How to meditate wrong: Zen

(ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE) The Zen teaching that tells us to stop "trying" | Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch of Zen (Chan). 

What more could there possibly be than just this?

Why doesn't Zen Buddhism teach a path to enlightenment like the historical Buddha did? They are of the opinion that we are "already enlightened," so there's no need to speed up the process of realizing or remembering that, as in Hindu teachings of lila ("divine play," awakening to itself). It seems the Buddha would have mentioned that if he agreed with the Brahmin priests and their Vedas; yet, he took an adversarial position and presented a superior vision of what "awakening" (bodhi) and "nirvana" (moksha, "liberation," vimutti, "freedom") are. Below are the remainder of the instructions for those not content to believe they are already awakened beings who sit shikantaza just to sit because that's what sitters (zazen practitioners) do.

• The Bloodstream Sermon of Patriarch Bodhidharma
• Bodhidharma's glare: meditation, tea, and a fierce gaze (ShunSpirit)

What is the way to enlightenment after effortlessly settling into the "zen" state of serenity and stillness?

• What is right "mindfulness" defined? (Ven. Analayo)
• Radical acceptance in dialectical behavior therapy
• Book review: Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Path of calm and insight

The eight spokes of the Dharma wheel

If Buddhism is the marriage of wisdom and compassion, then the historical Buddha's path-of-practice is calm and insight. To gain calm, let go (no effort required). To gain insight, practice vipassana ("clear seeing") by the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (sati), a practice called satipatthana.

Insight into what? Mind-and-body to see three personally verifiable marks of existence

The historical Buddha Gautama

In Early Buddhism, the Pali term dhamma vicaya (Sanskrit धर्मविचय-) has been variously translated as "keen investigation of things" (Wisdom Quarterly), the "analysis of [various] qualities" [1], "discrimination of dhammas [phenomena]" [2, Note 1], "discrimination of states" [3], "investigation of [the] doctrine [the Dharma]," [4, Note 2], and "searching [for] the [ultimate] Truth" [5].

• The Three Universal Marks (Characteristics) of Existence

The meaning, which may seem tricky to translate, is clear and not ambivalent in context. In the two Four Foundations of Mindfulness sutras (MN 10, DN 22). It is the systematic investigation of physical-and-mental phenomena (dhamma, "things") -- "body and mind" in terms of their ultimate constituents, which are "form particles" (rupa kalapas) and "mind moments" (cittas).

Pa Auk student, American Shaila Catherine

• It would be wonderful if scholars stop disputing and practiced instead. Why? Practitioners who read and follow the two sutras can see the meaning very easily; however, in real practice, it is far better to seek out a competent teacher who has known-and-seen these things. In that way, there is no speculation, interpretation, or arguing. The path is already known and handed down, not in books, but in meditation halls.

• 

  Meditation Master at Pa Auk

  The scholar-monk and master practitioner Pa Auk Sayadaw (Ven. Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa) is all about the practical: How will one ever be able to "see" a particle (kalapa)? By purifying (visuddhi) the heart/mind, one is suddenly able to make use of all its powers. But particles move far too fast and live far too briefly to ever be discerned or analyzed by the mind's eye because the mind/heart has a speed limit due to the number of impulsions (javanas) in a mind-moment.
• So here's the trick. Locate the "mind door," which is a green light near the physical heart. This door is a mirror of sorts reflecting everything in consciousness. It records. And the recording can be played back in slow-motion so as to see the life of the kalapa (form particle, which has three distinct phases that can be observed directly: arising, turning, passing). It does not stand even for a single moment, but rather passes through these three submoments.

• 

  Practical instructions, not theory

  How can anything composed of form (materiality, the mahabhuta or Four Great Elements, which are actually four qualities of matter, not matter itself, which come in pairs as outlined in Pa Auk Sayadaw's book Four Elements Meditation) be real if everything "form" is made up of is particulate matter, countless particles that are constantly arising, changing, and passing away -- always hurtling towards destruction? This is not a belief; for it to be effective, one must directly and literally know-and-see it happening all the time, everywhere, but particularly in this fathom-long body many call my "self." Most people can quickly comprehend that the body is, of course, not the "self." But nearly everyone gets stuck believing that the "self" must therefore be the mind (the watcher, the doer, the knower) or consciousness (awareness through the six senses, the interplay of cittas and cetasikas or mind-moments and mental concomitants, which is an impersonal process, not a thing in and of itself).
• The "Four Elements"? At a Pa Auk Meditation Center, in Burma, California, Georgia, or elsewhere, discern in this very body: 1. The "earth element" as hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness, and heaviness, lightness; 2. the "water element" as flowing (saliva), cohesion (stickiness); 3. the "fire element" as heat, cold (relative temperature variations, including the burning chemical "digestive fire" of the stomach or coolness of the outbreath); 4. the "air element" as pushing, supporting (dhammawheel.com).

