Other Transcripts:
DSC Teacher Training Intensive
Aaron’s Opening Talk
August 24, 2007
Note for transcript: see Teachers’ Intensive Handout on the Path of Insight Knowledges as preparatory/background reading.
Barbara, giving some background:
There are many styles of vipassana. What we teach comes from the Thai tradition. The Burmese tradition does this a little bit differently. There’s more of an emphasis on jhana, first, establishing concentration before moving to insight. The Burmese tradition more closely follows the Visuddhi Magga.
Visuddhi Magga, the path of purification, is a very old commentary on the sutras, written over a thousand years ago. It’s very precise. It’s brilliant in many ways, but it’s also rigid in some ways. It sets up very precise meditation objects, asks us to practice precisely in some ways with those objects. It does not venture into the area of pure awareness at all; it works only with the conditioned mind, until we suddenly open into the Unconditioned. So it ignores the Unconditioned completely until there’s a massive direct experience of it.
Some years ago, we did a 3-day intensive on the outline of the path in Visuddhi Magga. (Handouts passed out.)
This is the basic list of insight knowledges, a kind of a map that we might follow.
16 kinds of knowledge, opened in sequence:
The Visuddhi Magga gives a very precise path. It’s very beautifully written, but it is also very rigid. The Burmese vipassana tradition is based more on the Visuddhi Magga. The Northern Thai Forest tradition is based much more on mindfulness as a path to insight and liberation. Ajahn Chah’s practice was mindfulness. Be in this moment, 24 hours a day. You don’t need all of this detail in terms of knowledge.
There’s a beautiful piece in one of the books where somebody is interviewing him and asks him, “Do you read the sutras? What reading do you do? And do you base your teaching on Visuddhi Magga? What do you teach from?” And he looked at her and he said (tapping chest?), “From right here. That’s where I teach.”
This has been Aaron’s direction to me through all these years, and it’s been my direction with you. There are other vipassana practices such as the Goenka’s, body sweep.
Goenka is an Indian man, a layman in India, who devised a vipassana practice of sweeping the body, bringing the intention in turn to each part of the body so the primary object is shifting as it sweeps through the body. Full attention with each breath to a new area of the body. Just looking at the body, not changing anything. If there’s tension, just seeing that there’s tension, not trying to fix it. Just noting it. And then going on to the next part of the body, sweeping the body, and coming back and…(pause, breathing) With each breath, moving down the body, sweeping the body.
Goenka is so adamant about the benefits of his practice of vipassana that he forbids those who practice with him to practice any other style, or attend a retreat or class with a practitioner who doesn’t teach his method. I’ve practiced that way a little but I’ve never really had instruction with it; I’ve practiced from a book just to get a sense of what it was like. And John has sat in retreats with Goenka and walked me through it a little. I found it helpful. It’s not what I need to teach. To me, any method that’s that rigid loses something.
Our focus this weekend is what is it we really need to focus on, is and how do we teach? What do we teach at Deep Spring, and why? This doesn’t mean we have one ironclad way of teaching, there’s a lot of space for diversity. But we have certain kinds of practices we teach or don’t teach. We don’t teach jhana, for example. We don’t teach any specific strong concentration practice. We don’t teach with Goenka’s practice. And yet, there might be times when we teach somebody jhana, or might teach somebody a set concentration practice. We need to understand why we would use those as tools, and to know them as temporary tools that set the ground for something and then bring the person back into an ongoing practice again.
There have been questions raised about how we teach vipassana. Do we use one primary object? Note what arose—if there’s a loud noise, for example, note hearing and then come back to the breath even if the noise is still ongoing? If there’s a strong body sensation, we let go of the breath, we note the body sensation. And then, do we go back to the breath or do we stay with the body sensation until it changes or dissolves? There’s a time for both. When do we stay with the breath? When do we stay with the object that has arisen?
We move on eventually into what we call a choiceless awareness practice, being present with whatever arises in mind or body experience. We’re still using the breath as a mundane object, our primary object is still the breath. Yet how many of you at this point use nada, for example, as a primary object? Put your hands up. How many use it sometimes, as a primary object? How many use space as an occasional primary object? Luminosity?
