(Adapted from an article written in the Himalayas and published in Asia Times, Hong Kong)
Beyond this shore
And the farther shore,
Beyond the beyond,
Where there is no beginning,
No end.
Without fear, go.
– The Dhammapada: Sayings of the Buddha (Thomas Byrom translation)
For a Vipassana meditator to say “Dhammaṃ Saranaṃ Gacchāmi” (I surrender to Dhamma) and then be worried, fearful about the future becomes a contradiction.
No fears, worries, anxieties for the meditator correctly, ardently practicing Vipassana. Dhamma (law of cause and effect) takes care.
Anxiety and fear can arise when the mind wanders to past and future. “Living in the present moment is to live without fear,” the Principal Teacher of Vipassana Sayagyi U Goenka said in Belgium in 2002.
To live in the present moment at the deepest level of the mind is being with Sampajañña. It means objectively observing arising, passing bodily sensations, from moment to moment.
Sampajañña is the most important word in the human vocabulary. Why? Sampajañña leads to freedom beyond fear and suffering. It purifies the mind from demons of impurities hiding in its dark dungeons. Sampajañña is the path to true happiness, to liberation from all suffering.
Sampajañña is the highest exercise for the mind. We take care of the body, giving it food, exercise, bath. But the mind? And the mind too gathers dirt, gets hurt, or causes hurt.
Dangerous habit patterns of the mind hurt us and cause hurt. These habit patterns are called saṅkhāras, the deep-rooted conditioning of the mind. Saṅkhāras get deepened when we blindly react the same way to similar situations. We get trapped in suffering.
Like a blackmailer within, saṅkhāras of craving demand gratification. The inner blackmailer’s threats are unpleasant sensations. So we surrender again. The blackmailer gets greedier. Never surrender to a blackmailer.
Or just as driving a car with faulty steering, the meditator loses control of the mind. And the careless meditator repeatedly does what should not be done – despite knowing it should not be done.
Sampajañña and sensations
The aim of Sampajañña or Vipassana practice is to eradicate saṅkhāras.
At the World Summit on the Buddha’s Teachings in Yangon, Myanmar, in December 2004, Sayagyi U Goenka said:
“In Vipassana practice, we move from olāriko (gross) to sukhumā (subtle) realities at the level of sensations … to the subtlest reality beyond mind and matter. Therefore we start with paññatti, the apparent truth of mind and matter, which is gross, solidified truth. Then the meditator analyses, divides, dissects it at the experiential level based on the wisdom of impermanence.
“The meditator goes beyond the apparent truth of mind (citta and cetasika) and matter and reaches the ultimate truth of mind and matter. This is the ultimate truth of nibbāna.
“Sensation (vedanā) has a very important role in the Buddha’s teaching,” he told a rapt, house-full audience. “The Buddha made a ground-breaking observation: whatever arises in the mind is accompanied by sensations in the body – Vedanāsamosaraṇā sabbe dhammā.”
Then he mentioned the life-changing reality: “Every thought that arises in the mind is accompanied by a sensation in the body. Therefore, when working with sensations, we are working at the depth of mind.”
Be very alert, the teacher Sayagyi U Goenka often instructed. Focus immediately on arising, passing bodily sensations (sampajañña) when disturbing thoughts arise.
The actual disturbance is not thoughts, but the unpleasant sensations arising with such thoughts. With equanimity to sensations, we come out of negative thoughts and emotions. We stop suffering.
Beyond delusions, illusions
Sampajañña is why I am in the Himalayas. I have to make all efforts to maintain Sampajañña every moment, without distractions.
My only purpose is to share with all beings merits thereby gained. Those merits will help you leave the burning house.
Being with Sampajañña longer – without thoughts – takes the Vipassana practitioner beyond illusions, delusions.
“As you proceed from a narrow, partial view to a full understanding of truth, automatically illusions and confusions disappear,” said the Principal Teacher. “By remaining extroverted we see only one aspect of reality. Then partial truths mislead us. But through the practice of introspection, we awaken to the entire truth.”
So how does the process of introspection awaken in us a comprehensive grasp of truth?