• 

  Pa Auk student Beth Upton as nun, Burma

  The Buddha searched for a self that was not be found and went into very great detail to catalogue that process masquerading as a "self" (soul, atman, atta, ego, personality, true self, higher self), which is recorded in the very dense collection of sacred texts, the Abhidhamma, and Buddhaghosa's meditation manual The Path of Purification. See A Guide Through the Abhidhamma for a comprehensive introduction to the details. It will be impossible to ever believe there is, ultimately speaking, no self until one does a systematic search of mind, of which consciousness is but one component.
• Wait, why would anyone in his, her, or their right mind ever want to find out that there's no self? Surely that would mean annihilation, oblivion, falling into the void, the vast emptiness, utter destruction, the loss of everything?!

• 

  Knowing and Seeing (Pa Auk)

  One would want to because that is the entrance into the stream that leads inevitably to full awakening, enlightenment, and liberation from all suffering here and now in this very life. It is on account of not seeing this, not comprehending Dependent Origination, that we have all been lost and wandering, life after life, through this interminable and miserable (unfulfilling) samsara, seeking for pleasure now here, now there, existence after existence, state after state, world after world until there's nothing new that we have not already experienced many times over only to be disappointed and misled yet again.

Samatha, Jhana, Vipassana: Practice

This, of course, will be impossible...until the meditative absorptions (jhanas) purify and intensify the heart/mind to make that investigation, discrimination, analysis.

In the meantime, the practice of Four Elements Meditation and the application of discernment (by wise reflection or yoniso manasikara, which includes seeing things as they really are, including their repulsive aspect or patikula-manasikara that we normally work so hard to ignore) to body-mind phenomena in the application of right effort, so as to gain entry into the first absorption (jhana, the first "meditation") if "mindfulness of in-and-out breathing meditation" (which is the first practice in the setting up of the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness) has failed to bring one there.

Pa Auk students on jhanas

ETYMOLOGY: According to Rupert Gethin, "Dhamma-vicaya means either the 'discrimination of dhammas' or the 'discernment of dhamma'; to discriminate dhammas is precisely to discern dhamma"[6].

But, again, this is the confusion of something very simple and straightforward. One does NOT study Dharma (capital D Dhamma) during mindfulness meditation. What one DOES do is analyze, discern, and discriminate the "things" (phenomena, dhammas) the sutra specifies:

• 2. feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, whether corporeal or spiritual);
• 3. mind states (lustful or free of lust, angry or free of aversion, deluded or free of delusion, contracted or expansive, exalted or mundane, surpassable or unsurpassable, samādhi or not-samādhi [still and coherent or not], released or bound);
• 4. mind-objects (the [presence or absence of] the Five Hindrances and the Seven Factors of Enlightenment). See Lists of the Fourfold Setting up of Mindfulness or satipatthana here.
• 1. The first foundation is the body, and the body is usually known through parts of the body or more deeply by knowing the Four Great Elements in their tangible expressions as hard, soft, wet, dry, hot, cold, smooth or rough, heavy or light, and so on. (See Four Elements Meditation for details). More: dhamma vicaya (Wikipedia)

Yeah, I thought I made that pretty clear.

Rest assured, Bodhidharma has an excellent point to make. Striving, struggling, muscling, forcing, pushing, thirstily struggling is NOT the way. Let go of all that [waste]. Just be. Just observe the becoming that is going on all by itself. There is nothing to do or change for the heart/mind to come to the first absorption. It's just that we needed to stop caging ourselves in "trying" or "needing" it to be this way or that. It is far better to practice allowing and accepting, wakefulness and dispassionate mindfulness.

• ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE (video); Dhr. Seven, Ani Kalyani, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY Wiki edit

Alan Watts: self, no-self, who controls me?

