Fourth Discourse
By Venerable Mettavihari Bhikkhu
(Translated by Rien Loeffen)
You may now continue your listening to the talk
concerning the practice of meditation in the retreat. We can call it the
practice of vipassanā meditation
or the teaching of the Buddha, retreating, or we can sometimes say: spiritual
training with sīla
(discipline), samādhi
(concentration), and paññā
(wisdom).
The eightfold path, the path that's leading to
enlightenment, we call magga
or the way towards enlightenment and freedom.
The eightfold path:
Sammā-ditthi: right understanding or right view
Sammā-sankappa: right intention or right thought
Sammā-vācā: right words or right speech
Sammā-kammanta: right work or right bodily action
Sammā-ājiva: right livelihood
Sammā vāyāma: right effort
Sammā-sati: right mindfulness
Sammā-samādhi: right concentration
This is the theory in the books, but when you
practice vipassanā meditation, you see that you have all this in
yourself. If one of these eight points is missing, it's impossible to obtain
enlightenment. Therefore they state that there have to be eight points in your
life here and now, continuously.
The eightfold path, the path leading to
enlightenment, what we call magga
(the way) towards enlightenment and freedom, starts with sammā-ditthi, which means right understanding. If we talk
about right understanding it's also wisdom at the same time. Without right
understanding wisdom is not possible.
First you have the right understanding of what
to note. In this context right understanding refers to nāma-rūpa. You must understand what's nāma and what's rūpa. You cannot have the right intention or right motivation (sammā-sankappa) without understanding nāma-rūpa. At the same time you need to have a mental
noting or naming. That's referring to sammā-vācā or the right words.
In daily life 'right word' is referring to
talking, but in this context of the practice of vipassanā meditation, you have to pick up the right word, or the right term
to name. If you take the wrong term, it is not possible to make vipassanā work.
For example: When you have thoughts, and you
notice there are thoughts, and you say 'thinking, thinking', but thinking has
already gone some seconds ago, you have the wrong understanding, the wrong
words and also the wrong intention.
Many times you're having problems with this, so
I want you to correct your technique of noting and naming. You should note and
name in the correct way and at the right moment. Sometimes for example you have
thoughts about something in your life, about something negative in your life.
You dislike that thought, and when you say 'thinking' at that moment, in fact
it's not true. When you say: 'disliking your thought', then it is the right
word, the right technique and the right intention.
Sammā-kammanta, right work or right bodily action is the attempt
to bring mindfulness in your experience. You have to put it in action,
not only in words, but the effort to do it is already there when you are here
in the retreat.
At certain times you have a good time and you
have a good concentration. At certain hours, let's say in the morning you have
a good time in your meditation practice. Late afternoon it's not good anymore,
not having energy and no concentration, and it makes you feel unhappy and
dissatisfied.
This refers to being in right livelihood (sammā-ājiva) according to the eightfold path. You must not
go against the situation. Don't cling to the past. Longing for the morning, and
disliking your afternoons. If you get this attitude, you have no right
livelihood. Right livelihood is not only just about how to earn you living, but
also has to be integrated in an intensive practice like this.
Especially the last three points, right effort,
right mindfulness and right concentration, are important for your practice.
You have to make an attempt to note and to name.
The attempt to make a note is considered sammā-vāyāma or right effort. The noting itself is sammā-samādhi or right concentration. But before the right
concentration you have recognized the right object. That is sammā-sati or right mindfulness. Right mindfulness (sati)
is very important, very essential in the practice. Therefore we call it satipatthāna-vipassanā practice.
But remember that in one noting all the eight
points are there together. They are not separated.
I just mentioned that with thought and
mind-object sometimes you use the wrong motivation to note. You see disliking,
but you note thought.
The same with the feeling. Sometimes you have fear from your pain, from your feeling, but
you still see this as feeling. That is very wrong. At that moment it is obvious
to you to recognize that you fear that feeling. You fear death, or you fear
having pain with no end. You fear suffering of the body. Then you do not note
'feeling' but you note 'fear'. Fear is a mind-object, not a feeling.
