What psychologists refer to as the
"conscious mind" Buddha called this part of the mind the paritta
citta (a very small surface layer of the mind). There is a big barrier between the paritta
citta and the rest of the mind at deeper levels. The conscious mind does
not know what is happening in the unconscious or half-conscious. Vipassana
breaks this barrier of ignorance, taking you from the surface level of the mind
to the deepest level of the mind where conditioning takes root. Vipassana
practice exposes and removes the anusaya kilesa (latent mental
defilements) that are lying at the deepest level of the mind.
Understand what Vipassana is and how it helps us in our day-to-day lives; how
it helps us to come out of our misery, the misery of life and death.
How to live a life of peace and harmony? Siddhattha Gotama's full enlightenment
enabled him to realize the truth of the way out of suffering: where misery
lies, how it starts, and how it can be eradicated.
There were many techniques of meditation prevailing in India during Buddha's
lifetime, as there are today. The Bodhisatta Gotama tried them all, but he was
not satisfied because he found that he was not fully liberated from misery.
Then he started his own practical research. Through his personal experience and effort he
re-discovered this technique of Vipassana, which eradicated misery from his
life and made him a fully enlightened person. He did not claim that he discovered Vipassana. He said the path of Vipassana was already there. Dhamma is timeless.
A Sammasambuddha rediscovers Vipassana, when it becomes lost to humanity.
There
are many techniques that give temporary relief from suffering. When you become miserable you
divert your attention to something else. Then you feel that you have come out
of your misery, but you are not totally relieved.
If something undesirable has happened in life, you become agitated. You cannot
bear this misery and want to run away from it. You may go to a cinema or a
theatre, or you may indulge in other sensual entertainments. You may go out
drinking, and so on. All this is running away from misery. Escape is no
solution to the problem. Instead, the misery is multiplying.
In Buddha's enlightenment he realized that one must face reality. Instead of
running away from the problem, one must face it.
The Buddha found that all the types of meditation existing in his day consisted
of merely diverting the mind from the prevailing misery to another object. He
found that practicing this, actually only a small part of the mind gets
diverted. Deep inside one keeps reacting, one keeps generating saṅkhāras (deep-rooted mental conditioning or habit pattern of the mind) of craving, aversion or delusion.
One keeps suffering at a deep level of the mind.
To clean the mind at the root level, the object of meditation should not be an
imaginary object, it should be reality—reality as it is. One has to work with
whatever reality has manifested itself now within, whatever one experiences
within the framework of one's own mind-body.
In the practice of Vipassana one has to explore the reality within oneself—the
material structure and the mental structure, the combination of which one keeps
calling "I, me, mine." One generates tremendous attachment to this
material and mental structure, and becomes miserable when things go against the
wishes of this "I, me, mine". To practice the Dhamma path that the
Sammasambuddha rediscovered, we must observe the truth of mind and matter.
Their basic characteristics should be directly experienced by the meditator.
This results in wisdom, the wisdom of experienced truth and without doubts.
Wisdom can be of three types: wisdom gained by listening to others, that which
is gained by intellectual analysis, and wisdom developed from direct, personal
experience. Before Buddha, and even at the time of Buddha, there were teachers
who were teaching morality, were teaching concentration, and who were also
talking about wisdom. But this wisdom was only received or intellectualized
wisdom. It was not wisdom gained by personal experience. Buddha found that one
may play any number of intellectual or devotional games, but unless he
experiences the truth himself, and develops wisdom from his personal
experience, he will not be liberated.
Vipassana is personally experienced wisdom. One may listen to discourses
or read scriptures. Or one may use the intellect and try to understand:
"Yes, Buddha's teaching is wonderful! This wisdom is wonderful!" But
that is not direct experience of wisdom.
The entire field of mind and matter - the six senses and their respective
objects - have the basic characteristics of anicca (impermanence), dukkha
(suffering) and anattā (egolessness). Buddha wanted us to experience
this reality within ourselves. To explore the truth within the framework of the
body, he designated two fields. One is the material structure: the corporeal
structure, the physical structure. The other is the mental structure with four
factors: 1) consciousness; 2) perception; 3) the part of the mind that feels
sensation; 4) and the part of the mind that reacts. So to explore both fields
he gave us kāyānupassanā (observation of the body) and cittānupassanā
(observation of the mind).
How can you observe the body with direct experience unless you can feel it?
There must be something happening in the body which you feel, which you
realize. Then you can say, "Yes, I have practised kāyānupassanā."
One must feel the sensations on the body: this is vedanānupassanā (observation
of body sensations).
