Tag Archives: mental-health

uncontracted awareness

Posted on by

7

Selected excerpts from, “Kamma and the end of Kamma: by Ajahn Sucitto”
Editor’s note: You have reached the end of the text. Please let me know how you feel about reading these words over the weeks and months that have passed. Thank you. All that remains now is Ajahn’s final meditation guidance.

Meditation

Come into embodied awareness, centring on the upright axis of the body as it breathes in and breathes out. By connecting your attention to the rhythm, speed and time span of the breath, come into embodied time.

As awareness gets centred in your bodily presence, widen its span. Extend awareness through the body to its edges. These will be defined by the contact with the ground beneath you, the clothes that wrap you, the space above your head, or the air that meets your skin. Establish that wide focus, referring to these contact points, until the wide focus becomes sustainable. You may also find it helpful to connect to your breathing and imagine that flow extending slowly in all directions as you breathe out, and being drawn in from the space around you as you breathe in. As your embodied awareness gradually unfolds, linger in it and savour it. At some point it will settle into the uncontracted state – the norm of meditation.

Contemplate and be aware of – but not involved with – the changing energies within that field of embodied awareness. From time to time, you might benefit from lingering in the centre of that field, taking in the quality of ease or stability. When awareness does feels settled and full, linger in it and bring it to the felt edge of your body. It will extend beyond those edges, permeating that wide area.

Disturbances will arise. These may be a reaction to a sound, or connected to an unpleasant physical feeling Feel your awareness ripple or contract at the edge of that disturbance. Maybe things start to speed up, or there are pushes to overcome or get away from the source of the disturbance. Acknowledge what is going on, and relax the responses that are attempting to deal with the disturbance. Instead, just be with, but not in, the disturbance – as if you are sitting, standing or walking beside it. Relax the edge of resistance to the disturbance, so that your awareness spreads over it – and while encompassing the disturbance, touches into a space beyond it. Contemplate the effect of that. How, for example, does this affect the sense of your body?

From time to time, mental disturbances will occur. These may be linked to something sensory, such as a sound in the next room. Or they may be purely mental – thoughts about things you have to do, or a happy memory, or a doubt, or a plan, or an intriguing puzzle that seems to ask you to get involved with it. While resisting the urge to go into any of these impressions, acknowledge the rippling or agitating effect, and how its speed and energy contrasts with the more agreeable calm state. But don’t react or be in a hurry to change anything. Instead, soften your attitude to the agitation and its energy. Put aside comparing it with what you’d prefer to be experiencing. Find the edge of the agitation, meet it and widen your awareness over it and beyond. It’s like drawing a blanket over your body and smoothing it out over a very large bed that you’re lying on. Where is the edge of that bed? Can you smooth and spread your awareness until there are no hard edges or boundaries?

If such a practice seems manageable and helpful, you can subsequently bring to mind the notion of your self. That is, the conglomerate of your concerns, plans, duties, ideas and memories. Don’t focus or go into any one of these, but as if you’re listening to a gathering of people conversing, and occasionally laughing or arguing, widen your awareness to include it all. It might be helpful to summarise this totality or field as: ‘a business meeting’; or ‘a critical audience commenting on the show’; or ‘a noisy classroom’; or ‘a city street in the middle of the day’; or ‘a farmyard’; or ‘an open beach with the occasional gull’ – and so on. Extend your awareness over that total field of self and, without losing touch with it, find the quiet place beyond its edges. Contemplate the effect of that. What attitudes, for example, arise in the uncontracted state?

As you find a way of being with, but not in, yourself, ask if there’s anything you wish you would be. Be accurate, and acknowledge it – whether it’s ‘more vigorous’, ‘unburdened’, ‘admired’, ‘effective’ or ‘compassionate’, for example. (Of course, there may be a mixture, but select one that sums them all up, or seems to have the priority.) What ripple or effect does that send across the field of self? There may be a bodily change – such as a flush in the chest or face. The mental aspect may sharpen or unify. How would you name that firmed-up effect? ‘Vibrant?’ ‘Wider?’ ‘Richer?’ ‘Lighter?’ Give attention to that effect – not the details of the wish – and widen as before, until your awareness rests in an extended and inclusive state. Stay with that, letting the details of the wish fade, but attuning to the tone and the breadth of awareness.

As another exercise, imagine what you feel you can’t be. You might, for example, compare your current condition with a better one. Or you might compare yourself with another who you see as ‘better’ or more advantaged than yourself. Once you get the sense of how that affects your field of self in terms of mental or bodily effects, extend your awareness over it and beyond. Regard the field of self with that uncontracted awareness: is there an attitude that arises, by itself? And how does that affect the self?

Eventually the impression of the other and the ripple of your response to them may merge. Extend awareness over that, letting all of this soften –and even fade.

When you feel it’s time to leave the meditation, wait; sense the energy of that intention. Widen your awareness over that arising intention. Contemplate and open to the sense of ‘end of that’ or ‘and now, I’m going to …’ Let those impressions be felt within awareness, so that they don’t dominate it. Then incline to the centre of the embodied state, and the flow of breathing. When you can keep your intention within that uncontracted norm, gradually open to the space around you, the sounds and eventually the visual field.

