Tag Archives: anicca

the work of not-working

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Ajahn Sucitto

Let’s get on with the practice. Since how you attend as well as what you attend to affect the heart – and that’s where our self-impression (and its kamma) arises – it’s important to begin right there. Recollections of the Triple Gem, and of one’s ethical standards and good kamma, steadily applied, dispel worry and distraction and encourage the heart, so that you approach your experience in a peaceful but decisive way.

For this, you have to exercise authority over thinking. Because the mind is geared to this verbal activity, it easily picks up and follows trains of thought that take you away from your bodily presence, and from a cool place where they could be witnessed. So, one of the skills of meditation is to lightly apply thoughtful attention – without thinking of anything. It’s as if you’re about to think, and then, feeling the energy of your thinking, you steady it so that you can use it to lightly label an experience. Walking, you simply notice ‘walking’; breathing, you notice ‘this is breathing in … this is breathing out.’ Then, as you place your attention on these simple themes, you’re receptive, as in: ‘How is this?’

Any kind of thinking operates through this two-fold process. Firstly, the rational mind scans for a sensory impression or a heart-impression and names it: ‘cow’, ‘bell’. This is ‘bringing to mind’ or ‘placing thoughtfulness’, vitakka. In tandem with that, there is a momentary review to check out if the concept really fits, or to evaluate what attention has been placed on, as in: ‘the cow is speckled, and seems agitated.’ This evaluation is the more receptive aspect of thinking, vicāra. Evaluation connects to the citta by listening deeply. In meditation, you use it to listen out for the felt sense of bodily experience, such as ‘this sensation feels sharp’ or ‘this breath feels long and fades gently.’ These felt senses aren’t simply feeling (= pleasant or painful), nor are they full-blown meanings – such as ‘I’m being stabbed’ or ‘my body is dissolving.’ Many felt senses are quite neutral and don’t evoke much, but they provide an ongoing reference to direct experience – and that is grounding. As with the body: ‘Right now my body is just a sense of warmth, of solidity and rhythmic energies.’ That’s a lot less stressful than ‘I look a mess. I’m too fat.’ So, in meditation, you use the simple felt senses of groundedness, spaciousness and natural rhythm to elicit the felt meaning ‘I am really here, there is no pressure around me, I feel safe.’  Just to be able to let a breath go all the way out, and have the time to wait and let the inhalation come in at its own rate and fill you, can give you an assurance that isn’t always there in social contact. When your heart gets that, you can think, speak and act from that safe and fully present place.

So, as you bring your heart and thought into line, turn them to whatever is the most stable pattern of physical sensations that occur as your body is sitting still: the pressure of your body against what it’s sitting on, the sense of the upright posture, etc. Learn to steady the body in the sitting position, and to set the body upright and relax what muscles aren’t needed (such as in the face or hands). That means applying thought and heart to find out how best to sit in order to maintain alertness without stress. It can take some time to find an even balance because of habitual bad posture or residual tension in the body.

Also practise finding that balance when you are standing and walking. Keep referring to two bases: the spine, and the space around it. So, try to sit, stand or walk in a way that brings the whole spine into alignment, from the top of the head to the tail, as if you were hanging upside down. Aim for a balance whereby the skeletal structure is carrying the majority of the weight, rather than the muscles: that lessens stress. Secondly, let your “body sense the openness around it. This helps to get the front of the body to relax.

Stay alert to nervous energy. A high-pressure, fast-paced lifestyle can turn the entire nervous system into a mass of jangling wires. These energy patterns can shift from relaxed to tense, or receptive to aroused with one sight, sound or thought.  And it takes a lot longer to calm down than it does to get stirred up. This sensitive, impulsive and receptive experience of body is the area of kāya-saṇkhāra. Referring to the body as a system of energies helps you to be aware of how the body is affected, how to guard this sensitivity against being triggered, and how to then turn its energies to good use. Because, if it is steadied, embodied energy can be strengthening and bright.

So, if you get agitated or feel uncomfortable, or get lost in thought, keep coming back to these two reference points. The training is to keep your thinking minimal. This channels its energy and thereby brings around a more balanced state. This is necessary because although the verbal program is powered by an impulse to define and plan, it acquires distortions when out of anxiety we get lost in planning. So, thinking can carry an emotional bias, and can hastily prejudge an experience – ‘seeing’ the cow as threatening because we are nervous around cows.
[Continued next week: 26 September 2024]

body, thought, heat: interconnection

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Ajahn Sucitto

There are two processes that steer the kamma of meditation. The first process is one of strengthening and healing the heart through calming (samatha). Samatha practices use a steadying focus and a soothing attitude. The second process is ‘insight’ (vipassanā) – which is about seeing how things really are. The two processes work together: as you get settled and at ease, your attention gets clearer, and as you see things more clearly, liberating wisdom arises.

 In this way, calm and insight guide the mind to an alert, knowing stillness.

To enter a period of meditation, you put aside personal issues and circumstances in order to attend to the basis of your body-mind system. With even a cursory review, it’s clear how dynamic this system is: the body’s sensations throb and change, and its energies tingle and flow. Meanwhile, the mental domain has its own dynamic: moods swing, thoughts race and spark of memories; then there are plans and decisions and all kinds of options popping up – it can be such a flood that we’re often not completely with what we’re doing right now. So, the first step in meditation is to refrain from jumping into that flood, and instead familiarize yourself with how it happens. Then you’re doing one unusual but important thing – establishing a way of witnessing, and therefore learning about, your conscious system.

Notice that you get messages from three aspects of this system: bodily intelligence gives you a sense of being here; emotional intelligence is meanwhile telling you how you are while the rational faculty is suggesting what you should do about this – and many other things. All very lively; these three intelligences run on energy. And they interact: the energies of moods and thoughts trigger resonances in the body’s nervous system, and vice versa. Sometimes a burst of irritation or fear will cause a contraction in this somatic domain; or the notion of having lots of things to do generates an emotional spin in which you lose awareness of your body.

What you might not notice at first is that the three intelligences affect each other – so check that out for a while. If your mind is racing, is it possible to have a calm, aware bodily sense? Can you feel bright and assured if your body is slumped or tense? This interconnectedness is important in meditation, in which we use a steady, upright body to calm the mind. And calm gives rise to wisdom: you realize that although the sum total of this body-thought-heart interplay seems to be ‘me’, you can witness that ‘me’ – and the witnessing is equally ‘mine’, but it’s a lot steadier and more spacious. It isn’t coloured by the urgencies, discomforts and glitches of the personal world, and by referring to it, you lessen the spin of that world.

The personal world is kamma: old habits and concerns and reactions that get added to by fresh actions and responses. The mind is busy being, or creating, ‘me’. The dynamic that keeps recycling kamma is carried out by programs – coded instructions that we associate with computer software – which in this case are organic. The capacity to form concepts and articulate them is the ‘verbal program’ (vaci-saṇkhāra). The heart’s nature to be affected by feelings and impressions, and to formulate impulses and responses, is another program – citta-saṇkhāra. The body (kāya) also operates according to its program, which most crucially is geared to generating and circulating energy around breathing in and out. This program is called ‘kāya-saṇkhāra’. All these programs are established by another one: the life-force (āyusaṇkhāra).

