Acknowledging Positive Mind States – Using the 7 Factors of Awakening in Practice
IWM 4/28/21
Bojjhanga
I want to thank everybody for coming tonight to share the Dharma. I realize that people are getting zoom burnout, and it takes extra effort to continue to connect in this way. In order to help create a safe and useful space, I’d like you to start by gently moving your body in whatever way feels good to you. Perhaps you might want to stretch your arms overhead, or move your ankles in circle. Perhaps you would like to move your head and turn it from one side to another. If it feels good to you, you can take a deep breath and allow your body to relax.
You may also want to experiment with ways to keep your body relaxed. Sit comfortably in whatever way works for you. You might want to start by noticing whatever parts of your body already feel relaxed or feel comfortable. If you find your attention getting drawn to areas that are tight or uncomfortable, you can acknowledge them, but don’t let your attention get stuck there. Make sure you’re sitting comfortably, because we can support skillful states of mind by taking care of our bodies.
If you have any questions or comments during this talk, it’s fine to use the raise hand function. Your questions can make this a more interesting experience for everyone.
So, as you are probably aware, there are lots of lists in Buddhism. For those of you who have taken an introductory course, you have heard of the hindrances. The hindrances, which include desire, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor and doubt, can prevent our practice from deepening when we get caught in then.
These five hindrances are: sensuality (kamacchanda), ill-will (vyapada), obduracy of mind and mental factors (thinamiddha), restlessness and flurry (uddhacca-kukkucca), and doubt (vicikiccha).
Cultivation of the factors for Awakening is needed to “starve” the hindrances, mental qualities that have to be suppressed before mundane concentration can be attained.
Mindfulness (sati)
Keen investigation of the dhamma (dhammavicaya)[3]
Energy (viriya)
Rapture or happiness (piti)
Calm (passaddhi)
Concentration (samadhi)
Equanimity (upekkha)
“These seven factors of enlightenment, bhante (Ven. Sir), are well expounded and are cultivated and fully developed by the Blessed One. They conduce to perfect understanding, to full realization and to Nibbana.
Although people can come to meditation practice with many goals, overall, many of us want to be able to see ourselves and the world more clearly. Some of us may want to free ourselves from suffering – Nibbana, And the Buddha recommends cultivating these as a way to free ourselves.
Specifically, we want to cultivate these mind states, to be able to see into the characteristics of existence. Three characteristics of conditioned phenomena: impermanent, imperfect, and impersonal. Seeing these clearly, and recognizing their truth frees us from suffering.
In our meditation practice, we can start to get a sense of the changing nature of reality. Things are in a state of flux and flow, and we can’t hold on to anything. We start to notice that the sensations of breath, body sensations or sounds are always changing. This is not thought about our experience, but a direct lived experience. This is where the change happens.
We can start to see the selfless nature of our experience when we notice that our sense of self is never stays the same. I am a good meditator. I am a lousy meditator. Who is this anyway – Which I is the real I?
I should treat myself to some chocolate. I should not eat that! As we keep looking, we can realize the interrelatedness of the world. In this process, we can also realize that there is no fixed, unchanging self in any phenomenon. It is all impersonal.
So, if we’re sitting in meditation and are caught in a story about how things are other than the way they should be, we are caught in aversion. Instead of looking carefully at our experience, and noticing that it is constantly changing, in our minds we’re making it into a solid thing which doesn’t change. So, when the hindrances are present, were not seeing things clearly.
The imperfection of the world is really obvious right now, with everything going on in our society. When we confront one of these situations, we can simply notice that it is Dukkha!
Again, cultivation of the Enlightenment factors can help us see through these characteristics of compounded phenomena, and free ourselves from suffering.
So, you might notice that mindfulness is the first of the skillful states of mind which we are going to delve into more today.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness, or Sati, is a major factor that allows us to make a skillful choice. Sati has a quality of remembering or recollecting, and comes from a root word which is more active than the English word mindfulness. It. It specifically refers to remembering the teachings of the Buddha in the present moment. It also refers to remembering to be awake in the present moment, so that we are fully cognizant of everything that’s happening in our bodies, minds, and environment.
Sati sampajanna – knowing what is happening in body and mind, and if the response is appropriate.
The Buddha himself defined sati as the ability to remember, illustrating its function in meditation practice with the four satipatthanas, or establishments of mindfulness.
For instance, if I’m sitting in meditation, and there’s noise outside, it might be unpleasant, and I might be starting to tell myself a story about how that shouldn’t be happening. In other words, I’m caught in aversion, which is one of the hindrances.
Now, if there’s enough mindfulness present, I can notice what’s happening. I can name the hindrance of aversion, and feel the tightness in my body, breath, and mind. I can notice the spinning thoughts which may be fueling emotions, and I can notice the unpleasantness not only of the noise that I’m hearing, but of the aversion to it.
Once I notice what’s happening, I have a choice. Mindfulness brings us back into the present moment where we have a choice, and we can choose a skillful mind state, rather than the unskillful mind state of aversion.
We may want to choose investigation, which is the second of the factors of awakening. This mind state is one of curiosity and interest, which is the opposite of aversion. We can turn toward our experience of an unpleasant sound and our aversion to it and using curiosity, start to break it down and understand it.
