On Safe Ground

work in progress from Mahabodhi

On Safe Ground

Mindfulness Practice in the Buddhist Tradition This work is copyright and work in progress up to 27 August 2006 © Mahabodhi 2006 CONTENTS

STALKER 8 one THE BASIS FOR ACTION 12

Mindfulness and Safety The \Middle Way Contemplation Conditioned Coproduction All Dharmas are peaceful Internal Non-Violence Places of Work

THE FOUNDATIONS OF MINDFULNESS two BODY 65

The Tangible Body Relaxation: a led practice The Breath as a neutral object The Mindfulness of Breathing Articulation Mind and Body: The Alexander Technique three FEELING 102

Sensibility Sentience The Roots of Feeling Worldly and Spiritual Feeling Mood Dukkha Working with Pain Acceptance Permissions Feeling in Meditation four MIND 153

Mind as Movement Conscious and Unconscious Responses to Feeling Feeling and Emotion Moving Towards Experience Making a Good Shape of Ourselves The view from Citta The Reality of People Metta Bhavana Principles behind Metta Metta Bhavana: a led practice Ethical Precepts Gods, the Rupaloka and the Manipulation of Form Insight five REALITY 203

Grasping Mental Objects The view from Mano Abstraction Approaching Reality Play and Learning Symbols and Learning Cognition and Learning Direct Experience and Learning

WORKING WITH THE FOUR FOUNDATIONS six CONNECTIONS 235

The Foundations separately Being in the Right Medium The Foundations together One Foundation conditioning another seven IMAGINATION 246

Imagination and Mindfulness The Image Poetry and Metaphor Embodiment Letting Go into Dream Magic Dreamwork A Midsummer Nights Dream Enchantment

APPENDIX 287

The Twelve Modes of Alienation Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Buddhism The Twelve Modes of Conditioning on safe ground

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 From CORRELATION BOOK

The film 'Stalker' - a metaphor for mindfulness

"The Zone" I wanted to find a poetic metaphor to express the spirit of the practice of mindfulness, and I think I found one in the 1970s Russian film Stalker. Directed by Andrei Tarkovski, it is a powerful and mysterious film, the meaning of which is not that immediately accessible. The story is set in an industrial decaying landscape, within which is a mysterious large area of land called ‘The Zone’, a place deserted of people yet protected by guards with machine guns. Stalker is the main character in the film. He is like a guide. He smuggles people into "The Zone". At the centre of "The Zone" is a derelict room. People want to enter the room because they have heard that on entering it one's innermost wishes are fulfilled. But the path through "The Zone" is hazardous. It looks innocuous enough, just a derelict industrial landscape that is also part nature. But Stalker warns the companions he is guiding to the room: a writer called Writer, and a scientist called Scientist, it is not innocuous at all. He pleads with them for caution. He says -

'The Zone is a very complex maze of traps. All of them are death traps. I don't know what happens in the absence of humans, but as soon as humans appear, everything begins to move. Former traps disappear. New traps appear. Safe ways become impassable, and the way becomes now easy, now confused beyond words. This is the Zone. It might seem capricious. But at each moment it's just as we've made it by our state of mind. I won't hide the fact that some people had to turn back half way. There were some who perished on the very threshold of the room. But everything that happens here depends not on the Zone but on us.'

So, mysteriously, "The Zone" is more that just a landscape, it is responsive to the attitude one brings to it. This is the first link with mindfulness in buddhism. We need to be mindful of the ordinary world of objects we move about in, the ordinary landscape. But our happiness also depends on our attitude, our internal landscape. Our state of mind.

Getting into 'The Zone' isn't easy. The three men run the gauntlet of guards with machine guns. They are shot at, but get through. They then travel deep into "The Zone" on a motorised railway cart. Getting off, they begin to make their way through the landscape,. It is almost constantly raining. Rusted shapes jut out, and are reflected in muddy pools of water. There is water everywhere, but nobody else there. Stalker has the experience of "The Zone" but as he says, it is constantly changing. So they need a way of testing if the way ahead is safe. He gets the others to tie bandages to metal nuts to be thrown ahead of them, to test the safety of their intended path. Early on in this the Writer gets impatient with all caution and not quite believing Stalker, pushes ahead on his own, but stopping, sensing something is wrong, he then slowly comes back. He was lucky Stalker said, the Zone had warned him. The men do eventually reach the room after an extremely roundabout journey.

Tarkovski's metaphysical water-drenched and very beautiful cinema we could say is a film about the quest for happiness. The buddhist path is also about that. Like getting through "The Zone", it isn't straightforward. Progress in life is never straighforward. The metaphor of Stalker constantly checking the way by throwing the nut we can take into life and into buddhist practice. Life and conditions are ever shifting and the best we can do about that is to keep checking what the current situation is (both the externals - those beyond our control, and the internals - our state of mind). That is the best we can do, and that is the buddhist practice of mindfulness. That is our best chance for happiness.

Life is not Linear The fact that the Zone is constantly changing is a very like life. Life isn’t linear. It isn't that we do A and B, and it gives us C. Life is much more complex and unpredictable than that. Stalker throws a nut before each new move forward to carefully test the response of the Zone to that move, as it is here, in the moment. He doesn't assume things now are as they were. Each step brings a new situation, to be gauged, checked out. The same care informs the practice of mindfulness. Stalker says the Zone is 'not a place for a stroll'. Likewise buddhism says that samsara, conditioned existence, the world as we know it, is like being in a burning house that we need to get out of. Yet the burning is caused by attachment, and we can overcome that if we are mindful.. Unhooking our attachments is possible but it takes consistent care and attention over a long period of time. Mindfulness then is the path of great care, leading to the 'room of nirvana', where our happiness will never be lost. To be really safe in the world, and not as Stalker says, fall into death traps, we need to be safe in our mindfulness.

Guides We also have to judge for ourselves the right path to happiness. What we want to be our guide. In a way we are all surrounded by potential guides, potential Stalkers. Each philosophy or religion claiming to bring us happiness is one. Every advertising hoarding, every religious guru is one. But which do we go with? Some might offer a seductively easy path, which then turns out to be a 'death trap'. Buddhism isn't the easy path. It is about looking directly at life, with awareness. So even though life is unpredictable, we can still get somewhere in it with care and attention. Because we are being careful within that unpredictability, we are safer, because we are in a way expecting it.

The Basis for Action When Stalker wants to test a particular way through the "Zone" is safe, he throws the nut. Throwing the nut is a metaphor for being careful. Being careful to bring awareness to the situation. Bringing mindfulness is like plumbing the depths. When we drop a line with a stone attached to it into water, we know how deep the water is by when the line goes slack. We have a firm basis for action then, when we want to wade into the water. Mindfulness is like this. We know better through mindfulness what we are stepping into. We know the terrain and we have more information about the future. The better information we have like this before setting off, the safer we are likely to be. We cannot assume the world is still the same as it was two minutes ago, and without mindfulness we cannot know what it has become. Things will probably have changed in that time, we too will have changed. Mindfulness gives us that information. It doesn't assume things have stayed the same, but helps us keep checking on the situation as it is before we move forward.

______STALKER - ALTERNATIVE START Stalker

"The Zone" Three men make their way through a landscape, part derelict industrial and part nature. It is almost constantly raining. Rusted shapes jut out, and are reflected in muddy pools of water. There is water everywhere, and nobody else there. The three men: a writer called Writer, a scientist called Scientist, and their guide, someone called Stalker, have entered ‘The Zone’, a mysterious place, deserted yet protected by guards with machine guns. In the middle of "The Zone" is a room, which if one enters, one's innermost wishes are fulfilled. Stalker is guiding the others to the room. Getting into 'The Zone' isn't easy. They run a gauntlet of guards with machine guns. They are shot at but get through. Once inside, even though it doesn't look so on the surface the landscape has its own dangers. Stalker pleads with the others to be cautious, he says -

'I'm not sure. I think it lets through those who've lost all hope; not good or bad, but the wretched. But even the most wretched will perish if they don't know how to behave here.'

"The Zone" responds to one's state of mind. At first Writer and Scientist treat the Zone as just a normal landscape, but Stalker makes them tie a number of bandages to metal nuts, to throw ahead to check the way is safe. If nothing happens it is safe to go. Writer, impatient to get to the room, pushes on ahead without checking the way is safe, but he stops, sensing something is wrong. The Zone had warned him. After an extremely roundabout journey the men finally reach the entrance to the room, but don't go in. They just sit in a pool of water at the room’s entrance. Stalker has led many to the room, but has yet to go in himself. Even entering the room has its pitfalls. His mentor was called Porcupine. Porcupine received a lot of money on entering the room, even though he had wished for the health of his sick brother. He was thwarted by his real desires, and hanged himself. Even getting what we want isn't straightforward.

Stalker is a film by the Russian director Andrei Tarkovski, famous for metaphysical water-drenched and very beautiful cinema. Tarkovski has made a film about the quest for happiness. The metaphor of 'The Zone' is a bit what that quest is like. Things change depending on our state of mind. We are part of the equation. What we do and how we are has an effect on our future happiness. I don't know what Tarkovsky had in mind with his "Zone", but I find the film an effective analogy for some of the issues on the buddhist path, in particular that of mindfulness. If we take the metaphor on one level, we might take it that life itself is hazardous. Movement within it, progress, is never straighforward. With each move we make we need to be careful. Each thing we do matters, and many times we need to take detours.

Life is not Linear The fact that the Zone is constantly changing is a very like life. Life isn’t linear. It isn't that we do A and B, and it gives us C. Life is much more complex and unpredictable than that. That is why Stalker throws a nut before each new move forward. He is carefully testing the response of the Zone to that move, as it is here, in the moment. He doesn't assume things are as they were. Each step brings a new situation, to be gauged, checked out. The same care of approach informs the practice of Buddhism. Stalker says the Zone is 'not a place for a stroll'. Samsara, conditioned existence in buddhism, is a burning house, the world is 'on fire' with attachment. Like when Stalker is in "The Zone" the way to happiness is implied, by the room, but progress to it isn't easy. It is possible to unhook our attachments. but it takes consistent care and attention over a long period of time. It is a path, of great care, leading to the 'room' of nirvana, and when we get there the happiness we achieve can never be lost. But just as in "the Zone" is responsive to how the travellers are within it, we are taken over a landscape in buddhism that is not just about external experience, but a journey through our internal landscape too. To be really safe in the world, we also have to be safe in our internal attitude. If we aren't careful with those, they can lead us into a death trap.

Guides We have to judge for ourselves which is the right path to happiness. What is to be our guide. In a way we are surrounded by potential guides, potential Stalkers. Any philosophy claiming to bring happiness is one. Every advertising hoarding, every religious teacher is one. But which to go with? Some may offer a seductively easy path which may turn out to be a 'death trap'. Buddhism is not the easy path. It says that life is unpredictable, but we can get somewhere with care and attention. Because we are being careful, within the unpredictability we are safer, because we are expecting it. But each person will only know how safe their path has been when they find themselves in 'the room', when the truth of the path is confirmed in their experience. The Basis for Action

When Stalker wants to test a particular way through the "Zone" is safe, he throws a nut tied with a bandage in that direction. If nothing happens, it is safe to go on. Using ‘The Zone’ as a metaphor for our quest for happiness, throwing the nut is a metaphor for something like being careful. Being careful to bring awareness to the situation. To bring mindfulness. It is like plumbing the depths. When we drop a line with a stone attached into some water, we know how deep the water is when the line goes slack. We then have a firm basis for action, when we wade into the water. Mindfulness is like plumbing the depths. We know better through mindfulness what we are stepping into. We know the terrain. Life is like this. The better information we have before setting off, the safer we will be. We cannot assume the world is still the same as it was two minutes ago, but without mindfulness we cannot know what it has become. Things will probably have changed in that time, we too will have changed. Mindfulness gives us that information. It doesn't assume things have stayed the same, but helps us keep checking on the situation now before we move forward. We need to know both the terrain in which we are moving, but also something about the 'terrain' of the person doing the moving. That is useful information too. In the film 'The Zone’ is a metaphor for crossing both an external terrain, coping with dangers 'out there', and what we might call an 'internal terrain', to navigate the 'in here'. As Stalker says - 'at each moment (the Zone) is just as we've made it by our state of mind...... everything that happens here depends not on the Zone but on us.'

