Day 5 Foundations of Mindfulness - Discussing the Satipatthana Sutta -What is Mindfulness?

Yesterday we spoke about the Eightfold Path. We talked about how the Eightfold Path is fundamental, is essential for us to make progress with practice, with our meditation. We pretty much covered the sila aspect of the Eightfold Path, right? We talked about right view and right intention, which really are about panya. You'll see how that happens as we get through this process. But right view, you need to have the right view, you need to have the right vision, you need to have the right perspective, and understand what it is that we're doing here and why we're doing it. Right view helps to bring the right perspective and the right intention, which leads to, and is part of, panya, is part of wisdom.

Right speech, right action and right livelihood, those are all part of sila, part of ethics. Without ethics, without sila, samadhi cannot be perfected, cannot be cultivated. Samadhi entails three components: right effort, right mindfulness, and right collectedness. In Majjhima Nikaya 44, could be 43, it's mentioned that the equipment for meditation, the equipment for practice, meditation practice, is right effort and right mindfulness. So for right collectedness to happen, we need the right effort and right mindfulness. So today we'll explore what is right effort. What do we mean by right effort? In the suttas, there are many ways in which we can consider right effort.

But the standard way of doing it. But the standard way of doing it. But the standard way of doing it is to simplify it is to simplify it and see it as eradicating and abandoning the unwholesome and cultivating and developing the wholesome. That's really what it is. There are those traditions which say all we have to do is watch and observe the feeling. Observe the feeling. Observe the arising and passing away of whatever is happening as part of the meditation. Observe the arising and passing away of whatever is happening as part of the meditation. Or they may say, just note what is going on. Here is pain or here is pleasure. Here is this thought.

Here is this thought. Here is this distraction. Here is whatever it might be. But that doesn't fulfill right effort. And some people may criticize that. And some people may criticize that and say, well, aren't we just pushing away the unwholesome. Aren't we just ignoring or being indifferent to the unwholesome by abandoning it? Should we not give more attention to it? Should we not see it? Should we not analyze it? Should we not analyze it? Should we not whatever it is that they say? Well, we can do all that. That's what psychiatry is all about. Look into your problems. Let's discuss your problems. Let's discuss your problems. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Let's do this.

Let's explore. Let's do that. Let's analyze. And you might feel better for a while because you're talking about it. You're releasing tension. You're releasing stress. But the more you talk about it, the more it becomes ingrained in the mind. The more you watch something, the more you observe a painful experience, the more you see, the more you come up with different things. This is what it is. So when you observe without analysis, that's one thing. But when you observe, things come up to take you away from that painful feeling. Oh, it's impermanent. Oh, it's this. Oh, it's that. So you're not actually fully observing it.

Oh, it's that. So you're not actually fully observing it. My point here is that it's okay to recognize and see that feeling. But to do anything beyond that, which is to keep observing it. But to keep observing it. It's not going to do anything for you. Once you have recognized here is a painful feeling. Here is a hindrance. Here is a distraction. It continues to be there so long as the mind's attention feels it feels it feels it. And so the second right effort is to abandon that unwholesome state. And so the second right effort is to abandon that unwholesome state by redirecting the attention away from that state. That is what we do when we release and relax.

We release the thought and we relax any tightness and tension that's holding on to that thought, or resulting from the craving with regards to that thought, to abandon that unwholesome state. And then we generate a wholesome state. So in generating that wholesome state, how do we do it? Once we've relaxed, the mind without craving, the mind without any tension, the mind without any clinging, the mind without any resistance, is in itself a wholesome state of mind to be in. When you've relaxed, your mind experiences wholesomeness, is liberated in that moment.

And the smile that arises when you make the effort to smile, when you have the intention to smile, is directing the mind towards the wholesome. And then staying with the wholesome state, when you are in the wholesome state, when you are in the wholesome state, when you are in the wholesome state, the wrong speech, when you are in the wholesome state, when you are in the wrong way. In the context of practice. So first, let's talk about the unwholesome. Let's understand what we mean by unwholesome states of mind. Akusala. That which leads you away from the liberation of mind. And there are five main unwholesome states, which we call the hindrances.