On these universal foundations, more personal programs get built. That is: the ability to conceive and articulate is adjusted to operate in terms of specific languages, attitudes and ways of thinking. Our emotional program of liking and disliking also gets fine-tuned to a range of individual-specific responses. As these programs get fixed and made familiar, they become ‘mine’ and then ‘me’. ‘I am a Swedish woman’, ‘I am a rational humanist’, etc. This is the ‘self-construction program’ (ahaṃkāra); it collects these subjective attributes, inclinations and psychological patterns; that collection becomes ‘me’ and ‘mine’ – and that becomes the basis for actions and speech.

These inclinations and programs are active saṇkhārā – in which intention, the urge to do, gets the process going; and they result in baseline saṇkhārā, that is, the patterns of thinking, emotional response, and bodily energy that form the baseline for each individual’s fresh kamma. Hence saṇkhārā are also referred to as ‘formations’ or ‘kamma-formations’. The pattern of acquired attitudes, energies and behaviours becomes the old ‘me’; and that becomes the basis for further action.

But with regard to that ‘me’, as you witness it, its seeming substantiality is created by the interweaving of thought and emotion with nervous energy backing it up – just as the spinning blades of a fan create the appearance of a solid disk. As to why this feels so ‘me’ and ‘mine’: it’s the familiarity and specific form of these interplays that give rise to that. The person-specific nature of that form is old kamma; the interplay is new kamma. But do we have to keep chewing over and being chewed by kamma, and creating a spinning self out of it? Or is there something better to be?

Well, the aim of meditation, in fact of all Dhamma practice, is to get free from defective programs and even from encoding new ones – that’s the program of meditation! As the paradox suggests, practice entails using the mind in particular ways to counteract negative programs, generate more skilful ones, and not have to create a self out of any of it. To this end, samatha works on the energy of saṇkhārā so that we can still the activity of our habitual programs; then their biases and distortions can be witnessed and cleared through insight. Working together, these meditative processes bring mind and heart to rest.

[Continued next week 19 September 2024]

meditation: recollection

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Ajahn Sucitto

[From last week:] It’s Always Possible: So, whenever there is darkness in the heart, that’s when you practise bright kamma and ending kamma. You don’t have to figure out where the dissonance comes from and whose fault it is. All you need to know is that this is dark vipāka – and where it gets cleared. The process is like cleaning dirty laundry: it’s done both by the action of placing the laundry in a basin and swishing it around, and without action because the water does the cleaning. So, you take that dark residue and put it into the clarity or purity that skilful attention brings into play, and the dirt will begin to clear. We establish mindfulness, and deep attention lets go of what comes up. Whenever some of the dark residues get cleared, full knowing senses the lightness, or brightness. And you can tune in to that. This makes your citta broader, deeper and clearer. Over time there develops a ground of well-being, a gathering of puñña, that you can abide in. Through years of practice, your basin becomes a lake. But because with full knowing there isn’t the sense that ‘I’ve done this’ or ‘This means I’m this,’ the mind remains quiet and receptive.

Our practice then is led by Dhamma rather than driven by self-view; and it inclines towards stopping the old rather than becoming something new. It’s a cultivation that frees up, protects and gathers us into a free space at the centre of the heart. Bright kamma supports the kamma that leads to the end of kamma; it gives us a foretaste of that freedom.

Sit in a comfortable and upright position, one that allows your body to be free from tension and fidgeting while encouraging you to be attentive. Let your eyes close or half-close. Bring your mental awareness to bear on your body, feeling its weight, pressures, pulses and rhythms. Bring up the suggestion of settling in to where you are right now, and put aside other concerns for the time being.

Take a few long, slow out-breaths sensing your breath flowing out into the space around you; let the in-breath begin by itself. Sense how the in-breath draws in from the space around you.  Attune to the rhythm of that process, and interrupt any distracting thoughts by re-establishing your attention on each out-breath.

Bring to mind any instances of people’s actions that have touched you in a positive way in terms of kindness, or patience, or understanding. Repeatedly touch the heart with a few specific instances, dwelling on the impression and the mood that it evokes. You might extend this recollection to include uplifting moments or interactions from the past, or by bringing to mind teachers who have inspired you.

Stay with the most deeply-felt recollection for a minute or two, with a sense of curiosity: ‘How does this affect me?’ Sense any effect in terms of heart: there may be a quality of uplift, or of calming, or of firmness. You may even detect a shift in your overall body tone. Allow yourself all the time in the world to be here with no particular purpose other than to feel how this recollection affects you in a sympathetic listening way.

Settle into that mood, and focus particularly on its tone – which may be of brightness or of stability or of uplift. Put aside analytical thought. Let any images come to mind and pass through. Dwell upon and expand awareness of the sense of vitality or stillness, of comfort or stability.

Then notice what inclinations and attitudes seem natural and important when you are dwelling in your place of value. Then bring those to your daily-life situation by asking: ‘What is important to me now?’ ‘What matters most?’ Then give yourself time to let the priorities of action establish themselves in accordance with that.

The Kamma of Meditation

Resetting the Mind
Wisdom springs from training the mind;
without such training, wisdom declines.
Having understood these paths –
of progress and decline –
one should conduct oneself so that wisdom grows.
Dhammapada: ‘The Path’, 282

“The Buddhist Path proceeds according to the principles of training the mind in three complementary modes: ethics (sīla), meditation (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā). All these have active aspects, but what they lead to is a quietening and ceasing of mental activity. Meditation (samādhi-bhavanā) is the hinge between action and this restful alertness. It doesn’t look active: it often centres on sitting still, and within that, in silence. And as for doing anything … all it apparently entails are a few seemingly inconsequential things like walking to and fro, bringing attention to the sensations associated with breathing, or witnessing thoughts. But such actions bring around an engaged and responsive state. Furthermore, although the question might arise as to how doing this is supposed to improve one’s mind, one point about meditation is that it’s about moderating that very ‘doing’ energy. That can bring around very positive changes.

Towards this end, meditation practice uses the mind’s thinking in a particular way – not to think about experience, but to use thought to place attention onto your own body and mind and sustain receptivity to what is noticed. This brings around a positive change because the more we moderate our minds in this way, the more we steady and attune them – so that restlessness, worry and negativity either don’t arise or are witnessed and let go of. This process can generate far-reaching effects in our life: we get to enjoy and value stillness and simplicity, we don’t get caught by emotional upheaval, and we know how to let things pass. The result is calm, confidence and clarity.  [Continued next week 12 September 2024]

dhamma values become strengths

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Ajahn Sucitto

To establish mindfulness and full knowing in daily life relies on filtering the input of stuff coming at us from all directions, because the sheer deluge can overwhelm us. Because we build up saṇkhāra tracks and programs based on contact, we need to be responsible about what we give attention to. Part of cultivation therefore is about turning away from input and actions that pull the mind into craving or aversion or distraction. Hence the function of deep attention is to be discriminative. Rather than have the mind absorb into whatever is being pumped out by the media, we cultivate sense-restraint so that the citta doesn’t compulsively go out into the sense-fields without a filter. As in cases like the following: you’re walking down the street, or browsing the internet – do you need to gaze into the shop windows and advertisements? Does that hand you over to the consumer demon? Do you need to immediately switch on your phone as soon as you get up in the morning – get busy, get out there before you fully know where you are? With wise reflection, you can recognize a habitual saṇkhāra, and give attention to one or two long in-breaths and out-breaths to balance its impetus.