Mindfulness Life in The Zone is unpredictable. Life is unpredictable. And we are unpredictable. In the buddhist view of the world each and every 'thing' is at the centre of a complex web of conditions which impact on it, and condition it from moment to moment. That applies to anything we can think of in what we call conditioned existence, the world outside of enlightened consciousness. That is the only thing not conditioned by anything. So we have one 'thing' one moment but as its external conditions constantly change a few moments later we have something else. Either slightly or vastly different. The person we believed ourselves to be just a moment ago now no longer exists. The world of a moment ago also no longer exists. In fact everything now is subtly changed from a moment ago. Whatever information we had about ourselves and the world a moment ago now is out of date. We base our actions on information and if we base them on old information, they will be based on unreliable premises. So we have to keep checking the new situation in the moment, in order to be safe. Just as Stalker checks at each stage of progress through "the Zone"by throwing the nut ahead of him,we need to check in our "Zones" - what is the new sitauation. In the "Body Zone" - what is the state of my body now? Have I tensed up since a moment ago. What am I feeling now? What is the state of my mind? What views do I have? Do all of these have a safe destination? Do they lead to a good future in that "Zone"? If we keep bringing mindfulness to our new situation, we will have real up to date information to base our actions upon. If we know as much as we can, about what we can, we are as ready as we can be to deal with the unpredictable.

Mindfulness and Taking Care Mindfulness we can think of as an intimate act, it is bringing ourselves closer to our experience, but in a caring way. When we care about things we tend to treat them appropriately, so it isn't a distanced thing. When we care about something, we are interested in knowing its nature, including knowing what it can and cannot do, like a craftsman's attitude to his materials. That is true if we are dealing with material things, but it is also true if we are dealing with people. When we become sensitive to the fact that people are sensitive to their experience, we are motivated to not cause harm to them.

The Four Satipatthanas The notion of mindfulness as a way of taking care is the subject of this book. The way anyone lives their life is safe, or not safe, on a number of levels, if safety is avoiding suffering. We can be physically safe, but not safe in other ways. The Buddha talked about four areas we have to be aware of, to be safe in, four areas of mindfulness. He called them the four foundations of mindfulness (we can think of them as four seperate "Zones"). They are those four things we need to be aware of to be happy and fulfilled and for our life to have meaning. The four foundations give us a firm foundation on our life that puts us on safe ground. We have to keep checking on them, but if we do we are safe. Not painless or without work, but safe. That is why this book is called On Safe Ground.

The philosopher pays attention to ideas; the scientist to ideas and experimental evidence; the engineer to the properties of materials and the laws of physics. The buddhist pays attention to the four foundations. What we pay attention to expresses what we are. We will be looking at the four satipatthanas one at a time. Some of what we will be going into will be quite familiar, but the way it is put together may be different from what we are used to. But first we will look at the overall picture: the buddhist view of the world and how the four foundations express that. Conditions and causes

The buddhist perspective on existence comes from a transformative realisation (as experienced by the Buddha). It is not then only a philosophy, if we take philosophy to be simply love of wisdom. What makes buddhism different from philosophy is that its aim is wisdom not just loved but embodied. We could say the enlightened person loves wisdom to such a degree it cannot be separated from who they are and what they do. It infuses their life and action so completely, it ceases to be a philosophical view and becomes knowledge, jnana. Neither can we sum up buddhism by calling it a religion. It is more that the 'holding and practicing of a set of beliefs', the 'heeding of a particular doctrine or code of ethics'. Neither is it a science, although it can be quite rational and methodological in its pursuit of truth. Each of these are perhaps encompassed within buddhism in some way.

I said at the beginning the buddhist perspective comes out of a transformative realisation. It is the view of a transformed being (the Buddha, 'the enlightened one'). As well as a view from the perspective of enlightenment, it is a path to that view, and we have to begin in the way we want to end. If we started the path with just philosophy, or the adherence to a set of beliefs or just empirical practices on their own, we would be starting with a part. We have to begin with the whole; the whole range of what we will end up with. Therefore the four foundations are what we start with, and they also constitute the essence of what we end with in enlightenment. So by studying them we can best tell what buddhism is, how it is a philosophy, a religion or a vocation, and how it is not.

In recent years buddhism has attracted the attention of western disciplines such as cognitive therapy and cognitive science. It is interesting to lay out the central principles of buddhism and the teaching of the four foundations of mindfulness, and see how they inform western perspectives in therapy and cognitive science, and also how insights within western disciplines inform an understanding of buddhism. In this book we will be doing both.

The four satipatthanas are most visibly practiced and commented on in the Theravada tradition of buddhism, but being the practical workings out of perfect mindfulness, one of the limbs of the noble eightfold path: a necessary constituent to call a path buddhism, they are implicit in every buddhist school and tradition. However they are an expression of a deeper truth, called praticca samutpada or dependent origination, alternatively conditioned coproduction. Praticca samutpada is at the heart of the Buddha's ontological insight into the nature of existence.

Conditionality - Praticca Samutpada After he had gained enlightenment, the Buddha wasn't sure whether to make known the insight he had discovered . He wasn't sure he could actually teach it. The texts represent him saying, to himself,

'This Law (Dharma) that I have attained to is profound and hard to see, hard to discover; it is the most peaceful and superior goal of all, not attainable by mere ratiocination, subtle, for the wise to experience. This generation relies on attachment, relishes attachment, delights in attachment. It is hard for such a generation to see this truth, that is, Specific Conditionality, Dependent Arising [praticca-samutpada] [Nanamoli p37; Vinaya Pitaka, Mahavagga i.] -see what is the Dharma p23. The way we and phenomena interelate cannot be arrived at by mere reasoning (by philosophy) alone. It has to be experienced, and by the wise! One has to be already wise to expereience it. It is difficult to see if one is attached to anything, which means ones ethial behaviour is a factor in it. It is subtle, but seeing it one becomes peaceful. Although it was such a profound but subtle insight, the Buddha did manage to give conceptual expression to it. He chose the following four line formula:

This being, that becomes, From the arising of this, that arises This not being, that does not become From the cessation of this, that ceases.

Praticca samutpada is the ground that the Buddha believed in, once he was the Buddha. It is the buddhist equivalent to cause and effect (yet not cause and effect). Conditioned Coproduction says that everything arises in dependence on conditions.

Perhaps we need to pause here, and take a few deep breaths. We need to find a simple way of understanding this teaching. The book The Embodied Mind is an example of an attempt to bring together the mindfulness/ awareness tradition (buddhism) and cognitive science, the science of the mind. Francisco Varela is a cognitive scientist and a buddhist. With his colleagues he expresses how there is a dichotomy between the science of the mind and lived experience. This dichotomy we can unravel using praticca samutpada.

Lived experience is embodied. Science, in approaching the topic of the mind, puts forward theories about how the mind works, but as lived experience is subjective and difficult if not impossible to measure, science tends largely to ignore lived experience. But from the point of view of lived experience, this is not very satisfactory.

Science is grounded in the underlying notion of cause and effect. It begins with a theory, and then looks for objective (empirical) evidence to support that theory. Yet in doing so it puts theory prior to experience. Theory is more basic, more causal. This is the view of what Varela calls the unreflective scientist. He looks for structures in behaviour and lived experience as if a disembodied impartial observer (the 'view from nowhere'), unaware of being in the context of lived experience that will condition their observations. The reflective scientist though, reflects that they are, as well as an observer, an embodied person, and that embodiment will have an effect on the reflections they have about experience. Varela calls this the 'fundamental circularity in the mind of the reflective scientist'. This view of the reflective scientist is in line with praticca samutpada, that observation or cognition and experience are co-dependent. We can express this co-dependence with the praticca samutpada formula:

This being, that becomes: Lived experience being, cognitions become (namely whatever conditions pertain in our lived experience will affect how we view the world)

An unreflective scientist abstracted from their experience will tend to produce views about the mind that are abstract and not inclusive of lived experience. But with praticca samutpada the conditioning arrow goes both ways. There is a lack of prior-ity of one condition over another.

This being, that becomes: Cognitions being, lived experience becomes (namely the theories we have about our lived experience will affect our lived experience). A scientific take on life will produce one sort of lived experience, and a buddhist one another. Traditional cognitive science, what Varela terms cognitivism (Embodied Mind p7), has the view that consciousness is a product (cf cause and effect) of the biological patterning of the brain (called the cognitivist hypothesis). This is the view behind artificial intelligence: if we can create a subtle enough machine we can create sentience (lived experience). It presupposes cause and effect with biology as the cause and mind the effect. But more recently there have been newer developments in cognitive science, like emergence and enactment, that try to include a conditioning arrow going the other way - from lived experience to biology. For those who believe in cognitivism, that has certain consequences that we can see in lived experience. Teenagers who spend a disproportionate amount of time surfing the internet and living in hyper-real virtual worlds, suffer a greater incidence of mental illness than those who don't.

T h i s b e i n g , t h a t b e c o m e s : L i v e d e x p e r i e n c e ( s p e n d i n g h o u r s d i s c o u n t i n g t h e i r r e a l e x p e r i e n c e i n f a v o u r o f i m a g i n a r y w o r l d s , n o t m e e t i n g r e a l p e o p l e o r h a v i n g r e a l c h a l l e n g e s ) b e i n g , c o g n i t i o n ( m e n t a l i l l n e s s ) b e c o m e s

Virtual reality gives the impression that we are looking after our lived experience without our having to refer to our actual lived experience.

Mutually Supportive Conditions In the buddhist tradition there is an image that represents this co-dependence of conditions. One of the Buddha's wisest disciples, Sariputra, came up with it. It is bunches of sheaves of reeds that are leaning against each other. Each of the sheaves is a set of conditions. In this example lived experience would be one sheef, and cognitions is another. They lean on each other. This means what is going on in one supports something specific (particular) going on in the other. When a change happens in one, what had been the status quo in the other is less supported and has to change. Joanna Macy calls this relationship between conditions mutual causality (?-check) (Mutual Causality and General Systems Theory), which is like saying cause and effect in both directions.

A Web of Conditions The other most common image in buddhism for conditioned coproduction is a web (of conditions). The term commonly used for such conditions is dhamma. A dhamma is a phenomenon (greek for 'appearance'- whatever shows itself). Dhammas are not things. Due to conditionality it is impossible to have a permanent 'thing'. All dhammas are compounded, made up of /conditioned by other dhammas, hence the image of a sheaves rather than singular reeds. This is the other side of the coin to conditionality. All dhammas are conditioned, and, they are empty (empty of permanent existence, substantiality). They are empty, but supported in a web of condtions. People get excited by the internet (as one web) probably because it gives the impression of global interconnectedness, but the web of praticca samutpada is the real web. Nothing is considered outside of 'thisconditionallity'. We are not outside of it, if there are gods they are not outside of it, there are no independent observers outside of it: none of our conceptions, identifications, states of mind, lived experiences, feelings, attachments are excluded from praticca samutpada. In terms of having priority in our experience, nothing is prior. Reason is not prior, neither is experience is prior. If anything is could be said to be prior, the conception of praticca samutpada could, but that is not really prior, as it is co-dependent with there being a truth to the way things are in the first place. It connects absolutely everything to everything else, everything that 'appears' in the universe, which includes the internal universes of our psyches.

Example: The Cognitive Model Cognitive psychology uses such a web-like model as a therapeutic tool: it is called the cognitive model. Christine Padesky writes (2006-personal letter) about the models development -

"We developed it from our understanding of cognitive therapy blended with our view that human experience is always interactive with the environments in which we live. Today we would refer to it as a biopsychosocial model for understanding human experience. Its strength for use in therapy is that it is descriptive, captures interactions between different aspects of experience, and does not take a stance regarding which must come first: the thought or the mood or the behaviour or the environmental event or the biological response. Sometimes all happen simultaneously, other times one experience leads to another."

