Chapter ten
Be spontaneous
I was talking about never being complacent and letting go of the first foundation of self-awareness. Practitioners will learn to apply the appropriate practice spontaneously. For example, we might be observing our breath and suddenly a mosquito bites; we suddenly notice the itch which means we naturally move to the second foundation of self awareness. We then look at the itch in the way we have been trained until it disappear and subsequently shift our focus point back to our breath again. These two foundations are very important because they will be the boosters to the third foundation of awareness. Provided that practitioners have consistently kept on with the practice, their minds will naturally be refined. As the practice is in progress, practitioners will find themselves more at ease and have less struggle with the practice, which is the sign of advancing. This is the precise process of taking away our old mental habits (spitting out the fruit from the tree of knowledge) and replacing them with good mental habits (having more self-awareness). However, there is still lot of work to do.
The contemplation as regarding thoughts
(Citta-nu-passana)
Before I go into the
details of this foundation of awareness, I would like to say that the four
foundations of awareness are a natural progression, which can only be
understood when practitioners have gone through the stages and look back. I am
saying this because now I can look back and see what happened to me, which I
couldn’t understand at the time. I remember vividly that I blamed myself
terribly and considered myself a failure whilst I was in the middle of
struggling through the third level of self-awareness. The more I could see my
thoughts, the more I thought I was no good and quite often was hit by guilt.
All these are pitfalls that only a veteran can bring a student out of. If not,
the student has to be extremely patient to pull himself or herself through.
Nonetheless, I realised that what I thought was failure was in fact progress in
a funny way, I supposed. This realisation came many years after I had gone
through such a difficult stage. This is a tip, if I may call it, for those who
might be going through the same kind of experience as myself. So what I am
going to talk about as regards the third foundation will be based on my present
experience when I can actually look back and describe the whole picture of my
mental journey. Practitioners who are going into this level or are in the
middle of this level might not be able to see or feel the same. All I can say
is please be very patient and earnestly keep on with the practice. You will
come out of it and be all right.
Observing thought is like catching a runaway
train
The third foundation of awareness is about catching
every single thought running through our heads. How exactly can we do this? We
must come back to the comparison of the train again. This time the train is our
thoughts instead of our feelings and emotions. Provided that practitioners are
very good with the first two levels of self-awareness, the third level
regarding catching each thought will gradually happen although practitioners do
not fully realise it. Whether we are ready or not to engage in the third level
of practice is not really our choice. This is a matter of natural mechanism -
as long as the right cause is put in, the right result will be produced on its
own. This is exactly why the Buddha claims that his enlightenment is a
challenge to be proven, because the whole practice is scientific but of course
difficult to imagine. Those who are ready are those who can actually understand
what I am saying which is about sitting on a platform and watching the train
coming and going. This is a precise analogy for observing our thoughts
independently. As a matter of fact, noticing the arising and the passing away
of thoughts already happened when we first adopted the contemplation of bodily
movements but at that time we didn’t really know the involvement.
As our self-awareness
becomes more acute and spontaneous, we’ll begin to notice thoughts independently
just as if we are sitting on the platform of a station and doing
train-spotting. This is the most painful stage of the practice but most
rewarding because we are about to enter the gateway of most profound wisdom.
The pain is the result of coming face to face with every thought and every
feeling in the way that we cannot turn back and run away like we used to do
anymore. Readers might be confused by the term running away from thoughts and
feelings. I must clarify this matter first.
Putting stone over growing grass
Apart from this practice, whether we would like to
hear it or not, we all run away from our own thoughts and feelings one way or
another. Our problems initiate within the compound of thoughts and feelings.
