Ch. 15 - The Basis of Vipassanā
How do we Get to a Point of Equanimity?
We Start the Preparatory Work for Vipassana by Investigating What the Body is Made Up Of
Then We Start to review the Mind and the Mental Process
The Arising and Passing of the Five Aggregates
The Law of Dependent Origination Becomes Clear In Stages
Willingness and Unwillingness to Relinquish
[This discourse was given on an eight day Vipassanā retreat and explains why we should practise Vipassanā, and what is and what is not Vipassanā practice.]
How do we Get to a Point of Equanimity?
Yesterday I explained to you a brief way of purifying your mind. I pointed out that if you can just sit equanimously with whatever arises, eventually your mind will become pure. But, is it actually as simple as that?
It is as simple as that but for one thing: how do we get to the point of equanimity? And it’s to reach that point of equanimity that we practise vipassanā – because if we’re sitting, trying to allow things to be as they are, but we aren’t yet equanimous, then it won’t perform its function of purifying kamma and its effects, or purifying defilements in our mind and their effects. And it’s a very difficult thing to spot, whether we are truly equanimous.
As I pointed out last night, the difference between forbearance or restraint and equanimity is great indeed – that there is no tendency in you for the arising of aversion isn’t the same as forbearance, or that there is no tendency in you for the arising of craving or attachment is not the same as restraint. It’s really difficult to spot, when we first look.
So yes, we can identify that which is gross (we can identify those defilements as they may arise in the mind), but are we merely showing forbearance in our efforts to cut off the reaction to them? Are we truly equanimous? The practice of vipassanā is that investigation of the way of things that brings us eventually to a true state of equanimity.
And equanimity itself is the highest state of mind, and far more difficult to arrive at completely than we might think. So, by all means, practise how I pointed out yesterday – sit in the stillness of awareness, allow formations within your body and in your mind to arise, try to meet them and let them go. This will, if you are in a state of equanimity, purify your mind. But the problem is that we’re not always in a state of equanimity. We haven’t developed what we call saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa, (Equanimity to all conditioned states).
You may be quite equanimous while you sit there, well organised, gathered, composed in your meditation, but not at all equanimous when things don’t go your way in the daily life. And it is not when we feel settled and well organised and things are going well, that we create suffering for ourself. It’s when things don’t go according to plan, or are less than ideal, or don’t work out the way that we’d like them to, that we create suffering for ourself. It’s to protect our mind from falling into negligence in these times, that we practise vipassanā.
So it’s often overlooked! There are many teachings that would say: you sit down, you mediate, you tune into stillness, you stay in the stillness, you leave everything to arise and pass within that stillness, and your mind becomes purified. But we’re not always sitting on our cushion mediating, and our mind is not always as organised as that! So, how do we begin the process of the investigation that will cut off at the root, that which is craving and that which is aversion?
We Start the Preparatory Work for Vipassana by Investigating What the Body is Made Up Of
Well, we have to start to work out what is this body and what is this mind, and what the interconnected relationship of these two things is, in this life. So we start by investigating, “How is it, in this body? What is this body?” Because one of the things we identify with as me is this body.
Now you’ve practised four elements meditation, or at least you’ve practised body parts meditation - you’ve started to develop mindfulness upon your body. You’ve started to understand that the body is produced by four causes. There are four causes that bring arising and passing of materiality to come into being:
dependent upon temperature
dependent upon nutriment
dependent upon consciousness
dependent upon kamma (action energy)
And these four causes are themselves conditioned by the arising of other causes. This is Dependent Origination.
How much you have come to see for yourself which elements within your body are produced by each of those four causes, remains to be seen – it depends upon how practised you are. But at least you’ve started to understand that this body is constantly changing. It is in a state of order (or a state of disorder) that is constantly changing dependent upon those four causes. Sometimes it is well organised and we feel healthy and balanced, and sometimes it is disorganised and we feel weak and unbalanced, and this level of stability within us is so susceptible to change. Perhaps you’ve started to realise what are the conditions for its constant changing (i.e. changes in temperature, changes in nutriment, changes in the state of consciousness that is arising within you, changes in the kamma that fruits within your mind and body etc).
