B. Alan Wallace, 15 Apr 2016
In order to explore the differences between shamatha and vipashyana, Alan begins explaining the meaning of the term bare attention coined by the great German scholar and practitioner named Nyanaponika Thera, the primary teacher of Bhikkhu Bodhi, one of the finest scholars and translators of Theravada Buddhism and the Pali Canon. Alan and Bhikkhu Bodhi never met but they have a long correspondence on the nature of mindfulness and its relationship to vipashyana. Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote to Alan: “Nyanaponika himself did not regard “bare attention” as capturing the complete significance of satipaṭṭhāna, but as representing only one phase, the initial phase, in the meditative development of right mindfulness. He held that in the proper practice of right mindfulness, sati (mindfulness) has to be integrated with sampajañña, clear comprehension, and it is only when these two work together that right mindfulness can fulfill its intended purpose.”
So bare attention is not a placebo; it’s the first stage, baby steps, prior to shamatha and vipashyana, and if it’s presented as that it’s very beneficial, very good for stress reduction. But the misinformation comes from equating it to mindfulness, to vipashyana, states that are not dhyana to dhyana, experiences that are not stream-entry to stream-entry. This is counterproductive and undermines the integrity of Buddhist tradition. Mindfulness has become big business as yoga already is, secularized, commoditized, consumer-driven, devoid of any relation with ethics or any path of liberation. But there are very authentic yoga teachers and there are vipashyana teachers who teach with integrity, knowledge and with context. So Alan did not make a generalization; he is just cutting misinformation away.
The problem was summarized in The Economist in a much better way than Alan ever saw in Buddhist journals: "The biggest problem with mindfulness is that it is becoming part of the self-help movement—and hence part of the disease that it is supposed to cure. Gurus talk about “the competitive advantage of meditation”. Pupils come to see it as a way to get ahead in life. And the point of the whole exercise is lost. What has parading around in pricey Lululemon outfits got to do with the Buddhist ethic of non-attachment to material goods? And what has staring at a computer-generated dot got to do with the ancient art of meditation? Western capitalism seems to be doing rather more to change eastern religion than eastern religion is doing to change Western capitalism." Ref: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21589841-western-capitalism-looking-inspiration-eastern-mysticism-mindfulness-business'
Alan has also quoted an explanation made by Sujato Bhikkhu: “Just as if, Nandaka, there was a four-legged animal with one leg stunted and short, it would thus be unfulfilled in that factor; so too, a monk who is faithful and virtuous but does not gain samatha of the heart within himself is unfulfilled in that factor. That factor should be fulfilled by him.... A monk who has these three but no vipassana into principles pertaining to higher understanding is unfulfilled in that factor. That factor should be fulfilled by him. The description of vipassanā mentions the seeing, exploring and discerning of activities(saṅkhārā). The mention of ‘activities’ here implies the three characteristics—impermanence, suffering, not-self—of phenomena, conditioned according to dependent origination. The meditative discernment of the nature of conditioned reality is the core meaning of vipassanā. While this definition may be too narrow for some contexts, still vipassanā is commonly used in this sense in the Suttas and in the present day. Samatha is the steadying, settling, and unifying of the mind.... Vipassanā refers to the wisdom qualities such as understanding, discrimination, discernment. Samatha soothes the emotional defilements such as greed and anger, while vipassanā pierces with understanding the darkness of delusion.” Ref: http://santifm.org/santipada/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/AHistoryofMindfulnessBhikkhu_Sujato.pdf
Alan says he slightly disagrees from Bhikkhu Bodhi: sati (mindfulness) and sampajañña (clear comprehension; Alan translates it as introspection) are enough for shamatha but not for vipashyana. If you want to go beyond shamatha into vipashyana, you’ll need prajña - intelligence, wisdom, and discernment. As Buddha said, in each of these four applications of mindfulness, contemplate the factors of origination and the factors of dissolution. In a secular way, in a very good psychoanalysis, we also investigate where a troubling emotion or memory came from - factors of origination - and how can we heal it - factors of dissolution. In contrast, psycho-pharmaceutical drugs only suppress the symptoms and make more livable to live with a dysfunctional mind; this anesthesia may become a tragedy. It is the opposite of what Buddha said in The Four Noble Truths.
