Q&A
Q: When establishing the breath, comfortable and steady, at that moment can you allow thoughts to come in or questions to deal with? My steadiness is so fragile, I’m afraid of figuring out what the next step is. Can you help?
A: If you feel like your concentration is still fragile, don’t try to bring in other questions. Just stay where you are. The time it takes to stabilize your concentration is time well spent, no matter how long it takes. As I said this morning, sometimes some questions will come in and they’re pressing. You have to deal with them. It’s like fixing a motor. Ideally, you want to wait until you have all the correct parts before you put them into the motor, but sometimes you’re out in the middle of a forest and you don’t have any parts, so you use wire and paper clips in order to get back home. In other words, deal with the problems that come up and are pressing, but otherwise put them aside. It’s in this way that your discernment begins to develop. But when you’re sitting here quietly and you have nothing else to do, focus on getting your mind really stable.
Q: What do you think about meditation with music? Could you tell us your own experience with this?
A: No, I don’t meditate with music. Sometimes, though, as a layperson, when you’re coming back from work, you’re really tired and your mind is full of all the stories of the job, if you want to listen to a very calming piece of music before you meditate or at the beginning of a meditation, that’s fine. But don’t play music during the entire meditation.
Q: Here’s a long question basically saying that when this person focuses on the breath and breath energies in the body, he or she finds that they go better in the opposite direction from what I’ve been describing. In other words, the energy feels best coming up the arms or legs instead of down.
A: That’s perfectly okay. In fact, if you look at Ajaan Lee’s Dhamma talks, you’ll find that he, too, will sometimes talk about the breath energy coming up the legs and up the back, or up the front of the body. This is one of the ways you can play with the breath: See what ways of moving the breath energy are good for your body right now.
Q: Another question about breath energies: Ajaan Lee’s instructions say that if you’re a woman, you should start going down the left side of the body first, while a man should start going down the right side first. So the question is, “Is there any scientific evidence or physical proof for this?”
A: No modern scientific evidence, but it is a principle in traditional Thai physiology that women are more related to the left side of the body, and men to the right side. I’ve found, though, that there are some men who find that the energy goes more easily down the left, and some women find it goes more easily down the right. So this is an individual matter.
Q: Another long question: This person was working with the breath energies and suddenly found him- or herself in a state of great space where there were no sounds. At first it started out somewhat dark, but then it became lighter and lighter until it was very bright. The question is, “What is this?”
A: It sounds like that you stumbled into one of the formless states, the dimension of infinite space. See if it happens again. If not, let it go for the time being.
Q: In the teachings called The Basics, you talk about the possibility of comparing our attitudes to the breath to those of the brahmavihāras. The tensions that I feel in my body have developed so that in the course of my practice they now occupy principally only one part of the body. So in reciting the names of the brahmavihāras like a mantra, I find that I can address myself a bit to both sides. That permits me to better stay in contact with this difference between the two sides of the body. Is it possible that a chant that you recite internally is one of the tools you can use in meditation? And is it wise to choose a tool specifically for the difficulty you’re encountering? If so, could you please give me some examples?
A: There are times when chanting a particular word will help, and this will vary from person to person. But when I talked about using the brahmavihāras or comparing them to your approach to the breath, I was thinking not only of the names of the brahmavihāras, but also of the actual attitudes. For example, goodwill for the breath means that you wish your breath well. For the parts of the body where the breath doesn’t flow well or where there are pains, you try to have compassion. For the areas that are going well, you have empathetic joy. And if you find that there are some parts of the body that don’t respond to your efforts, you should have some equanimity for them.
For example, when I started out meditating, I found out that there was a very hard area around my heart. The more I tried to penetrate it with the breath, the more it resisted. So I worked around it and left it alone for the time being. It was almost as if it was testing me and it didn’t trust me to treat it well. I showed that I had lots of compassion for the other parts around it, and then one day it suddenly opened up. It was very tender inside. So equanimity doesn’t mean that you accept the fact that a part of the body will be unresponsive forever. The proper attitude is: “Save that for the time being. I can’t do anything about this right now. Meanwhile, I can focus on other areas of the body or other areas of the practice that are more responsive.”
Q: In meditation, when I reach a concentration that seems to be profound, I have this sensation that my eyes turn upwards. I attribute this to a mental fabrication, but I lose my concentration partially or totally. What should I do?