Alan Watts: Myth of Myself (full lecture), Part 1

Can I choose to sit and see for myself?

(Alan Watts Organization Official) Jan. 23, 2020) Purchase talks and lectures by Alan Watts: "The Works." THE WORKS OF ALAN WATTS AUDIO: alanwatts.com/products/the-works. Thanks for supporting the Alan Watts Organization. Please consider subscribing and turning on notifications for future publications. More about "The Works": The Works includes the following recordings: Essential Lectures Collection... (Official Alan Watts Org) Myth of Myself full lecture, Pt. 1

Choosing self over others is not selfish

(Alan Watts Echoes) Skin encapsulated ego

(Wiara) Let go of trying to control everything. Why?

4 'enlightened' masters who went 'insane'

(Asangoham) Four "enlightened" masters who went completely "insane"

The Zen secret to letting go

Zen Buddhism: What is Zen Buddhism, its beliefs and symbols | TheMindFool

When you seek it, you lose it | The Zen Secret to Letting Go

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

(Einzelgänger) Jan. 11, 2025: What is Zen (the Japanese version of Chinese Chan) Buddhism? Let’s explore its core, several key concepts, and the practice. How does it differ from the traditional teaching of the historical Buddha (Siddhartha "Shakyamuni" Gautama) as embodied in the ancient Theravada Buddhist school and its practice of "tranquility" (jhana, dhyana, channa, chan, zen) and "insight" (vipassana, lit. "clear seeing") in this very life or through lives of striving?

Fun fact: most footage was shot during my recent trip to Kanazawa and Tokyo. This video: When You Seek It, You Lose It | The Zen Secret to Letting Go. #zen #alanwatts #taoism

• As an American, I opt for a sudden awakening (because I ain't gots no time to be muddling through formal or intensive practice. I need to purify and clarify my inner vision and awaken ASAP!)

Where does "Zen" get all these non-Buddhist ideas? Lao Tzu's Taoism: The Art of Not Trying

Lao Tzu's Taoism: The Art of Not Trying

Lao Tzu: The Art of Not Trying

"Hi, Catty." My Tokyo culture created this.

(After Skool) July 9, 2024: The curious Taoist celestial sage Lao Tzu was aware of a human quirk. We get so lost in our intellectual prisons that we forget the "natural" way. We force and struggle, swimming against the stream [like the historical Buddha said his Dharma or Teaching traveled, not the way of the world but something counter to it]. We do this so much that sometimes we end up farther from our goals than when we started. So what if we stopped "trying" so hard and pursued a different way, an effortless way, of getting things done? This video explores Lao Tzu and the art of not trying or what one modern American author has capitalized on in his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life. Because if there's one thing we Americans love, it's our misconceptions of what "Zen" is, teaches, and does. Happy Kensho or Satori.

Why does Theravada waste time with effort?

Early Buddhist Studies

Theravada ("the Teaching of the Elder Enlightened Disciples of the historical Buddha") is such a drag. Why so slow, traditional monks and nuns? Get with the new program, the Hindu-fueled fast track to enlightenment and riches and everything you ever wanted. "Zen" sounds great, but it's an amalgamation that's gone off the rails.

It may be fun. It may be Taoism and Confucianism (and Shinto) with a whole lot of Vedanta and Hinduism thrown in, as is the way with Mahayana Buddhism. If only it worked as promised. What if we stripped away all the add-ons and cultural baggage? There might be nothing left but some naked Brahmanism/Hinduism.

Most of what people think is so "Buddhist" about Zen is actually Taoist. Have fun, but probably we shouldn't confuse it with or call it "Buddhism." That suggests the Buddha Shakyamuni was talking like this when he very much was not. What was he saying? His stripped-down teachings are reduced to misleading lists. The lists are good. The misleading part is that one can just memorize a list and think one knows anything.

Lists are a shorthand. They refer to very detailed teachings, most of which are not in the written texts but handed down in the teaching lineage of Theravada meditation masters. The suttas (discourses) are great for a broad understanding, and the Commentaries (like the Abhidhamma) are great for a pedantic detailed understanding (in ultimate terms), but actual practice always has been and is likely to always in the future be handed down through the practice.

