factors of awakening: release

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Selected excerpts from “Kamma and the end of Kamma” by Ajahn Sucitto

Note: this section of the book places ‘Release’ in the context of the Seven Factors for Awakening. For readers unfamiliar with this subject, click on the link below.

https://www.spiritrock.org/practice-guides/the-seven-factors-of-awakening

What is often most disturbing about latent tendencies, particularly when they rise up as ‘outflows’ (āsavā), is that they appear as out-of-control states where we become other than who we think we are.

 These outflows can flood the heart with infantile rage, or create a self who is a victim of fear. This is because these tendencies are rooted at a reflex level, a psychological ‘place’ that precedes our personality. Even a baby has these.

It’s also the case that we’re not always clear about what tendencies remain latent and unresolved. Most obviously, ignorance, the loss of stable awareness, is a fundamental tendency that, by definition, we’re not clear about. So, we might feel quite balanced and at ease … but then, over an exchange as to who does what in the kitchen, experience a threat to our territory, or a loss of status – and up springs ill-will, self-view, a search for the ‘right’ way, the ‘fair’ system … and so on. The lesson is that unless we give up the ‘naming’ out of which all states arise, the latent tendencies to doubt, to views, to becoming and to identification remain unresolved.

What’s needed then is to penetrate the ‘naming’ process and what it’s based on. This comes down to maintaining mindfulness and investigation around the arising and passing of feeling, perception and intention. Conducted with ongoing persistence, this mindful inquiry leads into other factors of awakening – rapture, tranquillity, concentration and equanimity. These all feel agreeable, and they do a good job: they can resist clinging and clear ignorance.

As these factors are developed, you can see how mental feeling, perception and programs in particular rise up and condition each other. This is all cause and effect, kamma, and not a self. And even if craving remains hidden as a justifiable need or casual interest, when these factors of awakening have been cultivated, the activity of clinging stands out. Because when you have a reference to tranquillity, spaciousness and inner silence, you can know clinging by how it feels – as a certain tightening in the body/mind. You also recognize the voices – the self-interest, righteousness, or sneakiness – through which it speaks.

Through contemplating any of these signs, you understand that clinging isn’t owned: ‘I’ arises as a result of the action of clinging, rather than before it. I don’t decide: ‘I’ll cling today, and see how much suffering I can create for myself.’ So it’s not the case that ‘I have a lot of attachments, and cling a lot’; it’s just that the origin of clinging has not been seen. Clinging is an action, not a person. Understanding this encourages us to find out how to stop that grasping reflex.

The factors of rapture and tranquillity are important in relaxing that grasp. They help to ease up one of the thirsty issues of self: can I feel good? But there’s more to them than a little ease: the way they occur in meditation also relaxes the self as do-er. You don’t do rapture and tranquillity; they come to you, when the mind is settled in its meditation theme. The experience is rather like being a boat that’s beached in the sand: as the tide comes in, first there’s the gentle touch of something uplifting; then as this gradually increases, the boat floats. But it’s not capsized. So, we can let go of ‘self as do-er’, without having to be ‘self as impervious’ or ‘self as collapse.’ And then: what does that feel like? How is that quality of openness furthered? Tranquillity gives you the ease and sensitivity, and there’s the need to develop that so that the psychologies based on ‘me trying’ give up. The required action is psychological: to stay with and trust this meditative process. As mental and somatic tensions relax, the factor of samādhi arises with the unification of bodily and mental energies. With that steady sensitivity, that old kamma of defending and struggling can be released.

This release is as much at an energetic as a psychological or emotional level. The causal field is a web of energies that can form blockages and numbness or exert pressure – even cause headaches. These energies are embodied at an involuntary level where we’re ‘not ourselves.’ In other words, release is not only dependent on attitude or understanding; it also depends on switching off the momentum of habitual programs. Release takes factors that are not about me trying or me doing it; it entails going into the reflex for craving, clinging and becoming in our wiring, and letting go right there. To sustain that letting go, “we need the cumulative effect of all the factors of awakening, and not just some mindfulness or understanding.

The power that samādhi instils in awareness holds calm and ease at this reflex level; then it allows awareness to see how things are (yathābhūtaṃ ñānadassanaṃ). What is seen is that becoming and self are unfulfilling programs; in knowing this, the mind stops following them. There is the stillness of equanimity, the final factor of awakening, and release from self-construction: relinquishment (vossagga). Awareness is the stillness. This is the place of giving up – where nothing need be said or done.

So it’s not just a clinging to sense-input or systems or views that needs to be dissolved. It’s a matter of dissolving the basis of ignorance and thirst: that ‘naming’ basis of mind.[41] This is how one’s world ends.

To be continued

four bases of clinging

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‘Selected excepts from Kamma and the End of Kamma’ by Ajahn Sucitto

This world, Kaccāna, for the most part depends upon a duality – upon the notion of existence and the notion of nonexistence. But for one who sees the origin of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no notion of nonexistence in regard to the world. And for one who sees the cessation of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no notion of existence in regard to the world.

‘“All exists”: Kaccāna, this is one extreme. “All does not exist”: this is the second extreme. Without veering towards either of these extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma by the middle: With ignorance as condition, volitional formations [saṇkhārā] come to be; with volitional formations as a condition, “consciousness. … Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance comes cessation of volitional formations; with the cessation of volitional formations, cessation of consciousness. … Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.”’

(S.12:15; B. Bodhi, Trans.)

……………………………………..

One thing led to another, and after three years of practising in solitude, I returned to England for a visit. I stopped off in London, where Ajahn Sumedho was leading a small group of monks. In that community, there was more emphasis on action and interaction, “on a detailed training in terms of ethics and frugality, and on mindfulness with regard to using requisites. There was a lot of that kind of attention given to daily life; no competition, and no achievement. It demanded energy: all-night group meditation was a weekly practice, with its too brief highs and too long lows. ‘Patient resolve’ was the watchword. All this broadened equanimity and deepened awareness. And we were all in it together, so that generated friendship – even when people got stirred up and argumentative at times. That was understood and accepted, and we were encouraged to explore the cause of conflict and stress. The overall theme was to be mindful of whatever the mind brought up and investigate where the suffering was. It made life into a practice of pāramī; I made a resolution to stay with it – even though that meant getting stirred up pretty often. It was easy to see and feel where the challenge lay: clinging to my way and wishes. Holding on goes deep.

…………………………………..

The Buddha spoke of clinging as having four successively deeper levels: 1) clinging to sense objects, 2) to rules and customs, 3) to views, and 4) to impressions of what we are.

The first is fairly obvious – it’s about hanging on to possessions, and feeding on sights, sounds and the rest of it. In the monastery, with the limitation on sense-input, and with a good amount of physical work going on, most of this intensity would gather around the one meal of the day, or the hot drink and occasional sweets at tea-time. The very energy of clinging to the felt meaning of getting fed would sometimes send so much energy through the system that to patiently wait for everyone to gather, patiently file through to receive the food, patiently wait for everyone to get back … then, after chanting the meal-time blessings, to patiently wait for the senior person to begin eating – was quite an achievement! The food itself was nothing special – sometimes I hardly noticed what it was. Moreover, the degree of satisfaction derived from eating was nothing fantastic and was offset by feeling dull afterwards. The passion was all around the idea, the felt meaning, of eating. But that impression of gratification, and the appealing nature of the food could shift within minutes. On contemplating the whole issue, it was apparent that the intensity was just around the set of feelings and drives that clinging made solid and real – for a while. Clinging was just clinging to its own interpretations.