Here we have not two but five conditions (dhammas in buddhist terminology) mutually conditioning each other. What we often do in trying to explain something is select (out of the mass of conditions) what we thnink are the important ones. The engineer does this, and the scientist. With the cognitive model we have five aspects of life experience that a client might benefit from being aware of. The target condition we are trying to work with here is mood. The client is often shown this model at the start of treatment to help them visualise how many causes (and therefore possible routes to solution) there are contributing to their feelings. The model is biopsychosocial: the social dimension is there, Five aspects of your life experiences Ó1986 Center for Cognitive Therapy, Newport Beach, CA.

ENVIRONMENT

Thoughts

Physical Moods Reactions

Behaviours

in environment: a biological dimension: thinking and behaviour. The model might be used as a remedy for teenagers surfing the internet or are lost in abstraction, to help them contact their feelings.

Just as the fourfold formula of praticca samutpada is a conceptual framework that expresses the buddha's insight, so the cognitive model gives the client a perspective to frame their experiences in. The model arose out of clinical experience and is used to present clients with a 'cognitive overview' at the start of therapy. Having such a framework to refer to allows them to see how their moods are adversely affected by catastrophic thinking, but it also lets them see how they are affected by how they behave and by what is happening in their physical state. It introduces a multidimensional and multilayered conceptualisation of existence, that is more accurate for being so. The model moves a way towards buddhism in its portrayal of conditionality, an in focussing on aspects of the person. As well as an overview, it focusses on the link between thoughts and moods (hence cognitive therapy), as:

This being, that becomes: Thoughts being, moods become The thoughts we have about ourselves, others and the world condition certain moods.

Certain people may have a tendency for thinking going to extremes (catastrophic thinking), as in "Nobody loves me". As a consequence they feel depressed. But examining that thought and comparing it to reality, they are able to see that it is not actually true. The more balanced thought they then are asked to come up with about how much people love them is less depressin. (see Mind over Mood)

This being, that becomes: More realistic thinking being, better moods become

This is what the client can do if their thinking is unrealistic. But what if it is realistic [cf. Roadblocks to Cognitive Therapy p ]. What if something catastrophic does happen, like we are faced with difficulty we cannot change. If we broaden mood out to include all types of feeling and we get ill, which means physical suffering. To the extent we cannot do anything about it, we just have to accept it, but that implies modifying our view about suffering. The use of acceptance in these situations has blossomed in the form of a therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which focuses on the opposite end of the link between thinking and feeling: This being, that becomes: Feeling being, thoughts become Acceptance of feeling modifies our view of what we can expect from the world.

As an example of this, suppose we have a thought - 'Life should be predominantly pleasant', say. Then we have an experience that contradicts that view (we suffer). We have a choice. We can choose to accept or not accept our new experience. If we accept our new experience (but not simply as a strategy to get rid of it, which isn't accepting it at all) we are obliged to adjust our view to include our recent experience - perhaps to 'It is prefereable if life is predominantly pleasant, but sometimes it may also be very painful'. Our view is now more in line with experience. The other choice, not accepting our new experience, is essentially a defense of our original view that we are attached to and want to shore up. So we could say acceptance is the process of opening our views up to the reality of our experience.

The fourfold formula continues beyond its first line to covers this arising, this not being and this ceasing, as in:

From the arising of this, that arises This not being, that does not become From the cessation of this, that ceases.

These lines just repeat the dependency of the second condition on the first in different ways. That whatever happens with the first condition, whether it is there or not, is a supportive condition for what happens with the second. Conditionality and keeping up with Change Taking the cognitive model as a representation of conditionality operating (over a proscribed area), we can see why the Buddha warned conditionality was ' profound, hard to see, hard to discover, subtle, for the wise to experience.' None of the 'aspects' in the model ever 'switches of'f. None ever ceases to be a change inducing condition for each of the others. All of them are always there having an effect. Each condition is empty, and thus constantly subject to change, nothing ever stays the same. Just considering the four central elements in intereaction gives us no less than twelve conditioning links. Deciding how we encompass these in our mind and what to practically do with them is ' for the wise to experience'. The difficulty of working with all of this is not to be underestimated.

Often he best we can do is to try not to leave things out. That can be what therapy ends up addressing, neglected areas. As in ceasing to take into account moods being conditioned by thoughts. We can regain equilibrium when we bring awareness of that in again. In principle though we can take things much further than 'damage limitation', valuable though that is. Praticca samutpada can actually take us all the way to enlightenment.

Padesky and Mooney's cognitive model expresses the multiplicity of conditions in praticca samutpada Each 'event' depends on multiple conditions, none of which are prior to it. Thoughts, moods, behaviours, physical reactions and the environment constantly condition each other.

Perhaps we can see them as levels within the system that is the human. Levels that we need to deal with separately, but which nevertheless affect each other. Robert Pirsig in his book Lila - An enquiry into morals has one of his characters saying some interesting things about evolution, and the relationship between what he calls 'static patterns of value'. Evolution in the Darwinian sense he thinks has two aspects, a static and a dynamic. He says

The static patterns we see are the levels within nature. These are the Inorganic, the Biological, the Social and the Intellectual levels. Each has dynamically evolved out of the previous level. Life evolved out of the static pattern of inanimate matter, society out of the biological chaos of living beings, and so on.

But the interesting thing he points out is that these four systems, which he thinks include everything, 'are discrete. They have very little to do with one another. Although each level is built on a lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating it, controlling it where possible for its own purposes.'

He says this independence of levels would be impossible if everything were an 'extension' of matter as in a materialist world view. Matter is just one level in the overall system.

He points to the computer as an analogy. In the computer there are various levels, which are also independent of each other. There are the electical circuits, the lowest level programming language, higher level languages like COBOL (Lila was written in 1991), then applications like a word processing application in which one might have written a novel. The circuit designer or software programmer doesn't need to know what the other is doing or knows, in order to do their job. The person writing the novel just writes the novel, they don't need to understand circuits. The 'novel can't exist in the computer without a parallel pattern of voltages to support it. But that does not mean that the novel is an expression or property of those voltages. It doesn't have to exist in any electronic circuits at all. It can reside in a notebook but it is not composed of or possessed by the ink and paper. You can see how the circuits make the novel possible, but they do not provide the plot for the novel. The novel is its own set of patterns.'

'Similarly the biological patterns of life and the molecular patterns of organic chemistry have a 'machine language' interface called DNA but that does not mean that the carbon or hydrogen or oxygen atoms possess or guide life. A primary occupation of every level of evolution seems to be offering freedom to lower levels. But as the higher level gets more sophisticated it goes off on purposes of its own.'

'The value that holds a glass of water together is an inorganic pattern of value. The value that holds a nation together is a social pattern of value. They are completely different from each other because they are at different evolutionary levels. These patterns have nothing in common except the historic evolutionary process that created all of them. But that process is a process of value evolution. Therefore the name 'static pattern of values' applies to all.' (p179 - 183)

This is interesting because it reflects the same principle as the buddhist teaching of the five niyamas, the five orders of conditionality: physical inorganic, physical organic (biological), psychological, karmic and transcendental (influence of forces of reality outside of oneself). These are the modes in which conditionality can operate. For instance, being hit by a meteorite is more likely to be due to the physical inorganic level of conditionality than being due to our bad karma. satipatthana

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 The Satipatthana teaching

Just like the 'aspects' of life experience selected for the cognitive model, the Buddha selected his own four for buddhist practitioners to pay attention to: the satipatthanas. He talks about them in a scripture called the Satipatthana Sutta. They are similar to the aspects of experience in the cognitive model but with some differences: they are body (kaya), feeling (vedana), heart / mind (citta), and mental objects / mental concommitants (dhammas).

Satipatthana Sati means awareness or mindfulness, and upatthana means 'to place near'. A satipatthana then is something we place our awareness near. More specifically it is a satipatthana during the times we place our attention near (whatever the object is). At all other times it is a satipatthana in potential. So when my awareness is there with my bodily experience, body is a satipatthana, I am seeing from the frame of reference (another phrase for satipatthana) of the body. A satipatthana is a perspective from a particular place. We have then to be in a particular place to see it.

The Satipatthana Sutta is divided into four sections, one for each satipatthana. Beginning with body, the Buddha takes the practitioner through how to be aware of that satipatthana. He uses a recurring phrase with each satipatthana,

'The monk lives contemplating the body in the body (or sometimes the body in and of itself)' , bhikku kåye kåyånupassi viharati.

Then with feeling, 'The monk lives contemplating the feelings in the feelings' , bhikku vedana vedanånupassi viharati.

Then with heart / mind / consciousness,

'The monk lives contemplating the consciousness in the consciousness' , bhikku citta cittånupassi viharati.

Then with mental objects,

'The monk lives contemplating the mental objects in the mental objects' , bhikku dhammesua dhammånupassi viharati.

Notice the repetition of the object of contemplation. 'The monk, bhikku, lives / inhabits, viharati, (a vihara is a dwelling place), seeing, -passi, the body, kåye , along with, in accordance with it, -ånu- , the body, kåya.

Contemplation is a common rendition of seeing-along-with, or seeing-in-accordance-with, ånupassi. So the phrase can be translated as 'The monk inhabits the body seeing it in accordance with it being a body'. And likewise with feelings: 'seeing feelings in accordance with them being feelings' and so on.

So we bring our awareness close to something, for it to become a satipatthana, but the awareness has a certain quality that is in accordance with what we are looking at.

We aren't observing the satipatthanas from just one perspective. With the four satipatthanas there are four perspectives: a body perspective, a feeling perspective, a perspective of consciousness, and a perspective of assessment.

It is like seeing an image through a coloured filter. When we look at a multi-coloured image through a red filter, the filter extracts the red part of the light coming from the object and we only see that. The other colours are stopped. When we look from the body's frame of reference at our experience we extract the bodily part of our experience and only see that.

When we look at our experience from the feeling frame of reference (feeling satipatthana) we filter out everything except what we feel.: a different coloured filter to the bodily one, say a blue one.

Or, we might think of the satipatthanas as 'eyes' that have been constructed to see very different things. The bodily eye sees the bodily (kayika), the tangible. The feeling eye sees just the hedonic quality of experience. Our experience remains unchanged, in full colour, but each satipatthana selects a different parts of it.

The third satipatthana filters out everything but what is going on in consciousness, which is our state of mind, but mind that is more like the heart, or the attitude we bring to our experience: the ethical dimension. What quality of life we bring to ourself and others. The fourth filters out everything but our assessments (mental objects - our measurement of the world, including thoughts, and views conscious and unconscious).

The point is to bring awareness to each of these areas because in some way it is important to do so. It is important to know what each of our faculties is doing: what we are thinking, feeling, how we are responding, and, how is our being. Each independently in its own domain, on its own terms.

For example, it is important to be aware of body through the bodily colour filter, not as a thing, as a mental object. Not as an idea in our head. Seeing through the bodily colour filter is seeing our concrete experience in the present moment. It is being aware of what is tangible, what we can touch in our experience (from the latin tangere, to touch). I'll give you a (tangible) example. When I was first learning meditation at the West London Buddhist Centre in the late 1980s, the teacher would lead the class in what was called a body scan, a kind of a body relaxation where the different parts of the body, usually starting at one end and finishing at the other, were 'scanned' in order to be relaxed. When the teacher reached a place, say the knee-joints, and asked us to soften the muscles there, I found it difficult. Nothing happened, which was frustrating.

I have always been a thinking type of person rather than a tactile one, and I realised later what was probably happening was I was so used to mental activity, being in my head, that when it came to relaxing my body I was trying to do that in my head too. I was seeing things through the green filter of my thinking faculty rather than the red filter of the bodily. I was no doubt in touch with a mental image of my body rather than the body itself. Something like that. To relax my body my attention had to be in my actual body. I was in the wrong place to do any good! It is not unlike trying to decorate the bathroom while being in the kitchen.