These are what we call supramundane objects, they don’t arise and pass away out of conditions. We call them direct expressions of the Unconditioned. Nada is always there, space is always there. When do we direct the student, and in our own practice when do we direct ourselves to stop using a mundane primary object, whether it’s the breath or a specific body sensation or sound? When do we stop using that mundane primary object and shift to a supramundane primary object?
Tomorrow we’re going to practice in different ways, practice with a fixed concentration practice, practice with a mundane primary object, practice with a supramundane primary object, to get the feel of the differences in these forms. We’ll talk about instructions, how we do it, and get the feel of it, and then talk about, compare notes, what was this experience like? When will we use this in our own practice? When will we use it as we teach?
Tonight Aaron is going to offer an introduction. It will contain some of this material from the handout. We both want to reinforce the idea that you’re not going to be tested on this, you’re not going to need to know these terms. This delineation of the Path is more or less to help you understand the Path. Aaron used the analogy with me, he said, if I show you a map and ask you which route we should take, you’re going to have to ask where we’re going. Until you know where we’re going, you can’t know which route to take.
So this is by way of getting a better sense of where we are going so that you can make wiser decisions about which path to take, which tool to pick up. Similar analogy. If I hand you a big toolbox and say, “Take a tool,” well first tell me, what am I going to do with it? Do I have to put 2 pieces of wood together, or break a board in half? How do I know which tool I need?
So we need to understand the basic path. So I’m going to give this to Aaron now…and he will talk. He’ll leave some time for discussion, questions and answers.
Aaron: I am Aaron. I thank you for being with me tonight and for this opportunity to share with you. Somebody said over dinner that this cabin looked like a kuti. (We are at Barbara’s lake cabin.) A Thai monk’s small cabin in the woods. It’s built on stilts, often deep in the forest. This is a rather luxurious kuti, I never was in one with electricity or carpeting!
What a very wonderful opportunity to come together and share the dhamma. If you were not teaching, you would not need to know any of this progression of insights. They arise naturally. There is the path of purifications and as you practice and purifications arise, insights arise with the purifications. It’s very natural just in the way a baby learns to toddle and walk and run. He doesn’t have to know what he’s going to do and in what order, he just does it.
If you were a parent with a baby who had just begun to walk but he could not yet run, and you didn’t understand that there was a progression, you might push the baby, give him a sense that something was wrong because he wasn’t running yet, when he was just taking his first steps. But the parent understands there’s a progression, so he or she doesn’t push the child. They assist the child as best they can at each stage.
So it is with you as dhamma teachers. Your work is to understand enough about the stages that you can identify those stages in yourself and in your students, so that you know what to offer to help support the student at that particular stage. Which tool is useful in this moment?
I want to introduce you to some lines from a sutta.
Association with people of integrity is a factor for stream-entry.
Listening to the true Dhamma is a factor for stream-entry.
Appropriate attention is a factor for stream-entry.
Practice in accordance with the Dhamma is a factor for stream-entry.
– SN 55.5
Here he points out for requisites for stream entry, or Sotapanna, the first level of enlightenment. Sila; true dhamma; concentration and mindfulness; and practice. What I say below unfolds form this teaching.
The path of purification: one moves through this path simply on account of having made the commitment to live one’s life with non-harm. So we start with sila. In Thailand, long before there was any formal practice (I’m talking about hundreds of years ago in Thailand, I don’t know what it’s like now), but long before they were taught any formal meditation practice, young children were taught sila, to take the precepts, to live the precepts. Not as a vow which the breaking of brings forth punishment, but rather as a deep commitment in the heart. Not to steal, not to lie, not to take another’s life or do harm to another.
