Originally written in the 11th or 12th century, the Sangaha has served as the key to wisdom held in the Abhidhamma(the Buddha's "Dharma in Ultimate Terms").
Ah, now I know and see what the Buddha meant
Concisely surveyed are the Abhidhamma's central themes, includingstates ofconsciousness and mental factors, the functions and processes of the mind/awareness, the material world, Dependent Arising, and the methods and stages of meditation.
This presents an exact translation of the Sangaha alongside the original Pali text. A detailed, explanatory guide with more than 40 charts and tables lead readers through the complexities of Abhidhamma. More
Author Dhammaloka ("Dharma-world" or "Dharma-light or white") Viriya ("energy") knows that liberation (vimutti, moksha, vimokkha) from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) comes from the Awakening (bodhi-ification) of the (ennobling = enlightening) Truths.
To be awakened, one needs to practice mindfulness-meditation (satipatthana) by relinquishing attachment to the six senses, which will eradicate the clinging to all [of their attendant] phenomena, before the Dhamma (Truth, Teaching, Doctrine) eventually reveals itself to the practitioner.
Once the practitioner catches a glimpse of the Dhamma, the Ultimate Truth, through direct knowing-and-seeing, the practitioner will know there is no more falling back into the mire of this mundane world.
The Buddha pointed out the way to end of all suffering through mindfulness (sati) practice, and many practitioners since the Buddha’s time have reached that bliss and release from practicing in accordance with it.
However, in the author’s observation, although practitioners in this age find the practice fulfilling, they do not experience the awakening moment and therefore do not see the fruition as they hope to.
What are the challenges of an intensive insight meditation (vipassana) retreat?
What enables a practitioner to experience bliss (piti) from meditation?
What does the practitioner experience when the Dhamma finally appears as direct knowledge and vision?
Find out in this book, which is the first-hand experience of a yogi ("practitioner") who went through the trials and tribulations of a vipassana ("insight") meditation retreat at a forest monastery to see for himself the ultimate truths of
disappointment (that all phenomena are unsatisfactory and unable to fulfill),
impermanence (that all phenomena are constantly hurtling toward destruction).
Directly knowing-and-seeing these Three Universal Truths produces a life-changing experience.
NOTE: Not all vipassana meditation retreats are affiliated with Indian S. N. Goenka (dhamma.org). Burmese monk U Ba Khin's star student and businessman just popularized it worldwide with a free, volunteer-based, 10-day structure.
The Buddha in the usual list we call the Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Eightfold Path called one of those factors samma-sati not sati. What's the difference? One might think one is being mindful, but is it what the Buddha or the noble ones call "right" mindfulness? (If there's a right, that implies there's a wrong way to go about it or fool oneself that one is doing it at all). If "mindfulness" only meant awareness, then I'm being "aware" (conscious) right now, right? Yes! Am I being mindful? Probably not. There's a difference, a big difference. Retreat leaders and personal teachers should talk about it more and stop taking it for granted that one will just figure it out or that it is so patently obvious that it needs no defining or delimiting. It does, at least for over-thinkers. Sure, there are some people who will just take to it like guppies or ducklets to water. (They've likely extensively and successfully practiced in past lives).
We don't know what we're doing, but we got a groupon
Therefore, the most important thing before embarking on a vipassana retreat (whether it's Goenka-based or not), know that it is being defined as satipatthana. That means the fourfold setting up of mindfulness, which is explained in great detail in two sutras (Pali canon discourses or suttas). However, and this is the maddening part, almost nothing is said to define mindfulness (Buddhist sati). That is the most important thing to know, but it gets taken for granted. Or very weak definitions are offered, such as defining it as "awareness." We are aware right now, and more than 99% of us are not being mindful about it. For an extensive definition, see the academic work of Western Theravada professor-monk Ven. Analayo.
The Buddhist version of "mindfulness" called sati, as we understand it, is "bare awareness" with detachment, looking on, dispassionate watching. Sounds easy, but it is very hard because it goes against our deeply ingrained habits and traits. Usually when we are aware of anything, we taint that awareness with the Three Poisons of the heart/mind: liking, disliking, indifference (from the roots of all bad karma poorly translated as "greed, hatred, and delusion."
Look up lobha, dosa, and moha. And what becomes apparent is that Pali and Sanskrit terms have wide valence, a range of meaning for a single word. "Greed" or lobha does not mean our idea of greediness. It means liking, preferring, welcoming, grasping, attaching, and getting clingy about pleasant phenomena. "Hatred" or dosa does not mean intense fury or anger; it means disliking, having an aversion to, fearing, avoiding, repressing... It is our customary reaction to any and everything we find unpleasant.