When it happens, we tend to smooth them over somehow. The very first way we do
this is by trying to think about something else which we call positive
thinking, which may involve reasoning with ourselves and so on. If not, we
would go out and do something totally different so that we can forget about our
troubles. If the problem is not
major, we can succeed in forgetting about the whole thing quite easily by going
out and enjoying ourselves. However, sometimes our problems are too much and
they won’t go away just by reasoning with them, we then need to seek
professional help either from doctors, psychiatrists and so on. Consequently,
we might be offered counseling or prescribed drugs, e.g. anti-depressants or
Prozac so that we can calm our troubled mind down. Not to mention those who
choose to use drinking and illegal drugs as their refuge, which plunges them
deeper into their mental abyss. However, if all those options do not work out
and people can no longer cope with their mental turmoil, the last measure
people take to run away from their problem is suicide.
We might think that
reasoning with ourselves to solve our problem is the most civilised and
positive way, which is very true in this context. I have no argument with that.
What I want to emphasise is that all these options are still in the nature of
covering the problems up and not undoing the problem at source, just like
putting a stone over growing grass instead of pulling the grass out by its
roots. This will offend a great number of people especially intellectuals who
think that they can handle their problems in the most civilised and
intellectual way. I cannot say anything more or less than the truth. The truth
is that solving our mental problems at source can only mean observing the
arising thoughts independently. And how can we do that? It means that we have
to engage in the four foundations of awareness. Maybe readers begin to
understand why I see the urgent need to let this awakening culture seep through
into the Christian way of life as well as all religious traditions. The sole
reason is that the four foundations of awareness are the shortest route for the
mental journey which can bring immediate stability to our mental state
regardless of sex, age, religion, nationality, race and social status.
Pulling grass out by its roots
Every problem in the world is initiated by thoughts.
In other words, if we don’t THINK about it, we don’t have a problem. As long as
we think about it, we will always have a problem. Indeed, the problem comes
with our thoughts. Now, we are reaching the point of delving into that very
source of the problem, which is dealing with our thoughts. Bluntly speaking, if
we can stop our thoughts, we can stop our problems. I know this must sound
silly and even stupid especially for intellectuals. I can only say that the
true wisdom is hidden in the greatest simplicity and probably what people
regard as stupidity. If people are so arrogant as to think that this is all
nonsense, they are about to deny the most profound wisdom in the universe.
Practitioners engaging
in the third foundation of self-awareness soon find out for themselves that
there is no smoothing over their problems anymore. On the contrary, they will
have to confront their problems. It isn’t the content or context of the problem
they have to face but just simply understand the overall nature of thoughts. As
this level of practice is progressing, practitioners will come face to face
with each individual thought and will experience every twist and turn of the
feelings brought on by each thought. This is certainly a very painful process,
although it is most rewarding. We can begin to catch the moment when thought
arises and instantaneously causes the subsequent feeling, which has the ability
to bite our mind or heart[1].
So, although we are bitten (both in the indirect way as positive feeling and in
the direct way as negative feeling) every time the mind moves from its neutral
state, this time we also know the reason why we are bitten. This knowledge is
the key wisdom, which will bring us to our ultimate mental freedom later on.
Notice
the difference between sitting in a train and watching a train from the
platform.
If thought is compared to a train and we
are the consciousness or knowing nature, at the beginning of this level of
practice, we begin to notice the difference between sitting in a train and
merely sitting on the platform and looking at a train. We gradually learn that
whenever thoughts arise in our heads and we are not fully aware of the arising
of those thoughts, we’ll drift along with them for as long as it takes until we
are aware and snap ourselves out of them. This can be compared to catching the
train the moment it comes into the station, sitting in there and letting the
train take us along as far as the end of that train journey or maybe jumping
off a bit earlier. When this (drifting along with thought) happens inside us,
we soon find out as well that feelings follow. We can see our minds either move
up (positive feeling-joy, happiness, etc.) or down (negative feelings -
sadness, pain, etc) according to the contents of our thoughts. This is the
moment that I said can be quite painful because we can see those feelings so
clearly. However, the training from the first two foundations of self-awareness
gives enormous strength to practitioners and enables them to snap the thought
away simultaneously. This is just like jumping off a train the moment we
realise we have got on the wrong train. This is the process of resisting or not
to being dragged along by our own thoughts or not jumping on the train too
quickly.