This is literally the beginning of the path of purification. One commits oneself ever more deeply to this path and finds that one cannot live it the way one wants to live it. Greed comes up, and you take more than your share, or fear comes up and you do harm to another being. And these arisings lead you automatically into the practice of meditation because you seek to understand why you reacted in these ways. When you have no intention to do harm, why are you doing harm? And how can you respond more skillfully to these impulses? As you begin to meditate, you observe how objects arise in the mind and the body out of conditions. And when the conditions dissolve the objects pass away.
So the list here happens automatically. Given sila, we have knowledge of dukkha and how it relates to sila; this brings forth an intention to be mindful, and to hold to the practice of sila. As mindfulness deepens, we have #1 on your list, Knowledge of Delimitation of Mind and Matter, which is a fancy way of saying mind objects arise in the mind and body objects arise in the body. Very simple, it doesn’t need fancy terminology.
Rupa, the form aggregate. Nama, the mind aggregates: mind consciousness. For example if the bee stings, that sensation that’s touching the flesh, the nerves of the body, the sting is rupa, form aggregate. The insect has a stinger, the body has skin, the stinger penetrates the skin, there are nerves, the sting is rupa. It arose out of conditions. When the sting venom dissolves in the body, the sensation of stinging stops.
Mind consciousness is what knows the stinging sensation. Nama, mind. If aversion arises to the stinging sensation, that’s mind, nama. If anger at the insect comes up, that’s mind. These are all resultant from conditions. Certainly conditions inter-relate. If there wasn’t a sting, the aversion to the sting would not have arisen. Yet maybe a different aversion would have arisen.
But these objects are all arising out of conditions and passing away, impermanent and not self. We state it very simply: whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease. It is not me or mine. You’ve heard me say this many times.
So going back several hundred years, our young Thai child growing into his pre-teen years with a strong commitment not to do harm, sees that he still has an impulse to hit somebody or to swat an insect. So he begins to investigate, what is this impulse energy? He’s ripe then to learn meditation. The intention for meditation grows at least partially out of the intention to non-harm.
For you, your students do not always come to you with that strong grounding in sila, although many do, holding the intention to live their lives with love and without harm. They also come to you, many of them, because they’re suffering, and they seek and end to suffering. They come to you because there is dissatisfaction in their lives. No matter how good things are going, something always happens that breaks that up. They can’t hold on to it. They want to understand suffering and the path out of suffering.
Occasionally one will come along, who, when you ask them “Why are you here?” will say to you, “Liberation. I want liberation.” Some of you have spoken such to me. And I hope it’s all of your goal.
Liberation has various meanings. There is the small liberation when there’s a lot of craving, a lot of aversion, and it lets up a bit. It’s not full liberation, by any means. But ah, it’s a relief. You’re not suffering as much. You have all experienced this. Each of you here knows that your practice has led you to suffer less than you used to suffer.
We don’t ask the student to commit themselves in the beginning to full liberation, that will come later, only to commit themselves to investigate the causes of suffering. When Barbara first met me, consciously, I said, “I am your teacher.” and she inquired, “What are you going to teach me?” I said to her, simply, “You are suffering. Let’s start there.” This is where we start. The word “liberation” was not in her vocabulary at that point. She knew nothing of the formal path of dhamma, but she knew she was suffering.
In your own hearts, you must understand enough of this path of purification and the insight knowledges, to trust that once you launch a student, it will be like a boat traveling downriver, a raft traveling with the current. Sometimes it will bang up, caught up on a log or a rock, need to be pushed a little to free it, but then it will float downstream with the current again. Always flowing to the sea, the sea of liberation.
Your work as teachers is to, let me put this carefully. You do not want to be constantly directing this raft, you trust the current. When you see it about to ensnare itself, give the raft rider a signal—“Steer a little bit to the right or left.” As you watch the raft and know the obstructions it may meet, you may offer guidance before it gets caught but often the raft rider won’t be ready to listen until he/ she is snagged or almost so. But if they don’t steer past the snag and they do get caught up, then you have a pocket full of tools, ways to help them free themselves and slip off into the current again. Always trust the current. It is based on your human innate radiance and love.
Let me ask if there are any questions, at this point, before I go on into more detail.