Then there's "delusion" or moha, the worst one, the most embedded one, the hardest one to see. It refers to all the wrong views we hold, consciously and unconsciously, distortions of reality, perversions (seeing what is unpleasant as pleasant, what is repulsive as attractive, what is transient as lasting), confusion, not knowing, not understanding, not fathoming, not knowing, not seeing. This is practically our whole existence, if we think about it, but it might be summarized as failing to notice the Three Characteristics of Existence in all things -- that they are ultimately radically impermanent, eventually disappointing (unable to ever fulfill us), and (no matter how impossible it is to conceive, believe, fathom, or accept) altogether impersonal.
So to be mindful (to see clearly, which is to practice vipassana) is to look on, watch everything without giving in to the unconscious pull of these old habits. Just watch. Just notice. Just maintain attention. Note how when something is pleasing, greed for it arises. When something is displeasing, aversion with regard to it arises. When something is neutral, dull, confusing, hard to grasp, or boring, delusion arises, which is to say we space out, fall asleep, wander to something more interesting, even if it is a very unpleasant memory. Better than boredom. We do everything but be here now when this is the only real place there is to be. There's only now. The past is done. The future will take care of itself. But all our power is here, now. Let's attend to it. Let's finally see it for what it has always been so as to be liberated by the truth. The truth will set us free. What truth? The Truth, sometimes summarized as the Four Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Truths, the ultimate (paramattha) Truth, the true nature of existence (personally penetrating the Three Marks of Existence already mentioned). Need a list? There are the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment (the bodhipakkhiyādhammā). That Truth sets one free here and now, immediately.
But there's something every and anyone who embarks on Buddhist meditation needs to know beyond a good grasp of the meaning of "mindfulness" (sati). And that is that one will meet Five Hindrances whenever one tries to sit still or rest the mind or walk and move about with constant attention to the here and now, which does not involve "thinking" about the here-and-now, just watching it dispassionately.
The Five Hindrances one will meet in meditation (and their antidotes)
This is stupid! It doesn't work! Buddha was wrong!
The historical Buddha taught that there are Five Hindrances (pañca nīvaraṇa, Pali pañca nīvaraṇāni), mental factors that hinder, obstruct, derail progress in meditation and ruin daily life [1].
The Theravada Buddhist tradition identifies these factors as specific obstacles to "meditation," which is defined as jhāna (eight stages of stillness, unification, samadhi, concentration, coherence, superconsciousness) in practice.
Contemporary insight meditation teachers identify the Five Hindrances as obstacles to mindfulness meditation and obstacles to samma-samadhi ("right concentration," though "concentration" is problematic because we have many assumptions about what that means). "Stillness" is better, when the heart/mind has settled out, is silent, lucid, observant, directly knowing-and-seeing. But concentration is sometimes useful because ekaggata (singlepointedness or one-pointedness) is a factor of jhana.
The Five Hindrance are part of two types of obstructions (Sanskrit āvaraṇa, i.e., obstacles to insight, realization, awakening, buddhahood), afflictive obstructions (Sanskrit kleśā-avaraṇa, which include the Five Hindrances) and cognitive obstructions (jñeyā-avaraṇa, which bodhisattvas are trying to uproot) [2].
The classic list of Five Hindrances is [3, 4, 5, 6]
craving, desire, lust (kāmacchanda): seeking pleasure through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and tactile sensation
sloth-and-torpor (thīna-middha): mental-and-bodily lassitude, laziness, weakness, lack of energy to strive, half-hearted action with little or no effort, attention, concentration
restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca): the inability to allow the mind/heart to calm down, relax, become tranquil (passaddhi), serene, unflappable, steady, restful, undistracted, attentive, and focused, diligent, vigilant, energetic
Skeptical doubt (vicikiccha): lack of confidence, conviction, faith, trust that one has understood the instructions, the path, or one's abilities to successfully proceed. More
The antidotes are called the Five Factors of Absorptions, the jhana-anga (limbs or factors). By the way, right mindfulness immediately dispels delusion instantaneously.
Dhammaloka Viriya (diary); Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (commentary), Ashley Wells (editor) and Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) selection of video shorts, Wisdom Quarterly
The field of psychology appropriated (hijacked) the Buddhist term "mindfulness" (originally sati but now just "awareness" or "paying attention")
Anyone who thinks it was a commonplace practice in ancient India during the time of the Buddha should look up the Hindu definition of sati, which reveals it used to mean throwing a wife on the pyre when her husband died 😲
The great work of Jon Kabbat-Zin to help therapists led to the unexpected disconnection of the practice with anything, as if it could be a standalone endeavor
"Bare attention" is a component of sati, but it must be coupled with dispassionate (unbiased) looking on, free of greed, hatred, and delusion (wanting, aversion, and confusion)
What is one to be mindful of to advance to insight, realization, and awakening? The Buddha pointed at four things: body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects. What does this mean? Psychology cannot tell us, but the Dhamma can
Who needs Dhamma when we have a corporate bottom line to advance, productivity to raise, and mental health symptoms to abate?
Why call it "mindfulness," Psychology? Why not pick a new name for what you've turned this into?