Moving to the discussion about vipashyana practice, Alan says we start from awareness and appearances for the six senses, including our feelings about them, and then we ask, “Where do they come from?” Of course, modern science has made physical questions, using physical instruments to make physical measurements, and has got a picture of a physical universe, where there is no place for consciousness. So when we make questions about the non-physical - appearances and awareness - scientists have no clue. But here we are, 2016, we’re conscious, appearances are happening, none of us was here 100 years ago, so there was some point when the first moment of awareness and appearances arose for each of us. Is there any example in the universe of non-physical arising from physical? No, there is no evidence at all! So, as consciousness may not arise from nothing (as anything else) nor from physical, maybe the truth is that latter configurations of appearances and awareness emerge from earlier configurations of appearances and awareness. And also, when we’re dead, consciousness does not turn into nothing - configurations of human consciousness transform into bardo consciousness, and bardo appearances, and continues to get reconfigured.
All of this is contemplation, not bare attention. So, we should not miss the chance to use this intelligence we have, and only for a short time. Alan closes this talk citing the scientific research, including data from Shamatha Project, showing that meditation may ward off senile dementia, reduce cortical thinning, increase neurogenesis, and so on.
Meditation is on vipashyana and starts at 33:03.
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Olaso. So these eight weeks are devoted to the exploration both in theory and practice of shamatha and vipashyana and this means clearly distinguishing between the two, for they are clearly not the same. And then Mahamudra, and then Mahamudra and its relationship to Dzogchen comes in as well of course. But just for starters the just a brief review and a little bit further exploration, shamatha versus vipashyana. As I’ve said before there’s been a lot of misinformation given out in terms of, by equating bare attention with mindfulness, which it’s not. And equating bare attention with vipashyana which it’s not. And there’s just no basis for saying that. But it’s said very widely. But the very term bare attention, bare attention, there was somebody who coined this term and he’s an outstanding scholar and practitioner, his name is Nyanaponika Thera and he wrote a book many decades ago, 50 years ago, sixty, called The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, Nyanaponika Thera he was an outstanding scholar, he was German. Lived for many many, well lived in Sri Lanka, was a monk there for decades, outstanding scholar, practitioner and he was really a primary teacher of Bhikkhu Bodhi who I think many people acknowledge and I certainly do as one of our finest scholars and translators of Theravada Buddhism, the Pali Canon, he’s really absolutely first rate. I’ve never met him, but I’ve had the privilege of corresponding with him on a number of occasions over the years. And so it was Bhikkhu Bodhi, my distant friend, my pen pal, who I’ve never met. I asked him, we had a whole correspondence that went back and forth and we both agreed we could make it public on the nature of mindfulness. And its relationship to vipashyana and this is now either will now or today will be on the website, so you can see it. He’s very very widely regarded as a first rate translator scholar and he has my very high regard, very high regard.
[02:02] And so, his guru Nyanaponika Thera, he coined the term bare attention and it comes up in this wonderful text, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation which is all about sathipattana, he calls the four foundations of mindfulness, I mildly prefer the Four Close Applications of Mindfulness. That’s just a scholar’s deal. Here’s what Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote in this regard and I quote him verbatim, Nyanaponika himself did not regard bare attention as capturing the complete significance of sathipattana but as representing only one phase, the initial phase, in the meditative development of right mindfulness. He held that in the proper practice of right mindfulness sati mindfulness has to be integrated with sampajanna, clear comprehension, and it is only when these two work together that right mindfulness can fulfill its intended purpose. So, I made a rather strong comment a bit of an overstatement yesterday, one statement [laughter] it’s the only one I’m going to modify. And that is, you know this whole kind of bare attention, bare attention like it’s a placebo. Well it’s not a placebo, it’s very very effective. It’s the first stage, bare attention is the first stage, the initial stage, the baby steps, it’s preschool, it’s not vipashyana and it’s not shamatha, it’s pre- it’s proto- shamatha, vipashyana. And if you present it as that then it’s excellent and it’s very good for stress reduction has a lot of health benefits, it brings greater peace of mind, and it helps you cut down the signal to noise ratio. Which is a really good idea. And that’s beneficial.