To see the difference between samatha and vipassanā practice
you have to look in your self. We practice vipassanā here, but many times you practiced samatha (concentration) within the vipassanā practice. How do you know that you practice vipassanā?
If the feeling is not there, then you practice
meditation in the vipassanā
technique. When you have feelings with the object, you practice samatha technique within the vipassanā practice.
Most of you do not want to do samatha, I know that, but most of the time here you
did. And you need it of course, because it is satisfying you. It is hard for
you to be without feeling, especially without good feeling.
You've been here in the retreat for several days
now, and after licking the honey, the candy, the sweetness of concentration,
the sweetness of the feeling, you now should start with practicing vipassanā meditation.
Perhaps it is good for you to see this first in
your walking meditation.
When you say 'lifting', 'treading', is there
feeling in your foot or not? If there's feeling in your foot, you practice samatha technique to gain samatha power. This samatha
power gives satisfaction. It leads to concentration and mental absorption.
Every time afterwards you feel good, you feel
light, you feel a lot of energy, you have the urge to sit. That's okay. That's not
wrong. But when you have to check if you are in the vipassanā technique, how can you check that?
If you can note and name the lifting, and not
the feeling of your foot, and when treading on the ground, note and name the
treading and not the feeling of your foot, you succeeded in being an observer
of the foot. The object that you recognize is the foot. You only recognize the
motion of the foot that lifts up and steps down. You know that and there's no
feeling.
So now you are going to change from the feeling
to vipassanā. It is not easy, but you have to try, because
when you're walking, your foot is your self, is your ego when it gives you
feelings. It makes you belong to that awareness of the feelings. Therefore you
have to make a note, and name.
To put it this way: if you name your foot
without being in the object, then you are not mingled with your self. You are
also going to do that with the rising and falling of the stomach. If you feel
the rising and falling of the stomach, it is samatha, not vipassanā
technique. If you just see the moving up and down of your body, you do kāyānupassanā (contemplation on the body), but mostly you do vedanānupassana (contemplation on the feeling). When you are in
vedanā (feeling), you are in concentration already.
So if you want to sharpen your wisdom, you must
step out in the distance. Sometimes you hardly see the rising and falling, but
you are aware of a movement somewhere around your stomach going up and down.
You only note 'up' and 'down'.
Up means rising, down means falling, nothing more. Not to let your feeling go into the body.
Look in the distance, because when you are in
your stomach (with feeling) you already are in your self, in your ego. It has magnetism,
it has the power to suck you in.
You are not free, because you carry your burden,
I said some days ago. So to leave the burden of the five aggregates is the only
freedom you can have. You can walk freely, without carrying your body, without
carrying your feeling, without carrying your perception, without thought, that
you are remembering something, and without conditioning.
Without conditioning your practice by judgment or interpretation
of the meditation process.
Commenting, discussion, what's good or what's wrong, all this is conditioning
and mundane consciousness.
Where there is mundane consciousness, you are
aware. Your awareness is mundane consciousness. Some meditators
don't feel good, don't feel bad, but they're aware of the object. Because of
that awareness that you have for the object, the object that you recognize
without noting, naming, you are automatically in your mundane consciousness.
Therefore it is not enough, merely awareness of what
it is, without thought, without pain, when you sit, especially when you sit in
a deep concentration, you are aware of what is going on.
The awareness of what is going on is that you go
on with your ego-trip, your journey with your self. So you cannot be free from the
burdening of the self. And to be without self,
where to be? To be with pure consciousness. What is pure consciousness? Right effort, right mindfulness,
right concentration is pure consciousness. How do you know that it is pure? Because it does not belong to the object.
To make it simple: When I say: body, feeling,
perception, conditioning, consciousness, it's sometimes hard for you to see
what the object is. Especially when you practice, you have no time to define
all these words or to look after this theory. Then you will be too late and you
cannot do your practice.
So to make your practice all right, there are
two things: The object and the awareness of the object. The object,
doesn't matter what: Thought is the object, awareness of the thought is the
mind. Anger is the object, awareness of the anger is the mind. That is
what we call nāma-rūpa in this context of vipassanā
meditation.
