UNDERSTANDING THROUGH MEDITATIONAL EXPERIENCES
by Ven. Dr. H. Gunaratana
(Excerpt from pg 156~162 of the Maha Bodhi, printed in 1984 Vol. 92)

The ordinary person, not trained in Dhamma through the practice of Insight Meditation, has an unrealistic perception of himself as well as the world he lives in. Therefore the relation he establishes with the world also is unrealistic. He conceives himself as extension (earth), cohesion (water), radiation (fire), and oscillation (air). This means that he conceives himself to be identical with these elements and thinks: “I am made up of these elements. My skin, hair, nail, flesh, blood, bones, etc are made up of these elements. Therefore I am earth, water, fire and air. When I die I go back and reunite with them.

Establishing identification with what is seen, heard, sensed, and mentally cognized, he may even impersonate the character of a hero, his voice, and words he speaks. The unenlightened person may identify his own physical strength with that of this hero. When he comes to think of his own children he considers them to be nothing but his own extension. Suppose this person, using earth, water, fire or air as his subject of meditation, attains meditative absorption (jhana). Because he has not eradicated his habitual conceptual proliferation he may think that he can be identical with these four elements or with spirits (bhutas) who are made up of fine material of these elements and he may imagine that he is possessed by these spirits. He may think that he is a god (deva) or Brahma or god of Refulgent glory (subhakinha), or god of Abundant Fruit (vehapphala), or Vanquisher (abhibhu). Even if he attains still higher Jhanas of immaterial nature he may continue to identify himself with the beings in the base of infinite space (akasanancaya tanupaga satta), or the beings in the base of infinite consciousness (vinnana acayatan Upaga satta) or the being in the base of nothingness (akincanna yatan Upaga satta), or the beings in the bas of neither perception nor non-perception (nevasannanasannayatanupaga satta).

Because of these conceptual proliferations, the ordinary person is unable to liberate himself from Samsara. Being unable to eradicate his “I” consciousness or view of “I” the ordinary worldling continue to build up his thinking, or speculation or belief in self or “I”. Led by his imagination he may even think that he is united with one (ekatta) that has the final soul. This confused individual may think that either be is with diversity (nanatta), in which soul manifests in many different forms, or attained nibbana where the soul and nibbana are imagined to be identical. Misguided by distorted perception he may speculate that he is in earth, water, fire and air or in the company of spirits, devas, brahmas, etc.

Conceiving himself apart from earth an average individual may presurmise that he is the result of other external earth, water, fire, and air and his soul came to him from somebody outside himself. Presuming that his self came from his parents who are made up of the four elements an unenlightened person may conceive that something he saw, heard, touched, or knew gave him the soul or it came from some spirit, deva, etc. Or it came from the unity of things or from diverse things or from all or from nibbana. Somehow or other the ordinary person is of the opinion that he is separated from them and yet some way connected with them.

This self-identification with objects gives rise to craving, conceit and wrong view. Because of ignorance of truth the ordinary person conceives the conception of self, which is a wrong view without any point of reference. Nevertheless this concept compounds itself through greed and conceit trapping him in his confused presupposition that “I” is either eternal or annihilated at death.

Delighted in all forms of “I”, the unenlightened person allows his craving, the cause of dukkha, nourished, nursed and supported by ignorance, to grow. Where there is craving, there is dukkha. Craving arises where there are enticing and pleasant objects. “What is enticing and pleasant?” asked the Buddha in Mahasatipatthana Sutta. Answering his own question, the Buddha pointed out that internal sense bases – eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind – are enticing and pleasant ( piyarupam satarupam ) and there craving arises and settles down. External sense objects – form, sound, smell, taste, touch and mind objects are enticing and pleasant and there craving arises and settles down. Perception through eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind is enticing and pleasant and there craving arises and settles down. Contact, sensation, concepts, conceptual proliferation (sancetana) craving for sense objects and reflection on them ( vitakka) are enticing. Deliberation (vicara) of shape, sound, smell, taste, touch and numerous mental objects are enticing and pleasant and there craving arises and settles down.

This craving thus arises and settled down in the mind goes into the life continuum (bhavanga citta) of this individual. Remaining there dormant, it compounds itself. At an opportune moment this latent craving arises either in the form of craving itself or hatred, both of which, of course, are conditioned by ignorance of truth. Also because of the ignorance, greed manifests itself in the form of self or “I”. If “I” does not approve of, then “I” gets angry and conceives grudge or hatred.

