Ch. 23 - Surmounting Nibbidā; Towards Saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa
Nibbida Nana, Knowledge of Abhorrence
How to Set Up Our Vipassana Meditation Correctly at this Subtle Stage so it Performs it’s Function
How the Mind enters into a state of Sankar’upekkhanana
[This questions and answers session was taken from a five month retreat and tackles the very sensitive phase in the development of insight where we move from a state of abhorrence towards a state of equanimity and the importance of not giving up until this state of equanimity is reached.]
Nibbida Nana, Knowledge of Abhorrence
Q: What is the stage after this growing sense of disgust at the five aggregates?
A: This disgust is the stage of nibbidā and it has to be overcome until it becomes equanimity (upekkhā). Because, like I said, that aversion to the five aggregates has got to be relinquished before the door to Nibbāna will open. Because you are not running to get away from the five aggregates because you can’t stand them. The process doesn’t work like that.
Aversion is used as a momentum but you have to get to that point where you are not afflicted by formations, you are just disinterested in them. This aversion is too gross a mind state from which to spot the unconditioned state. So you have to go beyond nibbidā into upekkhā. And it is when upekkhā is really well established and you are disinterested enough in formations that your mind becomes ready to see cessation. So there is a predictable process that one goes through.
And it is so important that there is upekkhā, equanimity to formations. First there is weariness of self, and then acceptance of what self is, so you can blissfully let go. You shouldn’t think, “Oh, I just don’t want it to be like this,” because it is all kamma. It is what it is, in the end, and it is just that you’ve got to stop clinging to it.
Q: Over the last few days I’ve just noticed that all the stuff arising is the exhausting part and I just can’t be bothered with it any more.
A: Well, that’s the point. After nibbidā you become dispassionate, not so interested in formations any more. First you come to that nibbidā state of, “This is awful, I just want to get over this.” After which if you keep practising you will get to a point of dispassion, “I’m just not interested any more.” Now at that point you could just stop at equanimity, this equanimity to all formations.
But as I’ve said, there is a danger with this state, you need to watch that state, because you may think, “I’m not being bothered by anything any more, it’s not really moving me, I can just sit in equanimity.” But if you stay at equanimity and don’t drag yourself back to keep reviewing states you’ll not progress and just remain in a state of equanimity to formations, without going beyond that to cessation.
What you need to do is experience enough of this state of upekkhā to be dispassionate to formations and then go back to formations. Don’t chill out on the sofa too much, because one day you will lose your equanimity and then what? There is no refuge. Staying in equanimity for long periods of time is important, once you get to that upekkhā stage, but you mustn’t rest there so much that you just become unwilling to review formations.
At this stage it’s quite important to read that chapter in the Visuddhimagga: ‘What is and what is not the path.’ You need to see those pleasing states you start to experience for what they are. We will start to cook it up and create some prompts, pull you back into formations, then propel you over the river, but for now just start to abide in equanimity and just keep doing the preparatory work.
That’s why I haven’t been giving any pointing out instructions these past few days. Because as you stay in the reviewing stage you develop deep equanimity and your mind becomes stable. This will create the back pressure and momentum. If you do this well, the actual vipassanā session can be very brief. What is good is that everybody is now stable enough so that they are not experiencing too much of this nibbidā. You do experience it but you are not getting overwhelmed with it.
How to Set Up Our Vipassana Meditation Correctly at this Subtle Stage so it Performs it’s Function
Q: I’m a bit unclear about the training ground. I’m just sitting in equanimity and not reviewing. So are we supposed to be just sitting in equanimity and just briefly snapshot each mind-moment? What should I be doing?
A: Well, your mind will be pulled to do things depending on what it’s going through. As long as you know what to do when you don’t have your equanimity. Sometimes you will want to rest and enjoy equanimity but not for too long. There is a difference in abiding upon equanimity itself and coming to a stage of equanimity while reviewing formations as anicca, dukkha, anatta. The first is a samatha practice, the second is vipassanā.
Q: But should the equanimous mind incline to just watching formations?
A: Yes. If you can, don’t stay in an empty mind state, because then your meditation won’t progress. This is quite important. You should keep watching formations whilst you are equanimous to them. If you go to emptiness, as in you go to the empty mind, then that is where you will stop and your practice just becomes serenity. That’s slipping back into the Dzogchen type state where you just leave everything alone just as it is. There are times when this is absolutely the best way to practise, but not while we are doing vipassanā.
You witness formations as they appear within awareness, but you are still adverting your mind to the perception of them. This is the adverting function of the lower mind. So it is not just resting in awareness, but the reviewing of states from the equanimous perspective of awareness. This is quite subtle, but as you become more skilfull, you’ll start to get more and more of a handle on what’s going on. It all feels delicately but nicely poised. You’ll get to a stage where you are ready to give up. So keep your practice up.
It’s quite hard to get into this kind of state where your mindfulness is clear and sharp, so really keep your noble silence and don’t get distracted. There should be a feeling of bliss in letting go. That’s where you are trying to work towards, that, “Ahhh...” not, “What have I got to do to be free of all this?” just, “Ahhh, what a relief.”
Q: What is the difference between awareness, this Dzogchen type state and upekkhā meditation? Is it the difference between higher mind awareness and contrived awareness?
A: Your question, I think, is what is the difference between taking formations and meditating on them with equanimity, and the simple practice of just abiding in awareness?
When you are resting in awareness, formations are either not appearing (when you are in absorption samādhi), or if they do appear they do not pull any attention, they are left as they are. The mind is not necessarily concentrated in that state in the way that it is when deliberately focussed upon an object like we are in jhāna, but it is peaceful on account of the equanimity that comes from the experience that ‘there’s nothing that’s not to be equanimous to’, and the level of mindfulness that brings clarity in that experience.