The five hindrances. Now, we may look at many different kinds of distractions, but they may all fall under the different broad categories of these five hindrances. What are the five hindrances? Sensual craving, aversion, restlessness, sloth and torpor, and doubt. What do we mean by sensual craving, or sensual desire? Let's say you're sitting in meditation, and you smell a wonderful fragrance coming from the flowers. And your mind starts to go in that direction. Your attention goes to that. And now the fragrance of the flowers reminds you of a time when somebody gave you those flowers.

And then your mind jumps to the person. And then the mind jumps to what that person said. And then the mind jumps to what somebody else said that was similar to what that person said. And then your mind jumps to. And it all started with that sensual experience. Excuse me. So sensual desire can happen in many different ways. Obviously in meditation you're here on the chair or on the cushion, and there's very little sensual activity going on.

In fact, the first jhana, which we'll discuss at some point, is the withdrawing from sensual pleasures. But yet there are certain sensual experiences that may come up. And when the mind goes in that direction of that sensual experience, something triggers a cascading of thoughts and emotions, and concepts. That process of cascading is dependent origination. There was the contact with that particular object. And then there was an experience. And the mind in that moment losing mindfulness, or not having strong enough mindfulness, identifying with that experience.

That this is pleasing to me. This is unpleasant to me. This I am. And from there all kinds of suffering can arise, from clinging to becoming, to many different things. So sensual craving, as we've discussed before, can arise when the mind is oriented towards the pursuit of sensual craving. So when we talk about breaking the precept of sensual misconduct, or sexual misconduct, it's because the mind becomes inflamed by the pursuit of that experience, and strengthens that hindrance. The formations, the samskaras or sankharas, the mental impressions, the building blocks.

The proto thoughts that generate up into, and bubble up as, a thought of sensual desire. And then from there we get distracted, and we get further distracted, and we are now in the land of mental proliferation. Our mind is now thinking about this or that. Same thing happens with aversion. We are sitting in our chair, sitting on the cushion, and everything is going really great. The mind is very quiet. The mind is experiencing bliss. The mind is experiencing joy. The mind is experiencing deep equanimity.

Or so we think. The mind is experiencing pain. The mind is crying. The mind is experiencing pain. So then another thought arises. And another thought arises. And another thought arises. And now we are flummoxed in this mental proliferation of aversion. Then there is something called restlessness. Actually it is restlessness and remorse, these two things. Restlessness is simply put anxiety about the future. Remorse is regret of the past. We are thinking about things that happened to us in the past.

This is the nature of the mind. This is the nature of what happens when you meditate. When you meditate, the mind is getting quieter. The noise of the outside world starts to dim. The so-called matrix that we live in, the interface of that is the mind and the sense bases. And so the mind, all it does is taking up, or taking in, the impressions of the senses.

And then recreating that same picture over and over and over. And we have no control over it. There's no control over it. The challenge and the cause of suffering is the identification with the continuous replaying of sense impressions in the mind. That's what it is. That's the craving. That it belongs to me. That I am the mind. That the mind is mine. That the mind is me. So the anxiety that comes up. What is it? It is just a series of thoughts that come up. Yes, of course. Tandem to that or secondary to that.

There are things that happen. We get sweaty palms, clammy hands. Our heart rate goes faster. Our respiration goes faster. Now we pay attention to those things. Now we pay attention to those things and we can get into a panic attack. We can get into anxiety. That's the extreme form. But coming back to the moment when people experience anxiety. How do people deal with it? How does one bring a friend out of that anxiety? They do it by saying, what do you see? What do you experience right now? Tell me, what do you experience right now?

Tell me what you're seeing. Tell me what you're seeing. And by doing that, the mind starts to come back to the present. It starts to get distracted, so to speak, from all those thoughts that make it anxious. The coming back into the present moment. The reality is that whether you are thinking about the future or thinking about the past, you're thinking about the past. Can you choose to be fully in the present, such that you don't replay past experiences, or forecast future doom? I think it's very much possible. That's what meditation helps us with.