(no questions)
The sheet to which Aaron and the students referred is the Teachers’ Intensive Handout.
The first 2 insight knowledges come as part of purification of view. I don’t want to call it the first purification because they can happen in different orders. But this is usually the first purification.
Purification of view includes understanding that mind is mind and matter is matter, that objects arise from conditions and pass away when conditions cease, and that there’s no sense of self in that.
Discerning Cause and Condition is really part of the same thing. They’re certainly different, but you don’t need to go into the differences, it’s not necessary. All you need to know is that this is where the student starts.
What assists the practitioner to see deeply into this conditioned arising? You have to take an object and watch it, to see that it does arise and pass away. Then you have to have the hint that it arises out of conditions. You don’t need to know all the conditions out of which it arose, only that it does arise out of conditions and it’s impermanent.
At first the non-self nature of arising objects is simply taken on faith. But as you practice and look deeper and deeper, you can’t find the self in it anyway, it’s just the display of the aggregates. There’s nothing else there.
You usually start the practice by giving the practitioner who has never done any meditation an object like the breath, and asking them just for a short sitting to stay with the breath. One might tell them to ignore other objects, just for this one sitting. But it’s important to explain to them that this is just a temporary step.
For example, Barbara used to teach swimming. She taught people how to breathe, how to kick, how to move their arms, etc. telling them, “We’re going to put it all together but it’s easier learning them just one at a time.” So you don’t have to remember everything, just how to kick the feet, just how to turn the head. And then it will all go together.
In the same way, you may start the student with the breath as primary object. I think you all understand the difference between primary and predominant object. In this first phase of practice we are using the breath as the primary object, but if something else becomes predominant, you don’t get pulled aside by it, you just hold to the breath. But you must explain this is a temporary step, maybe just for one short sitting. In the long run, nothing is to be excluded from practice and you do not want to give the instruction to exclude anything.
Then, with the breath still as object, you instruct the student: if an object arises and it pulls your attention away from the breath, to note it. This is still a temporary phase, to note it. Give it a label, “hearing, hearing.” Tension, tension, stinging, burning, throbbing, smelling, thinking, remembering, planning. Note three times as, “planning, planning, planning,” and return to the breath.
This is a temporary instruction because even when it’s a strong object that remains after being noted, you note it and bring attention back to the breath. My own preference has been to do this again just for one short sitting. Not to have the student do it for a long period of time because you don’t want to create a habit they will then have to break. I know some of you tend to prefer to have the student stay with that practice for a longer time. My preference would be that you not do that because it sets up a habit energy that they have to break.
So we’ve had maybe two 15 minute sittings, just short sittings with an instruction, taking it step by step. And then right there, within the first instructional training, you give them the new instruction. When an object arises this time, stay with it as long as it is predominant, and when it changes or dissolves, then return to the breath. Give them time to try this. Remind them, if they get lost, mind wandering off, whenever they catch it just note “wandering,” and come back to the breath.
The discussion that might then follow this practice can draw out of the students the fact that when there is a mental object, such as planning, and it’s noted, mind is not planning anymore, so you immediately return to the breath. But when there is a physical object, like throbbing in the knees, then noting it does not change the object. Simply note, “throbbing, throbbing, throbbing.”
As the object changes or dissolves, we come back to the breath. At this point, any change in the object, such as the arising of aversion, is considered change, and you come back to the breath. Again, this is one sub-step. So here you are teaching them to stay with one object until it changes, not to worry about what it changed into. As you see that that object is no longer fully holding your attention, come back to the breath.
So we have 3 small sub-steps. One is just concentrating on the breath. One is noting that objects arise but not going out to the object, but coming immediately back to the breath. And finally, going to the object. Noting the object and staying with the object until it’s no longer predominant. This helps establish in the student’s mind the sense of a predominant object. The breath is the primary object, and whatever is (clap!) predominant in that moment—sound, hearing, is the predominant object.
The student begins to understand that mental objects cease almost immediately when awareness touches them. They may start up again right away. The mind may return to planning over and over, but as soon as you note planning, you’re no longer planning. Come back to the breath. The body object, rupa, does not necessarily cease when it’s noted. You stay with it as long as it holds your attention.