[03:37] So that’s not a placebo that’s excellent. The misinformation comes with equating this with mindfulness, equating it with vipashyana, and then equating things that are not even remotely dhyana with dhyana, and equating states of experience with stream entry which are not even remotely stream entry, that’s just a lot of misinformation. And it’s counterproductive and undermines the integrity of the Buddhist tradition. And so what’s happened here of course is that mindfulness has become big business. As yoga already is and it’s got secularized and it’s been turned into something that’s really basically commodified, secularized, and consumer driven devoid of any relationship to ethics or to path to liberation, very commonly, and there are outstanding yoga teachers who keep it in its context and teach it very authentically. There are both. And there are outstanding vipashyana teachers who teach it with integrity and with knowledge and with context. And they’re doing a superb job. And they’re not being reductionist and they’re not giving the false information and there are many others who do. So I didn’t make, I do not make a generalization. That’s why I said some vipashyana teachers. But I’m not interested in naming names. Because I’m not here to critique people. I am here to critique misinformation so we can clear that clutter away and see what’s true and then judge for ourselves.
[04:57] But here is a summary of the problem. And it’s in a journal that, it’s called the Economist. And as far as I know it’s not a Buddhist journal, [laughter] but this is one of the clearest evaluations of this that I’ve seen anywhere including much better than a lot of references to vipashyana in Buddhist journals. This is from the Economist and I quote: The biggest problem with mindfulness is that it’s becoming part of the self help movement and hence part of the disease that it is supposed to cure. Gurus talk about the competitive advantage of meditation, pupils come to see it as a way to get ahead in life, and the point of the whole exercise is lost what has parading around in pricey lulu linen outfits [laughter] got to do with the Buddhist ethics of non attachment to material goods? And what has staring at a computer generated dot, got to do with the ancient art of meditation? Western capitalism seems to be doing rather more to change Eastern religion than Eastern religion is doing to change Western capitalism. I’ve given you the source. You think I made that up? I didn’t, it’s from the Economist, not Tricycle, not the Shambhala Sun, not Buddharma, not Rigpa. No the Economist, thank you, The Economist, I appreciate that. [laughter continues]
[06:19] And then the whole relationship between shamatha, vipashyana, shamatha, vipashyana in Pali there’s a very good scholar Sujato Bhikkhu, and he quotes the Buddha as follows, just as if Nandika there was a four legged animal [laughing] any four legged animal, with one leg stunted and short. So it’s not quite the five legged. With one leg stunted and short it would be thus unfilled in that factor so too a monk who is faithful and virtuous but does not gain shamatha of the heart within himself, is unfulfilled in that factor. So you’re like a three legged dog. The factor that should be, he is unfulfilled in that factor, that factor that should be fulfilled by him. So a monk who has these three, he’s faithful, he’s virtuous, and shamatha but no vipashyana, the monk has these three but no vipashyana, into principles pertaining to higher understanding is unfulfilled in that factor. So if you have, you’re faithful, you’re virtuous, you have faith, you have virtue, ethics, and you have shamatha but you don’t have vipashyana then you’re a three legged dog again. Right, that’s what he’s saying here. That factor should be fulfilled by him. And then Sujato Bhikkhu adds here, the description of vipashyana mentions the seeing, exploring, and discerning of activities of Sankhara.
[07:45] The mention of activities here implies the three characteristics impermanence, suffering and not self of phenomena conditioned according to dependent origination. And this is the factors of origination. The factors of dissolution.
[07:48] The meditative discernment of the nature of conditioned reality is the central meaning of vipashyana. Meditative discernment, implies much more than bare attention, which a marmot can do. This is calling on our full intelligence, our great big, humongous, ridiculously large intelligence which a marmot doesn’t have. And bare attention does not touch. Vipashyana refers to wisdom qualities such as understanding, discrimination, discernment, that’s not bare attention, that’s not choiceless awareness, that’s not be here now non judgmentally, that’s not even remotely vipashyana. It misses the target entirely and to equate that with the essence of Buddhist meditation is a sham, it’s disgraceful really. Especially when it’s made by people who aren’t even Buddhists. Come on give us a break here. Shamatha soothes the emotional defilements such as greed and anger, while vipashyana pierces with understanding the darkness of delusion. Okay. Words of wisdom this morning from the Economist, and others.
