’s the same realty; infinite consciousness and the finite mind but they have to seem to separate in order to bring something into existence.

Image: Rupert Spira’s Open Bowl, 2007, a stoneware piece with embossed text under white titanium glaze. Acquired by Friends of the V&A in 2013.

Link to the Rupert Spira talk:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyyojKcGDNY&t=1417s

About Rupert Spira, Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Spira

death and life in buddhism

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Excerpts from: Care of the Dying – Buddhism HSE: Samye Ling, “Buddhism and Death” by Ken Holmes: “Kusala and Akusala” by Buddhistdoor Global BDG and: Abhidhamma in daily life, Chapter 10, “The First Citta in Life” by Nina Van Gorkom.

Buddhist teaching views life and death as a continuum, believing that consciousness (the spirit) continues after death and may be reborn. Death can be an opportunity for liberation from the cycle of life, death and rebirth.

Since Buddhism’s earliest days, Buddhist monks have gone to funeral grounds to meditate and contemplate death. This may seem macabre, to a modern Western mind, but for monks it is an invaluable and time-saving device. Most people have to wait decades – until parents or spouses die – to go through the unique learning cycle afforded by observing death at close hand; to see the biological shell as a guest-house in which the travelling consciousness sojourns but briefly, soon to go on to another place. This almost endless, age-old journey will involve staying in hundreds, thousands, of such temporary residences until liberating truths finally release the weary traveller.
Observing this ephemeral fragility of life can lead to an awakened appreciation of every precious moment of life. Each hour, each day, becomes a fresh opportunity for working for the long-term spiritual well-being rather than inconsequential material pleasure. On a deeper level, death is not only a physical reality but also a powerful metaphor for the psychological death of ego which must occur before the mind is liberated into limitless wisdom.

We are born in planes of existence where we can experience objects through the sense-organs. During previous lives as well as the present life we experienced colour, sound and other sense-objects. We were clinging to these objects in the past and we are clinging to them at present again and again, so that attachment has become a deep-rooted tendency. Attachment does not arise with each moment of consciousness, citta, but the tendency to attachment is “carried on” from one moment to the next moment, from life to life.

Cittas (moments of consciousness) arise and fall away and succeed one another, thus each citta conditions the next one. The last citta of the previous life (dying-consciousness) was succeeded by the first citta of this life. That is why tendencies one had in the past can continue by way of accumulation from one citta to the next one and from past lives to the present life. Since people accumulated different tendencies in past lives they are born with different tendencies and inclinations.

Since the first citta of a lifespan performs the function of rebirth there is only one patisandhi-citta in a life. There is no self which transmigrates from one life to the next life; there is only nama (mind) and rupa (body) rising and falling away. The present life is different from the past life but there is continuity in so far as the present life is conditioned by the past. Since the patisandhi-citta succeeds the last citta of the previous life the accumulated tendencies of past lives go on to the patisandhi-citta. Thus, inclinations one has in the present life are conditioned by the past.

There are many different types of citta and they can be classified by way of four groups: kusala cittas (wholesome cittas) akusala cittas (unwholesome cittas) vipakacittas (cittas which are result) kiriyacittas (cittas which are neither cause nor result). We may not know that both in a sense-door process (body) and in a mind-door process (mind) there are akusala cittas or kusala cittas arising. Because of our accumulated ignorance we do not clearly know our akusala cittas and kusala cittas and we do not recognize our more subtle defilements.

In Buddhism, all moral good and moral evil can be traced to six radical roots. All moral evil spring from the three radical roots of lobha (greed, covetousness), dosa (hatred, aversion) and moha (ignorance, delusion, mental confusion). All defilements and all unwholesome mental dispositions that manifest themselves either mentally, vocally or physically come into being. On the contrary, all moral good can be traced to three radical roots of alobha (non-greed, non-covetousness), adosa (non-hatred, non-aversion) and amoha (non-delusion, absence of ignorance). In other words, generosity, compassionate love and wisdom.

A mind obsessed with greed, malice and delusion is in bondage. It fails to see things in their proper pespective, and prevents one from acting properly. Thus it is called akusla or unskillful.

When kusala qualities are dominant, we experience mental health (arogya), mental purity (anavajjata), dexterity (cheka), mental felicity (sukha-vipaka). Such a mind is healthy and skillful.

It is said that kusala leads to Nibbana, the ultimate goal in Buddhism for nibbana means the complete elimination of all traces of self-eccentricity and ego-centric impulses. The more selfless acts (kusala) are done, the more selfless we become, and the closer we come to the realization of nibbana.

Hence, we must be mindful at all times for kusala and akusala thoughts and actions take us to opposite directions. We are the architects of our own fate. We are our own creators and destroyers.  We build our own heavens and hells.

https://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/parinirvana-day-authors

Image source: Parinirvana Buddha