Ego (buddhism podcast) The Buddha didn't teach us only to be "present." He taught us to remember (recollection, memory, bearing in mind, the faculty of sati)
On the road to Berkeley like Benji (The Graduate)
Personally, in college at UC Berkeley many years ago, I took a "Buddhist Psychology" course in the department and was so excited to finally be able to learn what "cognition" meant and what the Buddha had to say about all these psychological things. Our assigned textbook, written by a psychologist, was called Mindfulness. "All right," I thought, "I'm finally going to advance in my practice and being in college is going to help me. Imagine my surprise when, as I read, I did not recognize what was being called "mindfulness." It did not align with all the translated ancient texts I had read and was continuing to read from the Buddhist Publication Society and the Pali Text Society. A few years in the future I would even visit BPS Editor Bhikkhu Bodhi in Kandy, Sri Lanka, to ask him about all this.
Not yet having him as a direct resource, except through his translations and BPS newsletter messages, I asked my professor in class about how I was left perplexed by reading our textbook. She looked at me and shrugged, "Of course! This "mindfulness" isn't the Buddha's mindfulness. It is psychology's," she explained. I looked around and many students were nodding their heads in agreement. "There are two mindfulnesses?!" I balked. "There are now" was the implicit answer. "Does Berkeley know about this? Why is this class called Buddhist psychology if all we're going to talk about is Western psychology?" She winked because she was subverting the system and introducing Buddhist ideas back into class, but we had to know that the new mindfulness had been taken, changed, and applied in rigorous scientific ways to the behavioral sciences, therapy, counseling, and the mental health field. Sure, it wasn't the Buddha's mindfulness, but that's because it had to be stripped of all spirituality and/or religiosity to get by the gatekeepers of the university system. What a gyp.
(Wiki) The Gosford Glyphs, also known as Kariong Hieroglyphs, are a group of approximately 300 Egyptian-style hieroglyphs located in Kariong, Brisbane, Australia. They are found in an area known for its Aboriginal petroglyphs, between Gosford and Woy Woy, New South Wales, within the Brisbane Water National Park. Academics and authorities have tried to dismiss them as a hoax after their discovery in the 1970s, but there is no proof other than disbelief. These authorities are still attempting to prove the false belief that they were carved by ancient Egyptians about 4,500 years ago [1]. So far they have been unable to do so. But to think the ancient Egyptians made it not only to the Grand Canyon in the Southwest USA. More
WARNING: "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow thoughts intoxicate the brain" - the Great Alexander Pope (reddit)
O, those Greeks of Macedonia were something
This is in reference to the spring in the Pierian Mountains in Macedonia, sacred to the Muses. The first line of this couplet is often misquoted as "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
In Greek mythology, the "Pierian Spring" of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia was sacred to the mythological Pierides and the Muses. As the metaphorical source of knowledge of art and science, it was popularized by a couplet in Pope's 1711 poem An Essay on Criticism:
WQ says no such thing. What we say is that, in an ultimate sense, "self" (soul, ego, atman, atta, spirit) is impersonal.
So there IS a "self"?
In a conventional sense, of course there is! How else would we live in a squiggly universe without a sense of our boundaries demarcating where we end and others start?
Oh, so I don't have to give everything away, join a commune, and do whatevers my Guru tells me to?
Ugh, no, you do not. Be yourself. Think. Practice. Buddhism only makes sense for those who practice the Dhamma, not the debaters or scholars of it.
Wait, then, so I'm as "real" as this chair? - Yes.
EGO DEATH is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity" [1]. The term is used in various contexts, with related meanings.
The 19th-century psychologist and philosopher William James uses the synonymous term "self-surrender." Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term "psychic death," referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche (soul) [2].
So I can be responsible with a career? - Yes.
In death and rebirth explanations, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition [3, 4, 5, 6] as described by mythologist Joseph Campbell in his research on the "Hero's Journey" [3].
It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary Western thinking [6].
In descriptions of drugs, the term is used synonymously with "ego loss" [7, 8, 1, 9] to refer to temporary loss of one's sense of having a self due to the use or abuse of drugs [10, 11, 1], be they negative (deluded) hallucinogens or positive (pro-realization) entheogens.
The term was used as such by Harvard Dr. Timothy Leary and others [1] to describe the death of the ego [12] in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a "complete transcendence" of the self [Note 1] occurs.
Did the Grateful Dead know about this?
The concept is also used in contemporary New Age spirituality and in the modern understanding of ancient Eastern religions (such as Nondualism/Advaita/Oneness) to describe a permanent loss of "attachment to a separate sense of self" [Web 1] and self-centeredness [13] (egoism, egotism, selfishness, conceit).
This kind of conception is a part of Eckhart Tolle's Buddhist-like teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with [and clung to], which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering [14]. More
Life: break us to wake us? DRUNK
(T&H Inspiration & Motivation) I was disgusted, busted, and not to be trusted. I was a drunkard, an alcoholic. I wasted 33 years of my life in my head before Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins explained this
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