Recollecting Dhamma themes adds further support to the mind and heart. As in the case of the Triple Gem, recollection entails bringing up a concept and dwelling on it steadily and repeatedly until it touches the citta. Then a felt sense is established that can steady, rein in or gladden the heart. This process goes deeper than merely thinking: people can think about anything without necessarily reflecting on how the heart has been affected. And we can forget to think deeply about what would serve us best – like attuning to integrity. So, when you have the five precepts, you can make a daily practice of checking in with the harmlessness, honesty, reliability and clarity that they signify, and what heart-tones they give rise to. You may have wavered from these, but with recollection, you repeatedly bring them to mind, gain their meaning and settle into that. From there you can review your actions and attitudes towards other people, other creatures, and material resources: am I living with an attitude of respect towards the world I inhabit? Can I bring forth bright kamma – or at least turn away from dark kamma?

Once you’ve established values, you can recollect them, and linger on them until you feel the tonal qualities of non-violence, integrity, honesty, modesty, generosity and so on. These tones carry the energy of the value, and as you linger on them, you can discern a bodily effect: you feel cleaner, lighter and firmer. Worry, anger, passion and despair, on the other hand, have negative bodily effects. In simple instances like these you learn a useful truth: heart and body share the same energy, and the purity of the energy of bright intentions clears and strengthens them. This consolidated effect is called ‘goodness’, ‘merit’, or ‘value’ (puñña). Puñña steadies and supports you, not only when it comes to meditation, but also with resilience in the face of crisis. So, the advice is to recollect bright intentions that you’ve sustained in the course of each day; linger on the goodness and let the puñña sustain you. Shifts can then happen – if you let them.

Beware of idealism though. With that attitude the mind grabs hold of the ideas, proliferates around them, and creates a self who does or doesn’t have those qualities. All this contracts the heart and cuts off the body – until you lose touch with the body altogether. So, when people are not in touch with the embodied feel of the good heart, there are quarrels over truth, peace, love and freedom and the like. Passions or fears get mixed up with those ideals; and as the heart contracts and clinging to a view occurs, a righteous self is born.

I remember an incident in the accommodation block of a centre during a silent meditation retreat when one night two people started arguing over the relative importance given to compassion in Tibetan or Theravada Buddhism, and which was more compassionate. They were talking so loudly that the person in the next room started beating on the wall to get them to be quiet! Obviously, they missed the point: if you really get the feel of a value, you can’t quarrel over who’s more compassionate – because the grabbing, the contraction of the citta that accompanies attachment to a view, doesn’t support a heart-opening quality like compassion. Needing to be right is a source of suffering!

Another heart-opening recollection is of mortality. This is because the perception of mortality causes some of the sticky stuff the mind contracts around to lose its grip. Where’s the pressure to get, consume, or even be, something when everything you get, you lose? What is really worth giving time and attention to? If you are to die this very night, why hold grudges? Such recollection supports the quality of dispassion (virāga). With dispassion, we get a clear perspective: better centre attention in your values and your puñña. The recollection of mortality also reminds us that our energy, mental agility and health are finite and dwindling. We must use such resources in a way that will enhance or free our lives, or we will waste the time in fantasies and frustrations. Used wisely then, the recollection of death keeps the heart attuned to the good, the clear and the present.

One of the greatest sources of affliction and negative kamma is a loss of empathy with others. In modern urban life, we may experience many people through media stereotypes, or in the no man’s land of busy streets and public places. People then become ‘other’ – other nationalities, other customs, etc. – and we may feel either nothing, or mistrust, for them. In a relational field with such a bias, indifference and brutality find room to breed. But if we consider the common ground – that, like us, others have to endure stress, illness, bereavement and death – this generates empathy (anukampa), the basis of all forms of goodwill. For example, a friend of mine recounted having a picture of famine victims and people with terrible afflictions, and whenever he was starting to feel irritable or lose perspective, he would look at these individuals. Then he’d experience a sense of compassion for the human realm, as well as gratitude for the blessing of being healthy, free from punishment and well-fed.

Can we see the actions of others in a more tolerant or reflective way? ‘Other people’ are experiences that can teach you a lot. We can get good advice from wise people – and also learn from how they act and speak. Confused or misguided people can strengthen our patience and wisdom: ‘She’s showing me how “not to act! Thank you!’ And we can broaden empathy to recollect that ‘others too have joy and despair, humour and fear, birth, families, and their kamma – then why don’t I relate to others in the way that I’d like them to relate to me?’ Morality is empathy in terms of behaviour.

Another classic recollection feels disturbing at first. It’s the recollection of the unattractive aspects of the body (asubha); that is, the organs and fluids that lie under the skin: in fact, most of what makes up a body and keeps it going. The aim of this recollection is not to make us morbid, but to relieve the heart from obsession with the current notion of beauty. How much effort, time and money goes into glamourizing the most superficial aspect of our inheritance? How much anxiety, vanity, jealousy and passion does this give rise to? How much deep happiness or contentment can the outward appearance of the body bring? “And as you can’t see much of your own body, the outward appearance is for other people; it’s not even ‘your’ body.

After the initial shock of recognizing what anyone’s body consists of, what can arise is a cooling effect. This is the tone of dispassion. Then we associate with others, not through outward appearance but through the heart, and our perspective opens accordingly.

All these recollections, if lingered on with mindfulness, will evoke a steadying tone. This tone affects the body’s nervous energies; we feel stable, cool and open to a degree that exceeds a purely emotional effect. Such heart-opening qualities, if you give them deep attention and linger on them with mindfulness, lead into a place of stillness. Furthermore, even when the heart gets shaken with fear or grief or other forms of suffering, the puñña of repeated recollection is that its embodied effect can still be accessed. Then the reactive saṇkhāra that would otherwise rush out as ‘I’m this, it’s not fair, I can’t stand it’ (and so on) doesn’t arise, or having arisen, ceases quickly. It also leads into the place of stillness that is unoccupied, yet without boundaries – this is where intention and impulse come to rest and kamma ends.

[Continued next week 5 September 2024]

Link to the original, download:

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

the skills of attention

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Ajahn Sucitto

[From last week… “If you use pūja on a regular basis, it aligns you to the ‘Triple Gem’ – Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha – by presenting content in terms of images, ideas and themes, and values and practices that guide the heart. It also occasions acts of steering and composing attention. So pūja works both on what the mind is dealing with, and how it operates.”]

Obviously, there’s a lot more to anyone’s life than doing pūja, but such ritual does support training in attention – the what and the how of experience – as well as in mindfulness and full knowing (sampajañña); they provide a skilful container and stable reference to the ongoing flow of experience. With these, we have some say over where our minds are running and how.

The what and the how of attention are co-dependent. Any kind of attention selects certain data from a wide range. It seeks content. But if, for example, you review your visual experience, you’ll note that although there is a wide field of seeing, the mind selects only a small portion of that to focus the eyes on. Then whatever attention has focused on leads the mind and affects the heart. How we attend selects what we notice, and what we notice affects how we attend – and that determines where the mind will go and what action will ensue. In detail: an underlying intention steers what attention selects, and through the twofold process of contact, a mind-state is born that sends out a train of thought.[16]

For example, an architect sees a house and notices the design and structure; a burglar sees it and notices the windows and doors. Even if the architect and the burglar don’t follow through with physical action, their hearts will have been aroused in certain ways and their minds will have considered and calculated. This mental process conditions their behaviour and even who they experience themselves as being. In abstract: underlying intention steers attention, attention gives rise to contact, and contact generates meaning and intention. Intention, attention and contact are all saṇkhārā; they lay down or “strengthen a track of mental kamma – and with that, the sense of ‘I am’ is born.

