Vipassana meditation

[Chang dao ling]

Hi, 

How to practice Vipassana meditation? Please recommend me a good teacher and books 🙏

[silent thunder]

rest as awareness

[Maddie]

56 minutes ago, Chang dao ling said:

Hi, 

How to practice Vipassana meditation? Please recommend me a good teacher and books 🙏

 

There are actually a lot of ways to practice Vipassana or mindfulness. The four foundations of mindfulness as taught by the Buddha state that there are four objects of mindfulness.

 Mindfulness of the body, mind, feelings, and dharmas (teachings). 

 

Most people start with mindfulness of the body which can include body scans and mindfulness of the breath. This is good at bringing people into the present moment. 

 

What I usually do (because its the "loudest" for me) is mindfulness of mind. This usual entails me paying attention to which emotion is the loudest at the moment and labeling it. This works for me. 

 

The important thing is to find what works for you. 

[Mark Foote]

8 hours ago, Chang dao ling said:

Hi, 

How to practice Vipassana meditation? Please recommend me a good teacher and books 🙏
 

Hope you don't mind my asking, but why Vipassana in particular?

 

[Chang dao ling]

4 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Hope you don't mind my asking, but why Vipassana in particular?

 

I am practice visualisation meditation due to this I am getting headache. I also tried anapanasati again I am getting headache. So I want to try Vipassana 

[Mark Foote]

19 hours ago, Chang dao ling said:

I am practice visualisation meditation due to this I am getting headache. I also tried anapanasati again I am getting headache. So I want to try Vipassana 
 

 

 

Sorry to hear that about Anapanasati.  How do you interpret the fifteenth element, the third in the mindfulness of states of mind (the states of mind being the last of the four arisings of mindfulness)?

 

Edited yesterday at 12:55 AM by Mark Foote

[Chang dao ling]

5 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

How do you interpret the fifteenth element, the third in the mindfulness of states of mind (the states of mind being the last of the four arisings of mindfulness)?

Sorry I don't know. Can you elaborate? Do you practice anapanasati?

Edited yesterday at 06:39 AM by Chang dao ling

[Mark Foote]

16 hours ago, Chang dao ling said:

 

 

Quote

 

  20 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

How do you interpret the fifteenth element, the third in the mindfulness of states of mind (the states of mind being the last of the four arisings of mindfulness)?

 

 

Sorry I don't know. Can you elaborate? Do you practice anapanasati?
 

 

 

Yes and yes, although I should say that what I practice is my understanding of the actionable elements of Anapanasati.

 

Here's the fifteenth element, from F. L. Woodward's translation of the "Chapter on Inbreathing and Outbreathing" of the Samyutta Nikaya volume five:

 

Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out.
 

(SN 54.1; tr. Pali Text Society [PTS] vol. V p 275-276)

 

The mindfulness recounted in that chapter is exactly the mindfulness recounted in Anapanasati--I prefer Woodward's translation of the elements over Horner's rendition (in PTS MN 118), but the sixteen elements are the same in both places. 

 

There are various cessations mentioned in the sermon volumes.  I believe the cessation that was referenced in the fifteenth element was the cessation of the activities:

 

…I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. When one has attained the first trance, speech has ceased. When one has attained the second trance, thought initial and sustained has ceased. When one has attained the third trance, zest has ceased. When one has attained the fourth trance, inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased… Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.  

(SN 36.11; tr. PTS vol IV p 146)  

The activities are the habitual or volitive actions of speech, body, and mind.  The cessation of inbreathing and outbreathing does not mean that breathing in and breathing out have ceased, only that habit and volition in inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased. Likewise, the cessation of perception and feeling is only the cessation of habit and volition in perception and feeling.

Gautama defined concentration in terms of "one-pointedness of mind":

 

And what… is the (noble) right concentration with the causal associations, with the accompaniments? It is right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right mode of livelihood, right endeavor, right mindfulness. Whatever one-pointedness of mind is accompanied by these seven components, this… is called the (noble) right concentration with the causal associations and the accompaniments.”

 

(MN III 117 tr. PTS vol III p 114; “noble” substituted for Ariyan; emphasis added)

 

 

This is where Vipassana teachers and some Theravadin teachers will differ from Ch'an and Zen teachers.  I'm writing about that now, and I hope you will excuse my inclusion of a lengthy quote from my work-in-progress:

 

The difficulty is that “one-pointedness of mind” has been taken by different people in the Buddhist community to mean different things. One modern Theravadin teacher, for example, has disputed that the term could actually refer to the mind as a singular point, and instead posits that the reference is to a singular object of attention:

 

A Pali sutta, MN 44, defines concentration as cittass’ek’aggatā, which is often translated as “one-pointedness of mind”: cittassa = “of the mind” or “of the heart,” eka = one, agga = point, -tā = -ness. MN 117 defines noble right concentration as any one-pointedness of mind supported by the first seven factors of the noble path, from right view through right mindfulness. MN 43 states further that one-pointedness is a factor of the first jhāna, the beginning level of right concentration.