Find a teacher who actually sits and teaches the art of sitting meditation, walking meditation, mindfulness, and the contemplations. The secret formula is this: Develop the jhanas (zens, dhyanas, chans, or meditative absorptions, which can be called the "meditations") to some extent, preferably to the fourth absorption, then apply the Satipatthanas or "Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness Practice."

Burmese Pa Auk Sayadaw (buddho.org)

That may sound fancy, but it's easy: Systematically practice mindfulness (sati) on four things: the body, feelings, mind, and mind objects. There's no need to figure it out. It is explained in the Satipatthana Sutta and the Maha Satipatthana Sutta. That's the conceptual part. The practice part is learned from an experienced teacher. There is one great one in Burma known as Pa Auk Sayadaw. Why is he great? He is a scholar-monk-practitioner. He actually did it, succeeded, and can explain it in terms of the texts. He is both a textual expert (scholar) AND a successful practitioner of it. Of what? He is a success at the practice of the Path that leads to enlightenment here and now in this very life. His greatest contribution may be that he left a line of awakened teachers able to teach -- monks (bhikkhus) and nuns (sayalays) and successful lay practitioners. They are out there.

• (It is not true that Theravada advocates anyone take many lives; it may not be possible for everyone to reach full enlightenment in this life nowadays, but it remains true that nearly everyone can attain stream entry, the first stage of enlightenment, which assures full enlightenment in no long time, or what the Buddha promised was a maximum of seven more lives. That may sound like a long time, but compared to the countless lives we've already endured in samsara or the countless rebirths to come, it is as nothing, and it is a maximum. Most can finish in one more life, if they so wish, but now there's no hurry or stress because one is assured of no more rebirths in worlds of woe below the human plane, and one is likely destined for some very sublime and wonderful lives in the deva and brahma planes).

American Ajahn Sumedho | Buddho.org

There may be others (Thai Ajahn Chah and his Western students British Ajahn Brahm and American Ajahn Sumedho), but successful practitioner-teachers are rare. Most monastics prefer the easier route ("career") of study and teaching when it would be far better to apply those teachings to one's own life. In that way one could teach from experience and success, but this only very rarely happens.

Theravada may sound slow, but it is a back-to-basics movement about what the real Buddha, the historical human figure (rather than the Cosmic Buddhas and divine figures like Amitabha, Budai or Hotei, Guanyin or Kwan Yin, Avalokiteshvara, Ksitigarbha, and others) taught. The Buddha was not a Hindu (there was no Hinduism then) and not a Brahmin, not an advocate of the Vedas (though very familiar with them), and not an advocate of non-dualism, which many Mahayanists (acting like Hindus) equate with some kind of "enlightenment." Buddhist enlightenment is about penetrating the Four Ennobling Truths that lead one to the "noble" state of enlightenment/awakening. It is the way of direct wisdom, which is full of compassion.

• Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Einzelgänger, Jan. 11, 2025, After Skool, July 9, 2024

Bliss without exertion and striving? (sutra)

Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), SuttaCentral.net (11.1. Suvira) edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Sakka (Indra in the Vedas) atop a white elephant battle a titan (asura) in a minor heaven (VF).

Who sits atop mythical Mt. Sumeru as the shining ones and titan battle endlessly?

.

Sutras: Book of Protection (Bhante G)

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One (the Buddha) was dwelling at Savatthī in Jeta’s Grove, in Anathapiṇḍika’s Park. There he addressed the meditators: “Meditators!”

“Venerable sir!” those meditators replied. The Blessed One then said:

“Meditators, once in the past the titans (asuras) marched against the shining ones (devas). Then Sakka, lord of the shining ones, addressed [General] Suvīra, a young shining one:

“‘Dear Suvīra, these titans are marching against the shining ones. Go, dear Suvīra, launch a counter-march against the titans.’ — ‘Yes, your lordship,’ Suvīra replied, but he became negligent.

“A second time Sakka addressed Suvīra…but a second time Suvīra became negligent. A third time Sakka addressed Suvīra…but a third time Suvīra became negligent (sn.i.217).

The Power Within: Black Asuras and White Devas (Manojbaitha)

.

“Then, meditators, Sakka addressed Suvīra in verse:

“‘Where one need not exert and strive

Yet still may attain to bliss:

Go there, Suvīra,

And take me along with you.’

Suvīra:

“‘That a lazy person who does not exert

Nor attend to duties

Might still have all desires fulfilled:

Grant me that, Sakka, as a boon.’

