Session 013: What to Expect from Meditation (Part 4)
Session 013: What To Expect From Meditation (Part 4)
Banner Photo Source: Photo by Johannes Plenio 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 , Session 010 and Session 012.
Talk
Guided Meditation:
Ocean waves video by Ruvim Miksanskiy from Pexels. Photo by Lightscape.
Handout
This week we have a 7-page handout. It is posted below as blog content for you. Plus, you can download it by clicking on the button below:
What to Expect from Meditation (Part 4)
Talk + Guided Meditation Session 013: Apr 1st, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin
We’ve been studying the Buddha’s word of the Anapanasati Sutta, the discourse about mindfulness of breathing. As it is with any teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh, one of the most admired Buddhist teachers of the present day, reminds us in his book The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching on page 18 (https://amzn.to/2Jlj1Ke):
“Buddhist teachings are meant to awaken our true self, not merely to add to our storehouse of knowledge.”
This simple quote by Thich Nhat Hanh means two things:
The 16 steps of mindfulness of breathing that we’ve been studying during the last few sessions are to be practiced, regularly, the best we can, as far into the 16 steps as we can. Learning about them is necessary, of course, but not enough, else all we do is accumulate knowledge. If that is all we do with the teachings, we will only boost our ego (because we can now boast about how knowledgeable we are). Boosting our sense of self, however, turns us 180 degrees away from freeing our mind. The concept of me, myself, mine is the root of our suffering. So, we need to practice meditation and, with it, let go, let go, let go. That, coupled with kindness and gentleness towards ourselves and our fellow human beings and animals, creates peace.
Going through the first 12 steps of Buddha’s breath meditation guidance, we lay the foundation of serenity, of calmness and stillness of mind, in order to gain insight and be able to awaken our true self. We are totally allowed to enjoy the peace, bliss and happiness created by the serenity found in deep meditation. Yet, we cannot be complacent and stay there. We have to withstand the temptation of getting attached to these beautiful mind states and let go even more. There’s deep insight to be gained which can alleviate our suffering not just during the minutes and hours of meditation, but for good.
Ready for that? Alright! Here it is:
Let’s Review Steps 1-12 of Mindfulness of Breathing
Let’s recall the first twelve of the sixteen steps of the meditation instruction found in the Anapanasati Sutta (available freely for example under https://suttacentral.net/mn118/en/sujato), the teaching of the Buddha in which he guides us how to be mindful of the breath along with the benefits of doing so.
The steps are grouped in groups of four (tetrads). I paraphrase them into my words like so:
Experience 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.
Experience of Feelings
5. Experience a feeling of delight emerge from the calmness of the breath.
6. Experience how this delight leaves us happier than before.
7. Experience how this emotional awareness of the breath is replacing bit by bit the physical awareness of the breath.
8. Experience how all by itself, in this process, these beautiful feelings calm down and leave us with nothing but beauty.
Experience of the Mind
9. Experience the mind as a mirror image: a subtle yet absolutely mind-bogglingly beautiful mental sign (in Pali: nimitta).
10. Experience how the inner stillness allows this mirror image to become shinier and shinier.
11. Experience how the mirror image (and hence the mind itself) becomes still and stable, bright and powerful. This lets us immerse into the utter peace of mind created by the meditation process.
12. Experience how, by letting go of control of the nimitta, the mind becomes completely free from the constant input of the physical five senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching).
The final stage (step 12) is also known as Jhana, the Pali word for meditative absorption. Within the jhana experience, there are eight stages, eight jhanas, which we’ll present another time. By the way: this mystical experience is found not just in Buddhism, but in many - if not all - religious traditions. And Ajahn Brahm writes about the experience of a jhana, the reaching of step 12, in his book “Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond. A Meditator’s Handbook” on page 98 (https://amzn.to/39bDEDO):
“You’re blissed out yet fully mindful, still, stable as a rock. These are signs of the mind being freed. This experience becomes one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful experience, of your life. [...] You’re awakened and free during this time.”
Now, onward to what to do when we come out of a meditation experience.
The Fourth Tetrad, Steps 13-16: Turning Experience Into Wisdom
The following steps 13 to 16 of Buddha’s instructions of mindfulness of the breath aim to make sure that we’re not just temporarily awakened (see quote by Ajahn Brahm above), but that we gain deep insight from the meditation experience. Such deep insight, that our every-day life of regular consciousness benefits by becoming light, easy, and peaceful at all times.
