Ch. 10 - Reviewing Wholesome and Unwholesome Mind-Processes

Beginning to Review the Mental Process

The Absence of the Unwholesome Mind Brings about a Feeling of Happiness

The Arising of the Sense of ‘Self’ Smothers the Experience

It’s all just Dependent Origination and its Display!

[This discourse was given on an eight day Vipassanā retreat and explains when the mind is wholesome and when unwholesome.]

Beginning to Review the Mental Process

I just need to give you some more steerage about how to keep refining your practice and make it more skilful. So far you have learnt to break down your compact experience into awareness of each of the five aggregates as separate to each other. You are starting to see how they are dependent upon each other. You have started to investigate that the point at which you lose equanimity is the point at which some sense of affliction appears in the mind and secondly, some sense of self arises. So how far you have got to the conviction that it is the arising of a sense of self within the experience which is the fundamental cause of suffering remains to be seen.

Because if we are to understand what we mean when we say, “Because of ignorance there arises volitional formations” (which is the beginning of the chain of Dependent Origination) we have to understand that the fundamental ignorance within our experience that makes it unsatisfactory now and causes suffering in the future, is this appearance of sense of ‘me’ or self within the experience. The perception that it is ‘me’ that is experiencing this is the fundamental ignorance.

Now I want you to move on a little bit, but not too quickly. You need to spend enough time getting quite familiar and comfortable with the bit that you have done so far. We’ve been looking at the wholesome mind-door process that is going on while your meditation is stable, or in jhāna. And the mark of it being wholesome is the fact that there is no attachment, no aversion and no ignorance. That is what a wholesome mind is.

So actually, the first thing that we might start to realise is that it is quite rare that our mind is completely wholesome, totally pure. What else do we recognise about it? That there is equanimity. But you may have noticed that sometimes it’s not unwholesome but it is not equanimity. In third jhāna there is sukha, happiness. In second jhāna there is pīti and sukha, bliss and happiness. So the point is, wholesome mind states are accompanied with equanimity or happiness or bliss and happiness.

Where is your pleasure really? This bliss is the closest thing we get to real pleasure. It’s when our mind is wholesome. When does our happiness start to arise? When our mind is wholesome. Does it arise when we get the object of our desire? Possibly, if there is true feeling of appreciative joy. But on account of the attachment and craving and clinging to the object of our desire, maybe not. Because the sukha, which is the absence of dukkha, may still not be present. And certainly, when we are anticipating the object of our desire but haven’t yet acquired it, is there happiness there? Not yet.

When our idea of happiness is associated with whether or not we have got what we want or even whether or not we are in pursuit of what we want, it’s very unlikely that true sukha or happiness, with the absence of the sense of dukkha, is going to arise. But regardless of whether we get what we want or whether we are in pursuit of what we think we want, the moment that we can just be with that moment as it is (which is what you have been practising), equanimity (serenity) or happiness or joy and pleasure, arise in your mind.

Now that is extremely informative isn’t it? What does that tell us? What do we start to see for ourselves which we wouldn’t have believed if we were just told that, about happiness? It shows us that happiness appears in that moment when we are able to be completely with what is, as it is, regardless of what it is. And that it is not present when, for some reason, we are not able to be with what is, as it is. Now that is so far away from where we might think we might find our happiness.

What is wonderful about it is that it is always there, right for the taking, if you can excuse the word taking, because I don’t mean grasping. The moment that you choose to allow the moment to be what it is, our happiness is right there. Either peace arises or happiness or contentment or even joy or any one of these things, dependent on how excited you get about it. But the point is, the mind is only happy when it is truly wholesome, and it isn’t wholesome or happy or satisfied when it wants this moment to be something other than it is. But when it accepts that this moment is what it is, it’s happy. And since this moment always is what it is and that there will never be something other than that, then there’s our happiness right there before us, once we just allow and accept that it is what it is.