I could experience the same clinging occurring in terms of the second level of clinging – with reference to the rules and customs of the monastery. Everyone uses rules and customs to regulate their lives or occupations: forms of etiquette, customs around what food to eat at what time on what day of the week, or around how I like my office to be arranged, as well as religious observances and social taboos. But there’s a tendency to go into automatic, or to get dogmatic about one’s own system. One feeling I had about committing to Buddhist practice was to get out of this – to be more spontaneous, to live in the here and now. But after about three years with nothing to do, nothing to belong to, and therefore nothing to be spontaneous about, I really appreciated things like morning chanting every day, observances around handling and washing your alms-bowl, and a training in conventions that helped to keep me focused in daily life in a way that wasn’t about me achieving or being rewarded. The training just kept placing awareness ‘here’ in what I was doing.

It was the same with the system of meditation that I was using; even if I wasn’t always good at it, it defined where I was. I got to feel solid. But then there’d be a hunger to get even more solid; to be part of a highly-disciplined outfit and be someone who could sit like a rock with unwavering mindfulness of breathing. So, the snag that I hit was that a subtle condescension crept in for people who weren’t so solid, or couldn’t keep up; and an outright dismissal of those ‘here and now’ types who were sloppy and clearly had no sense for resolution.

However, Ajahn Sumedho, the leader of what was supposed to be the crack troop, did from time to time cancel routines, either if he thought people were struggling, or just for a break. Or maybe it was just for us to see what our minds did. He also lessened the intensity of some of the observances, allowing an early-morning mug of porridge because some people weren’t so well … And as for a system of meditation, although he sat in meditation a lot, he didn’t use much more of a technique than a basic focus on breathing for starters. The main theme was one of letting go.

It was a complete turn-around from how I had been practising, so it was very confusing for a few years, but it was to the point, and very direct. Let go of clinging. Yes, you do get to recognize that taking hold of a system, firming up and getting righteous about it, carries the same feel and passion that you can get around a bar of chocolate. It’s clinging … and it means you’re about to suffer. And probably to inflict some suffering on someone else.

Much the same thing occurs with the next layer of clinging to views, typified as views of ‘becoming and not-becoming’. These are the ways we extend out of direct experience to conjure up a future. That is, we either add continuity, purpose and a trajectory in life, or deny that there is any purpose; we either get involved with action or development, or declare that nothing can really be done – that everything’s impermanent so there’s no point. This is the underlying view of ‘becoming/not-becoming’ (bhava-vibhava) that makes us unable to relate to the ongoing and uncertain nature of conditions. Those views solidify and spin, sometimes with great conviction. They carry the passion and thirst that initiate kamma, so you don’t get out of cause and effect by following their signals.[38] The harder you work at getting things finished and solid, the more that craving for becoming sets up new goals. But saying that there’s no goal, that it’s all an illusion and let’s not bother with the future – also has its negative effects. Failure to consider cause and effect has definitely affected and continues to affect our environment. Results inevitably proceed from action. So, the more immediate goal is to find balance; and act from there.

Our attempts at getting enlightened can follow the becoming/not-becoming bias. Is it about having the Ultimate Experience of Deathlessness; or is it about the Final Cessation of Nibbāna? Either way, the clinging to these ideas comes from views that configure either some Timeless Ground of Being or a Blissful Oblivion as the goal. And these depend on whether the self-view inclines towards becoming or towards not-becoming. We probably switch from one to the other “dependent on whether we’re feeling upbeat or fed-up, or just as our energies fluctuate. Of course, it doesn’t make sense because the underlying bias varies: one moment we want an experience, and the next we want to get away from experiencing anything. A good question to ask dispassionately is: ‘Who’s doing that?’  and that takes us to the fourth layer of clinging – clinging to self. Clinging to the tendency of becoming or not-becoming generates the self who will be, or who will be eliminated. But any idea of self arises within awareness. And it changes all the time, such as from confident and relaxed to anxious and tense. Notice the itch and the thirst to be successful – or even a failure – a s long as you’re being something. “As this urge affects the mind with regard to any form, any thought and any scenario, so feelings and impressions get clung to and become solidified into a self who is the agent or victim of the world. And that world, whether it be a sublime, immaterial ‘Ultimate Reality’, or the ‘authentic, pure Buddhist tradition’, or the benighted and unjust world of geopolitics, is then regarded as a foundation for a view and inclination with regard to the world it’s created. Essentially, ‘self’ and ‘world’ arise interdependently as two ends of the same designation process; my self is embedded in my world. With this, skills and advantages get tainted with conceit and the urge for more, and negative conditions arouse despond or irritation. There’s plenty of room for suffering, and no end to the goings-on that occur around identification.  So, the four bases give us windows through which to contemplate clinging. In themselves, material food and the rest of it are useful. Rules and customs are useful guides, and in order to do anything well, you have to have a point of view and take into account your own energies, inclinations and skills. But there is also a need to witness and contain the passion and clinging around all this. This is the purpose of cultivating pāramī: to check, witness and move through the mind’s assumptions and resistances. Then, if you stay focused at the place where the mind lets go, there is a sense of ease and spaciousness. You get a glimpse of non – clinging.

However, you don’t resolve and clear these programs with pāramī alone. Cultivating pāramī develops one’s intent to the point where one can have a choice over whether to act upon them or not; but the tendencies remain as potentials in the mind, ready to engender more problems. To clear the tendencies of ignorance and becoming takes the factors of awakening (bojjhanga.)

To be continued

latent tendencies

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Selected excerpts from Kamma and the End of Kamma by Ajahn Sucitto

Taken as a whole, the practice of pāramī sets up values that skilfully direct the mind. Attitudes and energies that go towards self-aggrandizement, manipulation or distraction are cut off. And, as intention gets free of those biases, we notice different things – because what we look for affects what we look at. With worldly conditioning, the mind is focused on material gain, status and superficial appearances. That always brings the need for more, and the fear of losing what’s been gained: i.e. stress. But if we look at life in terms of what we can give, rather than gain; if we incline towards valuing patience and resolution rather than quick, short-term results; and if we prioritize our integrity rather than speculate as to whether we are admired or ignored – we notice bright or dark kamma. And we notice how stress arises and how it ceases. Our ‘naming’ of the world shifts to designate it as a vehicle for value and liberation, rather than a me/them, gain/loss ride on a roller coaster.

However, as you hold to the values of a skilful life, that purifying process reveals dispositions and tendencies that are latent and unresolved. These latent tendencies (anusaya) include basic inclinations such as sensual passion, irritation, opinionatedness and conceit – which may not be revealed as such in ordinary life because our ways of operating avoid a thorough investigation of our inclinations. This is why we resolve not to follow the casual slide into worldly values. Instead, we make commitments to acts of value and integrity.

In this respect, Buddhist practice isn’t about peak moments. It’s about training. It’s about strengthening and broadening commitment to standards and virtues, even when the peak experiences aren’t rolling in and your unacknowledged tendencies are rising up. In fact, the ordinary situation of living with others is a great opportunity for developing pāramī. Through aware interaction, we get to see that our ‘naming’ – our interpretations of what is normal or friendly, our attitudes around leadership and independence, our sensitivity to other people – differs from other people’s ‘naming’ in the same situation. Responding to this takes a lot of patience, goodwill and commitment in order to clear biases. That gives life a transcendent purpose: it’s about freeing the mind from narrow-mindedness, concerns over status, and fault-finding – to name a few aspects of ‘self-view’.