Nevertheless, it
doesn’t mean that thoughts don’t come into our head at all. Thoughts still come
into our heads as usual but this time we can sit back on a bench on the
platform and watch the train coming and going for a change. It means that we
don’t have to drift along with thoughts anymore, we can just watch them coming
and going. This nature is considered the peak of this level of practice. What
actually happens is that we merely stop the proliferation of thought. We must
understand that thoughts come into our heads one at a time but at staggering
speed. So, the nature of drifting away with thoughts is in fact a successive
chain of thoughts which keeps on reproducing itself endlessly. We jump from one
thought to another all the time without being aware of it. This is how our
problems can generate. Thoughts also bring along with them all faces of
feelings and emotions. Once feelings and emotions are set in our minds, our
problems become messy, sticky and entangled. That is because feelings in return
regenerate more thoughts and more feelings and create a vicious cycle. If our
awareness is sharp enough to catch the arising of each thought, we can stop the
proliferation of thought right away and break the vicious circle. It means that
we just let that one thought pass through our heads, just like watching a train
coming through the station without jumping on it. In other words, we keep our
thoughts short by not drifting along. Consequently, we have less thoughts by
just keeping them short and subsequently we have less feelings which means we
have less problems. As I said, our problems come with thoughts and feelings.
Simply being aware of the arising of thought is solving our problem at source,
which can be compared to pulling the grass out by its roots. This unique
ability cannot happen without training in the first two foundations of
self-awareness. Once we have less thoughts, our perceptions towards the world
will become pure and innocent which is the fourth foundation of awareness. I’ll
talk about it in later chapter.
I have no doubt in the
slightest that to be aware of the arising of thought (the third foundation of
self-awareness) is the precise action of how not to eat the fruit from the tree
of knowledge. This is the warning of God or whoever knew the function of the
mind so well that he had to tell people by hiding the true meaning in such
ingenious metaphors as the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. The true
hidden meaning of these two trees has not yet been revealed properly due to the
lack of practice. The know-how is indeed the missing link in the Christian holy
book. When the know-how is not clear, people do not understand God’s warning
about how not to eat the fruit from the wrong tree. Consequently, we are still
eating the poisonous fruits with relish and that’s why we can never get rid of
our problems.
Whilst the book of
Genesis depicts the two significant natures of our minds as the tree of
knowledge and the tree of life, the Mahabharata which is a great Indian epic,
depicts the same nature of our minds from another angle and that is fighting in
a battlefield. To come face to face with our thoughts and to try not to go
along with them is a painful process for all vipassana-practitioners. This has
been depicted as war between two brothers and their families in the great epic,
Mahabharata. This is a personification of what is going on in human’s minds,
between the good thoughts and the bad thoughts. Practitioners who are in the
midst of training in the third foundation of self-awareness realise that this
mind is indeed a battlefield. To observe each thought and let it go is very
much like fighting in a battlefield. If we are strong (having acute awareness),
we’ll win and manage to kill thoughts. However, if we are weak (having weak
awareness), the thoughts will kill us by dragging us along with them and bite
us as they turn into feelings. This battle goes on all the time while we are
awake but we don’t know. Sometimes, it still goes on in our sleep by having
dreams unless we can go into a deep sleep without dreams. To be aware of every
thought is indeed an exhausting job, which goes on in the most private and
individual manner. No one knows except the practitioner.
The significant point in regard to the great epic
Mahabharata is the question of why we should kill our close relatives. Killing
enemies is a straightforward action as far as war is concerned but killing our
close relatives and loved ones is a much more complex matter. What is the meaning
behind this personification? We can understand the reason of getting rid of our
bad and destructive thoughts and feelings which is a straightforward combat. To
get rid of our good thoughts and good feelings too can raise a lot of puzzles
and doubt. This is why we cannot be satisfied by just being morally good
because problems haven’t been solved at source yet. People who determine to
stand on their moral ground still have problems and heartache. We all know
that. Actually and sadly, this type of person is an open target and subjected
to bullying in our modern society where there is a vacuum of morality. That’s
why morality is not enough to make people fully happy. This is why we need to
talk about the four foundations of awareness.