Sakka:

“‘Where a lazy person who does not exert

Might achieve unending bliss:

Go there, Suvīra,

And take me along with you.’

Suvīra:

“‘The bliss, supreme shining one, we might find

Without doing work, O Sakka,

The sorrowless state without despair:

Grant me that, Sakka, as a boon.’

Sakka:

“‘If there exists any place anywhere

Where without work one will not decline,

That is indeed nirvana’s path:

Go there, Suvīra,

And take me along with you.’

Right effort is the path to bliss.

“So, meditators, if Sakka, lord of the shining ones, subsisting on the fruit of his own merit, exercising supreme sovereignty and ruler over the Heaven of the Thirty-Three (Tavatimsa) shining ones, will be one who speaks in praise of initiative and energy then how much more would it be fitting here for you, who have gone forth (renounced worldly ways) in such a well-expounded Doctrine and Discipline, to exert, make effort, and strive for the attainment of the as-yet-unattained, for the achievement of the as-yet-unachieved, for the realization of the as-yet-unrealized?”

• SN 11.1: Suvīra Sutta — Bhikkhu Bodhi (suttacentral.net)

NOW is perfect for practice (Eckhart Tolle)

NOW is perfect for spiritual practice

(Eckhart Tolle, 7/28/22) If we think we need an ideal environment and life situation to start our spiritual practice, Eckhart Tolle shares that this moment in our life is already ideal. This moment is all there ever is.

Once upon a time in meditation...

Dharma editor, Wisdom Quarterly, July 15, 2022

I would be as a doll, molded into shape, sitting perfectly still...with great hair (lol)

.

Clearing the heart/mind is good.

Once upon a time in meditation, not much happened. I'd heard of lightshows and fireworks, visions and past life memories, mystical powers and great cleansings.

I was making a common mistake: holding expectations. Therefore, rather than being mindful, I was actually being hopeful and full of mental clutter (random thoughts), distracted and defiled by a subtler form of craving, the zeal or eagerness to get rid of these defilements and the desire to attain purification and enlightenment.

Western meditation master Ajahn Sumedho, an early student of Ajahn Chah, makes this point, calling out the three kinds of desire.

Sure there is the "desire" most meditators recognize as harmful: lust, avaruce, sensual craving for pleasures and amusements through the five senses.

I was keeping clear of that one, aiming at a higher pleasure called piti ("joy"), a kind of bliss that happens naturally as a result of the mind cohering in meditative absorption or jhana, as explained by Tina Rasmussen.

Even that desire for attainment was getting in the way. There was no such thinking about what the hold up was, only the mildly desperate and increasingly frustrated wondering, How long this is going to take?

Hey, it's Reality come a knocking.

It'll take what it takes, and what that is depends a great deal on when I drop the craving, which is immediately standing in the way of success.

As Ajahn Sumedho deftly points out, sitting there with desire hoping for enlightenment or really wanting to improve myself by suppressing or eliminating my

• passion (desire, greed, craving, grasping, clinging),
• aversion (fear, hate, revulsion), and
• delusion (ignorance, wrong views)

will not work when I try to do it with a mind full of craving -- whether it's craving to be rid of the bad or craving to gain the good.

I noted the breath, brought my mind back to the object of meditation, and smiled. Exhale, let go, I told myself, and I realized it's not an act of will. Seeing harm in holding on works better because letting go seems like the only sane thing to do. How then to give up hopes and fears and continue sitting?

Bad, good, self, no-self, who would win?

Then I remembered something my enlightened teacher said, or I think he said: You can't do it. Let the technique do it. That is to say, just keep applying the technique (without all the hopes and fears of what will or will not happen or when) and, like everyone else, it'll happen by itself.

That's no fun! My ego wanted to do it. Ah. There's the problem. This will happen, and the ego will be diminished or eliminated, so ego's clinging on. "I" can't remove it, and every struggle I make reinforces it. So all there is to do is relax and carry on. Exhale.

[Carry on knowing that when the ego sees the Five Aggregates clung to as self, after samadhi/jhana, when the mind is applied to the fourth foundation of mindfulness, it'll let go all by itself.]

"Effort" to practice Buddhism (sutra)

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka Thera, Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (4th Edition edited by Ven. Nyanaponika, BPS.lk)

The Buddha in gold, brass, and stone, Thailand (MarmaladeToast flickr.com)

  

Under a sprawling pipal tree -- bodhi!

