AOL File Library: 4,101 to 4,200/aol-file-protocol-4400-4101-to-4200.zip/AOLDLs/General Buddhist Library/Condensed Breath Meditation/Condensed Breath Meditaito.sit/Condensed Breath Meditaito/CONDENSE.TXT

Text File | 1993-07-15 | 25KB | 414 lines

  CONDENSED BREATH MEDITATION
  by K. Khao Suan Luang (Kee Nanayon)
  Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff)


  There are lots of people who are ashamed to talk about their own
  defilements, but who feel no shame at talking about the defilements of
  others.  Those who are willing to report their own diseases--their own
  defilements--in a straightforward manner are few and far between.  As
  a result, the disease of defilement is hushed up and kept secret, so
  that we don't realize how serious and widespread it is.  We all suffer
  from it, and yet no one is open about it.  No one is really interested
  in diagnosing his or her own defilements....

  We have to find a skillful approach if we hope to wipe out this
  disease, and we have to be open about it, admitting our defilements
  from the grossest to the most subtle levels,  dissecting them down to
  their minutest details.  Only then will we gain from our practice.  If
  we look at ourselves in a superficial way, we may feel that we're
  already fine just as we are, already know all we need to know.  But
  then when the defilements let loose with full force as anger or
  delusion, we pretend that nothing is wrong--and this way the
  defilements become a hidden disease, hard to catch hold of, hard to
  diagnose....

  We have to be strong in fighting off defilements, cravings and
  illusions of every sort.  We have to test our strength against them
  and bring them under our power.  If we can bring them under our power,
  we can ride on their backs.  If we can't, they'll have to ride on our
  backs, making us do their work, pulling us around by the nose, making
  us want, wearing us out in all sorts of ways.

  So are we still beasts of burden?  Are we beasts of burden because
  defilement and craving are riding on our backs?  Have they put a ring
  through our noses?  When you get to the point when you've had enough,
  you have to stop--stop and watch the defilements to see how they come
  into being, what they want, what they eat, what they find delicious.
  Make it your sport--watching the defilements and making them starve,
  like a person giving up an addiction...See if it gets the defilements
  upset.  Do they hunger to the point where they're salivating?  Then
  don't let them eat.  No matter what, don't let them eat what they're
  addicted to.  After all, there are plenty of other things to eat.  You
  have to be hard on them--hard on your "self"-- like this..."Hungry?
  Well go ahead and be hungry!  You're going to die?  Fine!  Go ahead
  and die!"  If you can take this attitude, you'll be able to win out
  over all sorts of addictions, all sorts of defilements--because you're
  not pandering to desire, you're not nourishing the desire which exists
  for the sake of finding flavor in physical things.  It's time you
  stopped, time you gave up feeding these things.  If they're going to
  waste away and die, let them die. After all, why should you keep them
  fat and well fed?

  No matter what, you have to keep putting the heat on your cravings and
  defilements until they wither and waste away.  Don't let them raise
  their heads.  Keep them under your thumb.  This is the sort of
  straightforward practice you have to follow.  If you have endurance,
  if you put up a persistent fight until they're all burned away,  then
  there's no other victory which can come anywhere near, no other
  victory which is anywhere near a match for victory over the cravings
  and defilements in your own heart.

  This is why the Buddha taught us to put the heat on the defilements in
  all our activities--sitting, standing, walking and lying down.  If we
  don't do this, they'll  burn us   in all our activities....

  If you consider things carefully, you'll see that the Buddha's
  teachings all are exactly right, both in how they tell us to examine
  the diseases of defilement, and in how they tell us to let go, destroy
  and extinguish defilement.  All the steps are there, so we needn't go
  study anywhere else.  Every point in his doctrine and discipline shows
  us the way, so we needn't wonder how we can go about examining and
  doing away with these diseases. This becomes mysterious  and hard to
  know only if you study his teachings without making reference to doing
  away with your own defilements.  People don't like to talk about their
  own defilements, so they end up completely ignorant.   They grow old
  and die without knowing a thing about their own defilements at all.