Being in the right place is a theme we will return to, as it comes up again and again when working with awareness. Later I learned when setting myself up in meditation to quite deliberately put to one side what was not my body. I imagined taking my thoughts and feelings and putting them over the other side of the room, so that I could be more sure that what was left was my body. What was left was my sense of touch, the medium of the body. I found I was now more in the right place to attempt to relax, and it worked. From this sole perspective of touch, relaxation is quite simply a muscular movement like the act of unfurling one's fist. It cannot be done from anywhere other than a physical place. We cannot will relaxation into existence, which was what I was trying to do, we can only relax. And to do that we have to pay attention to the right conditions for it which includes having our awareness inb the right place. I sometimes now see people furrowing their brow when they are asked to relax, and think 'Ah, are they in the right place?'

Heidegger and the Satipatthana Sutta Considering what it means to 'see along with' or 'see in accordance with', or to 'be in the right place' there are some interesting ideas that have come from twentieth century philosophy, in particular from the work of Martin Heidegger and the branch of philosophy called phenomenology.

Martin Heidegger's particular branch of phenomenology was called hermeneutic phenomenology, which sounds grand but actually means somethingas simple as 'unfolding the meaning of ( hermeneutic means interpretive, unfolding the significance of -Webster ) what we can say about (greek, logos - word ) phenomena (appearances - what appears to us) in just looking at the phenomena themselves. As an example, one of the few things we can say is, we find ourselves here in a world, of experience (as Heidegger puts it - as if we have been thrown here). Commenting on Heidegger's magnum opus, Hubert Dreyfuss says -

What Martin Heidegger is after in Being and Time is nothing less than deepening our understanding of what it means for something (things, people, abstractions, language, etc.) to be. He wants to distinguish several different ways of being and then show how they are all related to human being and ultimately to temporality. Heidegger claims that the tradition has misdescribed and misinterpreted human being. Therefore, as a first step in his project he attempts to work out a fresh analysis of what it is to be human. Obviously the results, if sound, are important for anyone who wants to understand what sort of being he or she is. Heidegger's conclusions are also crucial for the human sciences, for it should be obvious that one cannot understand something unless one has an accurate account of what it is one is trying to understand. Thus, for example, if one thinks of man as a rational animal, solving problems and acting on the basis of beliefs and desires, as the tradition has done since Aristotle, one will develop a theory of mind, decision- making, rule-following, etc., to account for this way of being. If this description of human reality turns out to be superficial, all that hard work will have been in vain. The traditional misunderstanding of human being starts with Plato's fascination with theory. The idea that one could understand the universe in a detached way, by discovering the principles that underlie the profusion of phenomena, was, indeed, the most powerful and exciting idea since fire and language. But Plato and our tradition got off on the wrong track by thinking that one could have a theory of everything-even human beings and their world-and that the way human beings relate to things is to have an implicit theory about them. Heidegger is not against theory. He thinks it is powerful and important-but limited. Basically he seeks to show that one cannot have a theory of what makes theory possible. {my italics}

H.Dreyfuss, Being-in-the-World p1 One cannot have a theory of what makes theory possible, namely a theory about existence. One can, so long as one remembers it is only a theory, an abstraction. Heidegger critiques western philosophy since Plato and what rests on it (science and technology) principally for treating being as a thing, in a way that abstracts it from experience, which has harmful consequences. He traces the beginnings of the tendency to the greek pre-Socratics. The consequences of the western view are we then tend to frame our experience (and by extension the experiences of other beings) abstractly. We treat ourselves (and them) as objects, and an object because it is 'at a distance' we will tend to use / exploit / not take care of in-and-for-its-own-needs.

When we are looking at the body but are not seeing it through the bodily colour filter we are 'covering it up' rather than letting it reveal itself. The word body is a label - a mental object. As such it covers up the real being of the body which we can only see directly in bodily experience. Anything else and our awareness is not in touch with the body. It is not seeing it from its-own-truth.

Buddhism in this way goes beyond the western philosophy that Heidegger criticises. As well as making assessments about the world, we also have to bring awareness to our tangible experience in it. Western philosophy tries to extract the truth from what it is to be, but in the process it turns being into a thing (a mental object). Yet being in-its-own- truth is never a thing.

Heidegger wants us to extract being from out-of-its-own-truth as opposed to extracting the truth from being, which gives us a very different perspective. It gives us the perspective from experience.

As he says in Being and Time, from the experiential point of view, all we can really say about being-in-the-world, a world which we find ourselves in as if we have been thrown there, is we just have to cope with it.

The Buddha is perhaps also pointing to fact that we are thrown into having a bodily experience, in the body satipatthana. In buddhism consciousness is always embodied. By virtue of having a body, it is inescapable that we have to, in Heidegger's terms, unfold the significance in practice of the phenomena of bodily experience . Not what a body is in theory, but what it means in practice. What it means in practice is taking seriously it is there, and the effect it has on the rest of our experience.

Heidegger's answer, interestingly, is not unlike buddhism's. To the conundrum of what we can do in finding ourselves thrown into the world, his answer is care. We care about our experience.

Seeing Along-With The word anupassi crops up with each of the satipatthanas, meaning seeing along with, or seeing in accordance with. Heidegger I think is trying to get us to see phenomena in accordance with phenomena, rather than in accordance with theories, ideas, or preconceptions about phenomena. Each of the satipatthanas (when we are looking through the right coloured filter) reveals its own truth (about itself).

Heidegger's philosophy is about not getting in the way of caring for that truth, whether it be the truth about body, feelings, consciousness or mental objects.

The Faculties The Buddha I think chose the four satipatthanas he did because he saw the enlightenment experience was about the transformation of the whole person. About the four satipatthanas (what he calls the objects of Right Mindfulness), Nyanaponika Thera says [The Heart of Buddhist Meditation - p57]-

The objects of Right Mindfulness comprise the entire man and his whole field of experience.....this method's fundamental principle of thoroughness, together with its character as the Middle Way, which, avoiding onesidedness or exclusiveness, aspires to completeness and harmony. The work of spiritual practice receives here a broad and secure foundation, being based upon the entire personality. Without such a foundation it may happen that from what is overlooked, underrated, neglected or ignored, strong anagonistic forces may grow, which may seriously damage, or even destroy, the results of long spiritual effort. Thoroughness of procedure will make the road of inner progress as safe as one may reasonably expect in a venture that aspires to such heights.

Such onesidedness or exclusiveness as may be found in the West's preoccupation with ideas! What Nyanaponika is saying is if we ignore any part of our experience it will 'come and get us' at a later date. He seems to be implying that the four satipatthanas cover the whole person: if we think in terms of faculties, all of our faculties which include reason and emotion, mind and body. A faculty is 'any particular ability or aptitude; any physical capability or function'. The word comes from the latin facultatem meaning easy. So in this sense one faculties are those paths along which our energy most easily flows. We could see it is this energy we need to transform, which is transformed in the gaining of enlightenment. Transformed by the practice of the four satipatthanas.

By bringing awareness to the channels where our energy flows, we can transform that flow towards Buddhahood. As Nyanaponika says - 'What is to be mastered, transformed of transcended, has first to be known and understood.' So we learn to know and understand our physicality, our feeling, our consciousness, and our reflections.

The Spiritual Faculties By knowing and understanding our ordinary faculties, by transforming our channelled energy in each of those faculties, we develop 'spiritual' faculties. The Five Spiritual Faculties is a well known teaching in buddhism. Like the four satipatthanas, they represent a system of 'completeness and harmony'. They also seem to correlate with the four satipatthanas. The overarching spiritual faculty is mindfulness. It harmonises and helps avoid lopsidedness among the others. Then we have Concentration (Samadhi), Energy in Pursuit of the Good (Viria), Faith (Sraddha) and Wisdom.

We can immediately make a few connections. Faith is a state of mind. It therfore belongs to the third satipatthana (citta). Wisdom is of the fourth: it is connected with assessment. We often acheive concentration in meditation by attending to our body and the tangible object of concentration: first. And Energy in pursuit of the Good I think is about motivation. We will go out to people and help them if we are sensitive to their needs; but this shows up in sensitivity to feeling: second. We can draw up a schema to represent these links-

Correlation between the Five Spiritual Faculties, the Four Satipatthanas, and the Ordinary Faculties. ÓMahabodhi 2007

MENTAL OBJECTS

4 Wisdom

Energy in 1 Concentration 2 Pursuit of the Good

BODY FEELING 3 Faith

STATE OF MIND

ORDINARY FACULTIES

1 PHYSICAL FACULTY 2 FEELING FACULTY 3 EMOTIONAL FACULTY 4 THINKING FACULTY

Experience and Response Buddhism makes a clear distinction between what we have control over and what just happens to us. Vedana is seen as the second. Citta the first. we can see it in common expressions in english. A state of mind is an attitude we are adopting, therfore in adopting a doing. Whereas when we say how are you, it is refering to the state we have arrived in, our feelings before doing anything about them. Similarly our tangible experience (body) is there in advance of responding to it or labelling it body. It is given, in any moment. How we label, assess, things we have a choice. Therefore that is a doing. So we can divide up the four satipatthanas into two pairs: an experience pair and a response pair. See diagram-

Correlation between the Five Spiritual Faculties, the Four Satipatthanas, and Experience and Response ÓMahabodhi 2007

MENTAL OBJECTS

Wisdom

Energy in Concentration Pursuit of the Good

BODY FEELING Faith

STATE OF MIND

EXPERIENCE

RESPONSE

Body and feeling are experience (given, in any moment). State of Mind and assessment are response. They are not given and we have a choice over them.

This fits in nicely with the traditional pairings within the Five Spiritual Faculties. Concentration and Energy in Pursuit of the Good are a pair that are held in balance by mindfulness. If one is developed at the expense of the other there is an imbalance leading to one of the hindrances that can happen within meditation: too little energy - sloth and torpor, too much -restlessness and anxiety. This pair are within experience. Faith and Wisdom are also held in balance by mindfulness, or we could say by an even application of the four satipatthanas. If faith is developed at the expense of wisdom the hindrance of doubt arises. Too much clarity of assessment (wisdom) and too little of a positive state of mind (faith, including faith in others) leads to irrascibility (hatred). This is a pairing within ones response.

See diagram-

Satipatthana Model Ó2006 Mahabodhi

Dhammas

Kaya Vedana

Citta

Dhammas - Mental Objects Kaya - Body Vedana - Feeling Citta - Heart / State of Mind

These considerations seem to provide evidence for a unified development of the four satipatthanas, which is more about the complete development of a person rather than the singular development of a skill, or the one-sided development of a person in terms of skill

In fact the one-sided development of a person within wider society, and the one-sided development within a person can both lead to difficulties.

The Middle Way that Nyanaponika refers to is traditionallty that between hedonism and asceticism, but it could apply to any -ism. An -ism is defined in opposition to other things, and is promoted to the neglect of them. Hedonism is the promotion of pleasure, to the neglect of meaning. To the extent that meaning is a need for making a whole balanced person, in ignoring it hedonism does violence to that person including to oneself. Asceticism promotes a kind of idealism, to the neglect of physical welfare. The Buddha experienced both poles leading up to enlightenment. As the prince Sidhartha his life was hedonistic. He wasn't encouraged to think about the meaning of life. Yet that somehow broke through, as symbolised by the four sights,. He left the palace, and went in search of meaning. He tried meditation, and later asceticism, going to the other extreme. After nearly dying of the severity of his asceticism, he came to a point where he began to adopt more of an inclusive Middle Way.

He hung on to the idea of overcoming suffering but stopped pushing himself so hard and gave attention to his experience. From that point he stopped pitting his faculties against each other. He let go singular obsessions and just looked intelligently at what he needed to do. His path from then onwards was the Middle Way between the extreme views of hedonism (the prince) and eternalism (the ascetic). This more intelligent approach he realised would have to include his whole self. From there on he made sure all his faculties were nourished. He looked after his body, staying comfortable and relaxed. He observed sensation without becoming obsessed by it. He developed his Mind through meditation, and payed attention to the reality of how things were in his experience, to the meaning of that, the truth of how things were. And he gained enlightenment. He saw the truth of praticca samutpada, how all those things he had formerly pitted against each other were mutually re- inforcive of each other. All the elements of his experience could be supportive conditions for each other.