The same is true for cittānupassanā. Unless something arises in the
mind, you cannot directly experience it. Whatever arises in the mind is dhamma
(mental content). Therefore dhammānupassanā (observation of the
contents of the mind) is necessary for cittānupassanā.
This is how the Buddha divided these practices. Kāyānupassanā and vedanānupassanā
pertain to the physical structure. Cittānupassanā and dhammānupassanā
pertain to the mental structure. Know from your personal experience how
this mind and matter are related to each other. To believe that one understands
mind and matter, without having directly experienced it, is delusion. It is
only direct experience that will make us understand the reality about mind and
matter. This is where Vipassana helps us.
The Dhamma Hall of the Global Pagoda
that enables thousands to benefit from practicing Vipassana as taught
by the Samsammabuddha Gotama. This, the world's largest stone dome without any
supporting pillars (in effect, a stupendous cave for meditation), can seat over
8,000 Vipassana students at a time in group meditation.
(Photograph from Afternoon Dispatch and Courier, June, 2011)
In
brief, understand how we practice Vipassana during a residential 10-day course.
We start with Anapana, awareness of respiration—natural respiration. We don't
make it a breathing exercise or regulate the breath as they do in prāṇāyāma. We observe respiration at the
entrance of the nostrils.
If a meditator works hard continuously (which means making continuous effort to
objectively observe the natural breath, without lazily letting the mind wander
in thoughts) in a congenial atmosphere without any disturbance, within two or
three days some subtle reality on this part of the body will start manifesting
itself: some sensations—natural, normal bodily sensations. Maybe heat or cold,
throbbing or pulsing or some other sensations.
When one reaches the fourth or fifth day of practice (Vipassana is taught on
the fourth day - namely, objectively observing the impermanence of bodily
sensations), he or she will find that there are sensations throughout the body,
from head to feet. One feels those sensations, and is asked not to react to
them. Just observe; observe objectively, without identifying yourself with the
sensations.
When you work as Buddha wanted you to work, by the time you reach the seventh
day or the eighth day, you will move towards subtler and subtler reality. The Dhamma
(universal laws of nature) will start helping you. You observe this structure
that initially appears to be so solid, the entire physical structure at the
level of sensation. Observing, observing you will reach the stage when you
experience that the entire physical structure is nothing but subatomic
particles: throughout the body, nothing but kalāpas (tiniest particles
that the Buddha said cannot be divided further, the ultimate building block
matter). And even these tiniest subatomic particles are not solid. They are
mere vibration, just wavelets. The Buddha's words become clear by experience:
Sabbo pajjalito loko, sabbo loko pakampito.
The
entire universe is nothing but combustion and vibration.
As you experience it yourself, your kāyānupassanā, your vedanānupassanā,
will take you to the stage where you experience that the entire material world
is nothing but vibration. Then it becomes very easy for you to practice cittānupassanā
and dhammānupassanā.
Buddha's teaching is to move from the gross, apparent truth to the subtlest,
ultimate truth, from oḷārika
to sukhuma. The
apparent truth always creates illusion and confusion in the mind. By dividing
and dissecting apparent reality, you will come to the ultimate reality. As you
experience the reality of matter to be vibration, you also start experiencing
the reality of the mind: viññāṇa
(consciousness), saññā
(perception), vedanā (sensation) and saṅkhāra (reaction). If you experience them
properly with Vipassana, it will become clear how they work.
Suppose you have reached the stage where you are experiencing that the entire
physical structure is just vibration. If a sound has come in contact with the
ears you will notice that this sound is nothing but vibration. The first part
of the mind, consciousness, has done its job: ear consciousness has recognized
that something has happened at the ear sense door. Like a gong which, having
been struck at one point, begins vibrating throughout its structure, so a
contact with any of the senses begins a vibration which spreads throughout the
body. At first this is merely a neutral vibration, neither pleasant nor
unpleasant.
The perception recognizes and evaluates the sound, "It is a word—what
word? Praise! Oh, wonderful, very good!" The resulting sensation, the
vibration, will become very pleasant. In the same way, if the words are words
of abuse the vibration will become very unpleasant. The vibration changes
according to the evaluation given by the perception part of the mind. Next the
third part of the mind starts feeling the sensation: pleasant or unpleasant.
Then the fourth part of the mind will start working. This is reaction; its job
is to react. If a pleasant sensation arises, it will react with craving. If an
unpleasant sensation arises, it will react with aversion. Pleasant sensation:
"I like it. Very good! I want more, I want more!" Similarly,
unpleasant sensation: "I dislike it. I don't want it." Generating
craving and aversion is the part played by the fourth factor of the
mind—reaction.