I’ve grown to appreciate this integrated approach, especially as I didn’t start my practice from this perspective. In the monastery in Thailand in which I began my training as a Buddhist monk, there was a section set aside for intensive meditation practice. Monks in the monastery would go into this section in order to review and deepen their understanding of Dhamma. They’d generally spend a couple of weeks in there and then return to what they were part of. I was one of the few Westerners; the three or four of us there were all new to Thailand, meditation and monastic life. We had nothing to do, no get-togethers, nowhere to go and no way of returning to what we were part of. Conversation wasn’t allowed. It was, as you might guess, pretty stressful being in a small hut all day trying to meditate and watching the mind jump over the monastery wall for hours at a time. The one thing that we did do together was go out on alms-round, in silence, every morning. It was our only occasion of being together in the entire day; it should have been easy, just walking along receiving offerings. But instead, all kinds of stuff, stuff that wasn’t on the enlightenment script, came up.

The first person in my life who said he’d like to kill me, with an axe, if possible, was a fellow-monk. Well, I did walk on alms-round at a pace that he felt was too slow, while he had to walk behind me … As for myself, I can’t recall having much of a violent impulse until I became a serious meditating monk … but now here I was feeling violent towards a monk (another one) walking behind me! After all, the Buddha said we should walk quietly, making little noise, so that we could be calm and focused in order to get enlightened – but every day that monk behind me kept on clearing his throat as we walked along … That’s justification for murder, isn’t it?

Naturally, we didn’t act on these impulses; we let them pass. Which was a little bit of awakening. There was enough bright kamma to have a sense of morality, and even of mindfulness. However, they blew apart the idea that you don’t have ill-will just because in solitude no-one’s pushing your buttons. So, in terms of the big picture, a murderous impulse was useful: I had to let go of my idea of being a reasonable, easy-going person, and focus on the tendency of ill-will. And further, when I acknowledged that my solitary practice hadn’t made it any easier to share the planet for a couple of hours with another harmless human being who shared my interest in awakening, the paradigm of mind-cultivation had to shift. I began to understand that you don’t get out of kamma by avoiding it.

To be continued

stable ground: the pāramī

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Selected excerpts from “Kamma and the end of Kamma” by Ajahn Sucitto.

Many of the Buddha’s teachings are based on generating bright kamma in daily life. He taught the Eightfold Path to establish purity of intent. If you work with this with regard to people, duties and events, you can live with self-respect, gladness and equanimity. You don’t get caught up in the judgements of success/failure, praise/blame; instead, you establish your Path, linger in and savour the good, and work with what arises.

However, we often do get caught up in the judgements of success/failure and one’s assessment gets internalized so then craving is driving the mind: ‘How long is it going to take me to achieve my goals?’ That’s the world arising, right there; it’s a race that can never be won, because the thirst to achieve creates the goal and the self who hasn’t achieved it. You climb one mountain, then you need to climb a higher or more risky one. What’s driving you? This process will always create stress. Stress can end, however, in accordance with the degree with which one can relinquish that thirst, that goal-orientation, that self. This is what is meant by purifying the intent. It means letting go of the search for fulfilment in terms of ‘world’.

Does this mean that there’s nothing to seek? Not really. Maintaining balance does take some doing; and for the citta to find any balanced ground there has to be motivation (chanda) towards purity, integrity and harmony. And this does give a reward in terms of one’s innate value or puñña, with the stability and good heart that this brings. Accordingly, the persistent cultivation of bright kamma is encouraged. In Buddhist cultures, a useful list of daily life trainings is that of the ten ‘perfections’ (pāramī or pāramitā).[36]

 Pāramī are also referred to as ‘qualities that cross over [the world]’ because by practising them in the everyday world, the mind brings forth bright qualities rather than seeking worldly gain. Avoiding the spin of gain and loss, these pāramī give you stable ground.

In the Theravada tradition, the pāramī are listed as generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom/discernment, persistence, patience, truthfulness, kindness, resolution and equanimity. All these ask us to bring forth skill in response to what we experience; it’s a response which has liberation as its aim. It’s good to remember that liberation is not some ‘out there’ state; it just means the Path and Fruit of letting go of any degree of greed “aversion and delusion – and of the basis on which they arise. Through the practice of pāramī, we cultivate action that places qualities, rather than self-image, as the guides on the Path. It’s pretty fundamental; without that view, and without sustaining that aim and resolve, you don’t have a reliable foundation from which to meet life.

Generosity is about sharing – and not just in material terms. It’s an attitude to life; it’s a response to the interrelatedness that is the basis of all life. Most importantly, you share Dhamma by advice, and by example. Aiming one’s concern and goodwill for the welfare of others as much as for oneself helps to shift the ‘self-view’ to one in line with co-dependent arising. Action based on that view of interdependence generates a shared blessing. The giver feels joy and the receiver feels the effects of kindness: everyone gains.

Morality leads to self-respect and the trust of people around you. Renunciation draws you out of the grip of the materialist energies that control much of society. Discernment cuts through the blur of feelings to tell you coolly and clearly what qualities are skilful and what aren’t at this moment. Such discernment is required to steward and moderate energy so that it isn’t frittered away on the one hand, or strained on the other. The result is right persistence. And that brings around patience – to not rush, to allow things to move at a harmonious rate, and to bear with the tangle of social and personal conundrums that we face. Patience is great for wilful ‘got to get it done’ mind-sets. There’s a whole life of cultivation in this pāramī alone.

These pāramī are not always on display in the world; nor does their cultivation mean that you become a success in worldly terms. Take truthfulness: it may seem unlikely that you will become the leader of a political party or of a global corporation through such kamma. But maybe. A friend of mine in business told me that, years ago, he vowed to only deal honestly with clients – no false promises, no granting of favours, no illegal dodges. At first his business declined a little, but after a while, as people realized that they could trust that what he said was what he meant, they began to prefer that straight way of dealing and his business increased. Ethical business can make sense. At any rate, you always gain in terms of having self-respect, a clear conscience and friends that you can rely upon. Furthermore, goodwill and resolution will get you through the tough times. When the economy crashes or your health fails, when you’re bereaved or blamed, knowing how to live simply and be an equanimous witness to experience are real life-savers. “Taken as a whole, the practice of pāramī sets up values that skilfully direct the mind. Attitudes and energies that go towards self-aggrandizement, manipulation or distraction are cut off. And, as intention gets free of those biases, we notice different things – because what we look for affects what we look at.

To be continued

Editorial Note: Hello readers. Some of you will be wondering what’s been going on at this end, what with all these infrequent postings since end of October last year. So, looking at the most recent event, I’m putting together this piece of writing using the microphone rather than the keyboard (voice enabled text) … my voice in an empty room with words appearing on the screen – too fast. I need to find the right way to make a beginning…

Start here: Sunday February 2, I tripped, fell and landed on my hip while visiting one of the oldest temples in Bangkok, Wat Po. It was the week of Chinese New Year and crowds everywhere. I was taken through heavy traffic, mostly huge tour group buses to Vichayut hospital.

