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.

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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

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   Copyright
“Kamma and the end of Kamma

  Amaravati Publications

  Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

  Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, HP1 3BZ

  United Kingdom,

  http://www.amaravati.org

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