Understand that this process is going on constantly at one sense door or
another. Every moment something or the other is happening at one of the sense
doors. Every moment the respective consciousness cognizes; the perception
recognizes and evaluates; the feeling part of the mind feels; and the reacting part of the
mind reacts, with either craving or aversion. This happens continuously in
one's life.
At the apparent, surface level, it seems that I am reacting with either craving
or aversion to the external stimulus. Actually this is not so. Buddha found
that we are reacting to our sensations. This unique, all-important realization was the enlightenment of
Buddha. He said:
Saḷāyatana-paccayā
phasso
phassa-paccayā vedanā
vedanā-paccayā taṇhā.
With
the base of the six senses, contact arises
with
the base of contact, sensation arises
with
the base of sensation, craving arises.
It became so clear to him: the six sense organs come in contact with objects
outside. Because of the contact, a sensation starts in the body that, most of
the time, is either pleasant or unpleasant. Then after a pleasant or unpleasant
sensation arises, craving or aversion start—not before that. This realization
was possible because Buddha went deep inside and experienced it himself. He
went to the root of the problem and discovered how to eradicate the cause of
suffering at the root level.
Working at the intellectual level of the mind, we try to suppress craving and
aversion, but deep inside, craving and aversion continue. We are constantly
rolling in craving or aversion. We are not coming out of misery through
suppression.
Buddha discovered the way: whenever you experience any sensation, due to
any reason, you objectively observe the impermanent nature of it:
Samudaya dhammānupassī vā kāyasmiṃ viharati
vaya dhammānupassī vā kāyasmiṃ
viharati
samudaya-vaya-dhammānupassī vā kāyasmiṃ viharati.
He
dwells observing the phenomenon of arising in the body.
He
dwells observing the phenomenon of passing away in the body.
He
dwells observing the phenomenon of simultaneous arising and passing away in the
body.
Every sensation arises and passes away. Nothing is eternal. When you practice
Vipassana you start experiencing this. However unpleasant a sensation may
be—look, it arises only to pass away. However pleasant a sensation may be, it
is just a vibration—arising and passing. Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, the
characteristic of impermanence remains the same. You are now experiencing the
reality of anicca. You are not believing it because Buddha said so, or
some scripture or tradition says so, or even because your intellect says so.
You accept the truth of anicca because you directly experience it. This
is how your received wisdom and intellectual understanding turn into personally
experienced wisdom.
Only this experience of anicca will change the habit pattern of the mind.
Feeling sensation in the body and understanding that everything is impermanent,
you don't react with craving or aversion; you are equanimous. Practicing this
with continuous objective awareness of anicca at the level of bodily sensations changes the habit of reacting at the deepest level. When you don't generate any
new conditioning of craving and aversion, old conditioning comes on the surface
and passes away. By observing reality as it is, you become free from all your
conditioning of craving and aversion.
Western psychologists refer to the "conscious mind" Buddha called
this part of the mind the paritta citta (a very small part of the mind).
There is a big barrier between the paritta citta and the rest of the
mind at deeper levels. The conscious mind does not know what is happening in
the unconscious or half-conscious. Vipassana breaks this barrier, taking you
from the surface level of the mind to the deepest level of the mind. The
practice exposes the anusaya kilesa (latent defilements) that are
lying at the deepest level of the mind.
The so-called "unconscious" mind is not unconscious. It is always
conscious of body sensations, and it keeps reacting to them. If they are
unpleasant, it reacts with aversion. If they are pleasant, it reacts with
craving. This is the habit pattern, the behaviour pattern, of the so-called unconscious
at the depth of the mind.
Here is an example to explain how the so-called unconscious mind is reacting
with craving and aversion. You are in deep sleep. A mosquito bites you and
there is an unpleasant sensation. Your conscious mind does not know what has
happened. The unconscious knows immediately that there is an unpleasant
sensation, and it reacts with aversion. It drives away or kills the mosquito.
But still there is an unpleasant sensation, so you scratch, though your
conscious mind is in deep sleep. When you wake up, if somebody asks you how
many mosquito bites you got during the night, you won't know. Your conscious
mind was unaware but the unconscious knew, and it reacted.
Another example: Sitting for about half an hour, some pressure starts somewhere
and the unconscious mind reacts: "There is a pressure. I don't like
it!" You change your position. The unconscious mind is always in contact
with the body sensations. You make a little movement, and then after some time
you move again. Just watch somebody sitting for fifteen to twenty minutes. You
will find that this person is fidgeting, shifting a little here, a little
there. Of course, consciously he does not know what he is doing. This is
because he is not aware of the sensations. He does not know that he is reacting
with aversion to these sensations. This barrier is ignorance.