We can notice that there is a sense experience happening, hearing. And what we are hearing hasn’t unpleasant hedonic tone to it, and there is a reaction to it, aversion, which is trying to push it away. We can be curious if the unpleasantness of the sound is different than the unpleasantness of our trying to push it away or fight against it.
What are the body sensations of hearing an unpleasant sound? What are the body sensations of trying to push away the unpleasant sound?
It’s also really useful to do this with unpleasant body sensations. We can notice what the actual sensations are in an area where there is pain, and notice that the label of pain is different than the actual sensations. There may be pulsing, tingling, tearing, heat, stabbing, or some other sensations. We might notice that the sensations are constantly shifting, changing and moving. We may even notice that some of them are not all that unpleasant.
Once we get a sense of what the actual unpleasant sensations are, we can start to notice the difference between those, and the tightening of the body and mind against these unpleasant sensations.
The difference between having and unpleasant sense experience and being caught in aversion, and having and unpleasant sense experience and being curious about it, is the difference between suffering and freedom. We will never be able to completely eliminate unpleasant experiences as long as we’re alive. However, we can eliminate the suffering that comes along with fighting against our experience.
One quality that’s always appropriate in establishing mindfulness is being watchful or alert. The Pali word for alertness, sampajañña, is another term that’s often misunderstood. It doesn’t mean being choicelessly aware of the present, or comprehending the present. Examples in the Canon shows that sampajañña means being aware of what you’re doing in the movements of the body, the movements in the mind. After all, if you’re going to gain insight into how you’re causing suffering, your primary focus always has to be on what you’re actually doing. This is why mindfulness and alertness should always be paired as you meditate.
The next factor of awakening is energy. Of course, our level of energy ebbs and flows during our practice session, and this is normal. We may have a period of low energy, where we’re falling into the hindrance of sloth and torpor. Or, we may have too much energy, and fall into the hindrance of restlessness. We can see how these energy imbalances negatively impact our practice.
The Buddha talked about bringing balance to the amount of effort which we make in practice. One of his monks was over striving, and was having a hard time practicing. This monk had been a musician in lay life, so the Buddha used the example of playing a stringed instrument to talk about how much effort should be made in meditation practice. He said, monk, if your lute is strung to tightly, what happens when you try to play the instrument? The musician answered, well it will screech, or the string will break. And the Buddha asked, monk, what will happen if your strings are too loose when you try to play your instrument? And the monk answered well, then it won’t play music at all.
So, the key here is a balanced effort which is neither too tight and striving, or too relaxed and disengaged. It’s important to realize that East Indian culture tends to be more relaxed than Western culture. There may be significant admonishments to work hard in Eastern culture, which are not helpful in Western cultures, where we tend to over effort and strive.
So, one thing to check into when you’re looking at your amount of energy and effort is what is happening in the body. If the body is tight and holding a lot of tension, this could indicate over effort in. And clearly, if you’re falling asleep, there’s not enough energy in the system to do any effective practice.
The next of the awakening factors, joy, happiness or piti, can have a very specific meaning in meditation practice. Piti specifically refers to the very pleasant sensations in the body/mind, when the mind starts to become collected in a state of samatha, or calm abiding.
Even if our minds are not collected enough to produce classical piti/rapture, we can cultivate joy and happiness. The easiest ways to do this are with Metta practice, gratitude practice and sympathetic joy practice.
Who knows how to do the practice of empathetic joy?
Passaddhi — calm or tranquility
Calmness arises naturally as the mind becomes collected.
Continuing to bring attention back to an anchor – breath, body or sound naturally calms the mind.
The mind is not chasing after thoughts, and is allowing everything to be as it is.
We can also be mindful of what it is that we pay attention to, and how that affects our state of mind. What are we reading or watching on TV? Who are we spending time with? Do we have the capacity to hold whatever it is and remain equanimous and calm?
Passaddhi is two-fold. Kaya passaddhi is calm of body. Kaya here means all the mental properties rather than the physical body; in other words, calm of the aggregates of feeling (vedanakkhandha), perception (saññakkhandha), and the volitional activities or conformations (samkharakkhandha). Citta passaddhi is the calm of the mind — that is, the aggregate of consciousness (viññanakkhanda).
Concentration (samadhi)
Collectedness is a better translation. Concentration can bring a feeling of tightness.
This is more a matter of training attention to stabilize on an object. There is a sense of interest and delight in the meditation object, which leads to calmness, and joy.
In the suttas, the Buddha specifically referred to skillful Samadhi as the ability to enter the jhanas. In practicing the jhanas, the body/mind are rested and refreshed. There is a vacation from thinking, and the quiet mind can more easily penetrate the nature of existence, leading to freedom from suffering.
Equanimity (upekkha)
Equanimity, here, is not a neutral feeling, but rather a balancing or moderation — an evenness of mind — with regard to any feeling or object that arises. It is identical with the equanimity in the fourth jhāna.
Equanimity can be practiced, and is also the result of practice.
Equanimity practice – things are the way they are. May I accept things the way they are.
Complete equanimity is freedom.