Lust, hatred, and delusion distort the ordinary person’s perception. With this distorted perception he conceives sensory objects and interprets them in numerous ways. When the perception is distorted by greed the sense objects appear to be permanent, beautiful, pleasant, friendly, happy and indicative of self. When the average person’s perception is distorted by hate, objects appear to him to be ugly, unpleasant, hostile, unfriendly, permanent, unhappy and selfish. When his perception is distorted by ignorance, objects appear to him to be dull, confused, neutral, monotonous, indifferent, useless, and yet permanent. Based on these interpretations he acts.

Because of his distorted perception, consciousness and views, the ordinary worldling adds attributes to objects and says, “Beautiful”, “ugly”, “sweet”, “not sweet”, “smooth”, ”rough”, “good”, “bad”, etc. These coloring and qualifying concepts hide the truth. Being unable to perceive the truth he grabs hold of the jargon of concepts, under which the truth is hidden, as the truth itself. Having settled on concepts he builds upon concepts until he thinks that he has discovered the truth.

The meditator, however, perceives the body, made up of four elements, as it is. The meditator practicing mindfulness uses the knowledge of the experience of physical existence only to gain insight into impermanence, dukkha, and non-self of the body. Similarly he uses his knowledge of the existence of feelings, consciousness and knowledge of dhamma only to gain insight or wisdom into impermanence, dukkha and non-self. Guided by mindfulness neither does he cling to any of his experiences nor does he reject any. Avoiding all attempts to separate himself from his experiences, he participates in feelings, perceptions, mental activities and consciousness and uses them to gain insight into their true nature without clinging to the pleasant or rejecting the unpleasant. As a participatory observer he does not endeavor to ignore his experience. His subjects of mindfulness are his own experiences. If he ignores them he ignores his subjects. If he does ignore the subjects of meditation which are his experiences, then he would have no means of gaining the knowledge of impermanence, dukkha, and non-self. The whole success of insight meditation depends upon the knowledge of experiences of impermanence, dukkha and non-self. The insight meditator of course is not trying to build up conceptual understanding of these three characteristics of his experiences. Eliminating concepts, he directly experiences them.

In doing so he sees how the concept of “I”, or self grows. He does not allow himself to say: “I am doing this. I am thinking. I am in pain. I am meditating. I am this and I am that’” Or “This is mine. That is mine. This belongs to me. That belongs to me. I am in it. I am separate from it. I am it. I am not it. I like it. I do not like it. May leg is hurting. My head is aching”, etc. Eliminating “I” or “I am” or “My” or “Mine”, the mediators between the act of mindfulness and reality, the meditator who cultivates mindfulness says nothing about his experience or asks nothing about it, but simply pays attention to what is happening to him, Noticing nothing static, the meditator only pays bare attention to events in motion, flowing, rushing, changing one situation to another, one experience to another. The knowledge of Dhamma in operation does not separate himself from Dhamma. While participating in Dhamma he tries to understand it without using words, concepts, ideas, or theories. Mindfully he notices the flux of the “I” concept in all forms, perceptions, feelings, formations, conceptions and consciousness. His mindfulness destroys “I” or self previously invested in them. He sees all of them reducing to a flux of events. When his insight gained from meditation dissolves self-making (ahankara) and mind-making (mamankara) into null and void, he is able to remove these obstacles from his way to nibbana.

Closing eyes and letting the mind roam about freely all over the countless objects in the universe he cannot remove the hurdle of “I”. Neither can he remove his experiences or make them non-existing by ignoring them and trying to run away from them; nor can they be removed by getting carried away by them. They can be removed from the way to enlightenment by understanding their true nature characterized by impermanence, dukkha and non-self.

The insight into these changing phenomena allows him to maintain clarity and purity of his mind unaffected by hate. The knowledge of impermanence helps him to overcome his hate and cultivate loving kindness. The insight meditator realizes the futility in saying about another person: “He abused me, he beat me; he defeated me; and he robbed me,” because all these events are gone to the past and the person who committed all abusing, beating, defeating and robbing is subject to change, dukkha, and non-self. The sharp insight gained from the practice of insight meditation would not permit the meditator to think of things done or left undone by others. Moreover, thinking that way does not help him to reduce an iota of his own defilement. Rather he sees that the knowledge of others’ faults nourishes the roots of his own.

The mindful meditator does not ask how to cultivate loving kindness towards his enemy. There is no enemy in his mind because he wishes that everybody should be free from suffering. Without attempting to reserve nibbana to himself he wishes that everybody should attain nibbana without any exception for the reason that all are equal under impermanence, dukkha, and non-self. As his understanding of impermanence becomes deeper and deeper hatred becomes weaker and weaker and eventually it melts away, finding nobody to hate. His natural and shining mind is always ready to be filled with loving kindness. Comparing the changes of his body and the changes of feeling, perception, samkhara, consciousness and dhamma with that of others he realizes that the common denominators of all – him, his parents, teachers, relatives, friends, indifferent persons, enemies and all living beings – are impermanence, dukkha and non-self.