So, deep attention arises with the intention to consider how a perception of the scenario is affecting the citta. Rather than just reacting to sense-contact (including that of thought), you listen more deeply and sift through the flood of interpretations or digressions with an attention that looks into whether the sight, sound or thought (and so on) is useful or relevant, what the arousing or threatening feature of it is, and whether that sign is to be followed or not. Whereas untrained attention is like a bird that rapidly picks up any crumb and hastily moves onto the next crumb, deep attention is like a baleen whale that, while steering towards food, allows the ocean to pass through its mouth, catching edible krill in its baleen and letting everything else pass. This kind of attention is not judgemental, but it filters and gets “to the point, and thus moderates the psychologies that direct your life.[17]

This process reveals underlying biases – such as gratification impulses or impressions of being threatened – and it may also reveal unquestioned assumptions that program how we think and what we think about. So, if deep attention is strong, we can put analysis and further action on hold; we don’t try to fix things; we don’t go spasming into an opinion about ourselves based on that survey. And the simple beauty of this process is that when we suspend the reactions of what we assume we should and shouldn’t be feeling, there is clarity and spaciousness. That gives room for compassion or dispassion to arise.

Deep attention gets strengthened by mindfulness. Mindfulness is the ability to bear a theme, mood, thought or sensation in mind; it is defined in the discourses as ‘[one] bears in mind and recollects what was done and said long ago.’ When it is based on right view, ‘right’ mindfulness can linger on what deep attention locates in a way that corresponds to that view of cause and effect. For example, as it meets unskilful qualities like anger or greed, right mindfulness will bring around restraint and relinquishment; and as it meets skilful qualities such as generosity or truthfulness, the right view behind right mindfulness will support appreciation and lingering.

The steadying effect of mindfulness also allows for a fuller kind of knowing. This full knowing is of knowing qualities (dhammā) just as they are – void of the inference of ‘me, mine and myself’. Through freeing thoughts and moods from the reactive process of taking them personally, full knowing allows them to arise and pass. It’s also holistic and knows how the heart is being affected.

So, if the mind is getting overwhelmed or strained, full knowing may determine a shift of attention or of attitude. Guided by this, we may turn our minds to a more useful topic, or shift our attitude away from the notion of ‘making progress’ towards the practice of patience, inquiry and receptivity.

Without the filtering of deep attention, the mind loses direction and authority; without the lingering effect of mindfulness, there can be no steadying and moderating; and without full knowing, there would be no liberating insight. Instead, felt senses, meanings and mental feeling will tend to flood the citta, and become ‘What can I do? I’m stuck. I always will be …’ and thereby block a skilful response. But with the wisdom that trained attention brings, the first response we make is not to say or do something, but rather to firm up skilful qualities in the mind – and let go of reactions or hurtful responses. Consider the alternative: if I focus on my mental impressions and states through unprepared, insecure or biased attention, or view the world and others from the same basis, the more potent and firmly established afflictive meanings get. If I listen with an unsympathetic ear, or look with a critical stare, pre-judge, or fixate on what others do and say – all that will lead to suffering and stress. This is because such attention notices what it’s become accustomed to notice: her gracious demeanour (so much better than mine!), his irritating mannerisms (why can’t he be normal, like me?), my frustration at her inability to listen to me (just like my mother!), etc. It’s all about me; and it’s particularly sensitive to what I find uncomfortable. But if that’s all I notice, I get fixated on it, and these fixations psychologically locate me. I feel that ‘he’s always this way’ or I ‘see’ you in a certain way; or I only notice my bad habits. Careless, untrained attention is set to look out for old impressions, and is particularly attuned to any perception that fits the biases and wounds in the heart. It’s as if our wounds are looking for arrows to fill them. Thus, when we grab hold of wounded meanings, mental kamma is laid down, and the old perception is affirmed. Or even intensified. But if you want to get to the end of this cycle of kamma-vipāka, you have to cultivate skilful attention within the heart. [Continued next week 29 August 2024]

Link to the original: “Kamma and the End of Kamma” by Ajahn Sucitto. [Note, this is a Dhamma publication and you can download free of charge]:

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

bright kamma: pūja

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By Ajahn Sucitto

(From last week): Thus, the old perception shapes me; in this case, as a fearful or confident person. And I act from that basis. This is why it is said: ‘Contact is the cause of kamma.’

To summarize: contact touches the citta, attention focuses it, and intention launches its response. This dynamic and formative process and the ‘track’ or ‘formation’ that it leaves in the citta is a saṇkhāra – the formative aspect of mental kamma, and what it forms. Saṇkhārā are crucial because they shape both action and actor – following their tracks, I become the tracker.

Now you could say that all meaning is factual: in the above instance, maybe a dog did bite me when I was four. That’s why I see dogs like that, and it’s quite reasonable. And it may well be the case that men in uniforms/red-headed women/people who talk fast (etc., etc.) have frightened me or let me down at some time or another. And it may also be the case that my fear or suspicion is based purely on somebody else’s opinion. But what the Buddha is pointing to is not historical circumstance or the attitudes of others – over which we have no say – but how fresh action arises when the felt sense that comes with designation-contact pushes a button on the citta and the established meaning jumps up.

What we might be encouraged to do then, is not to run away from, poison, slander, or get paranoid about dogs or people, but to handle the felt meaning and assess its validity in the here and now. Because to base one’s responses on one piece of data alone, even though it touches a sensitive spot, is only going to intensify the impression and bind you to it. Yes, as that’s a sensitive spot, that felt meaning should be responded to – but with skilful attention both to the actual dog, now (‘Is this dog, here and now, growling or baring its teeth? Or just sniffing around?’), and to your state of mind (feel the fear and pause on reacting to it). This is the kamma of handling and reviewing contact, attention and impulse – the kamma that leads to the end of further kamma (from that historical bias, at any rate).

Otherwise, it can be the case that even when there are no dogs (and so on) around, one can still be anxious that one might come by soon. Sounds ridiculous? No, paranoia is part of social life, even encouraged: look out for ‘suspicious’ people, Communists, radicals, atheists, men wearing hoodies, etc. … and when the citta collapses under all this, it’s chronic anxiety and medication. However, if we at least get the idea that these felt meanings are established in the citta, not in the object, we might also acknowledge the possibility that these historically-based perceptions could be reset or disbanded; also that positive ones – such as those associated with goodwill, generosity, integrity, and the many qualities perfected by the Buddha, proclaimed in his Dhamma teachings, and practised by his disciples – could be established. These perceptions can help the heart settle and bring forth the truth of its own goodness. This is the rationale behind devotion and recollection.

Pūja’: Ritual that Brightens the Heart

In Buddhism, and in other religions, access to and dwelling in the heart-tone of bright kamma is occasioned by devotion and recollection. In Buddhism, this is called ‘pūja’ – an act of raising up, and honouring that which is worthy of our respect. The very fact that there are human models and actions that one can feel deep respect for is itself a blessing to take note of: honouring opens and uplifts the heart. With pūja, we attend to a skilful felt meaning, linger there and allow the effects to nourish the citta. From this basis, it’s likely that inclinations or even specific ideas in line with bright kamma will arise. Either that, or the mind easily settles into a state that supports meditation. This is how and why one should linger in any bright kamma.