As a reminder, the exercises around the sense of self may well be the most stirring – so fully establish the practice with reference to the body over a few meditation periods before going further (if you choose to do so). Also bear in mind that the accuracy of how you report on your wishes, your feeling of incapacity, or your responses to another, is not meant to be clinical or an ultimate statement of who you are. That ‘felt sense’ is just an impression in the present; your practice is not about analysing it – or adjusting it. Relate to it (even picture it) as if it were a creature emerging out of the field of awareness – to be given open regard. It will appreciate that – and may respond, or change. Be the awareness of all of that.

As you learn from any of these exercises, you can practise with the self/other comparisons that arise in the day-to-day presence of other people’s appearance or behaviour.

………………………………………………..

Glossary

In the list below, the English words used to render Buddhist terminology are followed by their Pali equivalents and alternative English renditions.

absorption: jhāna

action: kamma – cause; karma

appreciative joy: muditā – sympathetic joy; appreciation

attention: manasikāra

becoming: bhava – being; existence

bodily formation: kāya-saṇkhāra –

body-fabrication; embodied program

body: kāya

bringing to mind: vitakka – directed thought; initial thought; thinking

calming: samatha – tranquillity

cause and effect: kamma-vipāka

compassion: karuṇā

concentration/unification: samādhi

concern: ottappa – fear of blame

conscience: hiri – shame

consciousness: viññāṇa

contact/impression: phassa

deep attention: yoniso manasikāra – wise attention; careful

attention; appropriate attention; systematic attention

discernment/wisdom: paññā – wisdom

designation-contact: adhivacana-phassa

disengagement: viveka – seclusion; withdrawal;

   non-attachment; detachment

dispassion: virāga – fading; detachment

distortions: vipallāsā

disturbance-contact: paṭigha-phassa – resistance impression

divine abidings: brahmavihāra

ease: sukha – happiness; pleasure

effect: vipāka – result; old kamma

empathy: anukampa – compassion; sympathy

ethics/virtue morality: sīla

equanimity: upekkhā

evaluation: vicāra – sustained thought; pondering; considering

exploration of qualities: dhammavicāya –

investigation of phenomena

factors of awakening: bojjhanga – factors of Enlightenment

felt meanings: saññā – perception

full knowing: sampajañña – clear comprehension

gladness: pamojjha

heart/mind/awareness: citta – mind; heart

ignorance: avijjā – unknowing

insight: vipassanā

intention/volition/impulse: cetanā

latent tendencies: anusaya – obsessions

life-force: āyusaṇkhāra

loving-kindness: mettā – kindness; good will; friendliness

mental/emotional formation: citta-saṇkhāra –

mental fabrication; affect-response program

mindfulness: sati

mindfulness of breathing: ānāpānasati

mind/mind-organ: manas – mind; intellect

motivation: chanda – desire; interest

name/interpretation: nāma – mentality; name

outflows: āsavā – influx; taints; effluents; cankers

pattern/s (i.e. acquired or resultant): saṇkhāra/ā – formation/s;

   mental formation/s; volitional formation/s; fabrication/s

passion: rāga – lust

perfections: pāramī/pāramitā

program/s (i.e. active): saṇkhāra/ā – formations;

mental formations; volitional formations; fabrications

proliferate/proliferation: papañca – diffusiveness;

complication; worldliness; objectification

qualities: dhammā – phenomena

rapture: pīti – joy; zest

relinquishment: vossagga – letting go; self-surrender; release

right attitude: sammā-sankappā – right aim; right thought;

   right resolve

right view: sammā-diṭṭhi

speech: vāca

spiritual friendship: kalyāṇamitta

stopping/ceasing: nirodha – ceasing; cessation

suffering/stress: dukkha – dis-ease; unsatisfactoriness

thirst (psychological)/craving: taṇhā – craving

Unprogrammed: asankhata – Unconditioned

verbal program: vaci-saṇkhāra – verbal formation

   innate value/goodness: puñña – merit

wandering on: saṃsāra – endless wandering

This book is offered as a gift of Dhamma. It has been made available through the faith, effort and generosity of people who wish to share the understanding it contains with whomever is interested. This act of freely offering is itself part of what makes this a ‘Dhamma publication,’ a book based on spiritual values. Please do not sell this book in any form, nor otherwise use it for commercial purposes.

You are free to:

    copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you

follow the license terms.

   Under the following terms:

Attribution: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link

to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do

so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests

the licensor endorses you or your use.

    Non-Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

    No Derivatives: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material,

you may not distribute the modified material.

    No additional restrictions:

You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

  Notices:

You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the “material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by

an applicable exception or limitation.

    No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the

permissions necessary for your intended use. For example,

other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may

limit how you use the material.

……………………………………..