A: Let your eyes do whatever they want. If it happens that they do turn upwards, allow them go up. Don’t worry about it.
Q: In my current life, I have a recurrent tendency to judge other people whom I don’t even know by their appearance, rather in a manner that’s mocking or sometimes even with ill will. As I grow older, I see this tick is becoming more and more of a burden. What do I do to cut this reflex? Should I use mettā in a systematic way?
A: One, use mettā. And two, remind yourself of all your many lifetimes in which you probably were born uglier and sillier-looking than those people. Really. You didn’t want people to mock you when you looked like that, right? And if it so happens that you’re reborn and you’re ugly again, you’d like people to be kind to you, too, right? So be kind to these people now.
There’s a passage in the Canon where the Buddha says that if you see someone who’s wealthy, beautiful, or powerful, remind yourself that you’ve been there in the past. And if you see somebody who’s sick, ugly, or poor, remind yourself, you’ve been there, too. So if you can learn to see yourself in the people you look down on, you’re much less likely to mock them.
Q: Vipassanā is sometimes presented as an intuitive comprehension of things in terms of the three characteristics. Is what you’re teaching here different?
A: Somewhat different. The Buddha recommends that you develop discernment in the context of the four noble truths—and remember, one of the duties with regard to the four noble truths is to develop dispassion for suffering and dispassion for the causes of suffering. We do that by comparing their allure with their drawbacks. In this context, the three characteristics—or, more correctly, the three perceptions—are one of the ways of focusing on the drawbacks of things. But there are also other ways in which you might look at the drawbacks of the defilements you find attractive. You want to be able to use whatever ways of contemplating the drawbacks that work for you in developing dispassion.
In particular, focus on the defilements that attract you. Noting how things that don’t attract you are inconstant, stressful, and not-self doesn’t really have much of an impact on the mind. You can think about this hall: It’s inconstant, stressful, and not-self, but as long as it doesn’t fall on us, we’re okay. But if it’s your own house, and you realize, “I have to work on this house, I have to paint it, I have to pay for it, I have to do all of these other things to keep it from falling apart,” then if anything happens to it, it’s as if something has happened to your own body. That’s where you have to focus on the drawbacks of being attached to the things you cling to and crave.
Q: In one of the biographies of the grand masters of the forest, it says that after a great deal of practice, responses to his questions came on their own. Is this vipassanā?
A: It’s more an intuitive knowledge, which they call ñāṇa. Sometimes this sort of knowledge may be related to insight, and other times it’s related to other random questions that might pop up in the mind.
Q: I don’t quite understand the aim of this meditation. Are we preparing for the jhānas or does it lead to inquiry in vipassanā-style? Once my mind is stable in the breath and a refreshing sensation is established and it spreads to the whole body with awareness in the whole body, what next? Should I inquire? I can savor for a long time this nice feeling and stable mind, but what do I learn? Usually the body dissolves rather quickly with just sensations at the windpipe remaining. Then they dissolve, too. Awareness spreads to the whole space around with no center anymore. Usually consciousness is filled with a soothing light and is very peaceful, and in the same way, I can stay very long like that. It’s nice, but what am I learning? What do I do next?
A: You’re learning the skill of getting the mind very quiet so that it can see mental events clearly. This requires patience. And as the Buddha said, you need some insight and tranquility to get the mind into jhāna—you have to understand it to at least some extent to get it to settle down; and then you need the stillness and pleasure of jhāna to gain insight into even more subtle things. So we’re working on jhāna, insight, and tranquility all at once.
As for what to do next, there are three things you might want to try: One is look to see what thoughts are coming to destroy the concentration and then use the Buddha’s five-step analysis to deal with them. Or you can sit for very long periods of time until there’s pain in the body, and then when the pain appears, learn how to analyze the pain and your relationship to the pain as we described the other day. A third possibility is when you leave meditation, see what defilement your mind goes to first, and then analyze that, looking for its allure and its drawbacks.
Q: Dear Ajaan, could you please explain equanimity again? What is meditation on equanimity and how to practice it?
A: Basically, equanimity is maintaining a stable emotional state with regard to things that are either very good or very bad. As a meditation practice, you can think of situations in your life where things are not going the way you want them to and you can’t do anything about them. You have to learn how to be equanimous toward them by reminding yourself that if you allow yourself to get upset by things of that sort, your mind won’t be clear enough to deal with the areas where you could make a difference.