  When we start to practice, when we come to comprehend how the
  defilements burn our own hearts, that's when we gradually come to know
  ourselves.  To understand suffering and defilement and learn how to
  extinguish defilement gives us space to breathe....

  When we learn how to put out the fires of defilement, how to destroy
  them, it means we have tools.  We can be confident in ourselves--no
  doubts, no straying of into other paths of practice,  because we're
  sure to see that practicing in this way, contemplating inconstancy,
  stress and not-selfness  in this way at all times, really gets rid of
  our defilements.

  The same hold true with virtue, concentration and discernment.
  They're our tools--and we need a full set. We need the discernment
  which which comes with Right View, and the virtue which comes with
  self-discipline.  Virtue is very important.  Virtue and discernment
  are like our right and left hands.  If one of our hands is dirty, it
  can't wash itself.  You need to use both hands to keep both hands
  washed and clean.  Thus wherever there is virtue, you have to have
  discernment.  Wherever there is discernment, you have to have virtue.
  Discernment is what enables you to know; virtue is what enables you to
  let go, to relinquish, to destroy your addictions.  Virtue isn't just
  a matter of the five or eight precepts, you know.  It has to be deal
  with the finest details.  Whatever your discernment sees as a cause of
  suffering, you have to stop, to let go.

  Virtue is something which gets very subtle and precise.   Letting go,
  giving up, renouncing, abstaining, cutting away and destroying:  All
  of these things are an affair of virtue.  This is why virtue and
  discernment have to go together, just as our right and left hands have
  to help each other. They help each other wash away defilement.  That's
  when your mind will be able to become centered, to be bright and
  clear.  These things show their benefits right at the mind.  If we
  don't have these tools, it's as if we had no hands or feet:  We
  wouldn't be able to get anywhere at all.  We have to use our
  tools--virtue and discernment--to destroy defilement.  That's when our
  minds will benefit....

  This is why the Buddha taught us to keep training in virtue,
  concentration and discernment.  We have to keep fit in training these
  things. If we don't keep up the training as we should, our tools for
  extinguishing suffering and defilement won't be sharp, won't be of
  much use.  They won't be a match for the defilements.  The defilements
  have monstrous powers for burning our mind in the twinkling of an eye.
  Say that mind is quiet and neutral:  The slightest sensory contact can
  set things burning in an instant by making us pleased or displeased.
  Why?

  Sensory contact is our measuring stick for seeing how firm or weak our
  mindfulness is.  Most of the time it stirs things up.  As soon as
  there's contact by way of the ear or eye, the defilements are very
  quick.  When this is the case, how can we keep things under control?
  How are we going to gain control over our eyes?  How are be going to
  gain control over our ears, our nose, our tongue, our body and mind?
  How can we get mindfulness and discernment in charge of these things?
  This is a matter of practice, pure and simple...our own affair,
  something by which we can test ourselves, to see why defilements flare
  up so quickly when sensory contact takes place.

  Say, for instance, that we hear someone criticizing someone else.  We
  can listen and not get upset.  But say that the thought occurs to us,
  "They're actually criticizing me."   As soon as we concoct up this
  "me", we're immediately angry and displeased.  If we concoct very much
  of this "me", we can get very angry.  Just this fact should enable us
  to observe that as soon as our "self" gets involved, we suffer
  immediately.  This is how it happens.  If no sense of self comes out
  to get involved, we can remain calm and indifferent.  When they
  criticize other people we can stay indifferent, but as soon as we
  conclude that they're criticizing us, our "self" appears and
  immediately gets involved--and we immediately burn with defilement.
  Why?

  You have to pay close attention to this.  As soon as your "self"
  arises, suffering arises in the very same instant.  The same holds
  true even if you're just thinking.  The "self" you think up spreads
  out into all sorts of issues.  The minds gets scattered all over the
  place with defilement, craving and attachments.  It has very little
  mindfulness and discernment watching over it, so it gets dragged all
  over the place by defilement and craving.

  And yet we don't realize it.  We think we're just fine.  Is there
  anyone among us who realizes that this is what's happening?  We're too
  weighted down, weighted down with our own delusions.  No matter how
  much the mind is smothered in the defilement of delusion, we don't
  realize it, for it keeps us deaf and blind....