   Copyright
“Kamma and the end of Kamma

  Amaravati Publications

  Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

  Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, HP1 3BZ

  United Kingdom,

  http://www.amaravati.org

whole-life path 2

Posted on by

0

Selected excerpts from “Kamma and the end of Kamma” by Ajahn Sucitto.
Continued from last week:
…don’t get fazed by the arising of old habits, but reflect on them to remind yourself to avoid old ways: don’t follow outdated maps and false guides. Of these, a good number will also crop up in one’s thinking mind. After all, this too is conditioned in terms of content (education, media) and in the authority we give to it.
In the world in general, thinking is held to be the supreme intelligence, and a guide to truth and fulfilment. Hmm. Really? How many of your thoughts fall into that category? A few meditation sessions will disabuse you of that notion. Many thoughts will be running on autopilot. Some will be planning, some brooding over the past, some playing themes that one has heard many, many times to no good end. All around ‘me’. Then look around at the great unknowables: ‘Why do things, even our own minds, occur? Am I or am I not? Is there a purpose to life? What happens when we die? Is there a soul, an afterlife, or what?’ What good would it do you if you could have all these worked out in your head anyway? Thinking can’t take you to where you know enough to not need more thinking.

But mindfulness opens another kind of intelligence. It surveys the process of thinking, cleans it, prunes it, trains it to report accurately on presently arising phenomena – and with dispassion turns down its voltage. When mindfulness is combined with other factors of awakening, the relative and changeable nature of experience becomes clear. You can notice the moment when a thought has ended; or acknowledge that a particular obsession isn’t running like it used to. This full knowing reduces suffering. You get to glimpse non-clinging, and with some calming and steadying you can consolidate awareness of that area where the mind isn’t seeking stimulation through thoughts or memories. That basis, where manas ceases and perceptions based on any ideas fade out, can yet be ‘sensed’.[**]

These resources and insights make it possible to bear with unpleasant feeling, as one recollects: ‘Unpleasant feeling sits on the life path; it is to be met, understood and handled with awareness.’ For example, when there is physical pain, can you cultivate the attention that notices where the pain isn’t? If you have pain in your legs, can you notice the ease in your neck? The habit of perception is to generate global felt meanings out of local feelings; and from that comes the experience ‘I’m in pain.’ To shift from that to ‘there is pain; it draws attention to the leg,’ is a good start. It checks the saṇkhāra program that is attracted to feeling, gathers around it and generates ‘I am’. To go against that trend, you widen awareness: you include your entire body, and you consider that all bodies experience painful feeling. But by referring to the relativity of the discomfort – that only a part of the body, and only a fraction of potential awareness, are occupied by any one feeling – and by not fighting the dukkha, a piece of the suffering of ‘I am’ can be abandoned. That dispassion allows a shift to a more manageable standpoint regarding the pain. This view of how stress lessens has to be realized, kept alive, and expanded. With this, you get a window into the domain of the mind which isn’t about feeling and interpreting and reacting.

This is significant when it comes down to psychological and emotional pain – because that is based on perceptions, meanings, assumptions and self-view, and could cease more completely than bodily pain.[56] Perceptions of being blamed, being overlooked or not treated sympathetically; impressions of betrayal and being a failure – they all cut deeply and engender painful feeling for a long time. Understandably, we don’t want or support such actions – but they happen. So, we have to cultivate an awareness that can be steady and spacious enough to feel unpleasant feeling without tightening, collapsing or reacting. That’s a part of anyone’s awakening process. And if the factors of awakening are strong, they can do the job. To them, feeling is just feeling. Mental feeling is generated through the manas activity of interpreting and hitting the sore spots of the citta in its programmed ways. This kind of feeling arises dependent on favouring or opposing what the mind itself has created. But when feelings and reactions have already arisen, or are associated with memory, getting upset about them is of no use. If we can mindfully widen around our reactions (‘what to do?’), then around our perceptions and patterns (‘I am this’), until we just feel the feeling – the feeling can pass. Then, although it may be the case that one has done something wrong or been treated unfairly, there’s no suffering.

For example: shifting the mind from irritation to patience can be brought around through noting the unpleasant quality of irritation, and any non-irritating aspect of the person or the event that is bothering us. ‘Waiting for an hour for someone isn’t much fun, but I’m safe here; I can practise with this and waiting won’t kill me.’ So, maybe we recollect patience, deliberately evoke it and attend to that quality. As another example: if we’re impassioned with a body or some consumer item, we might bring to mind the unattractive or the undesirable feature of it. In other words, to move from suffering to non-suffering we can substitute one image or mind-state for another.

However, the mind can eventually learn to move from the perceptions and programs that condition suffering without having an alternative image or thought to go to. It does this through penetrating that convincing mesh of ‘me and them and what I want to do’, and expanding awareness of a heart-impression – such as (in the above example) ‘I’m being treated like an idiot’ – until it is no longer ‘me’ and ‘mine’ but an impression (‘contracted, frustrated’). Then, by steadying and suffusing the citta with Dhamma resources, the perception, impression and feeling can dissolve. Suffering can cease whenever the factors of awakening gather round, remove the ‘person’ from the negative scenario, and attend to the citta directly. Then there’s no further kamma created: you don’t have to prove, contend, or defend; as the saṇkhāra releases, the hurt fades.

Through humble everyday practice such as this, the experience of the Third Noble Truth deepens. The mind steps back from the outflows, and as citta senses that, the flow of mental energy quietens. That is, if the mind is steadied, opened and dispassionate, an intrinsic and clear stillness can be experienced. It has no intention, and it doesn’t support becoming and self-view. It’s a kind of weightlessness which at the same time is the most grounded and steady thing you can know.