The traditional way of developing equanimity is to think of situations in the world that are beyond your control. Then remind yourself that the situations depend on the kamma of the people involved. In many cases, the nature of kamma is such that you cannot help them right now. This could be attributed either to their kamma or to your kamma or to both.
A psychotherapist I know once told me that one of the most difficult parts of being a therapist is realizing that you’re not the best therapist for a particular patient, and you have to pass the patient on to somebody else. It’s a humbling experience, realizing the limitations to your powers and abilities. That’s one of the ways you develop equanimity.
Q: What is the Pāli term for the consciousness you talked about the other day? Is there a notion of the bardo in the Theravada?
A: The Pāli name of the consciousness I mentioned yesterday is viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ, which means consciousness without surface. The image is of a ray of light coming through a window, like the beam of sunlight shining on me right now. Now, imagine I’m not here, the floor is not here, the earth underneath it is not here. The light beam comes through the window and doesn’t land anywhere. That’s the image they give in the Canon: a light beam that lands on no surface at all. That’s why it’s called consciousness without surface.
You might think about all the light going through outer space right now. You look up at night, and outer space appears black, right? Actually, though, it’s full of light that’s not being reflected off of anything. The reason we see the Moon is because it’s reflecting the light from the Sun. If the Moon were not there, we wouldn’t see anything at all, even though the light beams were still shining through that spot. This is one of the reasons why the Buddha said you cannot locate a person who’s attained full awakening. The consciousness of such a person is landing on no surface.
And, no, we don’t have the concept of the bardo in Theravada. However, there is a belief that beings, after death, may go through intermediate states in search of a place to be reborn, but this depends on each person’s individual kamma, and there’s no set order in which a being might go through these states.
Q: Yesterday you mentioned an essential consciousness using the image of the rays going through the house and are not blocked by the wall, the earth, or the water on the west. Can you elaborate on what this essential consciousness is? Is it our soul, our true self? Does each person have his own ray of essential consciousness? Doesn’t essential consciousness contradict anattā or not-self?
A: To begin with, it’s not our soul, it’s not our true self. Each person has the ability to get in touch with this consciousness, but the only way to do that is by putting away all fabrication. It doesn’t contradict the teaching on not-self because there is no sense of self within that experience. Any and all sense of self-identification has to be abandoned before you can contact it.
Q: How to talk to someone who is grieving deeply over the loss of his wife? This person is very realistic and pragmatic and rejects all spiritual ideas. What can I say to him about this sense of loss?
A: Point out to this person that if he allows himself to be overcome by grief, he’s not going to be able to do anything useful for himself or for the world. I think in this case that the Buddha would also recommend that this person reflect on the fact that everybody has lost a loved one at one point or another. When you contemplate this fact, you can expand your sense of humanity to uncover the realization we all have been through grief like this. Tell your friend that it would be best to develop compassion for everybody else who has also suffered this kind of loss. In that way, he can find some meaning in life by thinking, “Maybe I can help other people who are also suffering in this way.”
Q: Aging: Isn’t it also a natural process that makes us aware of unavoidable loss so that we can let go of our superficial desires? Doesn’t the function of our sense of our diminished hearing, sight, touch, taste, and our lack of our mobility and energy lead us back to the essential?
A: Ideally, Yes, but there are a lot of people who don’t want to be brought back to the essential, which is one of the reasons why we have a retreat like this, so that people can focus on what really is important in life.
In America, they have clubs that get together for the space of a year and say, “Okay, imagine that we’re going to die at the end of the year. How would we change the way we live our lives in the meantime?” They help one another adjust to the idea of what really is of essential importance in their lives and what is not. I‘ve suggested to the members of one of these clubs, “How about trying this: Imagine that you really believe in rebirth and kamma, and that you have one year left to live. What changes would you make in the way you live your life?” A number of people have told me that they don’t like the idea, and one person said that he finally figured out why: He would have to live his life in a much better way. That, of course, is the whole point of accepting the Buddha’s teachings on kamma and rebirth as working hypotheses: You live a much better life.