The author who wrote
the Mahabharata and especially the Bhagavad-Gita must have had some clear
understanding of the third foundation of self awareness - observing the arising
of thoughts - to be able to create such a unique story line. Not until we
engage in the third level of practice do we realise that confronting thoughts
is a one task business. If we (consciousness) are sitting on a platform
spotting trains, our job is merely spotting all trains (thoughts) that come
through the station; some trains are painted black (bad thoughts) and some are
painted white (good thoughts). The trains (thoughts) and us (consciousness) are
two separate natures. This means that just simply observing the coming and
going of each thought, we (consciousness) also cut short good thoughts and good
feelings. This has to be understood very carefully. Please don’t quickly
conclude that we must get rid of all creative thoughts too. It isn’t like that.
Later on I will talk about how to generate creative thoughts.
Good thoughts and good
feelings in the above context point to the attachment to our loved ones. We all
know that to love someone is good. On the radio this morning, I just heard
someone say jokingly that whoever created love should be shot. I laughed and
said to my husband “But it was God who created love”. Well, I don’t quite
understand in what context that person said such a sentence, which strikes at
the heart of this issue. It is rather ironic but it is also very true that
love, no matter how positive it may sound, also creates heartache, pain and
immense suffering. The cause of most suffering among humans in the world today
is the loss of love. In war-torn countries, the familiar heart-wrenching scene
of women who have lost their loved ones as we often see on the news coverage
says it all. Love is a double-edged blade. It can create enormous strength and
creativity when it lasts. But when things go wrong for whatever reasons, love
can easily be replaced by hatred and all hell can break loose. This is when we
can see the destructive side of love. Love acts like glue, which attaches
people to people or objects and people together. When the object of love
disappears, we grieve over that loss and the pain can be horrendous at times.
When we think about our loved ones, we cannot deny that we can also sense fear
- the fear that something awful might happen to them. When parents look at
their children, thoughts run through their heads and they can see worries and
fear which come with those thoughts. This is the cause which urged the young
prince Siddhattha to search for the end of suffering, and he finally found it.
To see the arising of each thought means that the practitioner can also detect
the attachment, worry and fear which come with some positive thoughts. This
leads to the reason why we also need to let those good thoughts pass through
our heads without clinging to them. It is as difficult to explain as to
understand because it relates closely to the practice. Logic cannot help to
explain this issue very well, I am afraid to say. Only experience can clarify.
I mention it just to
link with the theme in the Bhagavad-gita of why Arjuna had to kill all his
relatives. This context has to be correctly clarified, otherwise it can be used
for a wrong and evil purpose. I don’t know how true this was. I only heard from
my teacher’s tape saying that Hitler ordered a great number of copies of the
Bhagavad-Gita for the Nazis so that they could be encouraged and find no wrong
in killing the Jews. I can remember vaguely that the Thai tyrants also mentioned
Bhagavad-Gita to support them in killing their fellow countrymen in the
uprising of May 1992. We have to be very careful about this issue.
It will become automatic
Observing the arising
and passing away of thoughts is an extremely difficult task at first. How long
it takes will depend on different factors. The most important factor is not to
be complacent and heedless. At first, practitioners often blame themselves in
failing to catch the thought on time and this causes them to drift away.
Practitioners must never be discouraged although they cannot see any progress
in themselves. It can only be realised later that it is still a progression.
However, as long as practitioners do not leave behind the first two levels of
practice, they will find that spotting each thought has gradually become easier
and almost automatic. There is less and less effort involved and the practice
becomes more natural. This is the stage when practitioners can be sure that
they are indeed on the third foundation of self-awareness which is something
they could not have convinced themselves of before. At this point,
practitioners can sit back on the platform quite comfortably and spot every
train running through the station without jumping on it although it still
happens occasionally. All practitioners who reach this stage will talk about
the automation of their mental mechanism. They will talk about the similar
experience of having an observer and the observed which is something that
non-practitioners or even the lower level of practitioners cannot fully
understand. But no one should be discouraged because as long as the walking
along the path is going on, they will soon reach such a stage. Otherwise, how
can the Buddha even put down the length of time for one to be a Phra Arahant? It
can only mean that he has to be so sure about what he knows.