The Four Right Efforts (samma-padhāna), which together form the sixth factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, are the effort: (1) to avoid, (2) to overcome, (3) to develop, and (4) to maintain. That is to say:

One endeavors, strives, makes an effort to avoid unwholesome states (generally, those states motivated by greed, hatred/fear, or delusion/wrong view) that are not yet present.

One endeavors to overcome unwholesome states that arise. 

One develops wholesome states (generally, those motivated by nongreed, nonhatred/nonfear, and nondelusion) -- such as the Seven Factors of Enlightenment.

 

One endeavors to maintain (and consummate, bring to culmination, fruition) wholesome states that have arisen. 

SUTRA 

"Numerical Discourses of the Buddha" (Anguttara Nikaya)

Intensive sitting meditation is one kind of striving (meditationguidance.com)

 
"The meditator rouses the will to avoid the arising of harmful, unwholesome things not yet arisen... to overcome them... to develop wholesome things not yet arisen... [and] to maintain them, without allowing them to disappear, to bring them to growth, to maturity, and to the full perfection of development. One makes (a balanced) effort, rouses energy, exerts mind/heart, and strives" (AN IV, 13).  
 
NOTE: It is critical to bear in mind that overexertion is not right effort. The Buddha did not succeed under the Bodhi tree by overexerting as so many assume by not reading carefully. It is exactly because of struggling and overexertion that he could not succeed. Only when Siddhartha relaxed and began making a balanced-effort, which included the purifying meditative-absorptions (jhanas) he had fearfully been avoiding for years, did he finally reach the path to insight and enlightenment. He let go, allowed bliss of absorption and, remaining attentive, emerged to practice Dependent Origination -- the systematic pursuit of the 12 causal links that make up suffering. Siddhartha had set originally off to find the solution to the problem of suffering, so he asked: "Why is there suffering?" The practice of Dependent Origination answers this question through mindful application, insight-practice (vipassana), which begins as the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (on body, feelings, mind, and mind states). In this connection, the Buddha once taught a famous lute player to neither over-tighten nor under-tighten the strings of the instrument. Balance is the way to get the right sound -- balance between overexerting and underexerting.

Hi, I'm meditating (Kirsten Johnson)

(1) "What now, O meditators, is the effort to avoid? Perceiving a form, or a sound, or an odor, or a taste, or a bodily or mental impression, the medtitator neither adheres to (clings to, is entranced by) the whole nor to its parts. And one strives to ward off that through which harmful and unwholesome things might arise, such as greed and sorrow, if one remained with unguarded senses. And one watches over the (six) senses, restrains the senses. This is called the effort to avoid.

 

(2) "What now is the effort to overcome? The meditator does not retain any thought of sensual lust, or any other harmful, unwholesome states that may have arisen. One abandons them, dispels them, destroys them, causes them to disappear. This is called the effort to overcome.

 

(3) "What now is the effort to develop? The meditator develops the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, bent on solitude, on detachment, on extinction, and ending in liberation (deliverance, emancipation, nirvana), namely: mindfulness, keen investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration (collectedness of mind), and equanimity. This is called the effort to develop.

 

OK, breaktime! (Vincenzo Rossi/flickr)

(4) "What now is the effort to maintain? The meditator keeps firmly in mind (attention) a favorable object of concentration, such as the mental image (nimitta) of [light, or the cemetery meditations of] a skeleton, a (very repulsive) corpse infested with worms, a corpse blue-black in color, a festering corpse, a corpse riddled with holes, a corpse swollen up. [In this way, one frequently given to lust is temporarily freed of lust so insight may dawn and permanently free one of hindrances, fetters, and defilements.] This is called the effort to maintain" (AN IV, 14).

Cure for STRIVING: a Relaxed Approach

Mirka Knaster, Inquiring Mind (Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring 2008); Wisdom Quarterly
Catholicism, born-again Protestantism, and lack of religion found to shrink brain. Religion and atheism should improve brain and heart not damage them (integral-options blog).

Taking a Relaxed Approach with Sayadaw U Tejaniya

In 2007, Sayadaw U Tejaniva, a Burmese [Theravada] monk, made his second visit to Western Dharma centers in the US. I had the opportunity to hear his teachings in several places, to interview him and his excellent translator, Ma Thet, and to speak with teachers and yogis about their experience of his transformative approach to Dharma practice.