How this applies to the four satipatthanas can be seen in the Satipatthana model. The principles of praticca samutpada as used as in the cognitive model can also be applied to the four satipatthanas. For instance, what we do with our tangible experience (body) affects the other satipatthanas. If we develop the spiritual faculty of concentration, that supports skilful and productive states of mind (citta), undistracted reflection on phenomena (dhammas), and awareness of feeling (vedana).

Mindfulness and Obsession On the other hand when we neglect parts of our experience, rather than something being produced, it is starved. If, rather than having a broad and inclusive perspective from mindfulness, we narrow our interest down to a narrow focus, we can characterise that as obsession. In a way the opposite of mindfulness is craving, and obsession is a kind of craving. With mindfulness of the four foundations, there is space in the mind for the object (body, feeling, etc). With obsession the attention is drawn elsewhere and that space is not so much there for the object as it was before. When the mind is possessed, as by an an evil spirit, it is filled with something from inside. Obsession is like the mind is filled with something from outside. Obsession comes from the latin obsideo, to beseige - ob, before, sedeo, to sit). It is as if something 'sits before us' blocking our view (of body, feeling, etc) and we cannot fill the mind with them. When we are in a seige the supplies are cut of. In the state of obsession our attention goes to the obsession and other things are neglected of attention. Obsessed by one thing, we cut the supplies to something else. This has ethical consequences for the wider world. Obsession with ideology can go hand in hand with ethical insensitivity. Obsessions may be ideas, but they may equally be sensory experiences, or feelings. By paying attention to the needs of all the satipatthanas, we keep a balance in our life and in the world. Nothing important is neglected. We can observe the same obsessions at work in the world today on a global scale. Just as the individual can be obsessed and so starve a part of themselves, so can nations and cultures veer away from the Middle Way and starve people of what they need.

We can easily see in the world how obsessions show up as violence in the world. The businessman works unrealistically hard to get results, and suffers a heart attack. A suicide bomber, an obese teenager, both are letting themselves and others be beseiged by singular obsessions. Whether through obsession with revenge or obsession with material or sensory input, the result is the same. Damage to what the world could be. Damage to the lives of innocent people, or damage to good sense, to the subtlety and range of feeling that happens in less materialistic cultures and communities. The stress of living with terrorism, and the stress of living in a vacuous materialist culture.

Each satipatthana needs its own particular nourishment. The body needs food, warmth and shelter, health, as well as relaxation and exercise. Feelings need empathy, attention, and care. The heart needs connection, expression, the means to contribute and awareness. The reflective mind and imagination needs to be fed with meaning and significance. If one faculty is obsessed with something, the other faculties are beseiged, are starved of what they need. If our psyche is dominated by an idea, our attention rarely goes to body or feeling and they can get into trouble. We don't know what is going on anymore with them. Starved of care and attention, they get into a stressful state. When we suffer a loss, we can become dominated by feeling, and may stop doing what is sensible, like eating. Our normal good sense may go out of the window. In some situations we may feel like 'curling up and dying' when we are really in emotional pain, which is a graphic example of feeling laying seige to body and mind. We may need to do that for a while, but in the end we will need to re-establish an uprightness of posture, and come back to our senses, while still staying open to our feelings.

All Dhammas are Peaceful Buddhism has a phrase - all dharmas are peaceful.. This means phenomena (dhammas) have no agenda to impose on us. They are just as they are. There is nothing personal in the way they interact with us. If we experience violence, taking this phrase literally, there has been no deliberate violence against us. According to praticca samutpada, things arise in dependence on conditions. Because of that, there is no such thing as force in the universe. Nothing ever forces anything to arise. It just arises because of conditions.

Nothing is ever violent towards us! To be in line with praticca samutpada then, we need to be non-violent, both internally and externally. There is no 'bigger picture' outside of conditionality. This is exemplified in the peacefulness of the Buddha image. The Buddha approaches reality on its own terms, which means peacefully. As he said about praticca samutpada

'This Law (Dharma) that I have attained to is profound and hard to see, hard to discover; it is the most peaceful and superior goal of all...'

If we approach the world in a way that uses force, it implies we do not understand praticca samutpada. If we want to change something, we can only pay attention to the conditions that bring it about. We might lack the wisdom to bring something about, and get frustrated, but if we become violent, we just create more to deal with on top of the original need.

We learn about praticca samutpada in practice by practicing ethics, by trying to bring things about through non-violent means. The governing principles in buddhism are non violence and loving kindness, metta, and they are based on an understanding of conditionality. Remembering how we are interconnected with all life, we cannot escape from the conditions we create having an effect.

Internal Non-Violence If we have ever been stopped from exercising, which our body needs, because we didn't feel like it, we can consider it as a form of internal violence. When we are in a certain mood, and the thought "I shouldn't feel like this" arises, we can consider that too as a form of internal violence. If we let one faculty interfere with another, it can get in the way of what is best for that faculty. We are not dealing with it from- out-of-its-own-truth.

We can be insensitive within our own psyche, harsh to aspects of our experience. The different parts of ourselves can easily get out of sync with one another. After the excitement of watching a stimulating TV programme we may experience mental dullness. Perhaps from the thinking point of view it didn't constitute a very nourishing diet. Watching it t wasn't very sensible in that mind was sacrificed to the needs of feeling. Or the other way round, we don't let ourselves enjoy something that is harmless, even beneficial, out of guilty feelings.

Or when for our physical health and wellbeing we need to go for a run, and we experience a whining internal voice - 'I don't want to' , or thoughts - "I've too much work to get on with", or it is raining, or we aren't the sort of person who normally goes for runs. All this holds us back from what is best for us. by interference from other parts of our experience. There is an argument for consciously trying to be aware of leaving each faculty alone. Not bothering the one with the other, feelings with thoughts, body with feelings, and so on. We need to open up to the whole of our experience, and deal with each part on its own terms. If each faculty could leave the others alone, it would constitute a form of internal non-violence. The Four Satipatthanas

I will go into what each satipatthana is here briefly, to give us an idea. Later in the book each has its own chapter and is gone into in more detail.

Body (kaya) Body is something like the tangible aspect to our experience. Buddhism uses the term rupa for what can be experienced (form). Kaya is like the tangible aspect of rupa. Herbert Guenther has rupa as 'the objective constituent of the perceptual situation'. This is to avoid treating it as an 'independently existing object, outside of perception' which we cannot in honesty say it is, that being the kind of abstraction Heidegger criticised Plato for. Rupa therefore is not 'matter'. It is more like the forms we would experience if we could strip away any subjective taints that might distort our perception of those forms.

And kaya is the same thing but applied to those forms which are tangible (that we can touch). In being aware of kaya then we are objectively honouring our experience. But also as our experience. Tangible form only exists in the present moment. That is the only place it can be experienced. Therefore the body satipatthana is about staying objectively with what is tangibly there in our experience in the present moment. That puts us on safe ground because in responding to it we will be responding to the current situation, not an imagined one or one that has already passed. We will be dealing with what our experience actually is.

In the "Body Zone" when we throw the nut we are bringing mindfulness to check on our experience in the present moment and that we know what it is. Feeling (vedana) Feeling is the second of the satipatthanas. The buddha says in the Satipatthana Sutta that the practitioner should be aware, experiencing a feeling, of the type of feeling it is, namely whether its tone is pleasureable, painful or neutral), and also if it is a worldly feeling (samisam vedana) or a spiritual feeling (niramisam vedana).

Feeling is vipaka, resultant. Sangharakshita (Mind in Buddhist Psychology seminar p193) compares it with Schoppenhauer's Vorstellung - the classification of things in life that just happen to us, rather than Wille, things we do. As the Mind in Buddhist Psychology text says "The absolute specific characteristic of feeling is to experience". I think this is axiomatic to everything we consider with feeling. Feeling cannot be 'good' in itself, because that would have to be something we were doing (karma rather than vipaka) but it can be the result of goodness e.g. a good conscience.

It has a tone (pleasant, painful or neutral) and a source. We can see this in the various types of vedana as mentioned in the PTS Pali-English dictionary - Sukha, pleasure is tone (pleasant); somanassam, happiness is both tone (pleasant) and source (manas - mind sense). Kayika is source (kaya - body); cetasika is source (mental); kusala is source (ethical behaviour). Samisam and niramisam are both ethically related sources (worldly / ethically unskilful or spiritual / ethically skilful actions of body, speech and mind).

In the "Feeling Zone" when we throw the nut we are bringing mindfulness to check on the quality of our experience, that we know what that is, and also what the source is. Heart / attitude / state of mind (citta) Guenther translates citta as attitude, which is good in that it points towards what we bring - a positive attitude, an attitude of boredom, to a situation. It is related to disposition and posture. Ones attitude is the posture one psychically strikes in response to a situation, or to life in general. It is the generalised shape of ones psyche, ones state of mind, at a particular time. Or ones disposition. The PTS Pali-English dictionary gives the meaning of citta as ones psychological, rather than physical, heart -

"The meaning of citta is best understood when explaining it with expressions familiar to us, as: with all my heart; heart and soul; I have no heart to do it., all of which emphasize the emotional and conative side of "thought" more than its mental and rational side (for which see manas and vinnana). It may therefore be rendered by intention, impulse, mood, disposition, state of mind, reaction to impressions"

"Thought" is a rather unfortunate, and confusing, rendition buddhist commentators have sometimes made of citta, perhaps confusing awareness and thinking. I think citta includes an attitudinal dimension (heart / emotion / disposition) but also one we could say is mind in the sense of awareness (degree of consciousness) which perhaps which excludes the contents of cognition (which belongs to manas - the mind sense). In the section on citta in the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha gives certain parameters to cover in being aware of citta. The practitioner should-

'know the consciousness (citta) with or without lust, as with or without lust; - then similarly with / without hate; with / without ignorance; shrunken; distracted; developed; undeveloped; surpassed; unsurpassed; concentrated; unconcentrated state; liberated; and unliberated.' Some of his parameters are attitudinal (greed, hatred and delusion and their opposites). Some parameters are more 'structural' (concentrated, surpassed, developed). One can have a friendly attitude (attitudinal) that covers a greater or smaller sphere or scope of concern ('structural' / degree of consciousness) - one can be friendly to ones neighbour or to the whole world. We can distill the two main dimensions to citta down to loving kindness (metta) and consciousness / awareness (sati), along with their opposites. On a higher level within citta there is a third dimension to be aware of - the heart / mind that is enlightenment itself (liberated) - bodhicitta.

Footnote: The Abhidharma attempted to bring together the various scriptural teachings of buddhism into one coherent system. It concentrated on states of mind, using the word citta for these: the 89 cittas, the 51 cittas (the 51 mental events). The buddhist scholar Mrs Rhys Davids remarks (Buddhist Psychology p18) that 'the two alternative terms for mind or consciousness, mano and vinnana, are sometimes classified under the category dhatu -element, but citta never is, implying its singular nature.' She compares citta to a 'psychically innervating force' (Buddhist Psychology p17) which I take as that which motivates the whole person rather is associated with individual conscious elements within the person. One's citta (heart) as a whole is coloured by a mental state (a citta ) like distraction. A mental state is not like a separate element within ones heart / mind, it is more like a quality of ones (unitary) heart / mind.

In the "Heart / Mind Zone" when we throw the nut we are bringing mindfulness to check on the quality of our response in terms of attitude, consciousness and insight to the situation we are in, that we know what that is and whether it has 'safe' consequences. To know the degree our heart / mind is perfumed by awareness, expansiveness, calm, love and insight.