  There are no physical tools you can use to detect or cure this disease
  of defilement, because it arises only at sensory contact.  There's no
  substance to it.  It's like a match in a matchbox.  As long as the
  match doesn't come into contact with the friction strip on the side of
  the box, it won't give rise to fire.  But as soon as we strike it
  against the side of the box, it bursts into flame.  If it goes out
  right then, all that gets burned is the matchhead.  If it doesn't stop
  at the matchhead, it'll burn the matchstick. If it doesn't stop with
  the matchstick, and meets up with anything flammable, it can grow into
  an enormous fire.

  When defilement arises in the mind, it starts from the slightest
  contact.  If we can be quick to put it out right there, it's like
  striking a match which flares up--chae-- for an instant and then dies
  down right in the matchhead.  The defilement disbands right there.
  But if we don't put it out the instant it arises, and let it start
  concocting issues, it's like pouring fuel into a fire.

  We have to observe the diseases of defilement in our own minds to see
  what their symptoms are,  why they are so quick to flare up.  They
  can't stand to be disturbed.  The minute you disturb them,  they flare
  up into flame.  When this is the case, what can we do to prepare
  ourselves beforehand?  How can we stock up on mindfulness before
  sensory contact strikes?

  The way to stock up is to practice meditation, as when we keep the
  breath in mind.  This is what gets our mindfulness prepared, so that
  we can keep ahead of defilement, so that we can keep it from arising
  as long as we have our theme of meditation as an inner shelter for the
  mind.

  The mind's outer shelter is the body, which is composed of physical
  elements, but its inner shelter is the theme of meditation we use to
  train its mindfulness to be focused and aware.  Whatever theme we use,
  that's the inner shelter for the mind which keeps it from wandering
  around, concocting thoughts and imaginings.  This is why we need a
  theme of meditation.  Don't let the mind chase after its
  preoccupations the way ordinary people who don't meditate do.  Once we
  have a meditation theme to catch this monkey of a mind so that day by
  day it becomes less and less willful, it will gradually calm down,
  calm down until it can stand firm for long or short periods, depending
  on how much we train and observe ourselves.

  Now, as for how we do  breath meditation:  The texts say to breathe in
  long and out long--heavy or light--and then in short and out short,
  again heavy or light.  Those are the first steps of the training.
  After that we don't have to focus on the length of the in-breath or
  out-breath.  Instead, we simply gather our awareness at any one point
  of the breath, and keep this up until the mind settles down and is
  still.  When the mind is still, you then focus on the stillness of the
  mind at the same time you're aware of the breath.

  At this point you don't focus directly on the breath.  You focus on
  the mind which is still and at normalcy.  You focus continuously on
  the normalcy of the mind at the same time you are aware of the breath
  coming in and out, without actually focusing on the breath.  You
  simply stay with the mind, but you watch it with each in-and-out
  breath.  Usually when you are doing physical work and your mind is at
  normalcy, you can know what you're doing, so why can't you be aware of
  the breath?  After all, it's part of the body.

  Some of you are new at this, which is why you don't know how you can
  focus on the mind at normalcy with each in-and-out breath without
  focusing directly on the breath itself.  What we're doing here is
  practicing how to be aware of the body and mind, pure and simple,  in
  and of themselves....

  Start out by focusing on the breath for about 5, 10 or 20 minutes.
  Breathe in long and out long, or in short and out short.  At the same
  time, notice the stages in how the mind feels, how it begins to settle
  down when you have mindfulness watching over the breath.  You've got
  to make a point of observing this, because usually you breathe out of
  habit, with your attention far away.  You don't focus on the breath,
  you're not really aware of it.  This leads you to think that it's hard
  to stay focused there, but actually it's very easy.  After all, the
  breath comes in and out on its own, by its very nature.  There's
  nothing at all difficult about breathing.  It's not like other themes
  of meditation.  For instance, if you're going to practice recollection
  of the Buddha, or buddho,  you have to keep on repeating buddho,
  buddho, buddho.