So, in the act of honouring the Buddha, one first opens the heart in respect and brings to mind the meaning of an Awakened One: someone of deep clarity; a speaker of truths that penetrate and bring healing to the human condition; one accomplished in understanding and action – a sage whose teachings can still be tested and put into action. If one has a Buddha-image, it’s something that should be held with respect – one cleans it, illuminates it with light, and offers flowers and incense to it. We place it on an altar, bow to it and chant recollections and teachings.

This is not a mindless activity; we use ritual means and resound words and phrases because this full engagement embodies and strengthens the quality of respect in a way that thinking can’t. With the openness of heart that these attitudes bring, any aspect of the teaching that’s brought to mind goes deeper. The act of offering that begins a pūja is a case in point: offering flowers “symbolizes bringing forth virtue, offering light is about bringing forth clarity, and incense does the same for meditative concentration. In this way, pūja introduces the heart to important Dhamma themes.

Pūja is especially helpful when people perform it as a group. Then we are participating in the Dhamma as both the expression and the Way of awakening, as well as in the collective commitment to, and engagement with, that Dhamma. This collective engagement ritualizes the ‘Sangha’, that is, the assembly of disciples. Chanting in a group has a harmonizing, settling effect: sonorous and unhurried, it steadies bodily and mental energies and supports an atmosphere of harmony with fellow practitioners. Tuning in and participating brings us out of ourselves and into a deep resonance with heart-impressions of the sacred. We can be touched by a sense of timeless stability, purpose and beauty. If these intentions, felt senses and recollections are established regularly, we know where to find good heart, how to attend to it, and how to allow ourselves to be uplifted. Such kamma feels bright.

The Benefits of Recollection

‘At any time when a disciple of the noble ones is recollecting the Tathāgata … the Dhamma … the Sangha … their own virtues: “[They are] untorn, unbroken, unspotted, unsplattered, liberating, praised by the wise, untarnished, conducive to concentration.” At any time when a disciple of the noble ones is recollecting virtue, his mind is not overcome with passion, not overcome with aversion, not overcome with delusion. His mind heads straight, based on virtue. And when the mind is headed straight, the disciple of the noble “ones gains a sense of the goal, gains a sense of the Dhamma, gains joy connected with the Dhamma. In one who is joyful, rapture arises. In one who is rapturous, the body grows calm. One whose body is calmed experiences ease. In one at ease, the mind becomes concentrated.

‘Mahānāma, you should develop this recollection of virtue while you are walking, while you are standing, while you are sitting, while you are lying down, while you are busy at work, while you are resting in your home crowded with children.’

(A.11:12; B. BODHI, TRANS.)

The expressions that are used in recollecting Dhamma are that it is experienced directly (not just as a theory), is of timeless significance, and is accessible and furthering for those who practise it. So that gives us an encouragement to look into what the Buddha taught and modelled: the way to the end of suffering and stress. With this, we recollect aspiration, learning and commitment as our common touchstone, and suffering and ignorance as our common challenge. Then we no longer feel so alone with our difficult mind-states, and we can handle them in a more open and aware way. Recollection of Sangha reminds us that although there is greed, anger and confusion in the human world, there are also people who cultivate a way out of that.

If you use pūja on a regular basis, it aligns you to the ‘Triple Gem’ – Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha – by presenting content in terms of images, ideas and themes, and values and practices that guide the heart. It also occasions acts of steering and composing attention. So pūja works both on what the mind is dealing with, and how it operates [Continued next week 22 August 2024].

Link to the original:

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

bright kamma

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Ajahn Sucitto

The Blessing of Skilful Attention

Whoever cultivates goodness is made glad,

right now and in the future – such a one is

gladdened in both instances.

The purity of one’s deeds, if carefully recollected,

is a cause for gladness and joy.

Dhammapada: ‘The Pairs’, 16

In the last few weeks, a Buddha-image has been created in this monastery by Ajahn Nonti. He’s a renowned sculptor in Thailand, and he came to Cittaviveka to fashion this image as an act of generosity. It’s been a lovely occasion because the Buddha-image is being made in a friendly and enjoyable way. Many people have been able to join in and help with it. Yesterday there were nine people at work sanding the Buddha-image. It’s not that big, yet nine people were scrubbing away on it, and enjoying doing that together.

Bright and Dark Kamma Arise from the Heart

Nine people working together in a friendly way is a good thing to have happening. Moreover, the work was all voluntary, and came about with no prior arrangement: people got interested in the project and gathered around it. It’s because of what the Buddha represents, and because people love to participate in good causes. That’s the magic of bright kamma. It arises around doing something which will have long-term significance, and also from acting in a way that feels ‘bright’ rather than intense or compulsive. Kamma – intentional or volitional action – always has a result or residue, and here it’s obvious that the bright kamma is having good results. There’s an immediate result – people are feeling happy through working together. And there’s a long-term result – they are doing something that will bring benefit to others.

In a few days we hope to install the Buddha-image in the meditation hall. It’s an image that makes me feel good when I look at it. It has a soft, inviting quality that brings up a sense of feeling welcome and relaxed. This is a very good reminder for meditation. Sometimes people can get tense about ‘enlightenment’, and that brings up worries, pressure, and all kinds of views; but often what we really need is to feel welcomed and blessed. This is quite a turnaround from our normal mind-set; but when we are sitting somewhere where we feel trusted, where there’s benevolence around us, we can let ourselves open up. And as we open our hearts, we can sense a clarity of presence, and firm up around that. This firmness arising from gentleness is what the Buddha-image stands for. It reminds us that there was an historical Buddha whose awakening is still glowing through the ages – but when this is also presented as a heart-impression in the here and now, rather than as a piece of history, it carries more resonance. Then the image serves as a direct impression of what bright kamma feels like.

‘Bright’ kamma is the term used in the scriptures to denote good action, or that which leads to positive results. This is not a theory or a legal judgement; if you linger in the heart behind skilful actions, you can feel a bright, uplifting tone. Bright kamma is steady and imparts clarity; it has an energy that’s conducive to meditation. Dark kamma, on the other hand, lacks clarity and feels corrosive. As it makes the heart feel so unpleasant, mostly attention doesn’t want to go there; the heart gets jittery and distracts instead. So, this is something to check inwardly: can we rest and comfortably bear witness to the heart behind our actions? Do our thoughts and impulses come from a bright or dark state? Even in the case of owning up to some painful truth about our actions, isn’t there a brightness, a certain dignity, when we do that willingly? Look for brightness in occasions when your heart comes forth rather than in times of superficial ease or of being dutifully good. That bright, steady tone rather “than casualness or pressurized obedience, indicates the best basis for action.

Sense and Meaning: The Perceptual Process

The energy of kamma originates in the heart, citta. It can move out through body (kāya) and speech (vāca – which includes the ‘internal speech’ of thinking) and mind (manas). Both manas and citta can be translated as ‘mind’, but the terms refer to different mental functions. ‘Manas’ refers to the mental organ that focuses on the input of any of the senses. This action is called ‘attention’ (manasikāra). So manas defines and articulates; it scans the other senses and translates them into perceptions and concepts (saññā). Tonally, it’s quite neutral. It’s not happy or sad; in itself, it just defines, ‘That’s that.’