Dhammas (mental objects) The fourth satipatthana, dhammas, covers thought and the contents of consciousness. Just as the eye grasps a visual object, manas - the mind-sense (the mind is also seen as a sense in buddhism) grasps a mental object (dhamma). The PTS Pali-English dictionary entry for Mano / Mana(s) states -

"Meaning: mind, thought... 1. Mano represents the intellectual functioning of consciousness, while vinnana represents the field of sense and sense reaction ("perception") and citta the subjective aspect of consciousness.... As "mind" it embodies the rational faculty of man, which, as the subjective side in our relation to the objective world, may be regarded as a special sense, acting on the world, a sense adapted to the rationality (reasonableness, dhamma) of the phenomena, as our eye is adapted to the visibility of the latter. Thus it ranges as the 6th sense in the classification of the senses and their respective spheres.... the mind fits the world as the eye fits the light, or in other words mano is the counterpart of dhamma... Dhamma as counterpart of mano is rather an abstract (pluralistic) representation of the world, i.e. the phenomena as such with a certain inherent rationality; manas is the receiver of these phenomena in their abstract meaning, it is the abstract sense, so to speak... As regards the relation of manas to citta, it may be stated , that citta is more substantial (as indicated by translation "heart"), more elemental as the seat of emotion, whereas manas is the finer element, a subtler feeling or thinking as such"

Mrs Rhys Davids remarks (Buddhist Psychology p19) that the commentators 'connect mano with minati (ma), to measure'. It seems that Manas measures, assesses, what is perceived by vinnana in the world of the senses. It takes the phenomena that appear to vinnana and sees them as mental objects (dhammas ). It forms abstract concepts, like chair, that represent the raw data that appear to vinnana. Manas basically forms views about what appears in perception. It makes an abstract assessment of them. And these views are what we bring awareness to in the fourth satipatthana. Of course the more accurate the view, the wiser the assessment (remember the spiritual faculty of wisdom is associated with this faculty). In the fourth section of the Satipatthana Sutta the monk contemplates mental objects (in the mental objects).

'bhikkhu dhammesu dhammanupassin viharati'

He / she contemplates the dhammas in the dhammas. Mano grasps any object in the mind. And what objects appear in the mind. Thoughts, ideas, mental images, opinions, and so on. Mental objects that are mundane 'Shall I have cornflakes this morning?', and profound "What is the meaning of life?" A view doesn't necessarily have to be an active conscious choice. Never thinking about something can constitute a view about it (that it is not important). And a it doesn't have to be conceptual either. Symbolic images can represent views. They too are mental objects. Once we have our mental objects internally we can have a dialogue about them. We label mental objects 'Table', 'Self', and then have thoughts about them - 'I am a (particular type of person)', 'The world is a (particular type of place)'.

This way of looking at mental objects is similar to Sangharakshita's interpretation of the fourth satipatthana as Mindfulness of Reality (in his 'dimensions of awareness'). The sutta can be translated as -

'the monk dwells contemplating the truth [the dhamma] in his view about mental objects [dhammas]'

In this way the fourth satipatthana becomes a reflection on the nature of the reality of what is perceived (as the mind is experiencing it through mental objects) In the "Mental Objects Zone" when we throw the nut we are bringing mindfulness to check on the reality of our views about the situation we are in, that we know what they are and whether they have 'safe' consequences.

Footnote: In the well known opening of the Dhammapada-

Phenomena are preceded by the heart, ruled by the heart, made of the heart. If you speak or act with a corrupted heart, then suffering follows you -- as the wheel of the cart, the track of the ox that pulls it. (Access to Insight) from the above arguments one would expect heart to be a translation of citta, it being associated with ethics and disposition. It is in fact a translation of manas. It seems in the tradition the terms are to some degree interchangeable. This particular translation has manas as heart, others have mind. Whichever is the true meaning (whether phenomena are preceded by citta or manas ), I imagine the ethical disposition we have and how we 'measure' things both have a bearing on whether suffering follows. Both the accuracy of ouir thinking and our ethical state condition vedana.

To summarise, body and feeling arrive to us as our experience, as the given. Heart / mind and mental objects, are accessible to our control, if we are aware of them. They are important because it is important what we do and how we read the world. Citta is mind in the sense of emotional response, sometimes rendered Heart. How we read the world is summed up by mind as manas, which grasps dhammas or mental objects. Manas is the 'measuring' side of our Mind, more like the intellect, and mental objects are what we read with it. It is what makes assessments about the world around it. Part of that is thinking but deeper are views, conscious and unconscious, about ourselves and the world. Mental objects are not only cognitions, but also ideas, images and intuitions. They are about how our mind grasps the world in the broadest sense including the imagination.

Foundation Foundation is a bit of a static word and we might associate the practice of being mindful of one as perhaps a bit plodding, pedantic, a bit boring. On the other hand the word foundation does convey a sense of safety, of reliability. To keep up with ever-changing experience demands being alive and present. Only when we have vaguely absented ourselves from our experience does it stop being interesting. The four foundations when practiced give us life itself. The phrase 'frame of reference' too we might also associate with being a bit dry and technical ( I remember it being used in physics). But only one out of the four 'foundations' or 'frames of reference' is associated with ideas. The others are very much about lived experience. We rest our awareness in our feelings, or in our bodily experience. The satipatthanas put happiness on a firm foundation, because they are about building our awareness upon what is real. They give us something safe to build our lives upon. As such they are our best foundation for living, and constitute the firmest basis on which to base our actions.

Awareness It is so easy for our awareness to gradually slide away from its object. The body may be a satipatthana one minute, but two minutes later we aren't even aware that we have left it altogether. The satipatthanas may be basic, but keeping our eye on the terrain is the hardest thing to keep to moment to moment. We have to constantly keep coming back, to the right place. That's why meditation is so useful. We can build up a momentum to our awareness which we can apply in waking life. We stop and get clearer where our attention is, then redirect it to the foundations that need our attention, first inside meditation, and then outside meditation. But how do we checkon four things at the same time? Is that like spinning plates? Spinning plates is not a very relaxed image. It depends though how many plates we have. Even when we are spinning plates we can still be relaxed if there are not too many plates. We just have to pay attention to them intermittently. It helps if our life isn't too cluttered so we have extra plates to deal with. Or we might subsume our other concerns under one of the foundations. Keeping down the number of things we are dealing with is good, it is said to be best to just do one thing at a time, so we don't crowd ourselves with too much input.

So Mind has these two aspects which in enlightenment manifest as wisdom and compassion. We get into all sorts of muddles if we confuse our experience with our response to it. body satipatthana Interestingly also from the viewpoint of the first satipatthana, his work is about being and time. Much of the focus in the first satipatthana is in trying to stay with our tangible experience (being) in the present moment (time). It is about not wasting the quality of our life by being not present to it as our life (not treating it as some theoretical existence).

The point here is that what we do (or don't do) with phenomena gives us a different experience !!! And tangible experience is valid as well as other types of learning. Learning is not just about intellectual knowledge, it is about embodied knowing (jnana) For the Buddha praticca samutpada was tangible. in fact if I think about it, there is something that comes from consistently being in touch with tangible experience, we feel it ourselves and we see it in others, it is the experience of presence. If anything will convince us of the value of seeing being-in-its-truth, it is a strong experience of being. We get this in meditation when we are in a concentrated state.

The body satipatthana keeps us with an accurate idea of material forms, of the tangible forms and objects both of our body and of the world around us. We know about our physical body, what it is doing and where it is in space. Through the body satipatthana we can move safely about in the world. Or at least we have a firm knowledge of the forms that are there to negotiate. But it is also a question of degree. With more sati we can be more aware of the finer details of our physical experience, of subtle tensions within the body. With that knowledge we can relax them. The feeling satipatthana helps us be alive to the felt side our experience. Feelings are like messages. They tell us about something. The body (aches and pains), the mind (distress). Knowing what is going on we have the opportunity of an informed response. The mind (heart) satipatthana brings awareness to the reactions and responses that propel us into action and so cause an effect on ourselves and the world. We are then protected from the repercussions of getting things 'wrong'. The fourth satipatthana is called dhamma. We can call that "Zone" the "Dharma Zone". Dharma is sanskrit for the pali dhamma , and the more commonly used term for the Buddha's teachings. Dharma has a range of meanings that are all versions of truth. On one level it is Ultimate Truth, Reality, the truth about how things are. It is also truth in the sense of the teaching of the Buddha, which is true because it leads one to the truth of existence. It is also truth on the level of ordinary objects (things). Buddhism calls those dharmas, they are any phenomena that can be grasped by Manas. We don't say 'things' because thing has associations with being permanent where all phenomena are impermanent. The dhamma satipatthana is about seeing dharmas in this sense, seeing mental objects (mental concomitants) in their Dharma-hood, in their dharmic-nature, which means their empty nature. In terms of the thinking faculty, ordinary thinking (meandering thoughts) doesn't seem very directed towards the truth, but all thoughts are catagorisations of phenomena, even if they nare grasping reality (dharmas) min rather an aimless way. They are taking a perspective on phenomena, if a localised one. We think using concepts, we take from (con - from, capere - to take) the field of phenomena in a way that enshrines our deeper views about reality. But we just think we are thinking. Safety here is bringing a more truthful perspective to our conceptions by examining their truthfulness. We have a firm foundation in the dhamma satipatthana when our views of the world works match the reality, but we begin with knowing what our mundana thoughts are. Later we can reflect on our deeper views by asking - do these lead us into death traps, or to 'the Room'? These are our Four basic "Zones". If we are careful in them, we will have a guide through 'The Zone' that is our life. We will be our own Stalker.

Lets take a simple example. Suppose we haven't been giving much attention to our body for a while so we don't really know much about it. We've been thinking, planning. Then a car backfires, which gives us a minor shock. Our body tenses, but we carry on with what we are doing. Then as we go through the day, more things happen that jar us slightly, and tension builds up in our body, but the growth is so imperceptible that we hardly notice it, because we gradually acclimatise to it. It becomes our given. But at the same time we have this nagging thought 'I wish someone would massage my shoulders!.' With our bodily tension growing our mood gradually deteriorates and we don't feel so much like working. We eventually grind to a halt. If our awareness had stayed with the body satipatthana or at least returned regularly to it through the day, we would have seen what was happening from the perspective of our body. From the perspective of safety our body was getting less and less 'safe' as it tensed up. We were ignoring the conditions it needed to stay healthy, conditions that only worked on its own terms, namely the physical. Remembering past remedies, we take ourselves off to the gym for an hours workout, which restores our safety in the "Body Zone", and that bodily health supports a good nights sleep and refreshed energy for work the next day. If we ignore one "Zone", are less safe in that "Zone", but that also affects the (safety of) other "Zones". Ignoring our body will eventually affect our mind. Each of the "Zones" is independent in we have to give iattention to it on its own terms, but each is a conditioning factor too for the others. The safety in each affects the safety of all. Until we know we are tense and take that seriously, we don't have a basis to get rid of it. In our planning, our thinking had a good future (we were likely to come to a useful conclusion) bur our bodies future was getting bleaker by the minute.

The four diff satipatthanas The various diff interpretations of the satipatthanas - gone into... presencing the present ??

Satipatthana model Showing this model may be useful to cognitive therapists interested in mindfulness in that it extends the scope of some of the elements. For instance, mood and feeling (vedana). Mood is one aspect of feeling, the aspect conditioned by ideation. It is different to physical feeling, conditioned by having a body that experiences sensation. It is also different to feeling arising from ones state of mind, like that which goes along with a good conscience. It is useful to consider these separately as they have separate sources and if we want to change them we need to pay attention to the right source. By extending the scope of the cognitive model in this way we can allow it to encompass physical pain as well as emotional pain, which may be useful to people working with chronic pain in MBCT. Kaya and physical reactions are similar, as are thoughts and mental objects. The pairing least alike are behaviours and states of mind, although buddhism would say that ones behaviour emanates ultimately from ones state of mind. That what one creates and how one acts (the karma one creates) is a result of ones attitude towards oneself, to others and the world. Therefore behaviours in the cognitive model can be broadened to include the behaviour of the heart and mind.

