KEY INTRODUCTORY CONCEPTS Presented by Viveka – Week 1

Mindfulness practice is about intentionally moving from more unmindfulness to greater mindfulness. Mindfulness develops the powers of our mind.

• § Mindfulness is developed through repetitive mindfulness training in formal meditation and by simple practices that remind us to wake up in daily life (for example, a ritual to stop for a moment to take in each meal with our full senses and appreciation for its origins before digging in).
• § Mindfulness meditation is a form of training to develop the mind (like weight lifting regimens build the strength of muscles through repetition).
• § Like weight training, we don’t need to be counting our breaths every minute of our life or to be singularly focused on our breathing every minute of our life. By setting aside training time to meditate regularly, we gradually experience an overall stronger mind (or stronger muscles) generally. When we slack off the training, there can be atrophy in our powers of mindfulness (like how we lose muscle definition).

When we talk about mind we mean our capacity for consciousness and awareness. This includes more than just the rational, thinking mind. It also includes the heart and emotional intelligence and intuition. In Buddhism the mind is associated with the heart center (rather than the head).

Unmindfulness (our ordinary/typical consciousness) is characterized by the presence of hindrances in the mind that limit the powers of the mind. These are not permanent characteristics of mind. They take advantage of unmindfulness to assert themselves.

1) Desire for sense experience and its opposite 2) Ill will

3) Sloth and torpor and its opposite 4) Restlessness and anxiety

5) Doubt and indecision

The meditator is encouraged to bring an intention and tools move along the spectrum from relative unmindfulness to greater mindfulness in each meditation. This movement in a shift in the quality of the mind. In early Buddhist meditation language, this movement is described as moving from ordinary unmindfulness to:

• § Access concentration – characterized by no gross hindrances (think of the list of 5 above) distracting us. They may still arise momentarily but we aren’t lured out of mindfulness into distractedness by them. We let them come and go and use the meditation form to help us stay present and mindful.
• § And more deeply, to Dhyana (Sanskrit) or Jhana (Pali) – a more strongly established mindfulness.

The dhyanic mind is described in many ways:

• § A basic happy, healthy mind. Rewarding in itself.
• § Absorbed (rather than diffuse and scattered). Able to concentrate and be unified with a chosen object of focus.
• § Clear and bright. Sharp.
• § Integrated (rather than conflicted, internal tension).
• § Tranquil, restful (rest from the constant chasing or resistant mind, from the affliction of the hindrances).
• § Stable. Fully aware but unafflicted and not knocked off center or distracted by passing thoughts, emotions, images, memories, etc.
• § Creative, flexible, non-reactive. Open rather than narrow/rigid.
• § Peaceful, inner ease.

In Buddhism, the cultivation of mindfulness for the purposes of creating a basically healthy, happy mind is called samatha or tranquility. Samatha is any kind of meditation that develops dhyana. Samatha is the basis for the development of vipassana or wisdom or insight. Increasing the power of the mind through regular mindfulness practice allows us to see more clearly into the reality of what is happening inside and outside. Mindfulness of breathing and the Cultivation of Loving Kindness (metta) meditations are both samatha and vipassana meditations. They develop both deeper mindfulness and give rise to insight.

Dhyana arises out of conditions that we develop. It is built upon conditions.

We can deepen mindfulness and cultivate dhyana through 5 mental factors that conduce to dhyana. We can get to know them, strengthen them, remember them and engage them. These five are:

1. Vitakka – initial thought, aiming the mind to connect with an object of focus, vivid, energizing/rallying attention. Directed attention. Counteracts the hindrance of sloth/torpor.

2. Vicara – sustained attention, remaining with and attending to the object of attention. Getting more intimate with and getting to know the object of attention. Investigation, interest. Counteracts the hindrance of doubt/indecision (doesn’t leave spaces of non-attentiveness in which doubt and indecision can creep in).

3. Ekaggata – one-pointedness of attention, unwavering focus, stability. Serves to keep the mind centered on the object of focus and present awareness and protected from distractedness pushing/pulling and generally buffeting the mind.

4. Piti – A physical sense of lightness. Energy moving freely in the body from subtler sensations to rapture, pleasurable bodily sensation, tensions unblocking. Joyful, ebullient quality.

5. Sukha – peace, bliss, contentment, ease.

This week we are focusing on the first two dhyana factors. In traditional metaphors vitakka is likened to the initial sound of a striker making contact with a gong. Vicara is like the lingering ringing of the gong. Or, if you were cleaning a tarnished silver pot vitakka would be like firmly grasping the pot in your hands and vicara would be rubbing it until the tarnish comes off.