The upekkhā of vipassanā, saṅkhār’upekkhā, is that whilst formations are appearing within the mind, that it remains equally equanimous to formations even while there is something that one would not normally be equanimous to. Normally, one would be pulled into attachment or aversion in the face of formations, so that’s why saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa is a vipassanā ñāṇa – it’s the state that we cultivate within us through exposing ourselves more and more to the way that formations actually are, instead of the way that we perceived them to be in the past.
By breaking down the compactness of the body we become more equanimous to material states, where before the body was clung to as ‘mine’. By breaking down the compactness of the mind you become more equanimous to mental states, where before they were clung to as ‘mine’.
Whereas, when you’re just resting in the expansive basic state of awareness, free of the arising of all of those things and just leaving everything as it is, that leaving everything as it is is disinterested and dispassionate enough to rest in awareness. You’re not adverting to anything as anything. These are two very different experiences of equanimity.
Q: What about the level of awareness? Is that just something that increases naturally?
A: That depends on your meditative stability – your concentration and mindfulness.
Q: Does your level or quality of awareness increase when you’re doing vipassanā intensely, when you’re really scrutinising things, or does it change? Is that the same as mindfulness?
A: Yes. The mindfulness is the clarity with which the object that you’re taking appears to you, and the depth to which you are aware of that with which you’re engaged. If the mind is full of sloth, torpor, ignorance, unwieldiness of mind the experience is vague and sometimes even dreamlike and you’re hardly there at all.
The clarity, the lucidity of the experience is determined by the energy of mindfulness, so that is one of the aspects of meditative stability. Another aspect is equanimity and another aspect is concentration.
Q: When you’re using your lower mind to practise, how does the quality of awareness compare, and how can you compare it to the quality of mindfulness and awareness in the higher mind?
A: Very different. Well, actually no. In that state of saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa the quality of awareness becomes the same but the lower mind is taking objects as the focus of attention, it is still deliberately adverting to formations. In Dzogchen practice we don’t place attention on objects but upon awareness itself. That’s the difference, the objects we take.
The point is that you can be sort of vaguely resting in an empty state of mind without much lucid awareness. You can almost be falling asleep, but you can be practising vipassanā and the mind is so lucid that you can literally see the arising and passing of rūpa-kalāpa and the arising and passing of the different factors of each mind-moment. Again, it depends on the meditative stability of the mental states in that moment.
Q: When you’re in that saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa, and you’re wanting to engage a little bit more with the formations to break them down, is there a way to do it?
A: You need more initial and sustained application, more desire to do, “This is what I’m doing.” If you just sit in formations then you may not notice arising and passing, you might just see it as impermanent. So you launch your mind to the perception of arising until you can see the arising. It may not be clear to you that everything is passing away, so you launch your mind into that, you look for it, and then with concentration upon that aspect, and if there is enough mindfulness, it actually switches from arising and passing to just passing away. Then you’ll get a sense in you that the passing away is where the tension is resolved, and as you go into the passing away the tension resolves, and you see that it is the relinquishing of the clinging that brings relief – and that’s what allows you to go, “Ah, dissolving is not frightful. It is a release.” This is a key point.
Q: So, at this point you let go of your attempt to be equanimous, do you ignore that?
A: No, why would you do that?
Q: Well, it’s not the focus of the meditation any more
A: No. By this stage the focus to be equanimous is to try to cut off the tendency to react with aversion to displeasurable things. This is not saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa yet.
Q: But it gets to that?
A: Yes, eventually.
Q: And then when you take formations from that, then you can get back into a place where it’s not saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa
again?
If you are in a very equanimous place and you then take formations, it can actually remove you from that equanimous place?
A: That’s right. If you switch attention from awareness to formations, from your deeply peaceful state in the basic state of awareness, you may even be disinclined to investigate formations – what for? And at one level quite right. But if you want to dig out the unpurified part of the lower mind then you have to go back to the investigation. At that point you may see the mind stiffen as it inclines towards bodily formations again, or begins again to investigate the mind that reviews the body.
How the Mind enters into a state of Sankar’upekkhanana
So now attachment, craving, clinging is revealing itself and at that point you have to now work at your equanimity, but by the time you get to saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa it’s an effortless equanimity – it’s just dispassion. It’s come because it’s gone through the state of seeing impermanence, seeing suffering, seeing nibbidā, seeing arising and passing, seeing dissolution – “Is this frightful? No, it’s not. It’s just dissolving. Ah, it just is what it is” – so it gradually gets to the, “It is what it is” stage. That’s the upekkhā. Then you can just sit and watch everything falling apart. It’s because you can just sit and watch everything fall apart, that this is the point at which the mind realises, “Ah, not clinging is peaceful”, and so the mind becomes deeply equanimous.
Clinging is vexing. It’s going through that to the experience of upekkhā, where the mind sees upekkhā as more peaceful even than pīti and sukha. That’s the point that the mind has to get to through reviewing impermanence in more detail. It is not possible to wilfully cut off that tendency of aversion. It’s through insight that it becomes equanimous. Then it comes to the knowledge that it was only clinging to an illusion. It wasn’t actually succeeding in clinging to anything, because nothing could be clung to, only the idea that it was.
At some level we recognise the frightful haemorrhaging of energy we have put ourselves through in our desperate but futile attempts to cling. And that is the point at which the door to Nibbāna opens up. If one then has willingness to relinquish, and desire for deliverance, then one can go beyond upekkhā to cessation, to Nibbāna. It sounds very technical doesn’t it? But those of you who are actually at this stage can clearly understand what I am pointing out.
