Session 012: What To Expect From Meditation (Part 3)

Session 012: What To Expect From Meditation (Part 3)

Banner Photo Source: Photo by Prashant Gurung on Unsplash

In today’s talk we continue to present on mindfulness of breathing as the Buddha taught it from the suttas, continuing from Session 009 and Session 010.

Talk

Guided Meditation: Following the Breath to Delight and Happiness

Ocean waves video by Ruvim Miksanskiy from Pexels. Photo by Lightscape.

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Handout

This week we have a 5-page handout. It is posted below as blog content for you. Plus, you can download it by clicking on the button below:

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What to Expect from Meditation (Part 3)

Talk + Guided Meditation Session 012: Mar 25th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

With all the changes we all are going through right now due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we had dedicated last session (session 011) to conducting an open forum of sharing. Sharing about helpful resources for getting through the crisis, sharing about how we feel and how we deal with the situation emotionally. Hence, there was no formal talk on meditation or the teachings of the Buddha, but only a guided meditation.

Today, we’re back in our series of talks about what to expect from meditation; meaning: what phenomena can be experienced as we go deeper and deeper into ourselves.

In parts 1 and 2 of the series, we presented the first eight steps of breath meditation and how it helps us experience bodily sensations as well as feelings that are generated by calming our senses and bodily and mental functions. The result of it all is what Ajahn Brahm calls the beautiful breath.

An Overview of The Four Tetrads: Mindfulness of the Breath

The First Tetrad: Contemplation of the Body  (Steps 1 - 4)
The Second Tetrad: Contemplation of Feelings (Steps 5 - 8)
The Third Tetrad: Contemplation of the Mind (Steps 9 - 12)
The Fourth Tetrad: Contemplation of Mind Objects (Steps 13 - 16)

A Quick Recap of Steps 1-8

Let’s recall the first eight of the sixteen steps of a meditation technique called “mindfulness of the breath”, as taught by the Buddha and documented in a scripture called Anapanasati Sutta. 

A quick recap here of these first eight steps:

Contemplation of the Body

1. Experience non-judgmentally long breaths as they happen.

2. Experience non-judgmentally short breaths as they happen.

3. Experience the whole breath in every single moment of the breathing process.

4. Experience how all by itself, in this process, the breath calms down.

Contemplation of Feelings

1. Experience a feeling of delight emerge from the calmness of the breath.

2. Experience how this delight leaves us happier than before.

3. Experience how this emotional awareness of the breath is replacing bit by bit the physical awareness of the breath.

4. Experience how all by itself, in this process, these beautiful feelings calm down and leave us with nothing but beauty.

The Third Tetrad: Contemplation of the Mind

So, today, we will look at steps nine through twelve. Just like the first eight steps we encounter a group of four steps, a tetrad, the third of four tetrads: the contemplation of the mind itself, its states and moods.

An important note before we dive in: we are presenting these steps as we have learned them from other teachers, from reading books and listening to dhamma talks. We strongly recommend that you go to these or other teachers yourself in order to be instructed by guides of whom we can assume that they have actually experienced these steps in meditation.

The instructions of the Buddha, steps 9 through 12 of breath awareness meditation are as follows (as translated from the Pali by Bhante Sujato on https://suttacentral.net/mn118/en/sujato):

1. They practice breathing in experiencing the mind. They practice breathing out experiencing the mind. 

2. They practice breathing in gladdening the mind. They practice breathing out gladdening the mind. 

3. They practice breathing in immersing the mind in samādhi. They practice breathing out immersing the mind in samādhi. 

4. They practice breathing in freeing the mind. They practice breathing out freeing the mind.

As I understand these steps from Ajahn Brahm’s book Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator’s Handbook (available at libraries, bookshops or on amazon.com under https://amzn.to/39bDEDO), steps 9 and 10 are all about experiencing the mind as a bright ball of light that one sees despite having the eyes closed. It is a mental “sign” of the mind itself and is often referred to as nimitta. Nimitta is the Pali word for sign. 