The worst pain wasn’t the fall itself, my friend Tristan got me up and helped with the agonized steps to where there was a cab. It was quickly decided to take a cab to the hospital rather than wait for an ambulance to find its way through all the narrow streets and people everywhere. When we arrived at the hospital, it was not in the emergency reception point and there were no medical professionals to get me on a stretcher, I had to kind of slide down from a raised seat in the cab and unknowingly landed on the injured leg.

The pain was the most immense I’d ever experienced; I was like a large trapped animal howling, suddenly and at high volume. In the mind’s eye the overruling thought was of punishment, something from childhood and I burst into tears. There were other times when the injured leg was pushed and the involuntary howl would be released again. They finally got me on to a wheeled stretcher and I was speeding along through wide polished corridors to the examination room then to the Xray department. Later the orthopaedic surgeon showed me a picture on his phone of the Xray image showing a long fracture in the upper femur.

The only way to go was Total Hip Replacement, no real alternative. So, sign the relevant forms, intravenous tubes inserted, received morphine and drifted off on a sea of fluffy green clouds.

Woke up next day afternoon in a hospital bed after they took me out of ICU and Jiab was there, told me it was done. Lying on my back thinking my body was not my own anymore, there’s a piece of platinum in my bone structure that’ll set off the alarm in Xray machines at the airport so I have to tell them before I pass through. At the time it felt like the whole of my right side was stiff and unresponsive. It wasn’t ‘my’ body now, in a sense the upper leg had been recreated by the surgeons and the team. Gratitude, for these karmic blessings and a good insurance that gets it all to spring into action.

But there was also a feeling I was a prisoner, held like this for hours and days and weeks lying immobile with all the pads and the tubes inserted; forced to sleep on my back. I never feel comfortable falling asleep while lying on my back, I usually turn foetus-like on my left and still the inclination is to turn on my side… but that’s a big no-no; instant pain. So that’s how it’s been for the last 6 weeks, sleeping like that but I got used to it. Many times, I thought so this is how it is, I can lie on my back and investigate the state of the body and the location of the pain and try to find some ease in there – it was all about stressed muscles and connecting nerves…. is there some ease to be found anywhere here? Or just riding with it, and see where that gets me. Then there are times when I arrive at a pain-free plateau and all my senses fall into a relaxed state. The tendency then is to let go and fall asleep but sometimes I remain there but it’s not an ‘I’ that remains, it’s just how it is. Without a sense of self, it’s not ‘my’ pain. The agony and the ache are rolling and tumbling across the landscape when I’m asleep, physical feelings are changing all the time. No ongoing happy or distressed state it’s just drifting along with variations between the two.

Now, I’m okay but unaided walking is more of a stumble than a walk so I still depend on the walker-frame which the physio-therapist says will become obsolete as I complete the remaining weeks of exercises. He says my walking gait will return to how it was before the event; the collision with gravity in Wat Po. Yes, the physio-therapist was a nice man although the exercises he put me through were agony and I’d have a sleepless night on the day of his visit, then the next day there’d be less of an ache. The day after he’d be back again – sessions 3 days a week for 4 weeks.

He had a sense of humour and I learned so much from him. Soon, I began to see an improvement; the muscles that were completely stuck before,began to move.

People would ask me if I’m on painkillers? What use are pain killers when there’s a man in a white coat fixing a 1 kilo cuff weight on my ankle with Velcro straps and insisting there’s a purpose behind all the pain so I have to stretch out my leg and lift the foot 10 times. He insists it’s a worthwhile and an honourable effort to get everything started again. Whatever… the thing is I slowly began to see an improvement; the muscles that were completely stuck were sending out the pain and he’d ask me where exactly this pain was and he could identify which is which and he’d do some massage with his fingers and get me to do an exercise for that particular muscle and that’s how I got to know where they were and to move each one.

I have to end now, there was an earthquake here: Friday 28 March 2025. The house wobbled maybe twice but no damage or harm. There’s so much more to say about the event and maybe I’ll return to this if I can cope with the microphone, voice enabled text function and the on-going editing process. That’s it, I hope all is well where you are, stay well. Best wishes

Tiramit

the process of clearing the past

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Excerpts from Kamma and the end of Kamma by Ajahn Sucitto

With regard to what we can do to clear our inner world, the process of clearing the past as outlined by the Buddha is twofold: first, to acknowledge the results of action, and to determine not to act in such ways again; and secondly, to spread inclinations of goodwill through the whole system and towards anyone else connected to the action.[27]

What needs to be cleared occurs on three levels: there are active programs – actions we keep doing; there are involuntary tendencies – patterns that lie dormant but come to the surface under stress, or as the mind unfolds in meditation; and finally there’s the self-view – the aspect of self-construction that refers to how we habitually regard ourselves. In all cases, the method entails accessing the patterns and programs in the mind, and revealing their tracks with deep attention. And then being mindful of and fully sensing how these conditions manifest. Then we need to meet them skilfully so that a response arises from the intelligence that begins to return through not following the old track.

In brief, we establish and firm up a reference to a healthy pattern, and then expand awareness so that that bright quality receives, meets and smoothes out residues of fear, rage, self-hatred, grief – or whatever the citta hasn’t been able to discharge. This may sound like a lot, but because many impulses and programs move along a few basic tracks, clearing the past is not a matter of focusing on every wild pig that’s charged through the heart – it’s more a case of straightening, uprooting, or leaving its tracks.

At the most obvious level, that of acknowledging actions and of changing how you’re going to act in the future, you own up to any unskilful deed you feel you’ve done, and with deep attention, discern the underlying pattern. (Remember, it’s a pattern, not a self.) Widen attention so that the citta can step back from that pattern. At the same time, stabilize the mind in the energetic feel of resolve, so that awareness is strengthened – then a resolution that’s made will stick. In this way, you block off access and nourishment for that bad habit, and its track begins to fade.

Following on from that, the general theme of practice is to spread kindness (mettā), compassion (karuṇā), appreciative joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekkhā) into the citta’s field. Collectively, they’re called ‘the measureless’ (appamāno) or a ‘celestial abiding’ (brahmavihāra). In more down-to-earth terms, accessing them means touching into the felt sense and tone of these empathetic qualities, then lingering in and strengthening the citta with them. When the heart feels full, it’s natural and easy to steadily extend its awareness towards beings you feel you may have affected – and towards your own heart if it has become infected in some way or another.

So: you recollect an unskilful deed you’ve done towards another, considering how you would feel if you were them – or towards the person you may have been at that time. And when you remember being the object of others’ abuse or lack of empathy, you do much the same. You take the impression of who you feel you’ve been, and who you feel the other has been, and suffuse the entirety with goodwill; or at least with non-aversion.

The practice covers both ourselves and others, because in the heart, ‘self and other’ are just forms that arise from saññā-saṇkhāra. They are also interdependent. That is, our personalities are established and moulded dependent on who we’ve customarily interacted with: such as parents, peers and colleagues. And it is through the eyes of our personality that we regard and define others. When the personality has an embedded mistrust or hostility pattern, it projects that onto others. Granted, many people can exhibit forceful or intimidating mannerisms, but when your buttons get pushed by a few words, or a glance, or even just by their status, then you know that you have stuff to clear – otherwise you’ll keep that track of inferred hostility open and well-trodden.