So to make your vipassanā work, you make a note, but not in the object. How do you make a
note without getting into the object?
For example if you are angry with something you
make a note, you say 'anger', 'anger'. If you still feel angry when you are
noting, that means you are in it. You are in samatha, you are in your self. How can you stay out? To
stay out you have to make a distance. First you see the anger and you make a
note to recognize the anger: 'it's anger' and you're not in it.
Sammā-samādhi means right concentration. You have that right concentration
in naming and noting. Not naming and noting in the self, but in the term that
you use for the object.
If there is pain, you say 'pain'. Not in the
pain, but in the term, the word. Just the
terms that you use for the different objects. When you put enough effort in saying 'pain', you do not belong to
the object anymore. When you do it very deep and slowly: 'pain', 'pain', you
have the right concentration.
Suffering comes to an end at that moment and at
the same time you get your freedom, because you get out of the samsaric
process of your self. You're not in samsāra,
but you are in vipassanā.
You have pure consciousness. It does not refer to something,
it does not refer to yourself. The real seeing, the real understanding is
there.
Then wisdom is there, freedom is there and nibbāna is there.
There is no nibbāna in the khandhas.
There is no enlightenment in the five groups of your existence. This has to die
out first. You have to drop it there first. But then, on the other hand, you need
the five khandhas, the five groups or aggregates to practice vipassanā meditation. Without these five, you cannot
practice mindfulness on the four foundations.
It is the same as with a boat when you have to
go to the other side of the water. When you reach the bank of the river, you
will leave the boat in the water. You walk away from the boat. You don't carry
the boat with you. That would be very foolish. The boat is good for the water,
to bring you across the stream.
It's the same with the five aggregates. We need
them. We need the body to practice mindfulness of the body. I already said: not
in the body but above the body. You have to go beyond the feeling. You need the
feeling to practice mindfulness on the feeling. You need your perception and
consciousness to practice mindfulness on the mind, on your thought. You need
your conditioning to practice mindfulness on the mind-objects.
You have to carry them, until you become
enlightened. Then you don't need them anymore. That means, your
meditation comes to an end. Let's say you can end your meditation course then.
When you are going to a meditation course, there
are many questions when you're used to mundane things, like: 'When is this
course coming to an end?'. The answer is: 'When you are enlightened this
is the end of the course'. I mean that you don't need the four foundations
anymore then.
You don't need the boat when you are at the
other side of the water. When you are not yet enlightened, you need your body.
So you have to take care of your body. Also the
feeling and everything, so that it is functioning. This is how you practice.
I want to repeat, just once more: confirm
yourself if you are in samatha
or vipassanā. If you are in the object, doesn't matter
what, if you concentrate yourself in the object, naming in the object, it is
not yet vipassanā. When you can note and name while recognizing
the object, not getting in the object, then you are in vipassanā.
I hope you have examples enough to check,
because it is fooling you around there all the time like a magnet. It has the
power to make you go in, to make you hardly come out. Therefore you are not free, you are
always busy with it. When you want to do vipassanā practice, not samatha
practice, you have to do it that way. Every time: 'I am not in the object'.
Things come up. Thought or conditioning. When
thought comes, you want to know. Awareness comes, you want to know. If you want
to know, that means desire is there. You are not free, you belong to it, every time.
You must learn always to say 'no'. You must
learn to know nothing. Maybe this is hard for you. Your whole life you wanted
to know something. You only have to know that it's curiosity, the desire to
understand something.
Now, in this intensive course of your practice,
you say 'No, I will not know anything. I just am. I even am out of everything,
not in something'. You have to change your attitude towards your practice. This
way is very safe, because nothing can be wrong. If you want to know something,
it is already wrong, because self is there. Not knowing, how can we not know?
Because
right mindfulness, right effort and right concentration are there, noting is
there. You note what you are aware of, not going in the object that you are
aware of. You should be with your noting or naming, then you will not know,
then you will be free. This is the way to practice.