[09:07] So we’re going to be crossing back and forth, doing border skirmishes, resting in shamatha, but having border skirmishes, venturing over into the terrain of vipashyana. The shamatha you know it’s relaxation, stillness, and clarity. It’s refining the tool, it’s signal to noise ratio. It’s not setting out on an expedition to explore the nature of reality. It’s just trying to get a bit of sanity first, you know, before you set out on the great adventure. Don’t bring your craziness with you, okay. But the Buddha did for every one of the four applications of mindfulness he said, he repeated, contemplate which is not bare attention. Contemplate with discernment, intelligence, wisdom, prajna. So I would only differ with Bhikkhu Bodhi, my revered colleague, that when he says that the difference between bare attention and vipashyana is that you need more than sati you also need some patthana, some patthana which is, he translates as clear comprehension, it’s a very common translation. I translate it as introspection, introspection. Well having mindfulness and introspection, that too isn’t enough for vipashyana, you need both of those for shamatha. So now what shamatha is vipashyana again, we’ve now blurred any kind of distinction between the two? So he didn’t quite go far enough in my opinion. You can’t, you can’t develop shamatha without introspection, without noting whether your mind is falling into excitation or laxity. No way! So no, you need more, you need satti and you need some patthana, you need mindfulness and introspection or clear comprehension, there’s a good reason for translating it that way. To practice shamatha, but then if you’re going to go beyond shamatha into vipashyana you need prajna. You need insight. You need intelligence, you need wisdom, you need discernment, understanding, comprehension. And so the Buddha said contemplate, in each of these four applications of mindfulness, the Buddha said and I quote him, Contemplate the factors of origination and the factors of disillusion.
[11:06] Well, you don’t get that just by knowing moment to moment what’s coming up. Again that’s marmot meditation. You use your intelligence to step back and get the wide angle lense and say, where is this coming from? Very good psychoanalysis does that. I have no experience there at all but I know this happens. Very good and there’s a lot of very good psychoanalysis and a lot of wise therapists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, there’s a lot of wisdom there and a lot of what they do, so if I say anything incorrect please correct me. But if some troubling emotion or memory or desire comes up one of the questions asked is, where do you think this is coming from? Right? Where is it coming from? Factors of origination. And then as it fades out, what are the factors of disillusion. How can we heal this? How can we treat this? How can we get over this? Or how could you if you’re the client? How can you get over this? What are the factors that can unravel these knots, solve the problem, so you’re healed and you don’t need medication anymore. If you’re on medication. Was that fair enough? Okay.
[12:06] So Namo, respect, this is vipashyana in the secular setting of clinical psychology and psychiatry. In contrast to that we have psychopharmaceutical drugs which entail no enquiry, no investigation, all you need to do is swallow, and they will manage the symptoms for you. And in many cases that is a godsend, pardon the term, but tremendously helpful. Because if you’re really in great pain, great suffering, because of a psychological disorder and somebody can give you a drug to make you suffer less, you’ll say thank you. And I do too. Is that a path to healing? Is that a path by itself? Is that a path to mental health and balance. No it’s a price of the symptoms. That’s all they do. From anti psychotic drugs to drugs for ADHD, for depression, for general anxiety disorder, for insomnia, the whole spectrum right. They suppress the symptoms, which makes it more livable to live with a dysfunctional mind. That’s why it’s an absolute tragedy to supplant wise talk therapies, psychotherapy, perhaps meditation, with just open up and say ahhh. That’s really tragic, that’s barbaric. That’s not medicine, that’s anesthesia, that’s anesthesiology. And it’s just the opposite of what the Buddha said regarding the first noble truth. Here’s the first noble truth, understand it. The pharmaceutic industry which basically wants our money, said here’s the first noble truth let us help you smother it. And never get better because we want you on our drug forever. And the more the better.
[13:44] So you get one drug you get side products, we’ll give you another drug for the side products of that, but that’ll have side product, we’ll give you another drug, oh boy we’ve got customers. We’ve got customers galore. So useful at the same time, boy with what a price. And what we really need the wisdom of psychotherapy, of psychoanalysis and so forth to really understand the problems so people can be healed and never need the drugs again.