So this to me is the first step of practice. Here people begin to get a sense of objects arising out of conditions and passing away, and that they are impermanent. I would have the practitioner work with this for a bit longer until they are more able to stay with an object. This phase establishes concentration for some people, to know what is predominant in your experience and remain with it.
Barbara already had a fairly stable practice at the time we first consciously began to work together. When I was first teaching her, frequently I would break in when attention wavered and ask, “What’s predominant now?” This is a technique you can use in your classes when you work, especially with beginners. Break in frequently and ask them, “What’s predominant now?” I don’t mean every sitting, and constantly, but for 5 minutes, breaking in every minute or so. What’s predominant now? That “what’s predominant now?” is not a message to go back to the breath, just “What’s predominant now?” Invite their full attention to the predominant object, or if they realize mind has wandered, to return to the breath.
Once this degree of practice is established, that the practitioner can stay with an object as long as it is predominant, then turn back to the primary object, there is an important shift in the practice. I introduced the next stage many years ago at the retreat we held at Sunnyside. This is the proper object/proper attitude practice. Here is an important turning point in practice.
We have an object that has arisen, perhaps throbbing in the knees. “Throbbing, throbbing.” It has your strong attention. Body pain is a very strong object. And then aversion to the pain arises. Aversion is also a strong object. The aversion is a mental object. Sometimes there is the tendency to push away the aversion and try to stay with the body sensation. Sometimes there is a tendency to shift to the aversion and push away the body sensation. There may be a subtle thought, “Let’s get away from this pain in the knees. I’ll be with aversion instead. Not as uncomfortable an object.”
We don’t want to use force in any way. When the object is the body sensation, know that that’s the predominant object. If the aversion just comes slightly and goes, and the body sensation remains strong, stay with it. “Burning, throbbing.” But if aversion becomes very strong, then move to the aversion. Don’t come back to the breath in between. Move to aversion. The aversion is now the predominant object.
What is the experience of aversion? It’s fine that you’ve noticed aversion, but what is aversion? Anybody here who can tell me what aversion is? (some discussion)
Where are you feeling it in the body? We said it’s a mind object, but we noted earlier that mind objects cease when you bring attention to them. When you note planning, you’re no longer planning. And that which is aware of aversion isn’t feeling aversion. The aversion comes as contraction in the jaw, in the gut, in the back. What is the body posture? What is the energy field of the body? Watch it contracting. So “aversion” is not really a useful notation, but catching the contraction of aversion can be useful. “Contracting, contracting.” Here is tension. So to pin it down, “Tension, tension, tightness, closing.” Whether it’s felt in the energy field or the physical body, it becomes the predominant object.
When we work in this way, there will be times when the body object, physical sensation, seems to die away, or when the tension around the object seems to die away, and then you come back to the breath. This is a long-term phase in practice. By the end of the introductory series of 4 classes, the beginner should be starting to practice in this way.
There’s one more piece to this mode of practice, the one that takes us into the long term aspect of the practice. As one becomes increasingly present with experience, one catches the small judgments. First there is pain in the knee, for example, perhaps felt as burning, tingling or throbbing; one may be rocking back and forth with tension, noting each experience as it is predominant. Then you note aversion, “tensing, tensing,” and maybe a little judgment: “I shouldn’t have aversion.” At this point where is kindness? No matter what’s happening, can there be kindness? Here is the full practice of proper object/proper attitude. “Proper” is perhaps not the best word. To be with the strongest object of the moment, the object which pulls the attention, and to be with it with an attitude of kindness. Anger, tension, pain and fear will arise. Can one hold them within the kind heart?
Here we begin to see how unkind you often are to yourselves, how much judgment and force there is. If there’s judgment and force in one’s practice, there’s probably judgment and force in one’s life. You move through the day; there’s a traffic jam, you’re late, and anger comes up, “tension, tension,” then a thought, “I’m stupid for not leaving earlier,” then another thought, “My practice is terrible; I shouldn’t be angry or judging myself. Judgment should not arise!