Vipassana breaks this ignorance. Then one starts understanding how sensations
arise and how they give rise to craving or aversion. When there is a pleasant
sensation, there is craving. When there is an unpleasant sensation, there is
aversion, and whenever there is craving or aversion, there is misery.
If one does not break this behaviour pattern, there will be continual craving
or aversion. At the surface level you may say that you are practicing what
Buddha taught, but in fact, you are not practicing what Buddha taught! You are
practicing what the other teachers at the time of Buddha taught. Buddha taught
how to go to the deepest level where suffering arises. Suffering arises because
of one's reaction of craving or aversion. The source of craving and aversion
must be found, and one must change one's behaviour pattern at that level.
Buddha taught us to observe suffering and the arising of suffering. Without
observing these two we can never know the cessation of misery. Suffering
arises with the sensations. If we react to sensations, then suffering arises.
If we do not react we do not suffer from them. However unpleasant a
sensation may be, if you don't react with aversion, you can smile with
equanimity. You understand that this is all anicca, impermanence. The
whole habit pattern of the mind changes at the deepest level.
Through the practice of Vipassana, people start to come out of all kinds of
impurities of the mind—anger, passion, fear, ego, and so on. Within a few
months or a few years the change in people becomes very evident. This is the
benefit of Vipassana, here and now. In this very life you will get the benefit.
Make use of the teaching of Buddha at the deepest
level. Don't just remain at the surface level of the teaching of Buddha. Go to
the deepest level where your craving arises:
Vedanā paccayā taṇhā;
vedanā-nirodhā taṇhā-nirodho;
taṇhā-nirodhā
dukkha-nirodho.
Sensations
give rise to craving.
If
sensations cease, craving ceases.
When
craving ceases, suffering ceases.
When one experiences the truth of liberation—a stage beyond the entire sense
fields—all the six sense organs stop working. There can't be any contact with
objects outside, so sensation ceases. At this stage there is freedom from all
suffering.
First you must reach the stage where you can feel sensations. Only then can you
change the habit pattern of your mind. Work on this technique, this process, at
the very deepest level. If you work on the surface level of the mind you are
only changing the conscious part of the mind, your intellect. You are not going
to the root cause, the most unconscious level of the mind; you are not removing
the anusaya kilesa—deep-rooted defilements of craving and aversion. They
are like sleeping volcanoes that may erupt at any time. You continue to roll
from birth to death; you are not coming out of misery.
Make best use of this wonderful technique of Vipassana and come out of your
misery, come out of the bondages and enjoy real peace, real harmony, real
happiness.
May all of you enjoy real peace, harmony, real happiness.
May all beings be liberated.
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Vipassana meditation courses worldwide, course venues, online application for Vipassana courses
* How to reach Global Pagoda, Gorai / Borivili, Mumbai
* Rare opportunities to earn and share merits in participating in Global Vipassana Pagoda projects
Global Vipassana Pagoda as seen from the Borivili National Park
The Myanmar Gate entrance to the Global Vipassana Pagoda. The entrance, under construction, is similar to the entrance to Dhamma Giri, Igatpuri, and is built as gratitude to Burma that preserved the teaching of Vipassana in its purity. More Global Pagoda photographs in this Picasa Album
The inner dome of the Global Pagoda, the vast meditation hall that can seat approximately 8,000 Vipassana students. This is the world's largest stone-enclosed space of its kind without any supporting pillars, and is being termed a modern day wonder of the world. 
Vipassana meditators inside the Inner Dome Dhamma Hall of the Global Pagoda. 
Art Gallery of the Global Pagoda : the world's single largest collection of paintings on the life of Sammasambuddha Gotama. 
Global Pagoda Art Gallery on Sammasambuddha Gotama's life
Global Pagoda Art Gallery: Sammasambuddha Gotama being offered dana of rice cakes and honey from Tapassu and Bhallika, two merchants from Ukkala, Burma. 
Global Pagoda Art Gallery on Sammasambuddha Gotama's life
Global Pagoda Art Gallery: Sammasambuddha Gotama being offered dana of rice cakes and honey from Tapassu and Bhallika, two merchants from Ukkala, Burma. 
Motif of Global Vipassana Pagoda, by artisans from Burma
Centre of the ceiling of the Dhamma Hall of Global Pagoda. The Dhamma Wheel marks the spot where the Sammasambuddha Gotama's bone relics are preserved *The bone relics serve as reminder that: a) the existence of the Buddha as a historical fact, and not as a mythological figure; b) the impermanence of all phenomena. No being escapes decay and death. Liberation from suffering, at the deepest level, can be gained only from the actual, ardent, correct practice of Vipassana - the universal practice that a Sammasambuddha rediscovers.