The teacher explained in the article “Sampajañña:The Fullness of Understanding":
“To understand this we must recall that every sensory phenomenon – whether a person, a thing, or an event – exists for us only when it comes into contact with our sense organs. Without this contact, the sensory object in fact is nothing to us.
“If we remain extroverted, we attach importance to external objects. By this we ignore the essential internal base of their existence for us, because we never examine the reality within. Thus deluded by a partial truth, we are led into folly.”
Sampajañña leads to the truth beyond misleading partial truths. This single word summarizes the practical teaching of the Buddha.
His entire teaching was published in 146 volumes in a historic Vipassana Research Institute project. Those volumes with 7,448,248 words condenses to one word: sampajañña.
Sampajañña is like a rope to climb a difficult Himalayan peak. The climber loses his grip on the rope, he slips down. He grips the rope again. Fierce storms of cravings lash him. But he fights to hold on. Falling rocks rain on him. And he struggles, falls down the abyss. Yet he never gives up. He remembers the Most Compassionate Teacher saying: “Start again.”
He rises from the pain and climbs again. Moment by careful moment he reaches the peak of the tallest mountain. And he shares the way.
Universal laws applicable within
The Buddha did not teach “Buddhism” – the sectarian word that keeps many away from experiencing the benefits of a universal, self-dependent path. This misconception also has most of the scientific world ignore the intricate depth of his teaching.
Sayagyi U Goenka wrote in Glimpses of the Buddha’s Life: “2,600 years ago, this super-scientist of the spiritual world realized the truths of nature. He did so without the aid of modern scientific devices, and solely by means of his mental power.
“He found that there is no solidity in our apparently gross body and in the entire material world. This solidity is only the apparent truth, the manifest truth. It appears to be so.
“The ultimate truth is that everything in the material world is made up of innumerable tiny little subatomic particles. They cannot be seen with the naked eye. He termed them kalāpas. Even this kalāpa is not permanent, not solid. Every moment it undergoes combustion-oscillation.”
I have no doubt that kalāpas are the “God Particles” that quantum physicists search for as their “Holy Grail” for the ultimate, indivisible building blocks of matter.
The ultimate building block of the mind the Buddha called as “mind moment.” In one mind moment, the Buddha said, kalāpas arise and pass away trillions of times. Such a rapidity of arising, passing away of sub-atomic particles gives an illusion of solidity to the world.
Mother Nature’s laws are universal. The same law of continual impermanence applies to stars, galaxies, and this “I.” Likewise this mind-body structure too is made of continuously changing, combusting, vibrating subatomic kalāpas arising and passing away.
In subatomic quantum reality, we experience a death every micro-moment. It’s a deeper reality of suffering hidden by ignorance of the reality within.
Hard work to change habit-patterns
Only the piercing, penetrating work of sampajañña with strong determination can crack the inner walls of ignorance. Then we free ourselves from addictive habit patterns.
But words, questions and answers have limited effect. They give short-term solace.
How much have inspiring words actually changed our life? So we need the actual practice. Mere words are like unused medicine in the forgotten cupboards of the mind.
Only very hard, correct work – beyond pain barriers – can change deep-rooted habit patterns of the mind.
“Be brave, be strong,” the Teacher said in the 30-day Vipassana course. “Fight out your battles. Be victorious.”
Near my solitary Himalayan forest tent I saw a flock of parrots that reminded me of my favorite story. I last heard it in Dhamma Tapovan-2 during a 60-day Vipassana course that started in December 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world:
A parrot repeats the warning from a hermit: “O parrot, be careful. The hunter will come. He will throw sweet grains. You will be attracted to the grains. He will cast the net. You will be caught.”
But the parrot falls into the hunter’s trap. And it repeats the words while being carried away in his net, “O parrot, be careful. The hunter will come …”
Be careful.
Those leaving the world to serve the world need to be more careful. The hunter has cunning tricks. His lethal snare is the delusion: “I will enjoy the sensual sweet grains without getting trapped.”
Being with Sampajañña protects the Vipassana meditator from the hunter’s tempting lures and net.