Can the loving heart simply note, “judging, judging.” The predominant object, then, is judging itself. Here’s the judging mind. Here we really begin to see how these objects arise out of conditions and pass away, how much they’re simply habit energy arising out of conditions, impermanent and not self.
Through this stage of practice, a mundane primary object works fine. In the beginning, it’s necessary. We don’t start beginners off working with nada or other unconditioned objects. If they already experience that strongly in their practice, ask them temporarily to let go of it and practice with the breath.
At this point, as there is strong awareness of the arising and passing away of objects, there also develops strong insight into the fact that there is an awareness preceding these objects. The one who knows, as Ajahn Chah put it.
At first, when you ask who notes the breath, “Me, I note the breath.” Who notes the throbbing in the knees? “Me, I note it.” Who notes anger? “I note it.” But we invite the reminder, that which is aware of anger is not angry; right there with anger can you find that which is not angry? You practice this way not to stop anger but simply to note that simultaneous with the anger is this vast field of awareness in which there is stillness and peace, not anger.
At this point, you must begin to introduce the supramundane object because you’re introducing awareness. The student does not yet have to work with that as the primary object, only to understand that it’s there. Again, using our river metaphor, trust the current. The student who works in depth with noting objects arising, returning to the breath, noting new objects arising, being aware of the shift from a physical sensation like the bee sting to that which is averse to the bee sting, unpleasant, knowing pleasant, unpleasant and neutral, and so forth, will see with just a little bit of guidance from you, “That which is aware of fear is not afraid. That which is aware of sadness is not sad. That which is aware of anger is not angry.” They’ll start to get it. And this practice invites the supramundane object.
At this point, for the student, you may wish to speak directly about nada, space, luminosity, and other such supramundane objects. Nada is usually the first one mentioned. You can introduce nada and instruct the group, “Anybody who is hearing this sound in the background, give yourself permission to bring it into the foreground.”
Another reason for the shift now is that as practice deepens, the breath may begin to become so fine the practitioner can’t find it. If somebody comes to you and says, “I can’t find my breath anywhere,” you want to give them some object to work with. Help them find this supramundane object because it will be there.
For some, spaciousness or stillness are stronger objects. Tomorrow, Barbara will talk some about such objects and we’ll invite you to look yourselves, working with the supramundane object, looking at what supramundane object works for you. When do you move from the breath to the supramundane object as primary object?
Remember, we still have not entered into the grouping of insight knowledges, we’re just at the two preliminary knowledges. So what we’re doing here is setting the stage for the entry into the further path of insight knowledges. One and Two are preliminary. As these knowledges become strong, that is, the Delimitation of Mind and Matter and Understanding of Cause and Condition, as they become strong, access concentration develops.
Many of you were in the class on consciousness and its objects, last year. We talked at length about access concentration and some of you experienced frustration because you felt you could not stably hold access concentration. It’s not easy, but your work here with yourself and with your students is to set the foundation that invites access concentration. The ingredients are as listed under a through d, : sila, understanding of nama and rupa, seeing the emptiness of self in all experience, and knowledge of impermanence, and suffering.
This phrase “abandoning by substitution of opposites, like abandoning darkness at night by means of a light,” this is a very important one. It is here that the shift to the supramundane object comes.
We’re on the middle of page 2, and Purification of View is at the top of the page. Important factors, sila, access concentration, three characteristics, abandoning by substitution of opposites. This abandoning by substitution of opposites is similar to saying, that which is aware of fear is not afraid. Right there with fear, can you find that which is not afraid. It’s the light that lights up the dark. You are not forcing fear away, you are not forcing anger or greed away, you’re simply noting, right there with it is that which is not afraid, is not angry, is not filled with greed. Holding space for that.
It’s that this point that it’s most useful to the student to introduce the supramundane object. When these factors all come together, the student will have a stream entry experience. Do you know what I mean by “stream entry” experience or in Pali, Sotapanna? There are 4 aspects or stages of enlightenment. The first stage is the stream entry experience. The stream entry experience originates with the stable holding of access concentration, though it may not occur for years after that stable access concentration.