This body, truly is a mass of constantly changing phenomena. The more you investigate it the more you see it to be impermanent; the more you see it to be conditionally arisen the more you will be prompted to let go clinging and identification with it. And the more you let go clinging and identification, the more you will develop equanimity. But it is a gradual path from the one that clings to this body as ‘mine’, to the one that sees it and accepts it to be a dependently arising process of four elements coming into being and passing away.
Then We Start to review the Mind and the Mental Process
And the same thing with our mind. You’ve started to understand that those reactions that arise in your mind, (whenever you experience this or that) are also impermanent. You react with attachment, you react with aversion, judgement, analysis, criticism. You can’t just accept things as they are. There’s always some mental process that arises with every one of your experiences, comparing it to other things, comparing yourself to other people. This mental process is even more fleeting and even more subject to change.
And during the course of your life, you will look in the mirror, and usually recognise yourself! You don’t necessarily look as fresh as you did ten years ago, but you would know it was you. But some days you wake up in such a state of disarray, your mind is churning with things and thoughts you can’t even recognise and you would hardly know it was you! And the person who wakes up on a good day, when everything is fine and dandy, bears very little resemblance to the one who gets up on a really bad day. There is little to suggest that this mind one day, is the same mind as another day, and yet we identify with it, as me.
But you have started to do at least enough investigation in your meditation, to see that it is, like the body, just a conditionally arisen process. It is dependent upon:
the feeling that arises within you;
the perception that arises within you;
those reactions that arise within you.
And for now these conditions themselves are dependent upon the contact with the various experiences that come along. We are thus far enslaved by conditions, by conditioning. And yet there is no way of telling, how it is that you are going to react to a situation, apart from the feeling that arises within you and the perception that arises within you.
You are utterly conditioned!! Your mind is utterly conditioned. When you look closely enough, you’ll understand that your ideas, that you are so attached to, and that you are so convinced about, and your conclusion on things, is conditioned, utterly, by those experiences that have gone before and how you reacted to them. So this mind that we identify as mine is likewise nothing more than a conditionally arising process. Your views are merely an inevitable by-product of those conditions and experiences that have conditioned you in the past.
The Arising and Passing of the Five Aggregates
Now, this much investigation we have started in our previous meditation, but we would not yet call it vipassanā. At what stage do we call our meditation vipassanā? Well, strictly speaking, vipassanā contemplates material phenomena (your body) and mental phenomena (mind and consciousness) as they are. And to this end we meditate not just upon their characteristics, as we have done so far, but upon the nature of mind and body. In this capacity we identify the three innate qualities of all conditioned phenomena and we meditate upon them. We begin to look into, witness, experience and meditate upon the impermanent, suffering, and no-self (empty of inherent self and independent existence) nature of material and mental states.
Now the way I teach you vipassanā is according to the reviewing of this life-process as the arising and passing of the five aggregates:
The aggregate of Body (nothing more than the arising and passing of the four elements);
The aggregate of Feeling (pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feeling within your mind and within your body);
The aggregate of Perception (how you perceive what it is that you are experiencing, which ultimately can be broken down into perception rooted in wise attention or unwise attention, causing right view / right understanding or wrong view / wrong understanding of what you are perceiving);
The aggregate of Volitional Formations (your reactions of attachment, aversion and so on). Dependent upon the feeling that arises and that perception of what it is you are experiencing, so arises in you a reaction – I like it or I want it, I don’t like it, I don’t want it – or hopefully, equanimity (which sees just that ‘it is what it is’);
The aggregate of Consciousness (whether greed-rooted, aversion-rooted, delusion-rooted, or non-greed, non-aversion, non-ignorance-rooted etc. Whether mind-door consciousness, sense-door consciousness – as seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, or body-door consciousness – as feeling within the body etc).
Now equanimity is the point at which there is no inclination towards or shrinking away from your experience. There is no judgement, there’s no analysis of it, there is no ‘making it mine’ or identification with it. It just is what it is. But to arrive at that point of equanimity, we must remove all tendency for the mind to arise with attachment or aversion. And you can’t just choose to do that, because that craving and that aversion and that ill will and that anger are ‘conditioned’ from past experiences (Dependent Origination), by the way in which you perceive things, rightly or wrongly, and the feeling that arises within you.