This has a long-term effect in terms of understanding: I don’t have to be something, simply because I never have been able to be anything in the first place – all that happened was a tangle of confused activity. The apparently trapped owner of the mind is exposed as a phantom, a confusion of consciousness. And as that confusion and that person abate, so also does the drive of intention; there is a sense of lightness and freedom.

As long as there’s the view that a real self is the owner, perpetrator and inheritor of kamma, that view supports pleasing or displeasing impressions and patterns, and a need to do something about it. When that view is relinquished, there is peace, because there’s nothing nagging away at the heart.[57] But it’s not that there’s now a view of being a self who is independent of kamma, or a view that there’s no need to do anything. In the domain of kamma, of cause and effect, skills around kamma have to be exercised – so it’s helpful to inquire into how to act co-operatively, and to mutually address our assumptions and programs. The Buddha demonstrated and encouraged such action throughout his life; it’s just that for an awakened being, there’s no outflow, no craving, no becoming to have to deal with. For the awakened, these are the actions that have utterly ceased.

Continued next week: 26 June 2025

meeting space

Posted on by

0

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

Standing Meditation

Stand with your feet body’s width apart, feet parallel, and give the weight of your body over to the ground through the soles of your feet. As the body is accustomed to being propped up, or leaning on something, it often ‘forgets’ how to stand on its feet! Therefore, you may need to consciously relax the knees, the buttocks, and the shoulders and release any tension in the jaw and around the eyes, in order to let your feet carry you.

Bring up the sense that where you stand is completely safe and supportive. You may know this in your head, but not in your chest, throat or shoulders. So gradually survey the body, then sense this through the skin, being conscious of ‘touching’ the space around you. Allow the body to fully feel and acknowledge that the space in front, then above, and then behind, is unobstructed and non-intrusive. Develop the theme; for example, ask yourself: ‘What is behind me?’ And then reflect: ‘Behind me is strong support. Nothing to ward off. Acknowledge that above your head is perfect open space. Relax around your forehead and eyes and try to sense that space through your scalp. Linger in the realization: ‘Nothing holding me down.’

Check the posture from time to time to keep the legs, chest, shoulders and abdomen from tightening up; keep the knees soft, letting the ground beneath you carry the body’s weight. Let the body explore the sense of being supported by the ground beneath. It will relax, find stability, and the breathing will become fuller and its rhythms will help to receive and release any stress. A sense of fully occupying the surrounding space will arise. You may feel a little larger and more at home.

Stay with the general sense of the body, without losing the sense of being ‘in’ a space, and without attending to any external phenomena in particular. Keep your attention where the sense of your body meets the sense of the space. The mind will probably want to go into something, either into the body, a thought or an attitude, or out to some visual object. It will want to have a purpose, or something to get hold of; there may be a struggle to get rid of moods and feelings. However, keep simply focused on the bodily energy, or on moods that arise at the sense of meeting the space around you.

Bodily energy may be experienced as rising currents, or shakiness; it may be felt across the chest or in the abdomen. Naturally there may be corresponding emotional states such as excitement, or nervousness. You may experience flushes of tension that move into release. Attune to the upright axis of the body by imagining that there’s a thread connecting the soles of the feet to the sacrum, to the spine, and on up through the neck and the crown of the head. Extend that thread down into the ground and up through the crown of the head into the space above you. Let your body be like a bead on this thread. Breathe out and in to provide a sense of steadiness and ease.

Don’t go into any bodily or emotional states, but keep aware of the whole thread, the axis of balance, or as much of it as is possible. Within that extended sense of the body, allow energies and moods to move as you very slowly sweep your awareness down through your head and over your throat and upper chest. Use the activity of ‘bringing to mind’ and ‘evaluating’: that is, think or bring to mind ‘forehead’ and then consider how it feels in terms of elemental qualities. Is it firm, solid or tight (earth)? is it warm or cold (fire)? Are there movements of energy or pulses in that area?

You may detect subtle tensions across the eyes, or around the mouth, or across the throat and upper chest. If so, slow down, centre again on the axis of balance and slowly widen your attention across the area that you’re focusing on and into the space immediately around your body. Practise meeting whatever arises without going into it. Instead, if a sense comes up that is tight, emotive, or agitated, connect to the axis of balance, and soften and widen your attention.

Develop the sense of being seen in that open state, in a simple and appreciative way. Simply attend to that and how it feels. Allow yourself the time to feel, take in and enjoy the sense of being in a benevolent space. Images of being in light, or in warmth, or in water, may be beneficial. Is there any boundary to that space, anything outside it? Acknowledge that whatever boundary arises, arises within awareness.

Practise in accordance with your capacity; then when you feel like concluding, spend some time clearing the space of images and impressions, then focus on the skin again, discerning its boundaries all around the body. Then without losing the overall spaciousness, sense your spine and bodily centre within that bounded space. Come out of the meditation by acknowledging the sounds in the room around you, the visual field and then the specific objects around you. Move lightly, orientating yourself through the sense of touch.

To be continued.