Please tell us about stream entry. What do you know of it from experience?
Students replies: The objects are arising and passing away; there’s no self in it.
There’s no contraction in the energy field. One is resting in awareness. Everything opens. The doorway opens. (more discussion not recorded)
By the time one has that experience, there needs to have been an introduction to the supramundane object. Assuredly, those who work with Visuddhi Magga would disagree with me and say there never needs to be an introduction of a supramundane object, it will come at the very end of the path. I disagree. I do not claim to be right, only this is my perception. I used an example earlier today. If I simply said to you, “We’re going out for a walk, either take your rubber thongs or your hiking boots,” you might think, “it’s hot summer weather, I think I’ll take my rubber thongs.”
But where are we going? Rubber thongs or hiking boots? The hiking boots are going to be hot and heavy and you may develop blisters. The rubber thongs will be light and airy but by the time we get to the steep, rocky climb to the top, you’re not going to be able to do it with rubber thongs. But if I say, “Put on your rubber thongs and carry your hiking boots,” that’s perfect. You’ve got the hiking boots when you need them.
We start with a mundane object. We can go all the way through it with the mundane object, but it’s going to be a torturous climb at the end because you don’t yet have any understanding of the supramundane. To carry the hiking boots is to carry the small experiences of the supramundane so it is available when useful.
Most of you have heard me give this example. Pretend you’ve never seen the ocean. What if I took you by helicopter to a cliff top by the sea in a very dense fog. You hear some roaring sound in the distance but you don’t know what it is, I take you to the edge of a cliff and you can see nothing, not more than 2 feet out, and I say, “Okay, jump!” can you jump? Hard, isn’t it?
If we land in that helicopter and I take you down a path descending to a beach, and we are roped together to help us find our way because it’s so foggy, and we swim—you’re a good swimmer and there is little surf—and we swim out, and we can see just right here the cliff, and we swim away from it—you can’t see the top but I say, “There’s a cliff here that goes up about 40 feet, and I’m going to ask you to jump from the top.” Then we swim in and walk up the path again and we come to the edge of the cliff, and I say, “Okay, jump!” you know what’s there. You’ve just been there, you’ve experienced it. It still may be a little bit frightening to jump in the fog, but I’ve assured you there are no rocks below, you’re just going to land exactly where we were and follow the cliff line to shore.
When we introduce the Unconditioned early rather than waiting for its later appearance, we ease the way for ourselves and for our students. That which is aware, the one who knows, pure awareness, resting in awareness, resting in rigpa, however you say it, you allow the student to include this Awareness in his or her experience. This is not a full opening into the Unconditioned but you have an experiential insight of what it’s about, and it eases the further path.
So we come at this point to stream entry. What we call Mature Purification of View. Mature knowledge of delimitation of mind and matter… page 2 …. And the new purifications—Purification by Knowledge and Vision of what is Path and what is not Path, and Purification of Doubt. And then the further path of insight knowledges.
I don’t want to take the time now to expand on this further path. We have only another 15 minutes. We will talk somewhat of the remainder of the path tomorrow or Sunday. It’s useful, in fact vital, for you to have some background in this. But the most important area of understanding for our work this weekend is the path up to this point. This is where most of your students will be, from beginners to those who have stable access concentration and perhaps stream entry.
The question that we’re addressing this weekend is, when do we introduce different modes of practice? What forms of practice are most useful at different stages of experience? This will be our topic tomorrow and Sunday.
I would close with the same lines from Sutta Nipata:
Association with people of integrity is a factor for stream-entry.
Listening to the true Dhamma is a factor for stream-entry.
Appropriate attention is a factor for stream-entry.
Practice in accordance with the Dhamma is a factor for stream-entry.
– SN 55.5
Are there questions?
Q: If we have a student who has years of practice in another tradition, and they describe their sitting beyond the focus on the breath, should we still invite them to go back there?