The process of clearing entails our capacity to suffuse (or ‘pervade’) the citta with healthy ripples and waves. This entails a soft and slow expansion of awareness through body and heart. It’s a meditative training based on the understanding that where awareness goes, energy goes; awareness is the primary intelligence of citta. It’s through this that ignorance is removed.

In terms of practice, you don’t go into the tangling energies of ill-will, craving or despond, but stay wide and steady around them. With reference to the bodily aspect of patterning, you slowly extend awareness through the entire body, so that the refined energy of breathing and the uncontracted quality of awareness clear hindrances. This generates the bright states of rapture and ease; and the mind settles in samādhi. In terms of heart, the suffusion is of the intentions of kindness, or compassion, or appreciative joy, or equanimity – so that the contracted or sour heart-energy unfolds into a beautiful abiding: ‘abundant, exalted, immeasurable, free from hostility and ill-will.’[28] Although they have different approaches, their combined cultivation is the kamma that generates the ‘great heart’.[29]

In referring to the brahmavihāra states, the Buddha uses the simile of someone blowing on a conch to evoke the way that these radiate and suffuse the atmosphere.[30] Exactly what ‘tune’ one plays depends on the distortion one is healing. There is the bleak ‘have to do it on my own’ hardness that needs the nourishing quality of kindness; at other times, it’s the heart’s irritability or vulnerability that calls for compassion, the protective energy. Sometimes it’s the case whereby we recognize the harm that comes from neglecting what is good in ourselves and others, or even through taking others for granted. Then the intent to appreciate goodness can arise. It’s important to not neglect this: the stream of good deeds that you did do, the kind words that just seemed natural, but were the right thing at the right time, the acts of courtesy or generosity that other people manifest. It’s important not to overlook appreciation – because we often do.

Equanimity holds the empathetic space and allows things to unfold. It doesn’t ask for results, but attunes to how things are right now. It is where the issue of self comes to an end as we understand kamma. With this, we realize that ultimately no-one did anything: it’s just that patterns and programs get established based on reckless actions, and on what each person has had done to them.

In the world in general, there’s a huge inheritance of psychological programs based upon violence and deprivation – and who knows where all that began. Under the pressure of desperate need and hopelessness, in a context that is starved of goodwill, or is abusive, citta can get so distorted and compressed that it only experiences relief in the blaze of rage and brutality. For example, say your father got brutalized by being in a war; this led to his bouts of depression, explosive rage and drunkenness. You picked up the results of that, were insecure and became abusive towards yourself and insensitive to others. Where and when do these cycles of violence and punishment and revenge end? Only when we can regard our own and other people’s actions empathetically in terms of cause and effect. That regard is equanimity, the most reliable base for action.

To be continued

meditation on goodwill

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Excerpts From “Kamma and the end of Kamma” by Ajahn Sucitto.

Establish your presence in the place where you’re sitting, putting other concerns to one side. Then ask yourself, ‘How am I right now?’ Consider this, with a listening kind of attention. Even as bodily sensations or mind-states change, attend to the more continual overall feeling of how you are with any of this.

If the mind starts spinning with ideas about what you should do or be, widen your awareness around that spin. Don’t fix or fight it. Think slowly: ‘May I be well’ over the span of an out-breath. Add ‘May I listen to all this, spaciously …’.  You may need to go slowly, with long listening pauses, but this could be all you need to do in order to resolve a dilemma.

If you want to take the practice further, consider: ‘What would it be like if I was in the presence of someone or something that was regarding me with warmth?’ (You can even recollect your dog.) Introduce the thought: ‘What would that be like? How would I sense that?’ and attend closely to any resonance in the heart. Attune to the tonality of an image and an approach that fits. Listen to that, spaciously.

Recollect any time in your life when someone was glad to see you, did you a favour, gave you some kindly attention, or enjoyed your presence. How is that, now? Ask: ‘Does my body know that?’ Attend to any drop in tension, or lift in energy – particularly in the face, and in the heart region.

Put aside more general reflections or memories of that person or that time, and return to any specific goodwill moment and how it felt for you. You may repeat this with a few people and several incidents.

When you can establish that process, linger in the heart and bodily effect and lessen the thinking accordingly. Gradually simplify and consolidate the process until you arrive at a simple image (of warmth or light, for example), or a bodily sense – of ease or joy. Sit in that, sweeping it through your body like a massage. Expand your awareness of the feel of that in terms of your overall disposition until there’s no need for the thought process.

As you settle into that, breathe it into your presence. Then expand it out through the skin into the space immediately around you. You may wish to express that benevolence to particular people, or to other beings in general. Notice who easily comes to mind – someone who you readily feel goodwill towards.

Then bring to mind someone whom you have no strong feelings for. Consider seeing them out of the context in which you normally encounter them. Imagine them enjoying themselves, or worried, or in distress. Spend some time rounding out your impression of them in a sympathetic way. ‘May he/she be well.’ Expand your awareness of the feel of that wish; notice how it affects your overall disposition and body tone. Enjoy feeling more empathically attuned.

Let the feeling and effect of that settle. Then consider someone you have difficulties with. Focus on an aspect of their behaviour that you don’t find difficult. Consider them out of the context in which you normally encounter them.

Imagine them enjoying themselves, or worried, or in distress. Spend some time rounding out your impression of them. Feel what it’s like to not feel frightened of, or irritated by, this person. As you sense your own relaxation, bring to mind the thought: ‘May we be free from conflict.’ Expand your awareness of that wish and energy.

Now it may be possible to just be with, rather than in, yourself. Explore the felt sense of who you take yourself as being; that is, your moods, energies and thought-processes. And however, you may be at this moment: ‘May this be heard. May I listen to this, spaciously.’

When you wish to conclude, return to the simple presence of the body – the sense of having a centre, with the rest of the body extending around it to the skin boundary. Settle and stabilize these before you open your eyes.

As a further practice, set up an occasion to listen to  another, spaciously and quietly. Let yourself receive the mood and tone as they speak. If need be (agree upon a procedure or a wording before the occasion begins), you might suggest, when they pause: ‘How is it to be with this?’ Also note to yourself how you’re being affected. Remember, this is not a conversation, nor an attempt to explain or change anything. It’s about opening an empathetic space. That will have its own effects.

After ten or fifteen minutes, swap the roles.

To be continued

unseating perfectionism and living in balance

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Excerpts from “Kamma and the end of Kamma” by Ajahn Sucitto.

A common pattern that forms around negative self-impressions is that of the ‘Inner Tyrant’. The Tyrant is the nagging voice that will always demand that you achieve impossible standards of perfection, never offers congratulation or appreciation, exaggerates shortcomings; and based on this, delivers a scolding. Sometimes the Tyrant offers just a cold, condescending stare. Sometimes the Tyrant keeps urging you to do more, to forgive others, to pull yourself together and to take responsibility – advice which may have its place, but is inappropriate when it comes to shifting self-view. It just entrenches the belief that this stuff is what I am. That view carries the weight that we’re trying to drop. And it comes from the involuntary action of adopting psychological patterns as ‘myself’. Stupid, but we’ve all done it (there’s the belief that I’ll find one that is satisfying, and fits!).