[14:08] So on this note, briefly now moving ahead quickly as we’re doing these border skirmishes crossing the border from shamatha to vipashyana. We’ve been looking at awareness, and we’ve been looking at appearances. Taking appearances and awareness as the path. The appearances to the five physical senses for starters. We’re certainly going to get to appearances to the mind shortly. But we’re starting here with this badhi badhi gayasattapatanya, the close application of mindfulness to the body which includes all of the five sensory domains, physical sensory domains. We’ve been looking into feelings which are then more than of the objective side, the way we experience. So feelings, pleasure, displeasure and neutrality, neutral, indifferent feelings these are flavorings of mental consciousness but also physical consciousness that is the sensory modes of consciousness. So we have these appearances arising. For example of our surrounding world, these appearances arising in the space of our mind which are non physical. Our awareness of them including our feelings about them which are non physical, display no physical characteristics and cannot be measured physically. So they are non physical. Awareness and appearances including appearances imbued with feelings. And then if we should ask what are the factors of origination? Where do these come from? That’s a nice question, isn’t it? Where do they come from? Where do they come from?
[15:30] And if we’re asking that in the 21st century on being educated in modernity whether you’re in Singapore, you’re in Beijing, or you’re in Brisbane, or you’re in Los Angeles, then you’ll at least be introduced to modern cosmology, the history of the universe, and you’ll know that it’s about 13.8 billion years old since the big bang. You’ll know that about 5 billion years ago our planet was formed, together with our solar system, about 3 and ½ billion years ago life first emerged on our planet, single cellular life, and then some time ago and they don’t have a clue when, the first conscious organisms that actually experience are conscious of and have feelings about what they’re experiencing, we have no idea when that occurred or how that occurred. And moreover I was just reading an article by Paul Davies, an outstanding theoretical physicist and he was addressing the issue of whether there is life outside of our planet. And he said well we’d be in a much better position if we knew what were the necessary and sufficient causes to generate life in the first place. And he said you know, we don’t. After all the drum roll, the amino acids and you know this and this and this, complex chemicals and then flash of lightning, and all these, they never panned out. There are multiple theories all contradictory to each other, none of them have been tested, they’re just opinions. That’s all they are, they’re not even scientific theories because a scientific theory you can test. They’re not testable and they all contradict each other.
[16:57] So basically don’t have a clue. And that’s about the emergence of life. Let alone the emergence of consciousness that’s not having a clue about having a clue. That’s like totally clueless. And that’s all very well, I respect ignorance. I mean if ignorance is acknowledged as ignorance that’s a good place to start. But when we pretend to know what we don’t know that is a major obstacle to enquiry, to discovery, to science, to contemplative insight. Pretending to know what you don’t know and that’s what’s happening all over the place. Thanks to scientific materialism, Salu, Hi again. Because we’re simply assuming that organic life emerged out of some kind of complex configuration of non living molecules and we’re simply assuming that once we have organic life that is not conscious, like an amoeba presumably, then they just got more complicated, then they got sufficiently complicated and poof consciousness comes out. But not a clue how that’s supposed to happen, it’s just an opinion. But we’re forced into that opinion. I mean it seems like there’s no wiggle room. It’s like an intellectual or ideological straightjacket with the big picture. There was a big bang, there was inflation, there was matter energy formation of elementary particles fields energy and so forth formation of galaxies and then by five billion years ago here’s our planet and so on. So it started out all physical. And it was all physical for a very long time. Seven billion years or so as far as we know, or longer. More like maybe ten billion years and then over the last three and a half billion we got some life and then somewhere along came consciousness. But if the first ten billion years was just matter, inorganic matter then where would life come from except for that? That seems like well okay we have no choice, I mean everything really boils down to matter. The only problem is we haven’t noticed something.
[18:46] And that is what’s the nature of the questions that have given us this marvelous story of the universe going back 3.8 billion years to the big bang. And here’s a simple answer. All the questions were physical. From the time of Galileo up until right now, Stephen, Stephen Hawking and so forth. All the questions were physical. They’re asked by physicists they ask physical questions, that’s their job.