It is not difficult to see parallels here with Pirsig's levels of evolution and the four satipatthanas (or, using the Stalker metaphor, the four "Zones"). Body without feeling is just physical form, matter. Whereas feeling animates the biological level by making it sensible. Social conscience considers feeling and matter beyond the purely self oriented, and Intellect seeks truth (Dharma) beyond the social. We have to work on each independently through its own set of values, that is, within its own "Zone" not from the values of another "Zone".

Perhaps this is why the Buddha gave us the four foundations. They cover all four levels, each of which has to be valued in its own way. So feeling has to be fixed at its own level.

Summary They are what as In fact we can treat the internal and the external as separate "Zones": what is going on 'externally' in the sense of our experience, coming to us 'unbidden', that we have no control over, and what is going on internally, in the sense of our responses and opinions towards the world. I Stalker takes care about his foundation of knowledge as he goes about inside "The Zone".

Buddhist commentators interpret the satipatthanas in various ways. I am dividing them into externals, Body and Feeling, in that those two arrive to us as our experience, and internals, Mind and Mental Objects, those that are accessible to our control. We need to be aware of the first two because before we do anything about it we need to honour our experience as our experience. 'Throwing our nut' is checking we are there in the present moment with our experience and know what it is. That puts us on safe ground because in responding to it we will be responding to the current situation, not an imagined one or one that has already passed. We will be dealing with what our experience actually is. Then the other two "Zones" deal with what we do in response to our experience. This is important to know because it is important what we do and how we read the world. Both have an impact on ourselves and others. What we do is summed up by Citta. This is Mind in the sense of emotional response. It is sometimes rendered Heart. How we read the world is summed up by Mind as Manas, which is what grasps Dhammas or mental objects. Mental objects arewhat we read. Manas is the 'measuring' side of our Mind, more like our intellect. It is what makes assessments about the world around it. Part of that is our thinking but deeper are our views, conscious and unconscious. Mental objects are not just cognitions, but ideas, images and intuitions. They are about how our mind grasps the world in the broadest sense and that includes the imagination.

In each of these satipatthanas, or we could say "Zones" we are trying to get somewhere. We are trying to make progress through a difficult terrain in order to be safe. But we do not just have one "Zone" to be safe in, we have four. And if we are safe in one "zone" it doesn't necessarily make us safe in all the others. We have to make sure we are safe in each "Zone" independently. So what do I mean by safety? contemplation work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 Contemplation

But the question remains - what precisely is it that we do with each satipatthana ? What is our action? We bring awareness near to the body, but how exactly, and what does that awareness consist of?

For example do we just look with 'bare attention' at the body (as a body), and if so how does that work in changing anything?

It seems that different branches of buddhism approach this in different ways, with different emphases. They 'frame' things differently, which leads to different effects. How they frame awareness is supported by whatever views they have about how to approach the spiritual life in general. For instance, Thai and Burmese monks in orange robes follow the Theravada -'Way of the Elders'. Their general approach to buddhism tends toward the renunciant. Monks adhere to 227 'rules' that delimit their behaviour. Following a renunciant view like this their view of awareness is also 'pared down'. The monks life centres on giving up things. In life, possessions. In awareness, notions of self. Hence in the Theravada, each satipatthana is an opportunity for giving up. The body is contemplated to be given up, left behind.

This is what Buddhaghosa says about kåye kåyånupassi. in his commentary on the Satipatthana Sutta. He affirms how the body should be seen as a body not anything else.

Because there is no contemplating of feeling, consciousness nor mental objects in the body, but just the contemplating of the body only, determination through isolation is set forth by the pointing out of the way of contemplating the body only in the property called the body. But then he 'frames' the awareness that contemplates the body very much in terms of analysis.

The meaning should be understood thus: "contemplating the body in the body" is the seeing of the body as a group of all qualities beginning with impermanence, step by step, as taught in the passage of the Patisambhida which begins with: "In this body he contemplates according to impermanence and not permanence."

The bhikkhu sees the body in the body, (1) as something impermanent; (2) as something subject to suffering; (3) as something that is soulless; (4) by way of turning away from it and not by way of delighting in it; (5) by freeing himself of passion for it; (6) with thoughts making for cessation and not making for origination; (7) and not by way of laying hold of it, but by way of giving it up.

1,2, and 3 are the views an enlightened being would have from the mind sense, Manas: namely the three marks of conditioned existence (lakshanas). 4,5, 6 and 7 are about turning ones attitude (Citta) away from it, as something not to be indulged. To have 'thoughts making for cessation and not making for origination'.

Deconstruction and Creativity This renunciant pattern is carried through. Each satipatthana is 'deconstructed' according to an enlightened view. But does this view cover the whole enlightened perspective? What other views can buddhism add to this view? The Theravada harks to the time of the buddha an d claims unbroken lineage and authority from the buddha. However a second 'wave' arose, trhe Mahayana, that emphasised the teachings slightly differently. As well as 'deconstruction' (shunyata, emptiness) it emphasised interconnectedness. Phenemena were both empty (of permanence, selfhood, and ultimate satisfaction) and conditioned. Not only was body empty, it was conditioned by and had a conditioning effect on other things (like feeling, state of mind, even ones views). The important point being, that praticca samutpada was 'constructive' as well as 'deconstructive'. As well as being aware of what one could renounce (with ones awareness) one could be aware of what one could create.

By paying attention to the uprightness and balance of ones bodily posture in meditation, one could create good conditions for being aware of ones feelings, state of mind and so on.

Buddhaghosa says - 'thoughts making for cessation and not making for origination', but in fact praticca samutpada is equally about origination as it is about cessation. Things in the world may be impermanent but while we are in it, we have to work with the conditions that we are in. We have for instance to work within a framework that is real and not abstracted. Our renunciation has to be 'constructive renunciation'. What that means is, done realistically, with the inclusion of our real body and feelings, not pushing to insight through strained intellectual effort against them, as in ascetic practice, which the buddha disapproved of.

Bearing in mind we also need to 'deconstruct' the body as well, a more 'constructive' take on kåye kåyånupassi. can be seen if we look at the root of the word most commonly used to translate ånupassi., contemplation.

The latin root of contemplation is contemplare. It means 'to mark out carefully a temple or place for auguries'.

A temple is a shrine to a view (held by whoever builds or uses the temple). A view about what is real. About what the reality is behind existence. A buddhist temple enshrines buddhist views and values. A church christian values, and so on. Yet in theory any values can be enshrined in a temple, and they will be so long as people believe in them. A temple is an extension of the principle that what we value we adorn and give space to. We might 'contemplate the nature of existence' but we only do that if we value knowing about the nature of existence in the first place (i.e. we are philosophically minded). If we don't value philosophical inquiry, don't see it as relevant, we will never contemplate in that way. We might contemplate instead getting a new car, because that is relevant to us (relevant to our beliefs).

So contemplation in this sense is 'marking out a space where we can take hold of what we think is relevant and important to us'. In asking us to contemplate the body (feelings, etc) the buddha is saying "I think you might benefit from considering these to be important and worthy of your attention (i.e. these, on their own terms, are what are real )".

In Heideggerian terms, considering body, ones being is worth considering as real, prior to and independently of ones theoretical opinion about it. Theory is real too, if it can be limited to philosophical inquiry. One can contemplate a thought in terms of its internal logic, but to contemplate being one must be coming from the perspective of the value of being-in-itself. The key to clarity here is to acknowledge what is ones temple (what are ones root values).

The buddha asks us to have four root values - the value of tangible experience (body), the value of the feeling tone of ones experience (feeling), the value of the quality of ones state of mind (heart / attitude) and the value of insightful assessment (of ones mental objects). Four 'temples' to give space to and contemplate.

Conditions for the Future The second main theme in the definition of contemplation is that of seeing the future, augury. Augury is a practice for telling the future. An example of augury in ancient Rome was in looking at patterns in birds flight.

An auspice (Latin: auspicium [1] from auspex, literally "one who looks at birds" [2] is a type of omen already familiar to the king of Alasia in Cyprus who, in the Amarna correspondence (fourteenth century BCE) has need of an 'eagle diviner' to be sent from Egypt. [3] The earlier, indigenous practice of divining by bird signs, familiar in the figure of Calchas, the bird-diviner to Agamemnon, who has led the army (Iliad I.69) was largely replaced by sacrifice-divination through inspection of the sacrificial victim's liver.

In ancient Rome, an auspice was a sign from the gods, as interpreted by an augur. An augur would perform a ceremony (known as "taking the auspices") and would read patterns of birds in the sky. Depending upon the birds, the auspices from the gods could be favorable or unfavorable (auspicious or inauspicious). Sometimes bribed or politically motivated augurs would fabricate unfavorable auspices in order to delay certain state functions, such as elections. Pliny the Younger attributes the invention of auspicy to Tiresias the seer of Thebes, the generic model of a seer in the Greco-Roman literary culture. (Wikipedia - auspice)

Notes . 1 ^ [1] (http://www.tfd.com/auspice) . 2 ^ [2] (http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/258/?letter=A&spage=16) . 3 ^ J.A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna Tafeln (1915:no. 35.26) noted in Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influences on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (1992), p 42. This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain. [3] (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-idx?

A 'good pattern' is seen as auspicious, a good augur for the future. As we say, 'it augurs well'. So how does this connects us with contemplating the body (or feelings, etc). The superstitious practices of Rome took place within a belief system that included receiving signs from their gods who would tell them what to do by giving them auspicious signs. Implicit in any auspice is the belief that there is some sort of pattern to the universe and that it is possible to align oneself with that pattern and so gain a better future. The gods, for them, symbolised that 'greater pattern' to the universe and that one could be in dialogue with it. No doubt many of our 'reflective' words, like consider, have an origin in seeing patterns in the universe (con- with , sidus- a star - looking for the future in 'the stars') But in buddhism any patterns are seen looking at our own experience.

We contemplate the future in the context of a belief system (gods, experience), that may be superstitious or may be rational. Belief systems are always belief systems about the future. It is the belief system that (we believe) provides our future, and being 'mindful' of it, we believe wil safeguard our future. In buddhism we turn that mindfulness towards our experience, to guarantee our future. When we 'mark out carefully a temple or place (in our minds, that encompasses our experience)' we are carefully delineating our beliefs about the future (to our experience). We can do this in the privacy of our own mind, in meditation (or to reinforce those beliefs in our minds we might build a buddhist temple that represents how they 'hold' , where we can dwell on them without interference from competing beliefs, like materialism).

The difference between buddhist contemplation and the superstitious practice in Rome we could say is the difference between rational devotion (and meditation) and superstition. With superstition, like crossing our fingers, we hope for the best (often out of fear of the future). With buddhism it is more like we (courageously) move awareness into our experience and look for the best, not just hope for the best. It is more akin to 'honouring our experience with awareness to ensure the best outcome'.

The teachings of the buddha put the future firmly into our hands. In a buddhist temple we 'get on with it'. We get on with meditation and with reflecting on the truths in our experience. We build up a future for ourselves through that. The satipatthanas represent our future, rather than an external agency that can intercede, they are our 'temples', worthy of our attention.

Body contemplation Let's look at an example, to do with getting up in the morning. It is interesting the choices we have between waking up and getting up. Sometimes I jump out of bed as soon as I have woken up, even if I haven't been very rested in the night. Often this is because I am not very in touch with my body. I may not have done much exercise recently and it is uncomfortable, stiff. Getting up suddenly like this expresses a lack of faith. I don't really believe I can do much about the state my body is in. My strategy is to not deal with it. After getting up I carry on not dealing with it. I drag it around all day, distract myself with activities, and somehow get through the day, but undernea`th it all, my body will be having a fairly negative effect on my mental states all day. I began by not giving my body enough attention, space and perhaps 'seclusion', by not taking it into account in the way I got up, and ended up being in an uneasy alliance with it all day.