The Law of Dependent Origination Becomes Clear In Stages
So, when we are practising vipassanā, we could either be contemplating our body as impermanent, suffering or no-self. Or we could also investigate feeling as impermanent, suffering or no-self. We would then investigate perception as impermanent, suffering or no-self. We then investigate saṅkhārā (volitional reactions) as they arise in our mind as impermanent, suffering or no-self. In this way we would go on to investigate consciousness itself, states of consciousness and moments of consciousness, as impermanent, suffering or no-self. And it is while we are investigating material and mental states that the law of Dependent Origination gradually reveals itself to us.
Firstly, we start to see how mind and body are mutually interdependent and conditioned by each other. Then gradually, as our discernment deepens, we see how past causes (past five aggregates) become the cause for presently arising effects (present five aggregates), and present causes (presently arising five aggregates), will become the cause of future effects (future five aggregates).
This law of Dependent Origination gradually becomes clearer to us in stages, revealing how deeply we are bound up and enmeshed in this process of conditioning, bound up by the past and bound to the future by the kamma which we have accumulated on account of our clinging to states. Thereafter our insight begins to mature in stages and it is the maturing of our insight that performs the function of cutting off ignorance, craving, clinging and the whole mass of volitional formations that cause kamma.
So having known all of these aggregates to be dependently arising – containing no self or independent or inherent existence – we review, know and see them to be impermanent, suffering or no-self. It is the seeing of the truth of impermanence, or the truth of suffering, or the truth of no-self each moment of the arising of the five aggregates that is vipassanā. Vipassanā takes these truths as the object of meditation and contemplation.
It is while meditating in this way – seeing the truth of impermanence, the truth of suffering and where it’s coming from, or the truth of no-self (i.e. Dependent Origination), that our mind relinquishes its clinging, and its stock of aversion and its stock of attachment. And it is while we are perceiving dhammas as they are in this way, that in stages matures our insight, and the tendency to cling to things will gradually be broken down.
While we continue to meditate upon these three innate qualities of conditioned existence we may well at some point experience a state of abhorrence at the transience of all things (what we call nibbidā), before eventually we arrive at a state of complete acceptance and total equanimity (saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa), when we truly can be with things, as they are. Now, however much we may aspire to be that equanimous and to be that accepting, we can’t make ourselves that way just because we want to be. And therein lies the road of gradual training.
Willingness and Unwillingness to Relinquish
We are so conditioned! In order to become unconditioned or free of our conditioning, we have to break down our conditioning. And it is for the purpose of breaking down that conditioning that we practise vipassanā. How far down the rabbit hole each of you will have to go in the investigation of dhammas (how this body works, how this mind works), will depend on many things, for example:
pāramīs (how much you have previously practised such things, how much you have previously investigated things);
the current grip of clinging, (how strong is this ego, how deeply you identify with your idea of self);
your unwillingness to let go;
the stubbornness of our clinging to views and ideas of self.
Now some people, it’s true, hearing the Dhamma or reflecting on the Dhamma, come categorically to the resolution, “This clinging to this idea of me is nothing but woe”, and on sitting down and starting their practice they just let go. Other people will cling desperately, at all costs, to their idea of themselves and those things they are attached to and will take a considerable amount of looking down the rabbit hole: breaking down the body to see how it is; breaking down feeling to see how it is; breaking down perception to see how it is; breaking down formations in the mind to see how they are; breaking down consciousness to see what it is; before they are willing to let go this idea of self.
So it is not possible to tell how far you’ll have to go down that rabbit hole. What you should do is just practise, see how far you are able to let go, and then honestly recognise where you are not. Look at both your willingness to let go and your inability to let go. If there is willingness and inability you just need more insight.
But if there is unwillingness to let go, it may not be your time. In which case you need to practise sīla (virtue). Because if you don’t want to let go of your attachment then you will absolutely have to practise utmost virtue, if your attachment is not going to bring you to suffering.