The penetrating insight of the meditator probes into various forms of dukkha caused by various forms of craving. As his understanding of dukkha deepens his attachment to various things diminishes. His contemplation of unsatisfactoriness of all formations (sankhara) sharpens his insight and penetrates into the whole mechanism of lust or attachment. His mindfulness of imperfection, which is the manifestation of dukkha, finds no object giving him permanent pleasure or happiness to cling to. He sees that all union ends in separation causing dukkha. As he sees things in their true nature of existence his belief in self disappears.

The insight cultivated through meditation probes into the dormant state of defilements which manifest through thoughts, words and deeds and transgress the moral and ethical principles. Through the training in mindfulness the meditator learns to cultivate necessary effort to prevent his mind from being affected by the dormant greed,hate,and delusion. When they arise at unmindful moments, his mindfulness which he has habitually cultivated would catch and nip them in the bud. The mindful training of his intellect shows him the way to cultivate his wisdom and arouse adequate energy and power to probe into Dhamma.

In this practice of mindfulness what he in fact does is to cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path, which is to be cultivated (bhavetabba) by one who strives to attain enlightenment. He puts everyone of the Noble Eightfold Path into practice and experiences all of them. Therefore meditation is not something outside the Noble Eightfold Path. It cannot be reduced to only concentration and wisdom (Samadhi-panna) without moral training (sila). All the eight spokes of the Noble Eightfold Path must be put into practice in order to complete the practice of meditation.

Have you noticed that these eight parts of the Noble Eightfold Path are given in a circle or a wheel? This means that only when all of them are joined together in practice is the wheel complete. If you remove one part of a wheel, leaving a gap in it, it does not revolve and you cannot put it in motion. It will simply fall flat on the ground. Similarly if all the factors of Noble Eightfold Path are not put into practice insight meditation is not complete. If someone, for example, sits an hour or longer focusing his attention on an object and then gets up and starts gossiping, slandering, or speaking harshly or killing living beings, or harboring hatred, or expressing his arrogance, or continues to be inconsiderate, unfair, unjust, etc, he does not cultivate the factors of Noble Eighfold Path. Therefore he does not practice insight meditation. What we have to do in practicing insight meditation in our daily life is to set this wheel in motion, putting all the factors of Noble Eightfold Path into full operation in our daily life.

Merely sitting in one place for a long period of time doing nothing is not insight meditation. Also, insight meditation cannot be reduced only to watching the breath all the time without understanding the impermanence, dukkha and non-self in the breath and everything else we experience in every waking moment. The whole purpose of watching the breath, in fact, is to notice impermanence, dukkha and non-self in breath and everything related or unrelated to it. Once a person gains a certain degree of calmness of the mind he must move on to all other experiences in daily life and notice impermanence, dukkha and selflessness in all of them. Concentration, in the Noble Eightfold Path, is only one part of the whole wheel. Practicing this part alone, without understanding how it is related to the whole of Noble Eightfold Path, does not constitute the complete practice of Insight meditation.

Many people cannot concentrate because their minds are naturally full of their regular, routine works, or emotional factors, or biological or conditional factors. Therefore they wait till all their regular daily most urgent chores are over to meditate so that they gain better concentration and make meditation meaningful to them. They even ask “How can we meditate, when we have to do so many things in our daily life?” What they really mean by this is how can they concentrate when the mind is preoccupied with their daily activities. They wait and postpone their meditation till they retire and all their activities, hustle-bustle, duties, jobs, obligations, and responsibilities are over. These people may be compared to a man who goes to a seashore and waits till the waves cease and sea becomes calm for him to have a swim. Neither the sea becomes calm for this man to have a swim or life becomes free from activities, hustle-bustle, duties, jobs, obligations, and responsibilities. In fact we cannot concentrate without mental verbal and physical discipline. Therefore physical, verbal and mental discipline (kayabhavana, vacibhavana, manobhavana) itself is true meditation. The physical discipline constitutes Right Action and Right Livelihood in the Noble Eightfold Path. The verbal discipline constitutes Right Speech. And the mental discipline constitutes Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Understanding and Right Thought.