Sayadaw’s particular way of teaching is now influencing a number of Western vipassana [insight] teachers. He emphasizes:

• practicing in a relaxed but continuous manner rather than forcing one’s effort;
• opening the field of awareness to all experience rather than beginning with a primary object to establish concentration;
  
• walking at a regular rather than slow pace on retreat;
  
• not imposing a fixed retreat schedule; and
  
• focusing on one’s relationship to objects rather than on the objects themselves.
  

Insight or vipassana as a supportive group effort (findameditationclass.com)

The integration of these elements appears to strengthen the five spiritual faculties (indriya) -- faith [confidence in the practice], energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom -- and deepen practice in everyday life.

Practicing with Ease

“At this point in the Dharma’s unfolding in the West, there seems to be a ripeness for Sayadaw’s relaxed and open approach,” says Myoshin Kelley, teacher-in-residence at the Forest Refuge in Barre, Massachusetts.

For people who have done many years of practice, like herself, subtle levels of striving, wanting or trying to create something get exposed. That exposure of yet another layer of holding or attachment allows a certain ease to occur as well.

“Natural awareness is recognizing everything that’s happening without using a lot of effort,” says Sayadaw U Tejaniya. “You need to watch all day long, but you can’t be concentrating all day long. Meditation is for all the time -- now, always, everywhere -- not just to enjoy a stay in the forest on retreat.”

Meditation with headphones (binaural beats, Holosync induction, or recorded instructions) are far more preferable than straining or boredom (Image: soulpancake.com).

He compares vipassana [insight practice] to running a marathon, not a 100-meter dash. We need to keep at it relentlessly, but in a relaxed manner. Instead of excessive mental and physical energy, a sense of patience and perseverance will build up natural momentum and further our practice.

Natural is a word that comes up a lot with Sayadaw and those who have practiced with him. Alexis Santos, who practiced long-term at Shwe Oo Min Meditation Centre, employs it when referring to what he learned:

It’s natural -- practice Dhamma, understanding who we are and what reality is -- it’s a natural event, and it’s always happening. So there is nothing really to control. There’s never an opportunity that is not open for reflection or engagement, for learning, for opening the heart and mind to what is arising, for listening deeply. There’s a total sense of allowing this life not to be broken up into agendas.

Santos describes an image from nature, the sunflower, that helped him to establish awareness with the right attitude: “It just rests there and faces the sun and, in this very open way, receives everything it needs to grow and flourish as a flower. It doesn’t require straining to get light into itself.”

“Don’t see something as a problem,” Sayadaw advises. “Just see it as it is.” Allan Price reflects on how he had always perceived his practice as a problem. That has changed through his work with Sayadaw’s approach on a retreat with senior vipassana teachers Steve Armstrong and Kamala Masters:

I’ve tended to have striving in my personality, so if I was supposed to feel the breath, then come hell or high water, I’m going to feel the breath. It was very typical for me on a retreat to go into one of my interviews and say, “I’m not getting it.”

I just found the new instructions so helpful because it was much easier to be with the experience. With this approach, I can really sit with anything that comes up because it doesn’t matter what comes up. I don’t feel like there are experiences that are more or less valid now.

Strengthening the Faculty of Wisdom

“If you only want peace, understanding won’t come,” Sayadaw says. “And the other danger is, if you only want peace, then you’ll get angry more easily.”

He laughs as he remembers learning this himself as a young man. He tells a story about a time when he was so concentrated and blissed out all day that he decided to keep practicing and not sleep that night. His energy was great for hours and then, around 2:00 am, a bedbug bit him and broke the samadhi [deep concentration].

Annoyed, he groaned, but he also thought he could get it back. Because he didn’t see the mind’s attitude -- craving bliss -- the harder he tried, the more irritation and tension he generated.

After three days, he was worn out. “I give up,” he said. “Never mind if it doesn’t come back. I’ve got a headache. I’m not going to try anymore.”

Suddenly, there was samadhi again. By over-focusing, he had zoned out and couldn’t use his intelligence; the faculty of wisdom had become weak. More

• INSET PHOTOS: indoor meditation (sevenchakrasmeditation.com); outdoor meditation (gaynerdlife.blogspot.com)