 

From these passages, it has been argued that if one’s awareness in
concentration or jhāna is truly one-pointed, it should be no larger than a point, which means that it would be incapable of thinking, of hearing sounds, or even of being aware of the physical body. However, this interpretation imposes too narrow a meaning on the word ek’aggatā, one that is foreign to the linguistic usage of the Pali Canon.

 

… (the teacher concludes:  ) Show your lack of contempt for your meditation object by giving it your full attention and mastering concentration… Gather the mind around its one object.

 

(https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/CrossIndexed/Uncollected/MiscEssays/OnePointed160822.pdf, Thanissaro Bhikkyu; parenthetical added)

 

 

In my experience, “one-pointedness” has more to do with the self as a singular entity than with single-minded attention to a meditation object.

A teacher in modern India, Nisargadatta, described the self as “the consciousness in the body”:
 

You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of “I am”. It is without words, just pure beingness.

(Gaitonde, Mohan [2017]. Self – Love: The Original Dream [Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Direct Pointers to Reality])

 

 

For most people, the consciousness associated with “I am” is at one single location at any given moment.

Nisargadatta went on to say:

Meditation means you have to hold consciousness by itself. The consciousness should give attention to itself.

 

(ibid)

 

 

Zen teacher Koan Franz talked about the difference between attention to a meditation object, and attention to the base of consciousness, “the mind”:

So (in zazen), have your hands… palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction:  place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’.

 

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your center of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

 

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site;
https://nyoho.com/2018/09/15/no-struggle-zazen-yojinki-part-6/)
 

Franz suggested that “the base of consciousness” can move to a location in the body outside the head, through “an act of letting go”.

Gautama also spoke about letting go, more specifically about “self-surrender”:

 

… making self-surrender the object of thought, (a person) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness. 

(SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol. V p 174)
 

Shunryu Suzuki, founding teacher of the San Francisco Zen Center, spoke about the mind moving in zazen:

 

Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body, but it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving.

 

(“Whole-Body Zazen”, lecture by Shunryu Suzuki at Tassajara, June 28, 1970; edited by Bill Redican)

 

 

Franz described “an act of letting go” to allow “the base of consciousness” to move away from the head. Gautama spoke of “making self-surrender the object of thought” in order to lay hold of “one-pointedness”. Suzuki spoke of the body practicing in imperturbability while the mind is moving.

My advice would be to look for consciousness to move away from the head in the moments before falling asleep, then allow for that same freedom of movement in seated meditation.
 

 

Here's my summary of the actionable elements of the mindfulness described in Anapanasati:

 

1) Relax the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation;

2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;

3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;

4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of inhalation and exhalation.

 

(Applying the Pali Instructions)

 

 

In my experience, once all of the elements above come into awareness, they tend to interchange in a natural way.

I sit down first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and I look to experience the activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness. As a matter of daily life, just to touch on such experience as occasion demands—for me, that’s enough.

 

(Take the Backward Step)

 

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Mark Foote

[Chang dao ling]

10 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

Yes and yes, although I should say that what I practice is my understanding of the actionable elements of Anapanasati.

 

Here's the fifteenth element, from F. L. Woodward's translation of the "Chapter on Inbreathing and Outbreathing" of the Samyutta Nikaya volume five:

 

Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out.
 

(SN 54.1; tr. Pali Text Society [PTS] vol. V p 275-276)

 

The mindfulness recounted in that chapter is exactly the mindfulness recounted in Anapanasati--I prefer Woodward's translation of the elements over Horner's rendition (in PTS MN 118), but the sixteen elements are the same in both places. 

 

There are various cessations mentioned in the sermon volumes.  I believe the cessation that was referenced in the fifteenth element was the cessation of the activities:

 

…I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. When one has attained the first trance, speech has ceased. When one has attained the second trance, thought initial and sustained has ceased. When one has attained the third trance, zest has ceased. When one has attained the fourth trance, inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased… Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.  

(SN 36.11; tr. PTS vol IV p 146)  

The activities are the habitual or volitive actions of speech, body, and mind.  The cessation of inbreathing and outbreathing does not mean that breathing in and breathing out have ceased, only that habit and volition in inbreathing and outbreathing have ceased. Likewise, the cessation of perception and feeling is only the cessation of habit and volition in perception and feeling.