They don’t ask about consciousness, they don’t ask about anything non physical because they’re physicists and they are, they have been nominating our whole vision of reality as a whole, asking physical questions, using physical instruments to make physical measurements, and lo and behold the picture that comes out is of a purely physical universe. With no explanation for the emergence of life, with no explanation for the emergence of consciousness. And I’ve studied cosmology I’ve read multiple textbooks on cosmology and it’s remarkable, there’s no reference to consciousness at all. You can read the whole history of the universe right up to the present moment and they don’t even mention consciousness, like it’s so insignificant that who cares you know it’s just an accidental byproduct of complex configurations of neurons. What does that have to do with anything. But then of course there is no evidence that’s true either. Its beliefs mounted on beliefs veiled in supposition and assumptions and then presented as scientific fact. That’s really a sham. A shame and a sham.
[20:17] So, if we come back to experience like Andrei Linde suggests. Come back to experience, this is what we actually know, there are appearances, they are non physical. There is awareness of appearances, they’re non physical. There are feelings about the experiences we’re having, they’re not physical. And let us assume that these are natural, part of the nature as particles, fields, space-time, matter, energy, nothing less natural about appearances and awareness than these elementary constituents of the physical universe. If we ask about the factors of origination about atoms, fields, particles, waves, galaxies, galactic clusters, planets, asteroids, and so forth and so on big bangs and whoa we ask about that, then you find in the whole history of physics you always get something from something. But you never get something from nothing. Even the big bang is widely understood as a quantum fluctuation of something that was already there. There was a fluctuation and then wala kaboom out came a silent big bang. Because nobody was listening. [soft laughter]
[21:31] But that’s just the basic principle in physics. You don’t get something from nothing. And once you have something, it doesn’t turn into nothing. Conservation principle. Matter, energy, you never get it from nothing and it never turns into nothing. Configurations of space-time, that’s as real as anything else. You never get space-time from nothing and space-time never turns into nothing. Basic principle, conservation principle.
[21:56] So then we can ask about non physical appearances and awareness. Okay, they’re emerging, that’s clear. Then they’re not static, they’re not immutable, they haven’t been here forever, that is arising from moment to moment, that’s quite clear. So where are they coming from? Factors of origination, back to the Buddha. Factors of origination. Where are these appearances coming from? And our awareness of these appearances, where is it coming from? Now the person who’s immersed in the scientific worldview will say well, they have to be coming from matter, because we didn’t exist 13.8 billion years ago. Consciousness didn’t exist 13.8 billion years ago. And right then I’d say well, wait wait wait wait, stop, stop, stop. How do you know that? How do you know there was no consciousness? Thirteen point, how do you know that? In fact for that matter how do you know there is any consciousness now because you can’t measure it? And you don’t know what causes it. So how do you know? You’re just talking. You’re making noise but there is no basis for your noise, you’re just making noise. When did consciousness emerge in the universe? You don’t have a clue. When did consciousness emerge from the union of the egg and sperm in a mother’s, in a mother’s womb? When did consciousness, when is that a separate individual? And the mother’s carrying a passenger which has its own consciousness. When did that occur and what were the conditions? You don’t have a clue. So you might want to pause a little bit before you say when consciousness first did or did not exist in the universe, because you don’t have a clue.
[23:42] Let’s acknowledge flat out ignorance as flat out ignorance and not pretend otherwise. So just for starters, we don’t know. But we do know right here and now 2016, we’re consciousness, appearances are happening. And we know that each of us here wasn’t here 100 years ago. No one here in the room was here a 100 years ago. So at some point we had each of us here had a first moment of having appearances and having awareness of those appearances. That’s for sure, it follows we have now and none of us was here this you know none of us was here, Alan Wallace didn’t exist anywhere, this individual, this human being and nobody else did. So there was some point between 100 years ago and now when Alan Wallace, this one individual had his first moment of awareness because Alan Wallace didn’t exist before and now does and appearances arising to Alan Wallace’s awareness like everybody else. So where did it come from?
[24:20] You can go with the mainstream which said well it must have emerged from the egg and the sperm. So yeah, how, how did that occur? And when? And bear in mind though that awareness and appearances are non physical. So how is it that something that is non physical arises from something physical? Do you have any other examples in the universe, of non physical arising from physical? The answer is no. Then why here? Why are you saying that? I think the answer is well, because. I think that’s pretty much it, like a five year old. Because. Because what else could it be? Because the option is either it emerges from the physical for which is there is no evidence and not even a testable hypothesis. Or awareness and appearances arise from nothing, they actually emerge from nothing at all, which kind of insults the intelligence. That you get something from nothing at all. Oh yeah? Really? No physicist believes that for anything physical. So why should we believe it? Why should suddenly go irrational when it comes to the mental? And so it either comes from physical, no evidence not a testable hypothesis, or consciousness emerges from nothing whatsoever, you just get complex configurations of neurons coming together and they make nothing transform into something which is really a magical trick. For which there is no evidence. Is there a third option? Yeah!