Let’s read the steps, as translated from the Pali by Bhante Sujato on https://suttacentral.net/mn118/en/sujato:
13. They practice breathing in observing impermanence. They practice breathing out observing impermanence.
14. They practice breathing in observing fading away. They practice breathing out observing fading away.
15. They practice breathing in observing cessation. They practice breathing out observing cessation.
16. They practice breathing in observing letting go. They practice breathing out observing letting go.
As we can see, this phase is all about observing. What do we observe, what do we reflect on to gain insight?
Let’s consult meditation master Ajahn Brahm about the meaning. I’m paraphrasing and quoting what I read and understood about these final four steps of breath awareness meditation in his aforementioned book Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond (on pages 99-101, https://amzn.to/39bDEDO).
1. Impermanence or unreliability or inconstancy: It may be easy to see how life is impermanent in many regards. As a contrast to that, we ordinarily experience our ego, our self, as constant. In deep meditative states, we can experience the absence of our ego. We let go and let go and let go and are left with nothingness.Ajahn Brahm: “Notice that. Noticing it will convince you of the truth of no-self (anatta) so deeply that it’s very likely to give rise to the experience of stream winning.” Stream winning is the first stage of enlightenment.
2. Fading away or dispassion: We are to reflect then how everything fades away. We have just experienced in the jhana, how even our senses and our ego can fade away completely. We reflect on the process of letting go of control and how that results in fading away our attachments in life and how that causes a life without obstacles.
3. Cessation: Imagine a candle flame. When we blow it out, it’s gone. Where has it gone? Nowhere. It has simply ceased to exist. Like that, when the process of fading away is complete, non-physical phenomena like a flame or pain, and mental phenomena like our ego, our attachments simply cease to exist. Our reasons for suffering are gone, have simply vanished. What remains is bliss. Ajahn Brahm describes this causal relationship: “You experience happiness and you know the cause. Imagine that you had a migraine headache for many, many months and someone gave you a new medicine that had just been invented, saying it works for some but not for everybody. So you take it and find that it works for you. Your migraine has gone! How would you feel? You’d be high as a kite. You’d be blissed out! Sometimes you’d be crying with happiness.”
4. Letting go or abandoning: In the end, we reflect on how these deep meditative states and thus the happiness came all about. The essence of the correct answers is: by letting go. Letting go of the outer world, letting go of our inner control freak, and in the end, even the knowing essence of our mind.Ajahn Brahm: “This insight gives rise to so much happiness, so much purity, so much freedom, so much bliss. You’ve found the path to the ending of suffering.”
Whether after a jhana or after coming out of meditation from an earlier step, we can practice these reflections. Our insights will deepen gradually and reinforce our meditation practice in a positive feedback loop. The minute or two right after coming out of meditation are the right moment to do so, as our mind is fresh and calm, as undisturbed as it can be. Naturally, the calmer we have been during meditation, the closer we are to nature, and thus the deeper our insight into our own existence and the nature of life.
Step by Step: Every Step is Valuable
Now, us learning the sixteen steps of mindfulness of the breath, as the Buddha taught it, is complete. To sum it up, all with the experience of the breathing process as our anchor:
Four Steps (1-4) in the Experience of the Body
Four Steps (5-8) in the Experience of Feelings
Four Steps (9-12) in the Experience of the Mind
Four Steps (13-16) of Reflection.
It’s up to us to practice it; practice it daily; meditate daily for calming the mind and gaining deep insights. Serenity and wisdom practice always go hand in hand and are inseparable like two sides of a coin.
We have Buddha’s instructions. The Buddha developed and generously taught them more than 25 centuries ago, and they are still a valid teaching and technique for us today. Their exact meaning and interpretation may not be clear at times. Some teachers and translators say this, others say that. Therefore, we have to learn from multiple sources and follow the trial and error method to validate teachings with our own experience. We continue what works and let go of what doesn’t, keeping in mind that something may not work today, but may work in a few months from now. What is right for us, may not work for another, and the other way around. So, let’s remember in the process to drop all dogma and keep it practical.
Having said all of that, please get guidance from an experienced teacher. I can only guide you so far. As your meditations get deeper and deeper, you need to make sure to visit monasteries and meditation retreat centers with teachers that can guide you further because they’ve been where you want to go.
A kind reminder: in the talk script and PDF-handout of Session 009, What to Expect from Meditation (Part 1) (https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-009-what-to-expect-from-meditation), Sophia has collected valuable resources that can guide us further on the path.
Each meditation step is valuable by itself. Not the jhanas are the goal, for they will come the more we let go. The path of letting go itself is the goal. Even if we never experience a jhana in this lifetime, simply relaxing the body and observing our breath (steps 1, 2, 3, and 4) will allow our well-being to increase and strengthen our immune system. Isn’t that precious in times like these?
So, let’s practice letting go during another half-hour meditation session right now.
Peace,
Sophia + Cristof
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