Organic Experience
Dhammānupassanā
Meditation on dhamma
BHANTE KUSALA
ASTANKA YOGA MANDIR – SRI LANKA
Why we learn this?
➢It is the central part of the yogi’s spiritual
experience.
➢Are these techniques? These are more than
techniques without which you are not going to
have an awakening experience.
Lotus mind
Empty Boat
Right mindfulness
Categorization
Four foundations of mindfulness
i). Body, ii). Feelings, iii). Mind, iv). Dhammas
Four places to establish
mindfulness
1. Five hindrances
Awareness of sensual desire, & how it arises and how the non—arising of it will come about
2. Five aggregrates - skandhas
These five aggregates are the building blocks that we typically use to construct our sense of personal identity; they are the
things that we cling to as being “mine,” “I,” and “my self.” (Bhikkhu Bodhi. In the Buddha’s words, p. 22)
3. Five senses and the mind
4. Seven factors of awakening
Is mindfulness present or absent, how does it
come to arise, how does the complete
development of mindfulness come about
5. Noble Truths
Here, a monk knows as it really is: “This is suffering”
The Third Noble Truth
“The Third Noble Truth is that there is an
end of ill-being. This means that suffering
can be transformed into happiness. The
Third Truth is the confirmation that well-
being is possible, happiness is possible,
peace is possible.”
Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh. The Mindfulness
Survival Kit, p. 17
To do: Four “great endeavors”
Preventing unwholesome mental states
Abandoning unwholesome mental states that have already
arisen
Developing wholesome mental states that are yet to arise
Sustaining wholesome mental states that have already arisen
Restraint of the sense faculties (P. Indriya-saṃvara)
Sensory Choice of
Identification
contact response
Mindfulness
Five techniques to abandon akusala
1. Expel the defiled thought with the exact opposite (e.g.,
replace ill will with loving kindness)
2. Reflect on the unwholesome thought as vile and ignoble
or consider the negative consequences of the thought
3. Redirecting one’s attention – e.g., look away
4. Confronting the thought & investigate its source
5. Suppressing through force of will (last resort)
1. Mindfulness
“Mindfulness clears the ground for insight into the nature of things by
bringing to light phenomena in the now … stripped of all subjective
commentary, interpretations, and projections.” Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Satipaṭṭāna Sutta : The Foundations of Mindfulness. Tenth Sutta in the Majjhima Nikāya. &
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi. The Noble Eightfold Path ; way to the end of suffering, p. 71-73, 124 (note 11).
Quotes
➢You suffer, I suffer, therefore we are friends – Suzuki Roshi
➢The path is, there is no traveler, awakening is, there is no one entering it – Vsm
➢“Mindfulness clears the ground for insight into the nature of things by bringing to light
phenomena in the now … stripped of all subjective commentary, interpretations, and
projections.” Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Samadhi
“[Samādhi is] the intensified [wholesome] concentration that results from a deliberate attempt to
raise the mind to a higher, more purified level of awareness.”
Two features of
Samadhi
1. Unbroken attentiveness
2. Tranquility
Two wings of
meditation
1. Tranquility – Serenity –
Samatha
-10 kasina, 10 recollections, 4
sublime abodes
1. Insight - Vipassana
Dhyāna
1. Detached from sense-desires, detached
from unwholesome mental states, enters
and remains in the first jhāna, which is with
thinking and pondering, born of detachment,
filled with delight and joy.”
2. With the subsiding of thinking and
pondering, by gaining inner tranquility and
oneness of mind, he enters and remains
in the second jhāna, which is without
thinking and pondering, born of
concentration, filled with delight and joy.”
Dhyāna
3. “And with the fading away of delight,
remaining imperturbable, mindful and
clearly aware, he experiences in himself
the joy of which the Noble Ones say:
‘Happy is he who dwells with equanimity
and mindfulness,’ he enters the third
jhāna.”
4. “And, having given up pleasure and
pain, and with the disappearance of
former gladness and sadness, he enters
and remains in the fourth jhāna, which is
beyond pleasure and pain, and purified
by equanimity and mindfulness.”
Questions?