The Tyrant’s programs arise from a citta whenever it lacks stability and empathy; so the Tyrant develops because of a confused, non-empathetic human environment. The social need to get ahead, to be approved of, and to avoid being second-rate doesn’t allow for having empathy with what we or others are actually experiencing. Under this pressure, the mind splits into ‘how I’m feeling’ and ‘what I’m supposed to be’. Thus, empathy and wholeness get jettisoned, and the pressure gets stuck by being internalized as two conflicting ‘selves’ ; the Inner Tyrant as the agent of the pressure – and as its victim, ‘Little Me’.

Sometimes Little Me rebels, or seeks affirmation in order to become Big Me. And so the Tyrant in the mind creates another self-image which can’t sustain itself without continual ego-food. ‘I have to be efficient, always obliging and dutiful, yet self-sufficient – and relaxed.’ In fact, as long as you keep being Little Me, the victim, you support the fragmentation and the Tyrant. So rather than believe or fight with the Tyrant, or defend Little Me, the way out is to switch off the program through resolving the pattern. In other words, you drop the tendency to make a self-image out of changeable qualities – which indeed may not be ideal or perfect. (No personal qualities are.)

As you meet the sense of ‘it’s all up to me’, or ‘I don’t deserve to feel good’, or ‘I must try harder’, you can find areas of your body that feel tense, fidgety or contracted. Then you evoke your Refuge tone, and stay with that until there is some openness or ease – and it affects your body. Then widen awareness to cover the entirety of your embodied field; this suffusive effect restores the balance of the heart.

A balanced heart is naturally empathetic. Then you can direct it to the incapable, the failing, the unnoticed, and the success-failure ripples and patterns – wherever and in whoever they arise. Learn how to meet and relate to, rather than analyse, qualities before doing anything else. In fact, it may be all you have to do in order to touch into the disengagement that allows the heart to open in compassion – towards the Tyrant, Little Me, or anyone. Just to abide in compassionate awareness, not fixing, not blaming and not changing anything, may be exactly what’s needed – because then you’re not acting from that desperate, judgemental basis. Then you don’t have to perform that well to be warm and balanced within yourself. You don’t have to look like a supermodel to feel appreciated. You don’t have to have things go your way to feel content. You don’t need to have one special person in order to feel loved. What is needed is to cultivate great heart. And it arises through accepting and responding to the unsatisfactory condition of personality.

View is the instigator of kamma: as you believe, so do you act. View is a magnet that attracts the energy of will and inclinations: develop a certain attitude and you can be sure that your mind will assemble a reality out of that. But if we notice how the view ‘I am’ attracts energy … and how energy creates a pattern … and a mental pattern becomes a conviction … and a conviction becomes a standpoint – that’s how the isolated self arises. So as long as there is the need for a standpoint, a need to be, and to prove, then that need will support a self-view. Then if there is holding to that standpoint, conflict with others, grievance and resentment will follow in due course.

But if energy can go another way, generating a pattern of groundedness, of empathy, of great heart, the view can shift. It clears with the insight that ‘all this stuff, all this energy, is invoked by saṇkhārā, shaped by consciousness, given meaning by perception, resonating with feeling, productive of intention, and resulting in effects … All this is changing, insubstantial; there is no self in this, and no self can be established apart from this.’ We therefore act with integrity and don’t hang on. And there’s no stress, no weight in that.

Continued next week

practising the great heart

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Excerpts from “Kamma and the end of Kamma” by Ajahn Sucitto.

[Note: We begin this excerpt with the final paragraph of the last piece on November 7, 2024. Then the text continues with the first paragraph of today’s text.]

“In the world in general, there’s a huge inheritance of psychological programs based upon violence and deprivation – and who knows where all that began. Under the pressure of desperate need and hopelessness, in a context that is starved of goodwill, or is abusive, citta can get so distorted and compressed that it only experiences relief in the blaze of rage and brutality. For example, say your father got brutalized by being in a war; this led to his bouts of depression, explosive rage and drunkenness. You picked up the results of that, were insecure and became abusive towards yourself and insensitive to others. Where and when do these cycles of violence and punishment and revenge end? Only when we can regard our own and other people’s actions empathetically in terms of cause and effect. That regard is equanimity, the most reliable base for action.”

 With these samatha resources, the citta can first meet negative qualities without reacting to them; and then insightfully question whether this or any kammic patterning is who you are. Meeting, rather than analysing or fixing, carries the intent to fully receive qualities as they are; this intent is empathetic, so the mind’s energy (which powers that saṇkhāra) feels that – and its current is changed. This stops it from creating more tracks and perceptions.

Where body and heart come together is a good meeting place. Normally, as a negative mood or a poignant memory arises, it catches hold and the heart resonates accordingly – so we become that mood, with its characteristic pattern. Being averse to all this and trying to stop it merely adds to the intensity. If you sustain the view that the way you are is because of what others have or haven’t done – that resignation closes the heart and locks the pattern into place. If you ignore the nature of your patterning by going out into sights and sounds, tastes and ideas in the present, then you may be unaware of it for a while; but when the music stops … it’s back to ‘me’ again with the mood swings and jaded self-image. Meanwhile, any acts of denial and distraction have their effects. You activate a saṇkhāra track into desolate territory.

Instead, stay with the pattern and feel it in your body. Maybe it feels constricted or numb in places; or gets agitated. This is skilful because trying to directly change your negative mind-state isn’t always the remedy – especially if the source of the problem isn’t what you’ve done, but what you’ve had done to you. If you were bullied at school, or have been discriminated against because of ethnic background or gender, your heart’s energy may well have been shaped by that. Understandable as such patterns are, any resultant defensiveness, self-affirmation or counter-attacks still don’t return the citta to its easeful or unpatterned state.

To dissolve a negative pattern, you focus on where your body feels the sense of a safe space around it – even if this is as humble as feeling the ground beneath you. Give full attention to the steadiness until that quality attracts heart-energy and your citta feels steadier. Then you can gradually draw that steadied awareness over your body. If you can link it to the rhythmic process of in- and-out breathing, that’s great, because with mindfulness, the energy of breathing can refine and suffuse any positive effect through the entire nervous system. This takes time, but the energies of passion, sourness, stagnation, restlessness and uncertainty will gradually dissolve into the stream of wholesome energy. This consolidation of awareness embeds the impulsive base of the mind in deeper currents than that of sense-contact and discursive thought. When in touch with this deep foundation, there is a firm ease that checks memories and moods from becoming overwhelming, and makes the citta ‘great’ in terms of its energetic boundaries and capacity.

In tandem with this, you attend to the mood of the mind with empathy. From this perspective, if sorrow or agitation or fear wells up, rather than re-enact old habits of feeling bereft, or of trying to figure out a solution, you silently ask: ‘How am I with this now?’ The aim is not to shift away from this topic, but to witness that topic with stable awareness so that some wise seeing can get underneath the story to the emotion. Instead, find a place where you sense ease or steadiness, and spread awareness from that place to the edges of the difficult area. To the extent to which you’ve strengthened your citta, your awareness can be onlooking and compassionate – with, but not in, the pattern. As the energy of the stuck place changes, it can begin to release; the heart can open. Then you centre in its positive current and suffuse afflicted places until the system comes into balance and feels refreshed.

Even if you’re feeling fine right now, you should bear in mind that the citta does have latent afflictive tendencies. So, it’s always a good idea to brighten and clean the mind in order to meet what arises in the day. This is basic sanity. If you go into a world of random cause and effect when you’re ill-at-ease, tense or depressed, you’re leaving yourself wide open to laying down some unskilful kamma. But with the great heart you won’t get knocked about, defensive, or reactive.