Aaron: I would invite them. It may only take an hour to lead them step-by-step through it. But they need to understand what it means to have a primary object, what it means to move from the primary object to a specific object that becomes predominant. What it means to come back to the breath.
If you feel strongly that the student has already had a stream entry experience, and already has a deep understanding of the numbers 1 and 2, Delimitation of Mind and Matter, and Cause and Condition—in other words that they really know that everything arises out of conditions, ceases when the conditions cease, is not self—if they really know that, then just a brief overview of vipassana and how it relates to their present practice is sufficient.
Are you thinking of a specific student?
Q: When we taught the introductory class, we had one or two students who had 8 or 10 years of Zen meditation experience, and said they found focusing on the breath to be too difficult. Distracting and …
Aaron: What were they using as an object?
Q: I don’t know…
Aaron: You need to ask them what they’ve been using as an object. Sometimes they’ve been focusing on a koan, for example. A question like, “What is it?” or “Who am I?” Sometimes they’ve been simply focusing on space…
Q: Space or stillness.
Aaron: It’s still important for them, if they’re going to get the full value of the vipassana practice, they need to understand the basics of that practice, even if it’s only an hour’s introduction. They don’t need to spend a lot of time doing that practice, but they do need to spend enough time doing it to understand how one holds a primary object, mundane or supramundane, and works with choiceless awareness, moving into what becomes predominant, staying with it as long as it’s predominant, and then coming back to the primary object. In this way, there is deep insight into the fact that it’s all impermanent, arising from conditions not self.
But once you’re assured they understand that, then fine, there’s no need to go back into that practice. Then you introduce the supramundane object, space, nada, whatever it might be.
It’s also important to work with such a student, not to have too fixed a concentration. Sometimes students learn to hold one object, like breath or space, regardless of anything that’s going on around. Insight cannot develop in that way; it develops through the relationship, seeing objects arising and passing away.
Q: I am trying to remember but it seems like they had some resistance to doing that. Aaron: It might be valuable to let such a student know Barbara or I would be happy to talk further with them about his or her practice. Are there any other questions?
Q: I have had a student say when working with the breath as a primary object, that he could concentrate on the breath as well as other sensations.
Aaron: Such as?
Q: Noise or pain.
Aaron: He cannot possibly concentrate on both simultaneously but it might be so fast that it seems simultaneous. But it’s not useful to try to hold both. So it’s important for him to decide which one is predominant. The breath is the primary object but if the body sensation, pain, sound or other sensation pulls his attention away from the breath, be with it fully, not to divide his attention. What is this experience when I give it my full attention? If it’s unpleasant, then know that experience of unpleasantness. The pain is no longer something to be with, just the unpleasantness. The unpleasant feeling may build into strong aversion. When aversion is offered kindness, often the whole thing just opens up and dissolves. Whoops, what was that all about? Nobody there. There may still be a burning in the knees or back. It’s no longer thought as unpleasant. As one moves into access concentration, pleasant and unpleasant pretty much dissolve. There’s no self to experience pleasant or unpleasant. There’s still sensation but he will not come to access concentration as along as he’s dividing himself in that way. The path asks us to stay with one object with no tension but full presence, so it can be seen that it arises and dissolves with conditions and has no self basis to it.
To hold both at once, such as breath and sensation, is often a form of resistance or comes from desire to not be fully present with either.
Sometimes when there is strong body pain we suggest breathing with the pain, but the breath is not predominant but in the background. There is awareness of the breath but the fullest attention is with the sensation as it changes. At other times, attention moves back and forth, such as noting sensation, unpleasant, noting the tension around the sensation and aversion to it, and then moving to the breath as a resting place for some moments before returning to the sensation. But the move is not made out of fear and resistance but from kindness, to step back a little and give more space by resting momentarily in the breath.
It’s 9 o’clock, we’ll stop here. I’m going to return the body to Barbara…. I want this weekend’s work to be practical and experiential, not theoretical. Tomorrow we will do a lot of practice.
(taping ends)
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