Now it isn’t for me to tell you that you must let go....that you must dismantle this ego and become a selfless being. I’m not the Buddha, I’m no saint, I’m no perfect being who should be telling you what you should do. I can merely point the Dhamma out to you, and you can make your own informed decision about how far you want to practise, and that will be in accordance with your own soul aspiration.
Some of you will be tired of the suffering that your ego has caused you. Some of you will still be delighting in the idea of yourself, and seek merely to refine it, so you can live a more gracious life...and that’s fine. But I would point out to you, that not one person yet has managed to avoid suffering, and continue to identify with their idea of self, without being an utterly pure and virtuous person. And even these saintly people often suffer extreme hardship on account of past kamma.
But if either out of vanity or out of pride, you are not willing to let go this ego, then you must utterly commit to virtue. Because there are only two ways to avoid suffering – one is through absolute purity of conduct and even then you may still be subjected to that kamma you accumulated in the past when you were less virtuous; the other one is through the relinquishing of your ego, your idea of self.
So, there you are. This is the basis of vipassanā. The decision to practise it each one of us must make for ourselves. How far you wish to practise it is entirely personal. My job is merely to show you ‘how’ to practise it, so that you make a more informed decision about which way to go.
Some people can realise Nibbāna whilst reviewing the body to be anicca, dukkha or anatta, whilst seeing impermanence, suffering and non-self in the body, or material states, because they do not identify so much with their body. And some will be able to see Nibbāna whilst seeing impermanence, suffering and no-self of mental states. Others will not be able to see Nibbāna in this way because they identify so strongly with their mind. Well, if that is you, you will need to break down your mind, in the same way you broke down your body into four elements. You will need to break your mind down into just this momentary arising of conditioned states, so you can let go all this attachment and this vanity and clinging to this idea of, “This is my mind and these are my ideas and this is how I view things etc.”
Maybe some of you, whilst reviewing feeling as impermanent, suffering, and no-self, will be able to completely let go and realise Nibbāna. Maybe some of you will whilst reviewing perception, some of you will whilst reviewing formations and some of you will whilst reviewing consciousness.
So...who knows....which way the door is going to open for you and how much investigation you have to do, before you are convinced to let go this grasping mind, this intellect, this idea of myself, and enter into a more awakened state. This remains to be seen. But remember all the five aggregates have to have been known as they are before you can see Nibbāna. Then, whilst reviewing one of the aggregates as impermanent, suffering or no-self you may let go your clinging and see Nibbāna.
So it isn’t vipassanā whilst we are seeing four elements in the body. It isn’t vipassanā whilst we are seeing the mental state that arises as anger, ill will, jealousy, fearlessness of wrongdoing, lack of moral shame, vanity, arrogance, etc. This is not vipassanā. This is still the investigation of states as part of the preparatory work.It is not vipassanā when we are seeing feeling in the base of the body as pleasant, neutral or unpleasant, or in the mind-door process as pleasant, neutral or unpleasant. This is not vipassanā, this is still the investigation of states. It becomes vipassanā only when we review material and mental states as impermanent, suffering or no-self.
It is vipassanā when we see the arising-and-passing of these states; that these states are impermanent; that the clinging to them is the cause of suffering; that they are not innately there; when we see that they are dependently arising, they are conditioned and there is no self in them. It is vipassanā whilst we are seeing that we are merely conditionally arisen mind and matter.
While we see this mind as me, this is not vipassanā. Whilst we just watch ourself being angry, this is not vipassanā, it’s mindfulness with wrong view (clinging to the idea of me). Vipassanā sees that the cause for the arising of that anger and that craving is just ignorance. “It is not me, it’s just a dependently arisen process.” Gradually the law of Dependent Origination reveals itself to us until we come in time to know categorically that everything is conditioned, no formations of body or mind are innately present, they are only conditionally present.
So, much of our work is the preparation. We investigate things with enough wise attention, that we could say this is vipassanā - that this is insight! This is seeing into how things are.
And, as far as we can go with it now, that’s what we’ll investigate, while you are here. It will depend upon how much preparatory work you have already completed, how ripe your mind is for insight and how willing you are to let go.