Every time we use right effort, that's what we're doing. We are cultivating mindfulness, which is the presence of mind in the here and now. What is happening here and now? What is the dhamma of this moment? What is the reality of this situation? What is the knowledge and vision of things as they actually are? What is the reality of this situation?

What is the reality of this situation? essential elements to prepare for practice. You see, that's what we're talking about when we say balance between the indulgent and the asceticism. We can keep the middle path of making sure our body has what it requires so that once it sits down, it's not thinking about food, it's not thinking about water, it's not thinking about surviving.

It's only here, available to meditate and cultivate. Sloth and torpor here, what do we mean by that, sloth and torpor? When you're sitting down for meditation, you have a certain intention to be with your object of meditation, and you're staying with it, and you're there for a while, and then before you know it, it's like your mind switched off for a moment. Your attention went somewhere else, and it feels very heavy and groggy, and it's like, I thought I was meditating, but I don't feel light, I don't feel clear. There's a heaviness, there's a density to the mind. That's the sloth and torpor. A lot of people fight it. A lot of people fight it by saying, I will push through it.

I will get more meditation done. I'll get more concentration. I'll get this, that, and the other. And they're just met with a wall of sloth and torpor. But there are ways to deal with it, which we will talk about now. And then the final hindrance that we talk about is something known as vicikiccha, which translates to doubt. What do we mean by doubt? At one level, it can mean the doubt of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and Sangha, doubting in what the Buddha has offered, doubting in what the Dhamma is, doubting in what the Sangha is, these kinds of things.

But for practical purposes, when we're talking about the Dhamma, doubting in the context of meditation, doubt is the inability to recognize or discern between what is wholesome and unwholesome. That's what doubt is. You're not sure of what state your mind is in. And sometimes that doubt proliferates into so much doubt of whether, am I really in loving kindness? Am I really experiencing jhana? Am I really experiencing relief? That's also doubt. Why doubt yourself? That just comes from a sense of inadequacy. That's all. It just comes from a sense of, no, it can't be that easy.

That's all. When you have all the right causes and conditions. And things are working out in the way that they're working out. Go with it. Enjoy it. Accept it. So those are the unwholesome states of mind. Those are the hindrances. And when we talk about the wholesome, a wholesome state of mind can be a feeling of loving kindness. It can be compassion. It can be joy. It can be a feeling of quietude. It can be all of these things. But in a more specific context, it's referring to what are known as the seven factors of awakening. What are the seven factors of awakening?

Mindfulness. Discernment. Energy. Joy. Tranquility. Collectedness. Equanimity. Mindfulness comes from the word sati, which comes from the Sanskrit word smriti, which means memory. So it means to remember. To recall. To recollect. To recognize. What are we remembering? What are we recollecting? What are we recognizing? We're remembering to observe? How mind's attention moves from one thing to the other? To simplify that, it's a combination of sati and sampajanna. Which means I am aware of what's happening in the here and now. And I have clear comprehension. Of how that attention may be moving. So as soon as you've recognized.

That your attention is no longer on its object. You've gained mindfulness. You've regained mindfulness. You've recollected that the mind's observation or mind's attention is no longer where it should be. Where I intended it for it to be. From this mindfulness comes what's known as dhamma vicaya. Usually translated as investigation of states. But in my mind personally, investigation has this quality of I need to investigate. I need to see into. I need to know. I need to observe what's going on. But it's as simple as discernment. It's as simple as understanding. It's as simple as knowing what is present. And what is not present.

That's what discernment is. From the discernment there is something known as energy. Viriya. This is what it's called. And viriya is strength. It's energy. It's effort. When I recognize that in that moment, that my mind is no longer on its object. I know that my mind is no longer on its object. I now have mindfulness and I have discernment. Because what I have done is, I have seen that my mind was no longer on its object. So I know that my mind is distracted. That's the discernment. There is the mindfulness and there is a discernment. Once I release the attention away from that distraction. Once I release that thought.