Another similar
experience is that practitioners who reach the automatic stage, have their own
signals to brush away each thought. Every time thought arises, they might just
shake their head or say a word and that thought will disappear instantaneously.
For the past 12 years at least, my family have got used to me saying either one
of these phrases depending on what contents my thoughts are “ya loog (no son),
oh no, please don’t, damn you, I don’t like you…” Sometimes it could be very annoying for them when suddenly I
burst out with a startling “Leave me alone, I hate you!” This is a version of
the automatic stage, which belongs to a lay woman who also runs a busy
household. Please do not ask why.
There is no logic to it. Logic can only make sense when we believe that we are
the one who does the thinking. When we can truly spot the arising and passing
away of each thought, we will know that there is not an “I” who does the
thinking. We can only see a natural mechanism going on as far as our mental
state is concerned. Those words of mine are the result of vipassana wisdom -
being aware of thought - and work like mental reflex so that they can
instantaneously eradicate the unwanted thoughts. Just like physical reflex
which is involuntary response to a stimulus, in the same way that I have no
control over my sneeze, blink or hiccup, I have no control over my
instantaneous words whenever any unwanted thoughts arise.
Our heart or the
abstract nature behind our chest is compared to a battlefield because it is the
place for all feelings to land on. Feelings and emotions are the result of
thoughts. To protect our battlefield not to be bruised by feelings, thoughts
have to be destroyed in the air before any feelings can land on our hearts.
When the practice reaches the mature stage, this function works automatically
and it works very much like an anti-missile (awareness) destroying a missile
(thought) in the air. Every time thought arises, the awareness (anti missile)
will shoot up and automatically intercept the thought (missile) in thin air.
Consequently, the mind can be totally still and stable and not be hurt or
shaken by any feelings no matter how faint they are. The veteran can even be
quick and sensitive enough to detect the vibration of the formation of thought
just like the anti-missile can detect the vibration of the missile even before
it shows up on the radar screen.
Consequently, the awareness or anti-missile is sent to the source and
intercepts the hidden enemy at source. Under such circumstances, practitioners
do not even know what thought has just been destroyed. This is how sharp and
acute the awareness is when it reaches the automatic stage. This level of
awareness is known as wisdom, which has the ability to annihilate darkness or
spiritual ignorance which comes with thoughts.
Although the automatic mechanism sounds
ideal and complete as far as walking the path is concerned, we cannot stop our
effort as long as we have not yet become Phra Arahants. If this cursed tiger
has not yet transformed back
to being totally human, we cannot say that our duty has finished. We cannot
admit our status as being half human and half tiger, can we? We can see that
life has only one exit and that is to gain complete spiritual freedom -that is
to enter Nirvana or to be one with God.
Should practitioners who reach the automatic stage still be Sekha[2]
persons who are complacent and heedless, the automation can easily disappear
according to the law of impermanence. Even though Sekha persons do work hard,
the automation can still disappear at times. Out of the blue, the anti-missile
(awareness) which normally shoots up on its own to intercept the missile
(thought) in the air fails to work and the battlefield (heart or mind) is
smothered with casualties (bruised by feelings and emotions). When this
happens, the automation, which is taken for granted, seems as far as a galaxy
away. This can easily happen. Practitioners who reach this automatic stage will
greatly appreciate the profound meaning of the Buddha’s last sermon when he
reminded us not to be heedless. So wise people, who may watch the coming and
going of their thought effortlessly, will never neglect the first two
foundations of self-awareness.
Although the automatic stage is indeed
the holy stage, the sense of I or self-centredness gradually disappears. The
non-self, voidness or Annata becomes clearer to the learners. The Sekha person
will see the natural mechanism of mental states. It is a matter of input and
output, cause and effect. As long as we put a cause (the four foundations of
awareness) into our lives, we will experience mental freedom (reaching the
automatic state). This is exactly why Buddhism is reputed for being scientific
and logical. The whole process is indeed scientific but all in a formless
style.