Citta, on the other hand, is the awareness that receives the impressions that attention has brought to it, is affected and responds. It adds pleasure and pain to the perceptions that manas delivers, and these effects generate mind-states of varying degrees of happiness and unhappiness. Owing to this emotional aspect, I refer to citta as ‘heart’. Note that citta doesn’t access the senses directly. Instead, it adds feeling to the perceptions that attention has brought it; but with that, the initial moment of perception gets intensified to give a ‘felt sense’. This is a simple note such as ‘smooth’, ‘glowing’, ‘foggy’, ‘intense’. Then as attention rapidly gathers around that sense, a felt meaning crystallizes. For example, manas may decide that an orange-coloured globe of a certain size is probably an orange. From that meaning, further felt senses such as ‘tasty, healthy’ may arise and resonate in the heart. So, a mind-state based on desire arises. And even though all this originates in mere interpretations, intention springs up – and citta moves attention, intention and body towards the orange with an interest in eating it.

In this way, impulse/intention occurs as a response to a felt meaning that itself has been conjured up by a graduated and felt perceptual process. This is how mental kamma arises. And the result of citta being affected in this way is that the meaning is established as a reference point. Then the next time I see or think of an orange, that established perception that ‘Oranges are tasty; they’re good for me’ becomes the starting point for action. But is that interpretation always correct? Ever bitten into a rotten orange, or been fooled by a plastic replica? More significantly, don’t perceptions of people need a good amount of adjustment over time? How true is perception?

Perception is initiated when attention turns towards a particular sense-object. So, all contact depends on attention. Take the case of when you’re intensely focused on reading a book or watching a movie: awareness of your body, of the pressure of the chair, and maybe even a minor ache or pain, disappears. The mind’s attention is absorbed in seeing and processing the seen, so other impressions don’t get registered. Contact with the chair has disappeared because one’s attention was elsewhere. How real then is contact?

Contact is actually of two kinds. The contact that occurs when the mind registers something touching the senses is called ‘disturbance-contact’ (paṭigha-phassa). But when manas ‘touches’ the citta at a sensitive point, ‘designation-contact’ (adhivacana-phassa) is evoked – along with a felt sense. Disturbance-contact occurs in the mind-organ, and designation-contact occurs in the heart; and it is designation-contact, the heart’s impression, rather than contact with something external, that both moves us and stays with us as a meaning. For example, ‘dog’ is tonally a neutral perception that we would agree upon as a definition of a certain kind of animal. But in terms of citta, that ‘dog’ could mean ‘savage creature that can bite or has bitten me’ or ‘loyal, cuddly friend that will protect me.’ Such contact is therefore formed by previous action, but present-day impulses and actions are based on it. Thus, the old perception shapes me; in this case, as a fearful or confident person. And I act from that basis. This is why it is said: ‘Contact is the cause of kamma.’

Continued next week 15 August 2024

Link to the original text. Download a few pages, or the whole book free of charge. It’s a Dhamma publication:

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

vipāka, ‘old kamma’ being born

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Ajahn Sucitto

Excerpts from: “Kamma and the end of Kamma”, Chapter 1: “Action that Leads to Liberation” (continued from last week) “These impressions and interpretations begin with the external mind, but get settled in the heart through the agreeable or disagreeable feeling (vedanā) or the prior association it evokes. In other words, citta doesn’t receive sights, sounds, smells and tastes; it receives the perceptions that mind-consciousness brings in.”

Consequently, the pairing of the objective mind and subjective heart builds meaning. The spiritual quest is based on the understanding that there is ageing, sickness and death; and with that the experience of separation from the loved, and being disagreeably affected by these facts of life – while at the same time being powerless to do much about it. Even on the level of daily life, what we think about, and how we conceive of people and things, washes over the heart with pleasant or unpleasant feeling, arouses gladness or disappointment, and may lead us into action. This is how the world of sights and sounds and people and events gets into us and gets us going (even when the event happened long ago). The inheritance, the vipāka or ‘old kamma’ of being born, is that whether the mind interprets things accurately or not, the heart stores its interpretations. And it bases intentions, responses and reactions – kamma – on those stored-up meanings. It’s a questionable basis.

The basis is as much psychological as sensorial. We need to, and do, seek to understand and otherwise manage our circumstances. Therefore, one of our most continual mental actions is that of interpreting and filing away experience to derive meaning and purpose. And, as with other creatures, part of that meaning and purpose has to do with getting support from, or participating within, a group. In our case, this ‘belonging’ also entails participation in a complex weave of social programs, customs and attitudes. “that tell us how to operate in order to be accepted. This also affects our kamma, because although some advice is wise, we may also act upon socially-derived prejudices that cause us to contribute to hurting others – so we become arrogant or insensitive. Some social customs are about bypassing uncomfortable truths (such as mortality), or not giving deep attention to the heart: a life of golf and parties fails to come to terms with the facts of life. Another big effect comes from the views and opinions of others: being praised or blamed, valued or neglected, lingers as perceptions by which we sense ourselves. This self-reference then becomes an identity. As a general principle then, how we have been (and are being) affected by others solidifies into who we are.

This psychological program of being affected and responding is called the ‘mental (or heart) formation’ (citta-saṇkhāra). Installed at birth, at any given moment this ‘master program’ responds to present experience in terms of what it has learnt that experience is like. It is informed through a library of perceptions, or ‘felt meanings’, that the manas aspect has encoded, even though these perceptions are all only representations of an object, an event, or of course a person. And also, saññā adds subjective tints to any object-definition, such as: ‘Will she like me?’, ‘He looks threatening’ – and so on. These tinted perceptions become the basis of many spur-of-the-moment responses in our lives.

Meanwhile, the mind has responded on many fronts: we may be involved with business, but are challenged by the result of hearing of a relative’s death an hour ago. Even as we struggle with this, other long-term aims or social obligations apply their pressure. Bodily health and energy also have their effects. In addition to this, our attention span fluctuates, particularly if we’re tired – so we can be running on automatic, attending in a habitual or blurred way, and acting on outdated or biased programs. Rather like the tides of an ocean that can lift us up, engulf us, or sweep us in any direction, this kammic process is then a dynamic field of the interplay between established aims, former or current input, and responses to any of these. The mind-sets, attitudes and interpretations that have become established in our hearts carry the potential to shape our present actions; and the future will arise according to whichever mixture of these effects we act upon.

Steering Through the Causal Field

From the above, you’ll see that kamma is potent and multi-dimensional. Steering through its causal field is possible, but it does require a reliable and trained mind; training is then an imperative. Dark kamma weakens the mind and destroys people; bright kamma is a source of strength and nourishment. On account of bright kamma, such as ethical integrity and goodwill, we can establish the calm and clarity that supports training manas and citta. Together, these two aspects of mind can then handle, understand and release the causal tangle.

Look after yourself!

‘And for the sake of what benefit should a woman or a man, a householder or one gone forth, often reflect thus: “I am the owner of my kamma, the heir of my kamma; I have kamma as my origin, kamma as my relative, kamma as my resort; I will be the heir of whatever kamma, good or bad, that I do”? People engage in misconduct by body, speech, and mind. But when one often reflects upon this theme, such misconduct is either completely abandoned or diminished.’

(A.5:57; B. Bodhi, Trans.)

So kamma is not an imprisonment, but a matter to be mastered. Firstly, if we must generate kamma, we can at least determine whether it will be bright or dark. Remember, there’s a choice: kamma depends on impulse or intention – but ‘intention’ is not just a deliberate plan; in fact, we’re not always that clear about what we’re doing and why. Many of our troubles come from just being preoccupied, or getting stuck in habits, or from inattention or misunderstanding; then intention is not guided by clarity. “Complacency or, on the other hand, pessimistic fatalism may also weaken the clarity and firmness of intention.