And I relax. I have balanced my energy. My mind is no longer in the energy of that distraction. It's no longer in the energy of sensual craving or aversion or restlessness or sloth and torpor or doubt. I have brought it back to equilibrium. So now we have mindfulness. We have investigation of states. We have energy. And then we have joy. So this is so important. Piti as it's known in Pali.

Preeti as it's known in Sanskrit. That which is dear. That which is desirable. Is that joy? If your meditation has no joy, then you are not meditating. Simple as that. What do we mean by joy? In this case, we are talking about the enjoyment of the process. When you come back to the smile, there is an upliftedness in the mind. There is a joy that arises. It doesn't need to be exuberant. It doesn't need to be fireworks. It doesn't need to be all these things that we may have an idea of.

Or that we might have read about. Or somebody had talked about. It's as simple as the mind being uplifted. Some people talk about joy as being warmth and heat in the body, or this exuberant state where the mind is so excited and happy, or blissed out. I have to be so tight with my posture, and with my jaw, and with everything. And that creates restlessness. That creates over concentration. That creates over meditation.

That creates over meditation. And so when you look at something like the Anapanasati Sutta, or the Satipatthana Sutta, there is a word that the Buddha uses: Pasambaya. Which means to tranquilize. He tranquilizes bodily formations. He tranquilizes mental formations. It's as simple as softening, loosening up, letting go. Is that when you hold on to something, there is muscle tension. When you drop it, when you let it go, there is relief. There is relaxation there. Same thing is happening in the mind. So don't overlook the importance of relaxing. You're not going to get anywhere by becoming so concentrated on things. You're not going to get anywhere.

By becoming so concentrated, you're not going to get anywhere. You're not going to get anywhere by becoming like a beach ball held down underwater. And then when you let go, it bounces right back up. So meditation here is not about suppression of hindrances. It's about learning where the attachments lie. It's learning where the triggers for identification arise, so that I can let go of them gently. And in letting go of them, the mind starts to incline towards that relief. People are very comfortable in their sorrow and lamentation and suffering, because they have gotten used to it. They're very comfortable.

Being in pain. They're very comfortable. Being unwholesome. It's harder to be wholesome than it is to be unwholesome in this world. But when you make the effort, the right effort, we will fail a thousand times. We will fail a million times. But what matters is do we keep trying, do we keep going, do we keep cultivating? Because the more we do it, the more we let go, the more we see things as they are, the more we are able to detect when the mind is entering into an unwholesome state. The easier it becomes for the mind to see.

The value in being wholesome. Wholesome. Wholesome. And it's like, I see this. I see this. I see this. And you're able to let that go. But it requires practice. It requires practice. It requires consistency. It requires consistency. That is the right effort. So the tranquilizing is a relaxed step. That's what we're doing. Every time you relax, you notice how the mind becomes expansive, how the mind is free of any kind of identification. In that moment. In that moment. So from that tranquility, we have what is called Samadhi. Collectedness. A lot of people mistake Samadhi for one-pointed absorption: that I must be completely singularly focused.

And actually they find great pleasure in it. And they keep going into it, and into it, and into it. But there's no new personality change. There's no new behavioral change. Samadhi, as I said before, the other day, is for the purpose of collecting the mind enough so that you can be aware of when certain triggers arise, and be able to let them go. You are clearing the muddied water. You are stilling the ripples on the surface of the lake.

So that the reflection of the moon can show itself clearly. So that insights can be cultivated and arise when the mind becomes still. Otherwise, when we become singularly one-pointed, so that the mind becomes the awakening factors. And adjust the awakening factors as you need them, based on what is arising, based on what's passing away, based on what is present and what is not present. And so when you return back to your object, that's the collectedness factor. And while you stay there for a while, your mind remains undisturbed, remains collected. And while you're going through that process of letting go, using the same.