[25:47] Alan exhales audibly. Just as earlier configurations of matter energy or later configurations of mass energy emerged from earlier configurations of mass energy, maybe the same is true. Like everything else in nature, maybe that’s true for natural consciousness and appearances and that is later configurations of appearances and awareness of them arose from earlier configurations of appearances and awareness and that’s always been true. In which case in the first moment of your awareness of appearances while in your mother’s womb, that first moment, it didn’t come from the egg and sperm, it didn’t come from matter, it didn’t come from nothing, it came from a prior moment. And that moment had a prior moment and a prior moment and a prior moment. Welcome to having a very long history.
[26:38] Now also, something never becomes nothing according to the law of physics, it’s transformed into something else, another configuration of mass energy another configuration of space time. It never becomes nothing. So when you’re dead, when you’re dying, dying, dying, dead.[laughter] The materialist hopes that that’s the third noble truth. It’s wishful thinking with no evidence behind it at all, because they don’t know what causes consciousness therefore they have no idea what terminates it. There’s a symmetry there. If you don’t have a clue what causes it, you don’t have a clue how it terminates. That’s logic. But they pretend otherwise. This is what troubles me. Ignorance doesn’t trouble me at all.
I’ve got so much of it, I’m quite comfortable with it. But when you present ignorance as knowledge that’s a problem. That’s dishonest, that’s a sham. That’s disgraceful. That’s not scientific, that’s anti-scientific. We don’t know what happens at death, but if consciousness is like everything else in the universe, it transforms into something else. So you can either say it transforms into matter for which there is no evidence. You can say it transforms into nothing which is contrary to everything else in the universe. Or configuration of human consciousness gets reconfigured, gets transformed into a bardo consciousness with bardo appearances, and that continues to get reconfigured. And lo and behold you get reembodied all over again.
[28:04] So this is contemplation, this is not bare attention. To really, while we’re alive and while we have this incredible intelligence just for a short time. As we get older, older, older we may not have access to that. I know some people getting quite old the mind doesn’t work so clearly. The brain is not functioning well and their mind doesn’t’ work so well. So that may be a little bit late, if you’re falling into senile dementia let alone alzheimer’s you’re still embodied but you lost, you missed your chance you know. So while we’re not there yet or if we can do something to ward that off and there is evidence that meditation may be helpful for warding off senile dementia. There is evidence for that. There is really important research being done now in Spain and Brazil and other places I know a number of people who are getting very interested in this topic. For good reason there are a lot of us of my generation who are paying taxes. [laughter] We want to see our money put to good use. And if you can help us, you scientists, if you can help us ward off senile dementia and alzheimer’s put in some research to this stupid, get going and make it snappy. Because we may be in that terrain very soon. As people older than us already are. If we can ward that off that could be a good thing. That would be worth many many millions of dollars of research to help many many millions of people live into very late age with clarity of mind. That would be, what isn’t that worth? To have another decade or two of clarity of awareness. To be able to die with clarity. Put a price tag on that one. And there is evidence, there is evidence partly from the shamatha project. The effects of serious shamatha practice on aging process, on chromosomes goes right down to the you know, cellular level, aging process seems to slow, you can be happy. Amy she’s, she’s only gradually getting older, looks the same like she did seven years ago. [amused laughter] And Brendon still looks like a teenager. Whoohoo! But also reduction of cortical thinning, Sara Lazar’s work at Harvard, reduction of cortical thinning. Very good chance that there’s greater neurogenesis, by having the mind active, by training it, refining attention skills, executive control, working memory. So there we are let’s jump in, let’s go back to meditation. Let’s find out the answers. [Sounds of movement]
[31:12] Meditation bell rings three times.