We might wonder why we are who we are and what made us like this, but such speculation just activates the mind to no good end. The details of kamma are too complex to understand – it would be like trying to figure out which river or rain-cloud gave rise to which drop of water in the ocean.[4]

 The most direct and helpful way to steer kamma begins with ‘right view’ (sammā-diṭṭhi). Right view is the view that there is the bad and it can be steered away from, and there is the good and it can be cultivated. And cultivation entails training one’s attention. An attention that’s firm, clear and not flustered by moods and sensations can enter the underlying currents of the mind and turn a tide of heedlessness and self-obsession that would otherwise steer intention. In this way, right view leads into ‘right attitude’ (sammā-saṇkappā), which is the aim to set one’s attention on a skilful footing. With these two steps, the Eightfold Path out of suffering and stress gets established.[5]

The first responsible and accessible action on this Path is to pause on an emotional response and ask yourself whether this response is reliable and aims in a wholesome direction. Even this brief breaking of the reactive link that engages fresh intention with an old habit, if done repeatedly, can dissolve that link and cause that mental habit to cease. You find that you don’t have to retort, that you don’t have to rush to the deadline, and you don’t have to binge. Then different responses can arise – such as patience, forgiveness and tolerance. In ways like this, you can get out of the gridlock of ‘I’m stuck in this habit; I am this’, and make meaningful choices in your life. The “basis of any such choices is gaining the capacity to choose. And this heedfulness (appamāda) is what pausing and considering offers: I can pause, come out of a mind-state, give it due consideration, and decide to act on it – or let its accompanying impulse pass. I don’t have to be compulsive or reactive. Just taking this step, that of disengagement (viveka), opens the possibility for the fourth type of kamma, the kamma that leads to the end of kamma.

 This is what ‘liberation’ and ‘awakening’ refer to.

[Please find the last part of this chapter in the original, (see the link below), under the subhead: ‘Liberation Begins with Mindfulness,’ which can be found in the Contents listing. I decided not to continue with it here because it is of interest to a limited readership, in my opinion, and it’s best to move on to another aspect of this subject.]

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

internal speech

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Ajahn Sucitto

[Excerpts from Kamma and the end of Kamma, Chapter 1: “Action that Leads to Liberation” by Ajahn Sucitto]

If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts,
suffering follows them like the cart-wheel
that follows the ox’s hoof …
If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts,
happiness follows them like
their never-departing shadow.
Dhammapada: ‘The Pairs’, 1 & 2

What is ‘kamma’, and what does it have to do with liberation? Well, as a word, ‘kamma’ is the Pali language version of the Sanskrit term ‘karma’, which has slipped into colloquial English as meaning something like a person’s fate or destiny. The problem with this interpretation is that it supports a passive acceptance of circumstances: if something goes wrong, one can say: ‘It was my karma’ – meaning that it had to happen, perhaps because of what one had done in a previous life. That’s not a very liberating notion. Where the idea really goes astray is when it is used to condone actions, as in ‘it’s my karma to be a thief (or to be abused).’ If kamma meant this, it would rob us of responsibility and self-respect. Furthermore, there would be no way in which we could guide ourselves out of our circumstances, habits or past history: and that’s a dismal prospect. However, kamma, in the way the Buddha taught it, means skilful or unskilful action – in terms of body, speech or mind – that we can exercise choice over. Making good use of this potential is what liberation, or ‘awakening’, is about.

Also, not everything that we experience is because of what we’ve done anyway. If you’re sick or caught up in an earthquake, it’s not necessarily because you’ve done bad things. If that were the case, considering the number of reckless human beings there have been, the Earth would never stop quaking! Instead, kamma centres on your current intention, inclination, or impulse (cetanā) – and it has a result (vipāka), either fortunate or unfortunate. This is the case even if why or how you acted was influenced by other people. So the Buddha’s encouragement was to know what you’re doing and why. One simple guideline is that acting towards others in a way that you wouldn’t want them to act towards you can’t give good results for yourself or others. Liberation is about getting free of tendencies such as self-centeredness or abusiveness.

Seen in this light, the teachings on kamma encourage a sense of responsibility for how you direct yourself in general, and for the many conscious and half-conscious choices you make throughout a day. Whether you feel at ease with yourself, or anxious and depressed; whether you’re easily led astray or whether you set a good example – all this rests on your clarity and integrity.

The Four Kinds of Kamma

Kamma means ‘action’ in a more than physical sense: it also includes verbal action, such as whether we insult and yell at people or say truthful and reliable things – and that action includes the ‘internal speech’ of thinking. But just as the body does neither good nor evil – these ethical qualities being rooted in the mind that initiates the physical deed – it’s the same with speech and thought. Language is neutral – it’s the kindness or the malice of the mind that’s creating the concepts and using the language that brings fortunate or unfortunate results. So, of the three bases of action – body, speech or mind – the kamma of our mental responses is therefore the most crucial in terms of living a wholesome life.

The Buddha spoke of four kinds of kamma. There is bad or ‘dark’ kamma – actions such as murder, theft, falsehood and sexual abuse that lead to harmful results. Avoid this, definitely. There is good or ‘bright’ kamma – actions such as kindness, generosity and honesty that have beneficial effects and enhance integrity and wisdom. This kind of kamma is to be thoroughly understood, cultivated and enjoyed. It’s not difficult: even refraining from dark kamma is bright in that it offers freedom from regret and supports clarity.

The third kind of kamma is a mixture of bright and dark kamma – actions which have some good intentions in them, but are carried out unskilfully. An example of this would be having the aim to protect and care for one’s family but carrying that out in a way that negatively impacts one’s neighbours. And the fourth? It’s the actions that lead to liberation – which I’ll get to later.

Kamma has consequences – vipaka. Now take the case of dark kamma: if I speak harshly or abusively to someone, one effect of that is that they get hurt – and that means that they’re probably going to be unpleasant towards me in the future. It’s also likely that that action will have immediate effects in terms of my own mind: I get agitated. At this point habitual psychological programs get going. I may shrug off scruples, say that they deserved it, or that I was having a bad day, etc. – but the results still remain. I may even get accustomed to acting in that way because it relieves my emotional tension or makes me feel I’m on top – but my mind will become insensitive, and I will lose friends. On the other hand, if I think about my actions, I may feel stricken with guilt and hate myself.

Effects therefore accrue in terms of states of mind – such as insensitivity or guilt – and also in terms of behaviour: in this example, I either become loud-mouthed or intensely self-critical. Then there are results in the wider social sphere: I get isolated or only associate with shallow, insensitive people. All of this can lead on to substance abuse and other self-destructive patterns.

All kamma rolls out in terms of behaviour patterns, psychological programs and strategies – saṇkhārā – of which intention (or impulse) is the prime agent. And if there is no clarity around kamma, even negative and uncomfortable programs – such as justification, blaming, distracting and switching off – can define how I operate and how I’m seen. Tendencies to be a compulsive do-er, a busy and over-responsible one who doesn’t take care of themselves, or defensive or somehow unworthy – are programs that become part of my identity. And as these programs become familiar, they bind the mind into ongoing habitual action – psychological, verbal and physical. The identity that they thus create is like a ball bouncing on a trampoline. Bouncing and being bounced: ‘saṃsāra’, ‘the wandering on’, is what it’s called. Liberation is about not being bounced; and the fourth kind of kamma is the mental action that brings that around.