 [Note, one section of the text not included here, “Exploration and the Inner Friend” please check on the original: Chapter Six, The Kamma of Relationship, page 362. You can download your pdf copy of the book, click on the link below – this is a Dhamma publication so it’s available free of charge.]

https://storage.googleapis.com/dhammabooks/Ajahn-Sucitto/Kamma%20and%20the%20End%20of%20Kamma/Kamma%20and%20the%20End%20of%20Kamma%20-%20Ajahn%20Sucitto%202021.pdf

the kamma of relationship

Posted on by

0

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

‘And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation [of the four establishments of mindfulness]. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others. …

‘And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, lovingkindness, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.’

S.47:19 – ‘At Sedaka’

Even when meditating on your own seems fine, you may notice that social contact stirs you up. Opinions about others, concern, attraction, irritation: how to resolve all that? How do we establish guidelines to help form healthy relationships? Is skill in relating to others even necessary for liberation?

The Community of Value

Well, we exist due to relationship; we all needed several people to even get born, let alone to survive infancy and learn about being human. We model ourselves on other people, from whom we learn a language and any kind of moral behaviour. A life without good friends is narrow and bleak; and families, friendships and communities thrive or splinter dependent on how skilful the relationships are. Our lives as individuals are blessed by good people: we can’t see our own blind spots, so it takes wise and compassionate companions to point these out in a way that is supportive rather than judgemental. For this reason, the Buddha greatly valued spiritual friendship (kalyāṇamitta), and considered association with wise people to be one of the requirements for ‘stream-entry’, the first level of awakening. [43]

Given the variable nature of social relationships, the most reliable thing to belong to is a field of value such as this. To belong to the group no matter what it’s doing, or to follow a leader because they make promises is unwise: we enter a relationship of infantile dependence or of being dumbed down. Not only is such false association personally unreliable – given the power that comes with group belief and action – it can be a danger to humanity. We can all attest to the destructive ideologies that masses of people have adopted – often incited by promises of wealth, or by the power of a charismatic leader. So, we need to personally connect with a Way, a Dhamma, that is free from contaminations and offers clarity and integrity. When this freedom is accessed by anyone who cultivates that Way, the community of value arises as a collective that enriches and is for the welfare of all.

Kalyāṇamitta is therefore not just a matter of friendship; it’s about a shared commitment to values that don’t harm or exploit others. It grows through cultivating relationships that steadily bring integrity, compassion and inquiry into a living focus. Such aspiration, effort and benefit from the spiritual communion that has involved millions of people throughout history. This living and ongoing legacy of skilful actions, aspiration and understanding is a ‘field of value’ (puññākhettaṃ) that can keep extending its boundaries. To belong to such a community entails steady practice. It means that rather than compete, compare and focus on each other’s personal idiosyncrasies, we attune to the bright kamma in ourselves and others, and develop through acting and interacting in its light. To see and respect the good in ourselves and to be keen to live that out – this is conscience (hiri); then to see and respect the good in others, and to be keen to live in accordance with that – this is concern (ottappa).

Conscience and concern are called ‘the guardians of the world’ – and as long as we listen to their advice, our personal world is aligned to the integrity and empathy that support awakening.

We can lose touch with that integrity and empathy if we neglect valuing our own actions and those of others. This devaluing occurs when we see each other, not as fellow subjects, but as objects compounded of wishful fantasy or anxiety. This seeing of another through one’s own tinted lens is the ‘self and other’ program. In this, we might expect other people to embody our ideals – and consequently get critical when they don’t live up to them. We might also project our fears onto others; or imagine that everyone else is enlightened or near it, and we are the laggards of the group. Or that people expect us to be something we’re not. All of these are negative mental kamma: the mind has adopted a view that divides ‘us’ into ‘self and other’ rather than directly relating to another with respect, appreciation and compassion: just as we would like to be related to.

Of course, it’s not that all aspects of anyone’s behaviour are flawless, or that we ourselves always see things from an undistorted perspective – but how else can good qualities arise if we don’t acknowledge our potential for them? It’s not as if we can make goodness appear where there isn’t a basis. So, the field of value offers the common ground in any misunderstanding. That common ground is remembered and brought into play whenever we touch into the qualities of integrity and empathy in ourselves, and ask another to do the same. Then there can be a dispassionate expression of how we see things, and a similar listening.[44]

 Mutual respect and equanimity can show us where we’re mistaken, or where ignorance has taken over the heart – and at the same time present trust and friendship.

So, when there is deep attention in the relational experience, the heart also finds access to the inspiration and compassion that give it strength. We all have a measure of good-heartedness, and as we tune in to that capacity in ourselves and others, it grows. Then we can enjoy the nourishment of kindness, or the protective care of compassion, or the joy of appreciation, and the equanimity to hold the space that allows emotions to arise and pass. These measureless qualities soften and even eradicate notions about self and others; they are even called ‘doors to the Deathless’.[45]

To be continued

knowledge and action

Posted on by

0

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

[Note: This part of the text is the conclusion of the section on latent tendencies, leading to disturbing states of mind, and their release through guided meditation.]