So right from the beginning of your practice, when you have been just sitting there and I have been belting out right in the middle of the meditation, “It is what it is”, and you have been going “It is what it is. I have just got to sit here and suffer,” the bottom line of this highest truth is that, when we can completely accept that it is what it is, we are at peace. When we meet the universe as it is anyway, in any moment, regardless of what it presents to us, there is peace.

You’ll understand now why I say to you, “All friction is self, ego-clinging.” Perhaps we can’t yet see why the world unfolded the way it did and not the way that we would have liked it to. That may take some time, that’s really only when we deeply see Dependent Origination. But even before we have been able to see why the world unfolded the way it did, it still remains a truth that it did. Now we are only asking ourselves to accept the truth that it did unfold the way it did. We may still need to come to a deeper understanding of why, to get to a point of compassion. But to come out of the suffering that is caused by not being able to be with it as it is, we have to start to accept that it is what it is.

Our insight will continue to mature from there. And when we clearly see Dependent Origination and we clearly understand why it is what it is, the next thing that will arise will either be compassion or love or appreciative joy. But even before our insight has perfected itself to that point, we can at least get to that point of acceptance and be happy there.

The Absence of the Unwholesome Mind Brings about a Feeling of Happiness

This is the power of the wholesome mind that begins to arise when you can be with what is, whatever it is. You are more consistently in touch with either a peaceful feeling of contentment or a sense of happiness or joy.

This is the wholesome mind process that you have been investigating. When I am just being with the body as it is, it is not a particularly extraordinary moment. I am just paying attention in the moment, really perceiving the four elements as four elements, the feelings as feelings. Even when the feeling is unpleasant you will start to recognise that there is still a capacity for serenity, or even happiness sometimes. Even when things are perhaps not going as well as they might be, it can still be okay. So you already see that the universe doesn’t have to come into compliance with your needs, or how you perceive your needs to be, for it to actually be okay.

And the more that you meditate, the more the feeling in the body becomes pleasant, the more that you meet it with equanimity.

So this is the power of your wholesome mind process. It is this wholesome mind-door process that heals all our sicknesses. Just that. Or more correctly the absence of the unwholesome mind-door process and its disruptive power, and the presence of the wholesome mind-door process with its constructive, healing power. You should now be reasonably familiar with it, seeing the point at which the mind is wholesome and when there is equanimity.

The Arising of the Sense of ‘Self’ Smothers the Experience

When ignorance appears, there is some kind of contraction in the mind and at some point there is the arising of unwholesome mind states. Maybe you’ve started to see the point at which perception of self creeps into the equation and smothers it, where you lose the spaciousness and the directness of your experience. And maybe you have begun to see the point at which that sense of self is withdrawn and there is a sense of spaciousness and an immediacy in your experience.

And this alone is extremely informative as an experience. It is these experiences that you start to get in meditation that transform or completely turn around your perspective about where you look for happiness, where you look for understanding, how you try to understand.

So we carry on with this but we also need to start to investigate and break down, in exactly the same way, the unwholesome mind process. Now this you can do in a number of ways. The first way is, as I have just described, you wait for it to arise.

There you are, practising with equanimity, and things are as they are and you are okay with things as they are and there is equanimity. Then at some point, out of that evenness some kind of compaction appears within your experience – either the body becomes compact or the mind becomes compact and there is a loss of equanimity. Now at that moment you could spot what is the unwholesome mind that has arisen. We are looking for the three roots of unwholesome mind which are aversion-root, greed-root (or attachment-root) or ignorance-root.

Now of course there is a whole plethora of nuance to the bundle of mental states that are of the nature of aversion. In the same way that there is a whole plethora of nuance to the way in which the greed or attachment group appear in the mind. We will look at that in a little more detail as we go. But for now just start to recognise: Is there aversion? Is there attachment? Maybe some of it you can’t differentiate in the same way that you couldn’t differentiate between cohesion and pressure at one point when you first started practising four elements and reviewing the body.