So, if we want to get free, we have to get a hold on how saṃsāra works. We have to pause and approach our saṇkhārā from a different mind-set than the one they jumped out of: getting defensive about the tendency for denial, for example, is just a continuation of the same program. However, a different approach is possible – because the mind is not completely bonded to its programs. We can experience the results of unskilful actions, and with the support of our own trained attention and/or that of reliable friends, learn to do better. We can change our ways. We can also realize the awareness that makes that possible, and that stands apart from kamma. Liberation from the feedback loop of action and result (kamma-vipaka) is therefore possible; it all comes down to training the mind.

Bodily, Verbal and Mental Kamma: The Causal Field

Mind mediates within our multi-faceted experience of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ realms. What I’m referring to as ‘external’ is the range of sense-data that provides details of where we are; whereas the ‘internal’ consists of our inclinations, moods, memories and attitudes. Similarly, mind has an external aspect, manas, that scans the senses and through its focus shapes experience into discrete objects; and it also has as an internal, or subjective, aspect, citta (pronounced ‘chitta’), that adds how we are affected by these objects. For the sake of clarity, I’ll call citta the ‘heart’ of the mental process.

Citta isn’t rational; it’s an affective-responsive awareness that is attuned to respond to its environment – physical or psychological – at a gut and heart level, with ‘fight-flight-freeze ‘drives that can kick in at a moment’s notice. Basically, it’s attracted to pleasure and tries to get away from pain – and those impulses, along with the thoughts that they stimulate, make experience very dynamic. Indeed: dealing with the changing state of the world around us – and the ‘world’ within us – keeps us pretty busy.

Taken as a whole, these external and internal realms make up a causal field. This field is the sum total of experience that’s caused by our living context of sensory life, society and family; and it also causes – that is, it’s sensitive and responsive to that context. Consciousness acts as the one-moment-at-a time link between these two realms, with mental consciousness (mano-viññāṇa) adding its interpretations to sights and sounds and the rest. That is, this mental activity tags input from the external senses with perceptions (saññā) that affect the heart, such as: ‘tastes good’; ‘this carpet smells like an old dog’; ‘she looks irritated.’ These impressions and interpretations begin with the external mind, but get settled in the heart through the agreeable or disagreeable feeling (vedanā) or the prior association it evokes. In other words, citta doesn’t receive sights, sounds, smells and tastes; it receives the perceptions that mind-consciousness brings in.

Continued next week 1 August 2024   

                     Click on the link below to download the original:  

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

   Photo images in this post source: unsplash.com: Pedestrian crossing, Shinjuku, Tokyo

‘world’

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Ajahn Sucitto

[Excerpts from “Kamma and the End of Kamma,” by Ajahn Sucitto, Chapter 5: “Regarding the World.” Note: The book is available as a free Dhamma publication. Look for the link at the end of this post.]

Regarding the World
Having directly known all the world –
all in the world just as it is –
he is detached from all the world,
disengaged from all the world.
He is the vanquisher of all,
the wise one who has untied all knots.
He has reached the supreme peace,
nibbāna, inaccessible to fear.
A.4:23 – ‘The World’

When I visited a monastery in China recently, I met an old monk who presented me with a treasured piece of his own calligraphy, a piece that summed up the view of Dhamma as he understood it. It comprised two ideograms on a scroll: one meaning ‘still’ and the other meaning ‘bright reflection’. The translator interpreted the overall sense to mean something like: ‘the quiet, reflective mind that regards the world.’ ‘Regards the world’: there’s attention there, but non-involvement – dispassion. Yet that mind keeps regarding the world, not ignoring it: that implies compassion.

Interdependence

What is this world anyway? Socially, psychologically and environmentally, it’s a web in which different forces, energies and beings support and condition each other’s existence. It’s both caused and causative. In ecological terms, this interdependence calls for balance. The Buddha’s understanding was that our psychological balance and ethical integrity are essential for a climate that sustains life.

 Hence his deep commitment to harmlessness and frugality. However, in referring to ‘the world’, the Buddha was generally focusing on the personal ‘internal’ world: the web of causes and conditions which arises dependent on the consciousness that participates in bodily life. This world is experienced as a series of shifting forms (rūpa) that arise dependent on seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching – moment-by-moment data which are tacked together by our minds to form a solid three-dimensional realm. To the casual observer, this reality persists through time.

 But when it’s more deeply and directly known, this world is not experienced as a fixed and stable entity, but as arising a moment at a time.

Furthermore, it is dependently arisen. That is, form becomes present for us dependent on consciousness; and consciousness arises dependent on some form to be conscious of. In detail: mind-consciousness arises as the interpreter and organizer of sense-data and heart-impressions. Without that input, mind-consciousness does not arise. It makes contact, thus generating perceptions that evoke feeling. Feeling and perception arise with contact, and with contact comes more heart-impressions and patterns – as well as programs involved with interpreting, organizing and responding to the impressions that mind has placed in the heart. And so, our world rolls on.

All this interpreting and organizing and feeling is summarized as ‘name’ (nāma), although ‘interpretation’ might give you a better handle on it.

 It is through the linking of ‘name’ to ‘form’ that an apparently ‘outer world’ and an ‘inner world’ co-dependently arise in the dynamic experience of consciousness, name and form.

To illustrate this: in the act of seeing, a visual object is first detected, then lingered over as the mind recognizes it, and designates it with an impression, perception or felt sense, such as ‘friend’ or ‘stranger’. Dependent on that and the current mood or intent, a response arises. One can then linger further and develop possibilities and plans. Regarding all this, we may feel uplifted, overwhelmed or bored by all the saṇkhārā – the energies and emotions that come up. Accordingly, ‘the world’ may seem exciting, dreadful or hum-drum. But it is conditioned, created and creative. And like the ever-changing design of the Mandelbrot set, it can keep going on and on: as the Buddha observed, you don’t get to the end of the personal upheavals until you have got to the end of your world.

Moreover, this doesn’t happen through moving around the world, running away from it or creating another world, but through contemplating the causal field, and penetrating the basis on which your world arises.[35]

Regarding the world this way leaves open the possibility that each of us, through purifying our ‘naming’ processes, can affect how the world seems and how we respond to it. Some responses feel balanced; others more compulsive. How are my attitudes colouring what arises? Is some fixed mind-set creating my world and myself as someone embedded in it? We train to acknowledge this so that we can see what needs to be cleared in order to get free. Therefore the Buddha taught where the world arises and where it stops, and the way to that.

To this end, 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.

As long as one hasn’t developed such skill, the success/failure assessment gets internalized and craving keeps the mind driving on: ‘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’.

Kamma should be known. The cause of kamma should be known. The diversity in kamma should be known. The result of kamma should be known. The cessation of kamma should be known. The path of practice for the cessation of kamma should be known.’ Thus, it has been said. In reference to what was it said?

‘Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and intellect.’

‘And what is the cause of kamma? Contact is the cause of kamma.’

‘And what is the diversity in kamma? There is kamma to be experienced in hell, kamma to be experienced in the realm of common animals, kamma to be experienced in the realm of the hungry shades, kamma to be experienced in the human world, kamma to be experienced in the world of the devas. This is called the diversity in kamma.’

‘And what is the result of kamma? The result of kamma is of three sorts, I tell you: that which arises right here & now, that which arises later [in this lifetime], and that which arises following that. This is called the result of kamma.’

‘And what is the cessation of kamma? From the cessation of contact is the cessation of kamma; and just this noble eightfold path – right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration – is the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma.’

“A.6:63 (Thanissaro, trans.)

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