[31:26] Whenever we return to the formal session, practicing shamatha vipashyana, let’s not overlook the fundamental motivation, why are we doing this? Why did the Buddha teach? Why has it been taught and practiced for 2500 years? And it always comes to one, compassion. We’re here to alleviate suffering right from its root. Alleviate suffering and the causes of suffering and we must begin with ourselves. And by so doing be of greater and greater service to the world around us. So with such a motivation and with the perfection of such conative intelligence manifesting as bodhichitta let’s turn to this practice of settling body speech and mind in their natural states.
[34:10] Throughout this entire retreat we’ll always be coming back to the center. Nothing new agey about this, nothing mystical about this. It’s simply letting awareness come to rest right where it already is, without directing it here or there, without directing it to appearances or inverting in upon thoughts, memories and so on. But simply letting awareness rest right where it is holding its own ground.
[36:16] The scientific revolution began by the brilliant Galileo who asked simple questions, one could even say easy questions for which he could get definitive answers. Rather than asking very deep and complex questions for which he could only have speculation. This started the great success story of modern science. So in a similar fashion let’s ask simple questions. As we turn to the immediacy of our experience, to this non physical domain of experience of appearances and awareness. Let’s direct the light of awareness to the space of the body which is non physical. Attend to the sensations corresponding to earth, water, fire, air arising within this space. The sensations are non physical. And attend to them closely. With discerning intelligent mindfulness, monitor with discerning intelligence introspection, monitoring the flow of mindfulness, recognizing as swiftly as possible the flow of attention or mindfulness deviates and falls into either excitation or laxity.
[39:09] It’s difficult enough to be aware of the sensations arising throughout the body, to be objectively aware of them without the cognitive fusion, without simply feeling I feel, I feel, I, I, I, my body, I, but rather observing the space of the body and observing the sensations arising having no owner, belonging to no one. That’s difficult enough, but what about our feelings? We turn now to mental feelings, not just whether this sensation feels pleasant or that unpleasant. Mental feelings, mentally is there a sense of happiness, contentment, of serenity, a sense of dissatisfaction, restlessness, boredom, sukha, dukha? Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. The cognitive fusion with mental feelings. It’s very difficult to release, but it’s exactly what needs to be done. To observe feelings as feelings so said the Buddha. Not to observe them as mine or as I. So as feelings arise, mental feelings of pleasure, displeasure, and indifference. As they arise with respect to anything relative to tactile sensations, relative to memories coming up, imaginations coming up, desires coming up. Make a point now of observing feelings as feelings. Noting them rather than simply identifying with them. And as you note them with bare attention you may even go a step further and with intelligence with discernment, with wisdom and understanding, begin to explore what are the factors of origination? That gave rise to this feeling arising in this moment and that moment. How do feelings arise? Examine closely.
[43:59] As feelings arise examine them closely. Do they arise from moment to moment arising and passing or are they static? Do they endure unchanging over time? And if a feeling arises and you observe it subsiding, whether it’s a feeling of pleasure or some form of dissatisfaction, and then it subsides, it evaporates away. Examine the factors of dissolution so in short examine how feelings arise. Once they are present, examine how they are present. Whether permanent or impermanent, whether they’re true sources of well being or not. Whether they belong to someone or they are someone or not. And then as they vanish, as they fade away, or vanish all in an instant, examine closely the factors of dissolution. This is vipashyana, this gives rise to insight and let’s continue practicing in silence. [45:08]
[55:10] Meditation bell rings three times session ends.
[55:43] So as we transition over to our practice off the cushion there are bound to be arising a lot of appearances, visual, auditory and so on. And what I invite you to do now is just keep on practicing, practice as long as you’re awake, if you can practice when you’re asleep, all the better. But as feelings arise, on the one hand we have the sensory feelings, that is we maybe enjoy the feel of the breeze on the skin, just immediately enjoy it. Sensory, feelings goes together with sensory perceptions but there is also mental and they’re not necessarily the same. So watch how feelings arise with respect to all the appearances that you’re engaging with the environment. All the appearances and observe the distinction between sensory feelings arising that are right in the nature of the sensory experience and then your mental feelings, pleasant unpleasant neutral, about them. Observe them arise, see if you can observe them rather than simply cognitively fusing with them. Then that’s really venturing into insight. Okay. Good. Enjoy your day! And enjoy yourself. And observe yourself enjoying yourself. [laughter]
Transcribed by KrissKringle Sprinkle
Revised by Rafael Carlos Giusti
Final edition Rafael Carlos Giusti
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