  Actually, if you want, you can repeat buddho  in the mind with each
  in-and-out breath, but only in the very beginning stages.  You repeat
  buddho  to keep the mind from concocting thoughts about other things.
  Simply by keeping up this repetition you can weaken the mind's
  tendency to stray, for the mind can take on only one object at a time.
  This is something you have to observe.  The repetition is to prevent
  the mind from thinking up thoughts and clambering after them.

  After you've kept up the repetition--you don't have to count the
  number of times--the mind will settle down to be aware of the breath
  with each in-and-out breath.  It will begin to be still, neutral and
  at normalcy.

  This is when you focus on the mind instead of the breath.  Let go of
  the breath and focus on the mind--but still be aware of the breath on
  the side.  You don't have to make note of how long or short the breath
  is.  Make note of the mind which stays at normalcy with each
  in-and-out breath.  Remember this carefully so that you can put it
  into practice.

  The posture:  For focusing on the breath, sitting is a better posture
  than standing, walking or lying down, because the sensations that come
  with the other postures often overcome the sensations of the breath.
  Walking jolts the body around too much, standing for a long time can
  make you tired, and if the mind settles down when you're lying down,
  you tend to fall asleep.  With sitting it's possible to stay in one
  position and keep the mind firmly settled for a long time.  You can
  observe the subtleties of the breath and the mind naturally and
  automatically.

  Here I'd like to condense the steps of breath meditation to show how
  all four of the tetrads mentioned in the texts can be practiced at
  once.  In other words, is it possible to focus on the body, feelings,
  the mind and the Dhamma all in one sitting?  This is an important
  question for all of us.  You could, if you wanted to, precisely follow
  all the steps in the texts so as to develop strong powers of mental
  absorption (jhana),  but it takes a lot of time.  It's not appropriate
  for those of us who are old and have only a little time left.

  What we need is a way of gathering our awareness at the breath long
  enough to make the mind firm, and then go straight to examining how
  all formations are inconstant, stressful and not-self, so that we can
  see the truth of all formations with each in-and-out breath.  If you
  can keep at this continually, without break, your mindfulness will
  become firm and snug enough for you to give rise to the discernment
  which will enable you to gain clear knowledge and vision.

  So what follow are the steps in practicing a condensed form of  breath
  meditation....Give them a try until you find they give rise to
  knowledge of your own within you. You're sure to give rise to
  knowledge of your very own.

  The first thing when you are going to meditate on the breath is to sit
  straight and keep your mindfulness firm.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.
  Make the breath feel open and at ease.  Don't tense your hands, your
  feet, or any of your joints at all.  You have to keep your body in a
  posture that feels appropriate to your breathing.  At the beginning,
  breathe in long and out long, fairly heavily, and gradually the breath
  will shorten--sometimes heavy and sometimes light.  Then breathe in
  short and out short for about 10 or 15 minutes, and then change.

  After a while, when you stay focused mindfully on it, the breath will
  gradually change.  Watch it change for as many minutes as you like,
  then be aware of the whole breath, all of its subtle sensations.  This
  is the third step, the third step of the first tetrad:
  sabba-kaya-patisamvedi--focusing on how the breath affects the whole
  body by watching all the breath sensations in all the various parts of
  the body, and in particular the sensations related to the in-and-out
  breath.

  From there you focus on the sensation of the breath at any one point.
  When you do this right, and for a fairly long while, the body--the
  breath--will gradually grow still.  The mind will grow calm.  In other
  words, the breath grows still together with the awareness of the
  breath.  When the subtleties of the breath grow still, at the same
  time that your undistracted awareness settles down, the breath grows
  even more still.  All the sensations in the body gradually grow more
  and more still.  This is the fourth step, the stilling of bodily
  formations.

  As soon as this happens, you begin to be aware of the feelings which
  arise with the stilling of the body and mind.  Whether they are
  feelings of pleasure or rapture or whatever, they will appear clearly
  enough for you to contemplate them.