Gautama defined concentration in terms of "one-pointedness of mind":

 

And what… is the (noble) right concentration with the causal associations, with the accompaniments? It is right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right mode of livelihood, right endeavor, right mindfulness. Whatever one-pointedness of mind is accompanied by these seven components, this… is called the (noble) right concentration with the causal associations and the accompaniments.”

 

(MN III 117 tr. PTS vol III p 114; “noble” substituted for Ariyan; emphasis added)

 

 

This is where Vipassana teachers and some Theravadin teachers will differ from Ch'an and Zen teachers.  I'm writing about that now, and I hope you will excuse my inclusion of a lengthy quote from my work-in-progress:

 

The difficulty is that “one-pointedness of mind” has been taken by different people in the Buddhist community to mean different things. One modern Theravadin teacher, for example, has disputed that the term could actually refer to the mind as a singular point, and instead posits that the reference is to a singular object of attention:

 

A Pali sutta, MN 44, defines concentration as cittass’ek’aggatā, which is often translated as “one-pointedness of mind”: cittassa = “of the mind” or “of the heart,” eka = one, agga = point, -tā = -ness. MN 117 defines noble right concentration as any one-pointedness of mind supported by the first seven factors of the noble path, from right view through right mindfulness. MN 43 states further that one-pointedness is a factor of the first jhāna, the beginning level of right concentration.

 

From these passages, it has been argued that if one’s awareness in
concentration or jhāna is truly one-pointed, it should be no larger than a point, which means that it would be incapable of thinking, of hearing sounds, or even of being aware of the physical body. However, this interpretation imposes too narrow a meaning on the word ek’aggatā, one that is foreign to the linguistic usage of the Pali Canon.

 

… (the teacher concludes:  ) Show your lack of contempt for your meditation object by giving it your full attention and mastering concentration… Gather the mind around its one object.

 

(https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/CrossIndexed/Uncollected/MiscEssays/OnePointed160822.pdf, Thanissaro Bhikkyu; parenthetical added)

 

 

In my experience, “one-pointedness” has more to do with the self as a singular entity than with single-minded attention to a meditation object.

A teacher in modern India, Nisargadatta, described the self as “the consciousness in the body”:
 

You are not your body, but you are the consciousness in the body, because of which you have the awareness of “I am”. It is without words, just pure beingness.

(Gaitonde, Mohan [2017]. Self – Love: The Original Dream [Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Direct Pointers to Reality])

 

 

For most people, the consciousness associated with “I am” is at one single location at any given moment.

Nisargadatta went on to say:

Meditation means you have to hold consciousness by itself. The consciousness should give attention to itself.

 

(ibid)

 

 

Zen teacher Koan Franz talked about the difference between attention to a meditation object, and attention to the base of consciousness, “the mind”:

So (in zazen), have your hands… palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction:  place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’.

 

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your center of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

 

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site;
https://nyoho.com/2018/09/15/no-struggle-zazen-yojinki-part-6/)
 

Franz suggested that “the base of consciousness” can move to a location in the body outside the head, through “an act of letting go”.

Gautama also spoke about letting go, more specifically about “self-surrender”:

 

… making self-surrender the object of thought, (a person) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness. 

(SN 48.10, tr. PTS vol. V p 174)
 

Shunryu Suzuki, founding teacher of the San Francisco Zen Center, spoke about the mind moving in zazen:

 

Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body, but it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving.

 

(“Whole-Body Zazen”, lecture by Shunryu Suzuki at Tassajara, June 28, 1970; edited by Bill Redican)

 

 

Franz described “an act of letting go” to allow “the base of consciousness” to move away from the head. Gautama spoke of “making self-surrender the object of thought” in order to lay hold of “one-pointedness”. Suzuki spoke of the body practicing in imperturbability while the mind is moving.

My advice would be to look for consciousness to move away from the head in the moments before falling asleep, then allow for that same freedom of movement in seated meditation.
 

 

Here's my summary of the actionable elements of the mindfulness described in Anapanasati:

 

1) Relax the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation;

2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;

3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;

4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of inhalation and exhalation.

 

(Applying the Pali Instructions)

 

 

In my experience, once all of the elements above come into awareness, they tend to interchange in a natural way.

I sit down first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and I look to experience the activity of the body solely by virtue of the free location of consciousness. As a matter of daily life, just to touch on such experience as occasion demands—for me, that’s enough.

 

(Take the Backward Step)

 

 

 

Thank you very much 🙏 

[Mark Foote]

8 hours ago, Chang dao ling said:

Thank you very much 🙏 

 

You're very welcome.  The best of my writing on the subject is here, if you want more details:

A Natural Mindfulness

 

I hope to be around, if you have any questions--I'm just trying to teach myself, if you really want to know!