Continued next week. Please note, I’ve been offline for about two months, my old laptop gave me a problem to solve and I just couldn’t find a way through. My old friend Manish got me up and running on a new computer. Learn by doing, still a few things to puzzle over. So many small things to study, it’ll take time. Sorry I wasn’t ‘here’ for so long. I missed you! Hope everyone is well.
More later
Tiramit

clearing results from the past

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Excerpts from Kamma and the end of Kamma by Ajahn Sucitto

Unless we cultivate letting go, unless we can stop accepting heart-patterns as unbiased truth and ‘my self’, the issues of the past will be the basis for further kamma. The difficulty is that letting go requires the presence of an awareness that can receive these impressions, their tracks and residues. This takes a lot of grounded good-will, clarity, and spaciousness – qualities that can remind the citta of ‘safe and comfortable’.

In life-scenarios of chronic abuse, or sustained performance-driven stress, the heart-pattern of ‘safe and comfortable’ may in fact be rare. So, when we go to the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha for Refuge, this isn’t just a catch-phrase; it’s a practice of sensing the felt meaning of the Triple Gem, attuning one’s heart to it, and opening one’s embodied presence to the quality of Refuge.[26] A true Refuge is that which remains when your world goes upside down; this is why people with great faith can survive disasters and tyrannies.

The felt meaning, the perception, of being in Refuge, may be evoked by attending to what is not urgent or threatening right now – even if that is just the space of an open sky. Even a visual sign such as this can evoke the tone of ‘being safe in this’, a tone that allows your body to breathe freely. However, the tone of Refuge can more skilfully occur through reflections on bright kamma, that of others or one’s own. Its underlying theme is that you don’t create it; it arrives by being receptive to a supportive pattern, whether that is a memory or a presence. A Refuge that we feel welcomed into can then provide the container wherein distressing memories can arise and pass, and thus assist in ‘de-conditioning’ the mind.

Clearing Results from the Past: An Outline

With regard to what we can do to clear our inner world, the process of clearing the past as outlined by the Buddha is twofold: first, to acknowledge the results of action, and to determine “not to act in such ways again; and secondly, to spread inclinations of goodwill through the whole system and towards anyone else connected to the action.[27]

What needs to be cleared occurs on three levels: there are active programs – actions we keep doing; there are involuntary tendencies – patterns that lie dormant but come to the surface under stress, or as the mind unfolds in meditation; and finally there’s the self-view – the aspect of self-construction that refers to how we habitually regard ourselves. In all cases, the method entails accessing the patterns and programs in the mind, and revealing their tracks with deep attention. And then being mindful of and fully sensing how these conditions manifest. Then we need to meet them skilfully so that a response arises from the intelligence that begins to return through not following the old track.

In brief, we establish and firm up a reference to a healthy pattern, and then expand awareness so that that bright quality receives, meets and smoothes out residues of fear, rage, self-hatred, grief – or whatever the citta hasn’t been able to discharge. This may sound like a lot, but because many impulses and programs move along a few basic tracks, clearing the past is not a matter of focusing on every wild pig that’s charged through the heart – it’s more a case of straightening, uprooting, or leaving its tracks.

At the most obvious level, that of acknowledging actions and of changing how you’re going to act in the future, you own up to any unskilful deed you feel you’ve done, and with deep attention, discern the underlying pattern. (Remember, it’s a pattern, not a self.) Widen attention so that the citta can step back from that pattern. At the same time, stabilize the mind in the energetic“feel of resolve, so that awareness is strengthened – then a resolution that’s made will stick. In this way, you block off access and nourishment for that bad habit, and its track begins to fade.

Following on from that, the general theme of practice is to spread kindness (mettā), compassion (karuṇā), appreciative joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekkhā) into the citta’s field. Collectively, they’re called ‘the measureless’ (appamāno) or a ‘celestial abiding’ (brahmavihāra). In more down-to-earth terms, accessing them means touching into the felt sense and tone of these empathetic qualities, then lingering in and strengthening the citta with them. When the heart feels full, it’s natural and easy to steadily extend its awareness towards beings you feel you may have affected – and towards your own heart if it has become infected in some way or another.

So: you recollect an unskilful deed you’ve done towards another, considering how you would feel if you were them – or towards the person you may have been at that time. And when you remember being the object of others’ abuse or lack of empathy, you do much the same. You take the impression of who you feel you’ve been, and who you feel the other has been, and suffuse the entirety with goodwill; or at least with non-aversion.

The practice covers both ourselves and others, because in the heart, ‘self and other’ are just forms that arise from saññā-saṇkhāra. They are also interdependent. That is, our personalities are established and moulded dependent on who we’ve customarily interacted with: such as parents, peers and colleagues. And it is through the eyes of our personality that we regard and define others. When the personality has an embedded mistrust or hostility pattern, it projects that onto others. Granted, many people can exhibit forceful or intimidating mannerisms, but when your buttons get pushed by a few words, or a glance, or even just by their status, then you know that you have stuff to clear – otherwise you’ll keep that track of inferred hostility open and well-trodden.

The process of clearing entails our capacity to suffuse (or ‘pervade’) the citta with healthy ripples and waves. This entails a soft and slow expansion of awareness through body and heart. It’s a meditative training based on the understanding that where awareness goes, energy goes; awareness is the primary intelligence of citta. It’s through this that ignorance is removed.

In terms of practice, you don’t go into the tangling energies of ill-will, craving or despond, but stay wide and steady around them. With reference to the bodily aspect of patterning, you can slowly extend awareness through the entire body, so that the refined energy of breathing and the uncontracted quality of awareness clear hindrances. This generates the bright states of rapture and ease; and the mind settles in samādhi. In terms of heart, the suffusion is of the intentions of kindness, or compassion, or appreciative joy, or equanimity – so that the contracted or sour heart-energy unfolds into a beautiful abiding: ‘abundant, exalted, immeasurable, free from hostility and ill-will.’[28] Although they have different approaches, their combined cultivation is the kamma that generates the ‘great heart’.[29]

In referring to the brahmavihāra states, the Buddha uses the simile of someone blowing on a conch to evoke the way that these radiate and suffuse the atmosphere.[30]

 Exactly what ‘tune’ one plays depends on the distortion one is healing. There is the bleak ‘have to do it on my own’ hardness that needs the nourishing quality of kindness; at other times, it’s the heart’s irritability or vulnerability that calls for compassion, the protective energy. Sometimes it’s the case whereby we recognize the harm that comes from neglecting what is good in ourselves and others, or even through taking others for granted. Then the intent to appreciate goodness can arise. It’s important to not neglect this: the stream of good deeds that you did do, the kind words that just seemed natural, but were the right thing at the right time, the acts of courtesy or generosity that other people manifest. It’s important not to overlook appreciation – because we often do.

Equanimity holds the empathetic space and allows things to unfold. It doesn’t ask for results, but attunes to how things are right now. It is where the issue of self comes to an end as we understand kamma. With this, we realize that ultimately no-one did anything: it’s just that patterns and programs get established based on reckless actions, and on what each person has had done to them.