  The stages through which you have already passed--watching the breath
  come in and out, long or short--should be enough to make you
  realize--even though you may not have focused on the idea--that the
  breath is inconstant.  It's continually changing, from in long and out
  long to in short and out short, from heavy to light and so forth.
  This should enable you to read the breath, to understand that there's
  nothing constant to it at all.  It changes on its own from one moment
  to the next.

  Once you have realized the inconstancy of the body, i.e of the breath,
  you'll be able to see the subtle sensations of pleasure and pain in
  the realm of feeling.  So now you watch feelings, right there in the
  same place where you have been focusing on the breath.  Even though
  they are feelings which arise from the stillness of the body or mind,
  they are nevertheless inconstant even  in that stillness.  They can
  change.  So these changing sensations in the realm of feeling exhibit
  inconstancy in and of themselves, just like the breath.

  When you see change in the body, change in feelings and change in the
  mind,this is called seeing the Dhamma, i.e. seeing inconstancy.  You
  have to understand this correctly.  Practicing the first tetrad of
  breath meditation contains all four tetrads of breath meditation.  In
  other words, you see the inconstancy of the body, and then contemplate
  feeling.  You see the inconstancy of feeling, and then contemplate the
  mind.  The mind, too, is inconstant.  This inconstancy of the mind is
  the Dhamma.  To see the Dhamma is to see this inconstancy.

  When you see the true nature of all inconstant things, then keep track
  of that inconstancy at all times, with every in-and-out breath.  Keep
  this up in all your activities to see what happens next.

  What happens next is dispassion.  Letting go.  This is something you
  have to know for yourself.

  This is what condensed breath meditation is like.  I call it condensed
  because it contains all the steps all at once.  You don't have to do
  one step at a time.  Simply focus at one point:  Focus on the body,
  and you'll see the inconstancy of the body.  When you see the
  inconstancy of the body, you'll have to see feeling.  Feeling will
  have to show its inconstancy.  The mind's sensitivity to feeling, or
  its thoughts and imaginings, are also inconstant.  All of these things
  keep on changing. This is how you know inconstancy....

  If you can become skilled at looking and knowing in this way, you'll
  be struck with the inconstancy, stressfulness and not-selfness of your
  "self", and you'll meet with the genuine Dhamma.  The Dhamma which is
  constantly changing like a burning fire, burning with inconstancy,
  stress and not-selfness, is the Dhamma of the impermanence of all
  formations.  But further in, in the mind or in the property of
  consciousness, is something special, beyond the reach of any kind of
  fire.  There, there is no suffering or stress of any kind at all.
  This thing which lies "inside":  You could say that lies within the
  mind, but it isn't really in the mind.  It's simply that the contact
  is there at the mind.  There's no way that you can really describe it.
  Only the extinguishing of all defilement will lead you to know it for
  yourself.

  This "something special" within exists by its very nature, but
  defilements have it surrounded on all sides.  All these counterfeit
  things--the defilements--keep getting in the way and take possession
  of everything, so that this special nature remains imprisoned inside
  at all times.  Actually, there is nothing in the dimension of time
  which can be compared with it.  There's nothing by which you can label
  it, but it is something which you can pierce through to see--i.e. by
  piercing through defilement, craving and attachment into the state of
  mind which is pure, bright and silent.  This is the only thing that's
  important.

  But it doesn't have only one level.  There are many levels, from the
  outer bark to the inner bark and on to the sapwood before you reach
  the heartwood.  The genuine Dhamma is like the heartwood, but there's
  a lot to the mind which isn't heartwood:  The roots, the branches and
  leaves of the tree are more than many, but there's only a little
  heartwood.  The parts which aren't heartwood will gradually decay and
  disintegrate, but the heartwood doesn't decay.  That's one kind of
  comparison we can make.  It's like a tree which dies standing.  The
  leaves fall away, the branches rot away, the bark and sapwood rot
  away, leaving nothing but the true heartwood.  That's one comparison
  we can make with this thing we call deathless, this property which has
  no birth, no death, no changing.  We can also call it nibbana or the
  Unconditioned.  It's all the same thing.

  Now, then.   Isn't this something worth trying to break through to
  see?...