There are dependently-arisen states that lead to suffering, solidification of world and self; and there are dependently-arisen states that lead to release. The former depend on ignorance; the latter arise in accord with Dhamma (dhammatā). [42] Dependent on factors of awakening, the biases are removed from the mind that gave rise to a sense of inadequacy, feeling hard done by, frustration, worry, uncertainty about what one is or should be, and the planning that is supposed to make one’s world comfortable. And so on. With the fruition of Dhamma, one’s world doesn’t arise: there is an end to that kamma.

But to integrate that relinquishment of self-view in terms of action, the ongoing path of our lives is to maintain the spiritual values that benefit the shared domain. As you clear the layers of assumptions about life in the world – that it should always feel good, make sense and provide you with fulfilment – you place your trust in good heart and association with good people as being the foundation for engaged life. To see and bring forth the good in others, you cultivate good heart; to cultivate good heart, you associate with good people. We acknowledge the parents who kept us alive and psychologically intact for years; we acknowledge the great gift of receiving teachings, and of having a teacher. And without having taken precepts, having committed to a convention and a practice, would the crucible for liberation have been set up? Without training the mind in meditation, would the chemistry that transmutes kamma into liberation have taken place?

What arises from such inquiry is the wish to serve; to follow what calls forth good heart. To have regard for the world and for healing its suffering: this is compassion. To regard it steadily: this is dispassion. Regarding the world takes a bright, still mind.

Meditation: Meeting Your World

Establish a supportive bodily presence: a sense of uprightness, with an axis that centres around the spine. Connect to the ground beneath and the space above and around the body. Acknowledge sitting within a space, taking the time that you need to settle in. As you settle, let your eyes gently close. Attune to the bodily sense in any way that encourages stability and ease.

If you feel unsettled – by thoughts, stirred-up moods or sagging energy – draw attention down your back to the ground, allowing the front of the body to flex freely with the breathing. Refer to the ‘descending breath’ – down through the abdomen – if you feel bustling or uptight. Attune to the ‘rising breath’ – up through the chest and throat – if you feel sunk or flat.  As you come to a sense of balance, bring to mind a current situation in your life. It may well be the case that if you ask yourself: ‘What’s important for me now?’ or ‘What am I dealing with now?’ a meaningful scenario will come to mind. It could be about something at work, or to do with your close friends or family, or your well-being or your future. Just get the overall impression of that, without going into the full story. It could trigger a flurry of expected possibilities, or a heavy sense of having no choice; it could be the ‘so much to do…’ or the ‘I really need this…,’ or ‘he she/they think this about me and it’s not true.’ Try to catch and distil the emotive sense: burdened, eager, agitated – or whatever. As it becomes distinct, feel the energy, the movement of that (even if you can’t quite put it into words). For example, is it a racing sense, a buoyant one, or giddy, or locked? Keep triggering that sense by bringing the scenario to mind until you feel you have the tone of that.

Then contemplate that sense in terms of the body. Notice whether, for example, you feel a flush in your face or around your heart, or a tightening in your abdomen, or a subtle tension in your hands or jaw or around your eyes. If the topic is very evocative, you may feel a flurry and then be filled with such a flood of thoughts and emotions that you lose awareness of your body.

If so, open your eyes, breathe out and in slowly and wait for things to become steady again. Then as you re-connect to, or sustain, your embodied awareness, sense that emotive affect again … which area of the body is affected? And as you focus on the bodily effect, what mood does that bring up? Is it positive, something that there is an eagerness for, so that the body sense seems to rise up and open? Or is it negative, accompanied by a sinking or tightening in the body? Whatever it is, create an attentive space around the experience: can you be with this for a little while?

Let the awareness of, the ‘being with’, fully feel the tone of that experience. It may settle into an image – such as a bright stream, or something dark and heavy, or something twisted and stuck. Ask yourself: ‘What does this look (or feel) like, right now?’ Then, as you settle with it for a few seconds, bring up the question: ‘What does this need?’, or ‘What does this want to do?’ Follow with attention anything that happens to that sense of reaching out, or sinking back, or tension. There may have been an emotional shift – of relief or compassion. Perhaps parts of your body were affected: say you experienced a tightness in the abdomen and when you attended to your topic, lines of energy were experienced in your chest. Be with the enlarged experience, noticing any changes in the emotive sense. When things feel freer, ask yourself, with curiosity: ‘What is this response?’ Does something now seem obvious to you?

Carefully repeat this with that aspect of your world until you feel that something has shifted in your response, or that it has given you a key to deeper understanding. You may sense a letting go, or a firming up of your intentions.

Return through the body: to the central structure and the softer tissues wrapped around that, the skin around that, the space around all that. Slowly open your eyes, attuning to the space, and the sense of the place that you’re sitting in.

To be continued

stable ground: the pāramī

Posted on by

7

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

Posted on by

6

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

Posted on by

5

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

ending kamma through insight

Posted on by

0

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

Samādhi is generated through skilful intentions in the present. It also relies upon already having a mind-set that settles easily, and it naturally sets up programs for the future: one inclines to simpler, and more peaceful ways of living. Samādhi provides us with a temporary liberation from some kammic themes – such as sense-desire, ill-will, worry, or despond – and it gives us a firm, grounded mind which feels bright. But samādhi itself is still bound up in time and cause and effect; it is kamma, bright and refined, but still formulated.