Q: Dear Ajaan, Dying, we face three possibilities: annihilation, rebirth, and the end of becoming. Could it be that annihilation is closer to the absolute state of letting go of it all? What do you think would happen with people if the whole system of reward and punishment of kamma would fall away?
A: To begin with, there are only two ways of dying: either being reborn or putting an end to becoming. The Buddha said that one of his important discoveries was that what you think is annihilation is actually another state of becoming or rebirth. As with every other state of rebirth, it’ll come to an end and then you’ll take on another state of becoming.
And if the whole system of kamma fell away, we would be helpless. Our actions wouldn’t be our responsibility and wouldn’t yield any results.
When the Buddha taught kamma, he didn’t teach it as a system of reward and punishment. He taught it to explain how the power of our choices is what gives our lives meaning: We’re responsible for what we choose to do, and these choices really do make a difference.
He focused primarily on two types of activities, generosity and gratitude. Generosity has meaning because of the principles of kamma. It’s genuinely good because people choose to be generous. If they had no choice, or if actions had no results, generosity would be meaningless. Gratitude, too, has meaning because of kamma. We have to realize that the people who have helped us didn’t have to, but they chose to do so, and they chose to go through difficulties involved in helping us. This is why they deserve our gratitude, and why gratitude has meaning.
Q: You mentioned that the Buddha does not speak about a universal or common consciousness, yet the feeling of oneness is a strong experience. What is the difference between universal consciousness and the sense of oneness? After such unification via oneness, one feels generosity and altruism, and works for others as a natural way. Is it possible that in a previous life, one could have taken on the bodhisattva vows and these express themselves naturally through altruism, but one has some difficulties on the path to arahantship? Please comment on this. There’s not a lot of info on bodhisattvas in the Theravadan texts.
A: Scientists have found that if they stimulate a part of the brain, it creates a great sense of oneness. In other words, you can break down any sense of boundary between you and other people or between you and the rest of nature simply by stimulating some nerves. Because perceptions and feelings of oneness can be stimulated in this way shows that they don’t prove that we have a universal consciousness in common with one another. They’re simply part of a fabricated mind state where we don’t perceive any boundaries.
In the course of concentration practice, this sense of oneness becomes especially prominent in the level called the dimension of infinite consciousness. But as the Buddha said, this sense of non-duality is fabricated, so it doesn’t escape from being inconstant and stressful. There’s still more work to be done.
As for descriptions of the bodhisattva path, it’s true that in Theravada they don’t talk about it much. But they do mention the ten perfections and talk about how if you want to become a future Buddha, you have to work on developing those ten qualities to a heightened degree.
It’s also possible to have a strong sense of altruism without having to feel a sense of oneness with others.
Q: How to deal with exemplarity? For example, you know that someone you used to admire broke the rules or precepts that he or she is supposed to follow. How do I deal with that? It makes me angry.
A: Be very careful about who you take as your examples. The Buddha says it takes time and strong powers of observation to decide if a person really is someone you can trust, someone whose example you really should follow. As for the precepts that these people might break, if it’s something really minor, you might say to yourself, “I’ll just chalk that up to this person’s lack of manners.” But if it’s something serious, like breaking any of the five precepts, you can tell yourself, “I chose the wrong person.” Find another teacher.
Q: You said this morning that sexual desire for a person outside of the couple is not good. The notions of “good” and “evil” in Buddhism: Are they similar to those of Christian morality?
A: In Buddhism, we talk more in terms of skillful and unskillful, rather than good and evil. Unskillful means something that will cause long-term harm; skillful means not causing any harm. You have to realize that certain desires really will cause long-term harm. As the Buddha says, if any of them come up in your mind, you should try to get rid of them as quickly as you can for the sake of your own well-being.
Many of the ideas of what is good, right and wrong are similar in the two religions, but the psychology of the Buddhist morality is very different. From the Buddha’s perspective, morality is not simply an attitude of having to obey somebody’s rules. You’re the one making the decisions that will shape your life. You take the knowledge of the Buddha seriously, and when he points out that you would suffer from encouraging certain thoughts, take that into consideration and tell yourself, “I’m going to try to abandon those thoughts” for your own good.
The Buddha didn’t set himself up as a god, but he did set himself up as an expert, saying, in effect, “From my experience, these are the things that lead to happiness; these are the things that lead to suffering.” It’s up to you to decide whether you want to take his advice.