The four noble truths are a matter of
witnessing
All enthusiastic
Buddhists know about the four noble truths but it still doesn’t make any of us
become a Buddha. Unlike any intellectual knowledge, which can be passed on by
just telling or reading, the four noble truths are matters of witnessing and
definitely not about thinking. Although the Buddha describes the wider scale of
suffering (the first noble truth of Dukkha) as birth, ageing, illness and death
are suffering, which we can still think and reason about, the profound state of
suffering however cannot be rationalised. The four noble truths can only be
comprehended when one can comfortably watch the coming and going of thoughts,
preferably having reached the automatic state. Profound suffering occurs
whenever the mind moves from its neutral state due from the arising of thoughts
and feelings. This is the much deeper meaning of suffering which the Buddha
wants us to witness. Thoughts are the direct cause of the subsequent feelings
which land on our mind or heart in the western term - the abstract nature
behind our chest. Every time a feeling lands onto our mind, the mind will
either move up as having positive feelings (joy, happiness, excitement) or down
as having negative feelings (pain, fear, fright, embarrassment, etc.). It
doesn’t matter whether the mind moves upwards or downwards, as long as it is
away from the equilibrium, it is considered as suffering in the Buddha’s
terminology. This can confirm what I said earlier about why we need to kill off
our positive feelings as described in the Bhagavad-Gita. The pure reason is
that they are still in the realm of suffering. The equilibrium state of mind,
however, is the most ideal and holy state which all wise people admire and take
refuge in.
Having witnessed the
true face of suffering as the mind moves away from its neutral state, Sekha
persons can see the subsequent cause of suffering which is the state of
clinging or drifting along with the flow of thoughts. Metaphorically speaking,
the second noble truth is about catching the train and sitting in it until the
end of the journey. This is the state when all the greed, anger and delusion
engulf us. The three groups of
defilement initiate themselves with thoughts. The third noble truth is about
snapping away from thought and moreover watching the coming and going of
thoughts. It can be compared to jumping
off the train-ride, sitting on a platform-bench and watching trains passing
through the station. This is the state of seeing mental freedom. The mind is
independent from thought and does not cling to thought anymore. This level of
freedom can only happen when one reaches the third foundation of
self-awareness. Once mental freedom is witnessed, the forth noble truth or the
noble eightfold path is about everything that leads the practitioner up to that
point of seeing mental freedom.
What I can add is that
anyone who can truly see mental freedom can become independent from their
sacred holy book, it doesn’t matter what religious tradition they belong to.
The Buddha found the third noble truth before the fourth. He found the pond of
holy water which can offer eternity to people, then he came out and drew a life
map for people to follow the trail to the pond of holy water. The rest of us
are the Buddha’s faithful followers. We enthusiastically follow his life map
until we can find real mental freedom like the Buddha did. Now, if we can help
and want to help others, we can also create a life map which offers the best
short cut to people. I realise for myself that the Buddha has actually offered
us the best short cut that we can possibly have. The four foundations of
awareness are indeed the shortest route to our mental freedom. I cannot add
anything further but to put them in modern terms and language so that people of
my generation can understand better.
However, I just want
to emphasise that the four noble truths are a matter of gaining real experience
and not just sitting back, reading and thinking about them. We can never find
our mental freedom in that manner.
[1] In
the West, mind refers to the area in our head where the brain is situated,
whilst in the East, mind or Citta refers to the area in our heart, not the
physical organ but the abstract nature behind our chest. I make it very clear
to my students that the abstract area behind our chest is the focus point of
the third foundation of self-awareness.
[2]
Sekha or Sekkha means the learner, i.e. one who is in the course of perfection;
one who has reached one of the stages of holiness, except the last and has yet
to undergo the higher training. Page 411, Dictionary of Buddhism by Phra Thep
Thevee (Prayut Prayuto), published by Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist college.