Also, it takes time to develop samādhi. And meanwhile, the very notion of ‘getting samādhi’ can trigger stressful formulations such as: ‘Got to get there’, ‘Can’t do it’ and so on. Accordingly, the learning point for both one who does, and for one who doesn’t, develop much samādhi, is to handle and review the programming. ‘How much craving is in this? How much “me holding on” is there?’ That’s the process of insight. It’s always relevant.

The results of holding on can be discerned in our most obvious and continual form of kamma: thinking. Thinking plays a big part in our lives, governing how we relate to circumstances and other people, determining what potentials we want to bring forth and where interesting opportunities might lie – and just reflecting, musing and daydreaming. So moderating and contemplating thought is an all-day practice. This practice offers understanding – and therefore a means of purifying one’s kamma, and even getting beyond it.

To do this, notice the tone or speed or raggedness that thinking has. By doing this, there is a disengagement from the topic or purpose of thinking; and your mind settles and connects to how the thought feels in the heart. When your heart is grounded in the body, you don’t get captured by the drive or emotional underpinning of thinking. Whether you have a great idea, or are eager to get your idea acted upon, or you don’t have a clue and feel ashamed of that – all that can be sensed and allowed to change into something more balanced. So this hinges on referring to the interconnected system of body, thought and heart. Ideally we want to direct our lives with the full set, so that we’re not just acting on whims and reactions, and our thoughts and ideas are supported by good and steady heart. That heart is where kamma arises, so you want to make sure it’s in good shape and is on board with what you’re proposing. Get it grounded in the body before you let the tide of thought rush in.

Once you settle the heart, you can evaluate the current of thought in terms of its effect. Sometimes it feels really pleasant in itself (like when people agree with me), but when I refer to how it sits in my heart and body, thinking can seem overdramatic, self-important, petty or unbalanced. Too often thinking closes the opportunity for the miraculous to occur, or for a fresh point of view to arise. And as the after-effect of all kamma is that a self-image gets created, do my thoughts make me into a fault-finder; a compulsive do-er; a habitual procrastinator; a feverish complicator; or a slightly grandiose attention-seeker? Does thinking keep my heart very busy being ‘me’, or could it be just a balanced response to what a situation needs – something that can dissolve without trace?

And as self-images do arise, can they be evaluated and witnessed with steady awareness? Can openness and goodwill arise in that awareness to know: ‘this is an image, this is old kamma, don’t act on this but let it pass?’ In this way, we can avoid making assumptions, established attitudes, and directed intentions into fixed identities. These are the blades of the spinning fan – stored up as citta-saṇkhārā. If you train in samādhi and paññā, those self-programs can be un-plugged. True actions don’t need an actor.

What underpins the automatic plugging-in is ignorance, the programming that is most fundamental to our suffering and stress. Ignorance is easy: pre-fabricated attitudes cut out the awkward process of being with things afresh. Ignorance gets seeded in the familiar and blossoms into the compulsive – which feels really solid and ‘me’. That’s how it is. But as the sense of self centres around people’s most compulsive behaviour, the personal self is so often experienced as the victim of habit, a being who’s locked into patterns and programs.

This is why it’s always remedial to attend to the kinds of kamma that are about not doing. The not-doing of harm, for example, is an absolutely vital intention to carry out – if enough of us followed this, it would change the world. And what about the other precepts? We can fulfil these, day after day and not notice it because our hearts and minds were elsewhere, believing we should do more and not noticing the not-doing mind. But the crucial Dhamma actions are just this: to disengage from the compulsive, and mindfully engage with the steady openness of your own interconnected intelligence.

For example, when a verbal exchange is getting overheated, you can attune to what’s happening in the body – the palms of the hands, the temples and the eyes are accessible indicators of energy. Does this energy need to be more carefully held? Sometimes I find that just acknowledging and adjusting the speed of speaking or walking shifts attitudes and moods; softening the gaze is also helpful. Say you’re feeling dull or depressed: is your body fully present …? Giving some attention there with a kindly attitude helps the energy to brighten up, and shifts the mind-state.

Holding on, gaining, succeeding, losing: the programs that saṇkhārā concoct – deliberate or instinctive, driving or drifting – can be witnessed. We can notice the surge of glee or despond, the lure of achievement, and the itch to get more. But we can focus on these impressions, heart-patterns and programs just as they are, rather than believing ‘this is me’; ‘this is mine’; ‘I take my stand on this’; or even ‘I am different from all this stuff.’ This is the focus of insight. It’s about witnessing programs: how they depend on self-views, how they arise based on feeling, attract a grasping, lead to the creation of ideas and notions, create a self – and so keep saṃsāra rolling on. With insight, you contemplate the rigmarole of success and failure, of what I am and what I will be: it’s all more kamma, more self-view, more stuff to get busy with. But if you see the endlessness of all that, you work with the self-patterning and cut off stressful programs. And that’s the only way to get free of kamma.