Ajahn Brahm writes that after a while of experiencing the beautiful breath, the awareness of the breath drops away. All that is left is the beautiful. The visual experience of a bright, beautiful ball of light is the representation of our mind itself. It may be small and wobbly at first (step 9), but as we focus our attention on it, it becomes larger, more still, and more beautiful (step 10). 

Steps 9+10 prepare us for utter, deep, never before experienced stillness, called jhana. Jhana is a Pali word and can best be translated as deep meditative absorption. For the stillness and one-centered focus that follows the Pali word samadhi is used. 

In step 11 we allow our mind to “enter” the state of jhana by letting go of the nimitta. As we let go, all our physical senses drop away from our awareness for a sustained period of time (step 12). That is the first jhana. For the first time in our lives, we are completely free from our senses dominating our attention.

More jhanas follow: a total of eight jhanas exist according to other suttas. Different teachers call them by different names. Ayya Khema calls them simply the eight jhanas, while Ajahn Brahm splits them into four material jhanas (the first four jhanas) and the four immaterial states. According to how I remember Ajahn Brahm’s talks to his monks, the first four jhanas are a requirement to gain deep insight that can lead to full enlightenment. Jhanas five through eight are optional.

As blissful as the jhanas and as beautiful as the samadhi states are, we need to always remember their true purpose:

How to Use Samadhi Correctly

Any of the samadhi states are more sublime than any of our worldly experiences. That is both a blessing and a curse: If we forget that these extraordinary experiences are not the end but only a means to the goal, we may get caught up in just another addiction. 

That’s why Ajahn Silaratano (an American Buddhist monk residing in a monastery in Virginia) writes on page 124 in his truly inspiring book Mae Chee Kaew (free PDF-version of the book under https://forestdhamma.org/ebooks/english/pdf/Mae_Chee_Kaew.pdf, I highly recommend reading it; Ayya Sudhamma from Charlotte Buddhist Vihara https://www.charlottebuddhistvihara.org/ had a few softcover copies of the book for free distribution in her library - yet another good reason to visit her) about the enlightened Thai nun with that name:

In the deep meditative absorption of samadhi, body and mind merge into a single conscious unity: the mind’s essential knowing nature, pure and simple, still and silent. This convergence gives rise to a feeling of pure and harmonious being so wondrous as to be indescribable, and so perfectly pleasurable that it may become addictive. But, regardless of how sublime their experience is, these states of meditative absorption are still defiled by the presence of craving, anger and delusion. Samādhi experiences of this kind will be no more than mundane in nature, and the spiritual insights gained from them will result in mundane wisdom still tainted by those defiling influences.

A mind simplified and unified by samādhi becomes very deep, clear and powerful. Only by directing this focus to the practice of contemplation can true transcendent wisdom be attained. A profoundly insightful investigation of the body, feelings and the mind can uproot afflictions of craving, hatred and delusion, thus realizing the ephemeral and empty nature of all phenomena, eliminating craving and achieving freedom from the cycle of repeated birth and death. Concentration and wisdom must work together, propelling meditation towards its goal like the two wheels of a cart.

May I stress this point from the paragraph: Only by directing this focus [of the samadhi states] to the practice of contemplation can true transcendent wisdom be attained. 

We don’t want another addiction to certain mind states, feelings or experiences; albeit an addiction to jhanas may be somewhat more wholesome than addictions to worldly physical sensations (food, sex, golf, money, possessions, praise, fame etc.). We need to remember to use this utter stillness of the mind in order to gain insight into the true nature of our mind, so we can leave suffering behind for good.

Why exactly is that? 

How to do that? 

Which are the right questions to ask?

That’s what the Buddha teaches us in steps 13 through 16 of his instructions to mindfulness of breathing (Anapanasati Sutta). We’ll talk about them in the next part of the series “What to Expect from Meditation”.

For here and now, let’s practice and meditate.

Peace,
Sophia + Cristof

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