It might not be immediately clear that this is attachment or this is aversion, but it will become clear in stages, in exactly the same way. It is always the same with insight. As you apply your mindfulness consistently, that which wasn’t clear becomes clear in stages. Whatever you do, don’t try to fill in the gaps in your perception and clear experience with ideas about it. This stops being vipassanā or meditation and stops purifying the mind.

It’s all just Dependent Origination and its Display!

The other way is you look for unwholesome states. How do I mean? You go to bhavaṅga – with the mind-door adverting consciousness you bring up past memory. Where do these memories appear? They appear in the bhavaṅga clear mind element. There we can review them – this is how memory actually works. So you go back through your memory to those instances where you clearly know that you were unhappy or disturbed and you look for ignorance or the wrong view ie. the perception of the situation.

And it can start to become quite gross. “I saw that someone had been really wretched to me.” Start with that. It’s a really compact sort of situation. You break it down. Can you see the feeling – pleasant, neutral or unpleasant? Can you see the perception? What was the view that you were clinging to? Can you see the unwise attention that gave rise to that view? Can you see the reaction that arose in you? Can you break that experience down into the five aggregates?

And while you break the compactness down, can you watch yourself going from the unwholesome mind-state to the wholesome mind-state, to the point where you reach equanimity to it. The point being, at what point will you reach equanimity? Where you see the ignorance. So what would be the ignorance? There is a smothering, there is a sense of self there. And even though at a personal level your aversion would have been quite justified, in the moment that you look at it clearly the grounds for aversion are removed.

So we are not just thinking about it, “Oh, it was just my idea of myself that was the cause for this aversion.” Because this does not properly breakdown the compactness of the experience and so that aversion will still remain. However, while there is strong mindfulness and such presence with the experience that you look into those five aggregates really clearly, in the moment of reviewing them there is no sense of self. In this way you will come to a point of equanimity whilst you are with that experience again.

And you’ll see, “Ah, so that aversion that arose then was the result of the wrong view I had then, the idea, the attachment to the idea that this is happening to me. When I see it as a dependently arisen process that happened then, that isn’t happening now, my perception, feeling and reaction to it change. I am merely reviewing this moment but actually this is only the reviewing of past acts, of past causes. I break it down and I see that there is no trace of what happened then actually happening now. The only reason that I suffer now, is that currently the idea that that happened to me in the past arises now and I continue to react to it and so suffer on account of it.”

But this is still only a reflection. You still might not be able to let go. As you watch it for what it is, in the moment of watching it, it’s okay. You see. It’s not that you think it through and go, “It’s okay.” It’s that you are watching it break down in the same way as your wholesome process broke down and you realise that’s just okay too. It becomes a wholesome mind process and there is no aversion or attachment associated with it. It’s all just Dependent Origination and its display!

You can start to look back, look for those periods when you were completely overwhelmed with craving or greed or longing or lust or attachment. Look at those moments when you were completely overcome with aversion. So you look for the anger part of aversion which is one thing, and you look for the ill will part; Anger and ill will. There may not be ill will in your anger; there may be ill will in your anger. Sometimes you really had a bad intention or a bad thought for somebody, but other times you were just angry. You need to try and go into the experience, so you feel the energy of that experience as you break it down. Don’t go too fast. Don’t get into a muddle.

Review the unwholesome mind process from within the wholesome mind process. Cast your mind back. You may even find from that state that when you cast your mind back, you realise that “When I cast my mind back from here, there doesn’t appear to be a problem.” It only appears to be a problem when my mind is already agitated. It’s not really a problem. So we come to see that it is a problem only on account of the fact that my mind is agitated and not because of what is going on. All of these experiences cause our insight to mature and ripen, even though we have not practised vipassanā yet.