When that point becomes clear, deepening liberation depends on staying attentive and learning from what arises and passes through your awareness. Because when one relates to bodily, conceptual and emotional energies as programs, that doesn’t support the view ‘I am’. Being unsupported by that view, the basis of feeling is exposed; with disengagement and dispassion, that feeling doesn’t catch hold. But it’s like scratching an itch, or smoking a cigarette: even though you get the idea that it might be good to stop, your system won’t do it unless it gets an agreeable feel for the benefits of stopping, and you develop the resolve and skills to do so.

To this end, ethics place discernment where it most often needs to dwell; meditation blends body, thought and heart together into firmness, clarity and ease; and wise insight disbands the defective programs. Then we can handle life without getting thrown up and down by it. We don’t have to keep on proving ourselves, defending ourselves, creating ourselves as obligated, hopeless, misunderstood and so on. Kamma, and a heap of suffering, can cease.

Continued next week October 17, 2024

virtue leads to release

Posted on by

4

Ajahn Sucitto

[Excerpts from “Kamma and the End of Kamma”]

‘Bhikkhus, for a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous, no volition [cetanā] need be exerted: “Let non-regret arise in me.” It is natural that non-regret arises in a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous.

‘For one without regret no volition need be exerted: “Let joy arise in me.” It is natural that joy arises in one without regret.

‘For one who is joyful no volition need be exerted: “Let rapture arise in me.” It is natural that rapture arises in one who is joyful.

‘For one with a rapturous mind no volition need be exerted: “Let my body be tranquil.” It is natural that the body of one with a rapturous mind is tranquil.

‘For one tranquil in body no volition need be exerted: “Let me feel pleasure.” It is natural that one tranquil in body feels pleasure.

‘For one feeling pleasure no volition need be exerted: “Let my mind be concentrated.” It is natural that the mind of one feeling pleasure is concentrated.

‘For one who is concentrated no volition need be exerted: “Let me know and see things as they really are.” It is natural that one who is concentrated knows and sees things as they really are.

‘For one who knows and sees things as they really are no volition need be exerted: “Let me be disenchanted and dispassionate.” It is natural that one who knows and sees things as they really are is disenchanted and dispassionate.

‘For one who is disenchanted and dispassionate no volition need be exerted: “Let me realize the knowledge and vision of “liberation.” It is natural that one who is disenchanted and dispassionate realizes the knowledge and vision of liberation.’

(A.10:2; B. Bodhi, trans.)

Another major distortion is the assumption that thinking will make our lives happy and solid – that pre-judgement sets up all kinds of stress. We might, for example, become an incessant thinker, or someone who delights in thinking and enjoys generating ideas. Of course, some ideas are interesting, and it’s great to link up a remembered fact with an imaginative proposal and start nudging them towards a conclusion. And yet this inner speech can be so absorbing that we don’t see or think beyond the range of what we already know or have an attitude around; so we get tunnel vision, become obsessive and lose that open awareness within which one’s ideas can be held in a broader perspective, other people’s angles and sensitivities listened to, and the energy of thinking can be peacefully relaxed. In fact, if the energies of conceiving and evaluating, planning and speculating can’t be moderated or discharged, the system burns out with nervous stress.[22]

However, thinking about how to stop thinking only adds more energy and conflict to the mix. This is why meditative training directs thinking. You skim off what’s unskilful or unnecessary to consider right now, then steer your thoughtfulness towards the grounded presence of the body, taking in how it feels.

In this way, you steady the body, and through focusing on calm, repetitive experiences such as walking at a moderate pace, or breathing in a full and relaxed way from the abdomen, allow the citta to relax and open. Spreading attention slowly over the body as if in a slow massage is another good approach, one that adopts citta’s response to pleasure. You also can do this while standing, using the sense of balance to steady the mind. Take the time to notice the feeling of space around your body; then sit, walk or stand feeling that space, doing nothing more than being present with the embodied system. Deepen into simple moment-by-moment attitudes of well-wishing: ‘May I be well’ … ‘May others be well.’

I suggest this approach because attitude affects intention, which is the leader in the programming process. For many people, the energy of intention is set to the hyperactive mode of the business model: ‘You’ve got to work hard. Get out there and make it work for you.’ But if your heart is passionate or forceful, then your body gets signals to give you more energy, so your nervous system gets overstimulated and you tense up. Just notice how much nervous energy you can expend in getting emotionally worked up about things; notice how draining that can be. So, in meditation, train yourself to find a balance of resolve and receptivity rather than sustain ideals or imperatives that you can’t back up through the body’s energy or are beyond your psychological capacity. ‘Sitting here until I realize complete enlightenment’ is more likely to rupture your knee ligaments and stir up psychological turmoil than achieve the desired result.

A downshift in terms of speed and goals is a major shift. But you can begin by adjusting your attitude to one that makes the mind workable, fluid and curious. You move from ‘I’ve got to get it right’ to ‘How is this? Let’s take things a moment at a time.’ With this, you steady your energy, and use attitudes and intentions that bring your heart into play – so that it will be a supportive participant in this interconnected process.

This meditative kamma can then tone up the basis of all your intelligences; this brings around bodily ease, interrupts compulsive or habitual thinking, and also enables you to exercise authority over what you think about and how. And as this is about resetting your own conscious system, you can take the practice and its results with you wherever you go.

Continued next week 03 October 2024