You're going through that process. And while you're going through that process, in this whole process, with the enlightenment and what's going on, whatever is happening, whatever is happening, whatever is happening in the outside world, becomes less interesting when we have aversion. Where is that aversion coming from? It's coming from a desire for something. You want to be concentrated. You want to be collected. You want to have good meditation. And an obstacle comes in its way, and then you have anger, and then you have aversion. But if you have equanimity, where you have equanimity.

Where you have equanimity. Where, okay, here is a disturbance. It's okay. It's fine. I can just let it go, instead of making a fuss about it in the mind. Same with when you deal with restlessness. When your mind is agitated, when your mind is bombarded, when your mind is bombarded by regret and remorse and guilt and shame, and all of these things, then the agitation becomes overwhelming. So what do you need there? You need a mind that has tranquility. You need a mind that has collectedness. You need a mind that has equanimity. You see what we're looking at.

What we're looking at here, when we look at the enlightenment factors, is they are either energizing or relaxing. Like for example, the joy, and the investigation of states, and the energy, those are all energizing. The tranquility, the collectedness, the equanimity, those are all tranquilizing. And so we balance based on whatever it is we require. So when we have restlessness, we need more tranquility. We need more equanimity. When we have sloth and torpor, what do we need? We need more energy. We need more joy. We need more interest. So sloth and torpor is a very interesting one. The Buddha has given some interesting solutions.

He says when you have sloth and torpor, maybe you go for a walk. Splash cold water on your face and sit back down. And he says ultimately, if that doesn't work, then you need to go take a nap. Don't fight with it. You may need to just drive through the fog. You don't stop in the middle of the fog. You just go through it. Now remember, with these enlightenment factors, you don't need to do it. You don't have this effect, this ping pong effect. So easy does it.

Just little drops of it, and just wait and watch how things change. Now with doubt, how do you deal with doubt? You don't know what state you're in this moment. You don't know whether it's wholesome or unwholesome. All that requires is discernment, the ability to stop or pause. You don't know what state you're in this moment.

You don't know what state you're in this moment. You don't know what state you're in this moment. You don't know what state you're in this moment. You don't know what state you're in this moment. You don't know what state you're in this moment. You don't know what state you're in this moment. You don't know what state you're in this moment. You don't know what state you're in this moment. What state you're in this moment. you're in this moment. You're in this moment. You're in this moment. You're in this moment. So like for you a chocolate cake is not as tempting to another person. I'm just wondering how do you go through the world. For you to go through the world.

Things don't pull you. People see a slot machine, they can't stop themselves, they got their money. People go to a music party. But for you, is life more just a good ride throughout? Yeah. That's a good question. I love chocolate cake, but I'm off of chocolate cake for now. But what happens is it's not like you don't experience pleasure in the things that you enjoy. You still enjoy them. You still like them. You still have preferences. It's like, I love Indian food. I prefer Indian food. Obviously. And if I know that we're going to be going out to an Indian food, I look forward to it.

I look forward to an Indian food. I look forward to an Indian food. I look forward to it. But let's say that that restaurant is closed. I look forward to it. But let's say that that restaurant is closed. But if that restaurant is closed and somebody suggests let's go for Mexican. Okay. No big deal. Let's do that. So you'll still have preferences. You'll still have your likes and your dislikes. Like you have preferences over one thing. But you'll still have preferences over the other. But you'll still have preferences over the other. But you'll still have your likes. But you won't have this sort of identity around it. Like I need that. It needs to be a certain way.

Things have to be a certain way. That starts to diminish and quiet down. So you walk through life with a certain level of, you can say, acceptance, but also a certain level of non-reactivity. And you know when you should react or respond. You just should be silent. There is a sutta called the penetrative discourse. It's Anguttara Nikaya 6.63. And there the Buddha says, the pretty little things themselves are not the sensual pleasures. It's the intention rooted in craving that one must see. So a lot of people may interpret how we practice, and what's going on in the suttas, as a practice in which we are denying ourselves of things that we enjoy.

We're denying ourselves of pleasure. But the Buddha is saying that the sensual pleasures are not the problem. They will be there regardless. It's how you relate to them. How you identify with them or how you see through them. So it's how you identify with them or how you see through them.