Now there may be things in your life that are producing considerable inconvenience and difficulty and challenges that have to be worked through. At that point you have to look for the ignorant part, which is the not seeing that, whether I like it or not, it is what it is. So we might have to develop another wholesome quality like patience or forbearance. Because wanting it to go away or wanting it to change doesn’t make it change. Only the conditions for it to change will make it change.

So look for the attachment groups, look for the aversion groups, look for the ignorant groups where you were confused, where you were indecisive, where there was a doubt, “I just don’t know what to do”. And see if you can break down the ignorant group and get to the point of wise attention, clear comprehension and equanimity.

This is more challenging because when you have been meditating and your mind is wholesome, because of the continuity of the wholesome mind process in the moment, you are able to be with it while it continues to arise. So it is stable while it arises.

We always begin by reviewing the wholesome mind door process first. This is a rule, like when we review body before we review mind. The previous steps support those that follow on. Never go straight to reviewing unwholesome states before your mind is very stable. Otherwise you won’t break down the compactness of the experience and you will only be able to do vipassanā on mental reflection. This is a mental exercise that won’t produce the fruit.

To review the unwholesome process you need to get quite concentrated first with the wholesome states and then your bhavaṅga gets more reflective, i.e. it becomes clear and bright and more stable. So the impression of your memory can appear more clearly in your bhavaṅga. You look into it like you are looking into a mirror and you can replay the experience as a series of mind-moments in bhavaṅga and it appears stable quite quickly. And you can objectively witness that experience again, rather than replaying it in your lower mind.

So this takes some skill, but we need to start to see where the unwholesome mind process is the cause of suffering, and what are the grounds for that suffering. Eventually we can come to see what is the ignorance, the craving, what is the clinging, what are volitional formations, what is the kamma.

The first part of the talk was to point out that this wholesome mind is when the mind starts to be peaceful and happy. The unwholesome mind is not that. The unwholesome mind is always lost in ideas and views caused by ignorance and unwise attention and is not able to be with what is happening around us. It’s really key that we get this insight.

So we are still reviewing. We may from time to time just stop upon the impermanence and contemplate the arising and passing of things. But remember, as I said yesterday, that we are still filling in the spreadsheet or what is the ground of understanding. So we continue in this way until we can feel confident that we have known and seen body as body and we have seen mind as mind. We have seen how the wholesome mind works. We have started to understand the unwholesome mind. We need to understand it more. The more that we understand and see into the objects and the more that we watch the arising and passing of these formations, the more completely we’ll let go of attachment.

So, if later your vipassanā does not bring the resolution that is peaceful and satisfying in the beginning, the middle and the end, then you will know that you have been practising vipassanā on concepts only, and as a mental exercise only. This is cittamayapaññā. Insight that appears in the mind upon reflection cannot cut off suffering and see Nibbāna. Only bhāvanāmayapaññā, experiential knowledge, can perform the function of cutting off suffering and realising the path. Cittamayapaññā, or reflective insight only leads to understanding. This is so key. We in the West have sharp capacity for insight and so we often fill in the experiential gaps with reflection. This can only lead to an idea or understanding of enlightenment but lacks the feeling and experience of liberation.

If our preparatory work is not enough we need to go back and review states more thoroughly. If we can’t do that we will need more samādhi. If we can’t get more samādhi we will need to go all the way back to the beginning and develop more sīla, more virtue. Most people get to a point and don’t progress because they have done insufficient preparatory work. This is where they must accept, “That work has to be done by me,” or they will just continue practising vipassanā on concepts as a mental exercise and take cittamayapaññā as the path.

This is the cause of much suffering later when they realise they are not actually free from suffering. At that point they may even doubt the Buddha and the Dhamma and try to develop their practice their own way. The extreme example of this is the one who believes that he will become the next Buddha and needs to develop his own path because this Dhamma is lacking. Very dangerous! My pride!

So please, please avoid unnecessary suffering. Do the work that has to be done. Go back as far as is necessary to develop the grounds for success.