Every day we are engaged in many physical, verbal and mental activities. Doing all these activities mindfully is Insight Meditation. You may say, “It is much easier said than done,” But how do you know whether the practice of mindfulness is easy or not without making a start? Watch impermanence, dukkha, and selflessness in all physical, verbal, and mental functions occurring repeatedly every day. Watch all your experiences. They all, without any exception, are in a state of flux. They never remain the same for two consecutive moments. We are so constantly and consistently changing every moment that in seven years we are entirely different individuals. Knowing this the Buddha said at the end of “The Great Foundation of Mindfulness” (Mahasatipatthanasutta) that if someone practices the four foundations of mindfulness exactly the way they are prescribed in the Sutta in seven years he may become an Arahant or a Non-returner. In the case of those whose kamma is ripe, of course, it would take much less time.

Watch carefully your bodily functions, feelings, perception, mental activities and consciousness for five minutes and notice whether they remain the same during this five minutes’ watch. Even though you do not move and change your position your mind is changing; physical parts within your body are changing; your feelings are changing; your perception is changing. When you get up mindfully, paying bare attention to the intention of getting up, the energy generated by the intention or the will is changing. The muscles of your legs, hands, body, etc are changing. Your feelings, your perception of the floor and all the objects you have been perceiving are changing. Your consciousness is changing; your experiences, without any exception, appear to you different from how they appeared to you when you were seated because when you got up your perception of the objects changed. Along with the change of perception your felling, consciousness, attitude, mood, emotion, etc change. You experience the change of your experiences.

To drive the point home let me draw your attention to what you are experiencing right now, this very moment. Notice how you experience dukkha, right now while reading his article. You perhaps selected a seat for yourself and sat there comfortably. After a few minutes the posture you assumed was not comfortable enough. You changed it and began to read the article. Some of the things you are reading, I am sure, are a repetition of what you have already known. Reading the same thing over and over again in monotonous and boring. Some of the things you are reading appear to you to be irrelevant, dislocated, disconnected, or out of joint, reading irrelevant, dislocated, out of joint and disconnected things is boring again. You do not understand some of the things you are reading and you may not even make head or tail of them. Some of the words are even archaic, dry, and out of date. While reading these boring, tiring, irritation words and ideas, phrases and sentences, you notice your sitting position making you uncomfortable. The very best and relatively most comfortable position you assumed is now uncomfortable and painful.

Why are the words, ideas, phrases, sentences and the position are irritation, painful, uncomfortable or dukkha? Because you expect something different from what you are experiencing. You do not like monotony, archaic language, unintelligible or nonsensical language. You like direct, modern, clear language and logical and rational ideas expressed clearly. If you read what you do not like to read or see, taste what you do not like to taste, ,touch what you do not like to touch, smell what you do not like to smell or think what you do not like to think you are irritated, agitated, excited and even get annoyed or angry. This means in the language of the Dhamma you get what you do not like. To get what you do not like is dukkha.

Let us explore our example a little further. Suppose you read all you want to read. How long can you read it without getting tired of reading the same thing over and over again? If you see all you want to see, hear all you want to hear, eat all you like to eat, smell all you want to smell, have all pleasant physical contact you like to have, and think all pleasant things you want to think, how long can you experience these things without being affected by the law of diminishing return of pleasure? Not too long. All this and more you will notice in your mindfulness practice.

Another thing the mindfulness does is seeing that there is no core within all these experiences. No self occupies this whole range of experience or exists outside it. Your knowledge of the absence of self (sunnata) completes your pursuit of mindfulness, eradicating ignorance. You gain full understanding of the meaning of non-existence of self. You will not be deluded any longer into thinking that you and self are one, or self is in you or you are in self, or you are separate from self. You can see clearly that all this is a result of the wrong premise of any ordinary person’s conceptual proliferation.

As we saw earlier, the central issue is the concept of “I” or self or soul. As understanding grows this concept slowly and gradually becomes weak. Understanding is not a concept, but seeing truth or reality as it is. Perception which is not understanding can be distorted and therefore what is perceived with distorted perception can be misunderstood. But what is known directly cannot be distorted by perception or conceptual proliferation. Direct knowledge is not built by conceptual fabrics which are subject to distortion.

The main and perhaps the only difference between an ordinary persona and an arahat is understanding reality. An ordinary person conceives and a learner might fully understand. But the arahat and the Buddha directly perceive and fully understand the Four Noble Truths and all experiences in life. They all attained enlightenment following insight meditation.

Therefore the Buddha said that the only way to attain liberation from Samsara is mindfulness practice and understanding the Four Noble Truths as they are. Even if one starts with faith he will end up in understanding and give up faith. Faith is necessary to start. Once he reaches the goal he attains to realization of what he had believed. What Insight Meditation does, therefore, is to eliminate the middle agent between object world and understanding. This middle agent is concept. If concepts are not mindfully understood they can confuse us and make mental clarity difficult.

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