In the world in general, there’s a huge inheritance of psychological programs based upon violence and deprivation – and who knows where all that began. Under the pressure of desperate need and hopelessness, in a context that is starved of goodwill, or is abusive, citta can get so distorted and compressed that it only experiences relief in the blaze of rage and brutality. For example, say your father got brutalized by being in a war; this led to his bouts of depression, explosive rage and drunkenness. You picked up the results of that, were insecure and became abusive towards yourself and insensitive to others. Where and when do these cycles of violence and punishment and revenge end? Only when we can regard our own and other people’s actions empathetically in terms of cause and effect. That regard is equanimity, the most reliable base for action.

The End of Grief: The Nun’s Story

‘Overwhelmed with grief for my son –
naked, demented,
my hair disheveled
my mind deranged –
I went about here & there,
living along the side of the road,
in cemeteries & heaps of trash,
for three full years,
afflicted with hunger & thirst’

‘Then I saw
the One Well-Gone,
gone to the city of Mithilā:
tamer of those untamed,
Self-Awakened,
with nothing to fear
from anything, anywhere.’

‘Regaining my mind,
paying him homage,
I sat myself down.
He, Gotama, from sympathy
taught me the Dhamma.
Hearing his Dhamma,

I went forth into homelessness.
Applying myself to the Teacher’s words,’

‘I realized the state of auspicious bliss.
All griefs have been cut off,
abandoned,
brought to this end,
for I’ve comprehended
the grounds from which grief
come into play.’
(Therīgathā 6:2; Thanissaro, trans.)

Continued next week, 14 November 2024

citta and kāya: the affected field

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Excerpts from, “Kamma and the end of Kamma,” by Ajahn Sucitto

The programmed, conditioned citta generates further programs and conditions; its formative energy (citta-saṇkhāra) runs into our bodies and drives emotions and thoughts. We can feel this programmed process occur in the flush of our skin, the tightening in the stomach, the opening of the chest, or the sinking in the heart. In the case of a bodily reflex, a somatic program/energy, or kāya-saṇkhāra, stimulates instinctive emotion; either that or it follows through on the heart’s signals to trigger reactions – even in cases which don’t pertain to the physical body. The body tightens up when we are in an argument; a loud noise may cause it to jump; a ‘warm’ smile triggers off a flutter in the pulse, and so on. The experiencing body (kāya) and heart are essentially not separate, and at an instinctive reflex level, the bodily intelligence will override the rational. This is important to bear in mind, because even when a memory, or the result of an action, is reasoned with and dismissed, forgotten, or suppressed (‘Oh, never mind; that was years ago,’ etc.), there can still be a bodily and emotive memory-pattern that arises at an unexpected time.

Consequently, in order to clear those effects, you have to meet them in aware embodied presence. The snag is that the citta uses bodily saṇkhāra in its shutting-down strategy; then pieces of that memory get buried under the body’s armouring or numbing programs. So, the ‘voice’ of their memories is silenced. And, as we’re often dealing with or creating inner chatter, we don’t feel and therefore don’t know about these shut-down programs. However, we might notice that our body has areas of numbness and tension that aren’t related to physical causes. Such conditions may indicate that the bodily intelligence has closed over some afflictive or traumatic residues. Another indicator is that one feels overwhelmed, or flattened, or explosive in certain scenarios; problems seem huge, one loses perspective and lashes out, freezes or collapses. This is because when an area that has had intelligence removed from it suddenly opens, the readings and responses aren’t intelligent. We do and say stupid, reckless things. Then we inherit the results of that – and become a self, based on the cycle of blow-up, punish, suppress … and then we repeat the program.

Any form of abuse – physical, verbal, or psychological (mine towards others, others’ towards me, or mine towards myself) – closes down or perverts the heart’s sensitivity. All that creates a pattern that encourages a program. Even unskilful thoughts have that effect; particularly as we can have them many times more than we can carry out physical deeds. If we allow the mind to repeatedly formulate deceit, jealousy, or guilt, that creates a track down which the emotional and psychological energies will run. If you swat annoying insects, or haul fish out of the water with a hook for sport, you may not think this is particularly evil. Indeed, we can do a lot worse.

But with any decisive action we generate a ripple in the citta; repeated, it becomes a pattern that energy flows into, and a saṇkhāra track – a potential for further action – gets established. With any act of harming or abusing, that ripple forms a wave that obliterates respect for life. If it isn’t acknowledged and caused to subside, it can extend its disregard to legitimize killing ‘bad’ people, and any inconvenient others. Genocide was supported by the notion that the indigenous people were sub-human – so they could be treated in the same way that we’ve learned to treat animals. Especially if they were occupying land that we wanted. Sadly, it’s also the case that the State demands that its citizens fight and kill others in a war – and thereby do violence to their own hearts. Whose fault is that?

‘Ignorance’ has to be the answer. Through this, what may have begun as your own impulse, or someone else’s that you followed or reacted to, gets embedded – and creates a track in the citta’s field. Then fresh physical or verbal actions move down that path. To use an analogy: a wild pig, alarmed or excited by something or another, darts through the undergrowth in a forest. It thereby creates a track. Other pigs, and deer, see that track and walk down it. The track widens and becomes established. You’re wandering through the forest, see the track, and, as it represents an easy way through the undergrowth, you also use it. The track becomes a path and eventually a road. Cars drive down it, so that even when the forest is cut down, there is no other way to travel. You’re not familiar with the wider territory. Eventually, because the road is convenient, you build your house beside it.

That’s how it is: the mind keeps running down saṇkhāra tracks that were established through a careless impulse, or by chance, or even by other people. People can still feel chronic guilt over the heedless actions of a decade ago. And we can also harbour grudges, or be running programs of self-disparagement and lack of worth over actions and attitudes that we’ve been the recipients of. Worse still: when it’s bound up with a self-view, an identity gets built next to that track – that failed, evil self is ‘who I am’. In such a case, when we do something, we feel that we’re bound to get it wrong and look out for signs of disapproval. Or on reviewing an action, we decide that our motives were impure. In some cases, tracks get so habitual that the mind loses touch with any fresher possibilities. Whose fault is that?

Wrong question. Through ignorance, saṇkhāra tracks create a self as their source, when the source was really an embedded memory, vipāka. But on account of that pattern, programs arise: people sabotage their well-being with self-disparagement, anxiety or depression, and employ distracting habits to shut off those memories and resonances. This is a set-up for addiction. Drinking, drugs, pornography, gambling, over-eating, binge-shopping, internet addiction, incessant chatter and restless activity: there is a wide range of addictions, some more toxic than others, but “all afflictive, and all contributing to the ‘inadequate self’ they originated from, and deepening that impression.

To sum up: the patterns and programs, good and bad, are the waveforms in the causal field of citta. They are the means through which the mind operates in order to establish how to function in this sensory and psychological world. Furthermore, they formulate a self-image as the holding pattern, the locus of stability. However, as it’s constructed out of dynamic energy patterns, such a locus can’t be very stable. The best the average person can do is maintain a workable series of ‘good-enough’ patterns that keep the show on the road. And yet,

as the citta keeps pulsing and turning, at times it encounters its unresolved patterns or shut-down territory – and the past rises up independently of one’s wishes. Dependent on ignorance, and compounded by responses, impulses and intentions, the past event has laid down a pattern in the citta, and a sense of ‘I am this’ arises through its instinctive re-enactment.

Continued next week:  October 7, 2024