A different experience comes when I give my body more attention, exercise, space and 'seclusion'. Under a new scenario, I wake up but I don’t get up straight away. I allow my body to lie there resting. I am awake, but waiting, not bothering my body about getting itself up. I leave it alone, give it time to itself. I might lay there for twenty minutes, awake and empathetically aware of my body. Eventually the body feel ready to get iitself up, irrespective of me thinking 'I must get up'. The iimpetus comes from the body being ready to get up. Getting up this way is more integrating to body and mind. We ma`y not always be able to do it, but it is worth bearing in mind the principle behind it: treating the body more as a temple (bearing in mind it is not the sole temple, that other things need to happen as well). The example illustrates an emphasis on the body that is needed as well as on those other things: at least sometimes we allow the laws of our body to have a say our matters.

It might in fact take courage to operate more with the body in mind. The buddha acknowledged how 'the people' were often impressed by austerities, but he did not agree with this himself. It is possible we do them more out of fear (of disapproval) than intelligence about paying attention to conditions. The fact is, we need the body to be in a good state to support our being in a positive state of mind, which benefits others.

Body auspices An auspice when contemplating the body is a feeling of physical wellbeing (sometimes manifesting as chi). On the other hand, tension announces itself as a bad augur. From the point of view of the body, tension in the present moment is a bad augur for the future experience of the body. Yet only in contemplating the body (in accordance with the body) can we see that as an augur and so do something about it. Hence contemplation of the body will tend to lead to a better experience in the body in the future (assuming we act on that information). When people sit in meditation sometimes this happens non-consciously within meditation posture. After having sat for a while, the body can seem to correct itself. The posture naturally adjusts into a 'better future', a more sustainable and balanced position.

Contemplating the body then (just as a body, not as mental object or anything else), we 'mark out carefully a place for auguries': nothing to do with adorning or pampering the body, we delineate carefully the tangible (our 'operative belief system' in this satipatthana) and wait for messages concerning the future, but not messages that comes to as ideas or feelings, tangible messages, felt in the body.

We inhabit the body (respectfully) as if in a temple to something we believed in, with faith that something will happen through being there, in a state of mind receptive to future signs (augurs - where things lead). We are sensitized to consequences. And because we take all this seriously, we act, aligning ourselves with good augurs (with whatever the body needs to do to stay relaxed), and respond to bad augurs with change (by letting go of tension) and we can do this successfully because we are in the right place to do it, the body satipatthana. If we are treating the body as a 'temple', we will be sensitive to the rules of how things work within that reality, and will act accordingly, in tha same way that a yogi or a practitioner of the Alexander Technique is sensitive to the'use' of their body.

We will know that relaxation can only be done from inside the "body zone". As such it is a simple physical action, like unfurling one's fist. The trick is to be in the body satipatthana in the right way in the first place.

Mindfulness and Truth to Materials In the arts there is the concept of 'truth to materials'. What this means is materials have properties that are best, most truthfully, used in some ways and not in others. Leonardo represented the smooth and detailed face of the Mona Lisa using oil paint, which is a material more true to the purpose he was trying to achieve than say coloured pastels. So to create the Mona Lisa using oil paint was true to the material of oil paint, because oil paint is capable of infinitely fine gradations of colour. It can be worked over a long periods of time without it drying out. These are properties needed to create the Mona Lisa. Coloured pastels lack the properties necessary to create the same effect, so to use them would be untrue to the materials. However, being coarse and grainy, they are perfect materials for Degas to draw his ballet dancers with, interested as he is in creating an impressionistic effect of the magical play of light.

Oil paint is more suited to themes of gravitas, and fine representations of detail. Pastel is more suited to impressions of sensation and emotions. It is the same with clay, wood, metal, and stone. They all have their own ways they are best worked, their own 'truths' as materials. The skilled artisan understands the truths about the materials at their disposal, and chooses the right one for the job.

We can apply this notion to when we are practicing mindfulness. In the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha refers to skill in craftsmanship in relation to following the breath.

As a skillful turner of a lathe or his apprentice, making a long turn, knows, 'I make a long turn,' or making a short turn, knows, 'I make a short turn,' just so the monk, breathing in a long breath, knows, 'I breathe in long'...and so on...

Both the skillful lathe turner and the practitioner are aware of the capacities of the materials they are working with, in terms of what they are trying to make. The artisan works on a material object, but the practitioner's object is themselves, their own body and mind. They are work with their body, feelings, emotions, and 'mental concomitants'. With each they need to know what they can or cannot truthfully make.

What then is truthfulness in terms of the body. Generally speaking, the body is 'slower' than the mind. It needs more time than the mind and doesn't take well to being rushed. It's qualities will differ at different times. If the body is stiff, it is more true to it to move it more slowly. We can think the material properties of a stiff body are like that of cold clay. If we pull on cold clay quickly it tears. Warm clay, on the other hand, stays in one piece if stretched at the same rate. This is why we need to warm the body up properly before doing vigorous exercise.

If we are stiff, but we go slowly, in my experience the stiff parts have a chance then to join in with the movement. They come with us in the movement, rather than are 'torn' as we move ourselves away from them. Moving at an appropriate pace, like when we slowly stretch cold clay, our stiffness can be gradually worked until it loosens up.

But if our body is stiff, but we we don't acknowledge it in the way we use it, there is something 'untruthful' in that. Like cold clay it will tear. The sculpture we make with it will look wrong. We cannot create the same impressions with our body as we can with our thoughts. They are different 'materials'. We need to be truthful with them when working with our feelings, and thoughts as well. To be clear what we can and cannot do with them.

Perhaps truth to feelings is that they have space to range about. We usually like being given enough time to work out our feelings about things. Poetry and art help us with feelings. We like to express them, rather than hold them in. They are fluid. They like to be seen. Our favorite poem or piece of music is like a container, a space for what we feel is important to us. It helps our feeling be expressed. Feelings don't like being constrained by logic,. They have something unique to offer that can only truly be made from feelings. Think of the pleasure spreading across a face, feelings breaking out into a broad grin. Nothing else but feeling can quite make that happen. But what about when we use feeling untruthfully. When we 'tear the cold clay' of it. We leave some of ourselves behind while we rush off behind an idea, feelings abandonned, alienated. With feelings, I think they like to be connected. No matter what is going on, we keep a warm thread of connection going with our feelings. Again, to keep working them, warming them up. And the best thing we can create with them is the Metta Bhavana, ethics and kindness.

Truthfulness to thoughts, leads naturally onto articulation. Whereas the body is like clay and can tear if pulled when cold, thoughts are more like mercury. It is hard to stop little 'beads' of them running all over the place. Instead of needing warmth, our thoughts more often need to be cooled or slowed down, in order to manageably fit in with feelings and activities.

The nature of the mind is light. Brilliant we say when someone has a useful idea. We can produce clarity of conception. We can make plans truthfully with our thoughts, but it is not true that we can will things into existence through them.

Articulation It is interesting we use the word articulate for when a person can express themselves well, and for the movement of a physical joint. The arm articulates at the elbow, an articulated lorry articulates between the trailer and cab. Articulate comes from the latin, artus - joint, and simply means 'to furnish with joints'.

Both articulations are to do with expression. The body articulates at its' joints, and so expresses itself as physical movement. Relatively solid parts, the bones, hinge at the joints, aided by musculature contraction or relaxation, and make an expressed shape. An articulate speech or piece of writing also has a shape to it. It consists of a series of relatively reliable solid facts, joined up in a way which makes an elegant shape, an elegant argument. We say 'His argument hinged on the fact that.....'.

So in the articulate expression of a good speaker, or a good dancer, there is a good knowledge of the materials they are working with. There is knowledge of what is solid, and knowledge of what can be moved. A knowledge of how to relax, of how to tense. When to be light, and when to be definite. In short there is fluency of movement, or, with speech, of argument.

There is a knowledge of the materials at their disposal, and of how to use them in a way that is truthful to those materials. They know how to get the different parts to smoothly work together. The Satipatthana Model

In the act of contemplation understood in the 'constructive' way, we have the opportunity to take a satipatthana and (on its own terms) improve it . We contemplate its state until that state changes. This might manifest as -

* calmer body * able to better 'contain' feelings * more sensitive heart * wiser thinking

In this way we can work on each satipatthana individually without recourse to the others. But by changing one satipatthana because of the law of conditionality, that affects the others. It creates something new in the others -

Satipatthana Model Ó2006 Mahabodhi

Dhammas

Kaya Vedana

Citta

Dhammas - Mental Objects Kaya - Body Vedana - Feeling Citta - Heart / State of Mind Therefore there are two methods for change: direct - that of contemplation, and indirect - by working via another satipatthana.

This principle can be demonstrated using the cognitive model, and the example of overcoming resitance and going for a run. In order to contemplate ones 'physical reactions' one has first to isolate them from the other satipatthanas. One contacts only what ones body needs (for its future). One ignores feelings (the 'pain' of running), normal behaviour (to stay in bed), and judgements ('I'm not the kind of person who runs outside at this time in the morning') and the environment (that it is raining) and runs for half an hour,

Five aspects of your life experiences Ó1986 Center for Cognitive Therapy, Newport Beach, CA.

ENVIRONMENT

Thoughts

Physical Moods Reactions

Behaviours

after which ones body is in a better state, that positively conditions ones thoughts moods and behaviour. One is now thinking much more positive thoughts about the day, is glad one is no longer in bed, and feels in a pleasant mood with a pleasant glow in ones body.

If one takes this principle to heart and applies it to all four satipatthanas (contemplating all four) one ends up in a state of mutually supportive conditions.

Satipatthana Model - Mutually re-inforcive conditions Ó2006 Mahabodhi

Dhammas

Kaya Vedana

Citta

Dhammas - Mental Objects Kaya - Body Vedana - Feeling Citta - Heart / State of Mind

In the same way if we stop paying attention to one satipatthana, in this case the ethicality of our states of mind, our conditions are not quite so supportive. Satipatthana Model - Less supportive conditions Ó2006 Mahabodhi

Dhammas

Kaya Vedana

Citta

Dhammas - Mental Objects Kaya - Body Vedana - Feeling Citta - Heart / State of Mind body zone

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 TOUCHING

Contacting the Tangible - The "Body Zone" When a Zen monk in black robes walks slowly down a gravel path practicing walking meditation, he is practicing being in touch with his experience. Because of his mindfulness he is more in touch with his experience than the Tokyo businessman rushing to his meeting. He feels the tangible experience of his body: the rocks pressing up through his sandals, his robes fluttering around him in the breeze. He is deliberately sensing whatever is tangible to him. He moves slowly. Moving slowly helps this sensing of the tangible because it cuts down the ammount of input coming in . He can then sink into the experience of his body, and through that come into closer relationship with the world around him.

If you were to ask anyone who has practiced walking meditation in this way, they will likely say how pleasureable they found it. When we feel more solid within ourselves, more present, more tangibly there, it is pleasant. We are used to being pulled this way and that by life. We get so used to it we forget how pleasant is the experience of being centred, and this centredness often comes from contact with the tangible. The monk walking along the path is centred in his physical experience. But anything that is tangible can centre or ground us. An elderly person, despite physical frailty, may experience a groundedness when they are visited by a large family they have created, especially when everyone is doing well. When they see tangible evidence of the effect their life has had. Being ethical can be grounding too, reassurance can come from seeing the tangible results of our actions. It somehow makes us feel safer. The monk, self possessed, is bringing peace and grace to the world. In control of himself, he can have confidence. We feel safe too when we know the people around us are reliable. All these are examples of tangibility. Tangible means that which can be touched. So the body frame of reference is about tangible contact with our physical body in the present moment but we might also see it as having a wider range including anything tangible, anything that can bring a sense of safety because it can be touched. Anything reliable.

We need this as human beings. We need samattha. Calm. Stability. Reassurance. We need foundations to build our lives on that are strong. It is interesting in this regard that the words touch and body have a range of meanings that go beyond the purely physical. For instance there is a body of knowledge, which is the knowledge accepted as truth at any particular time. As knowledge is added, the body of knowledge changes, but at any particular moment it is a particular concrete thing. We are touched when we are given a gift, or someone is nice to us. We could say we are touched because someone is being sensitive to the concrete reality of how we are, here and now. They have taken the trouble to be in touch with how we are really feeling. We can also be in touch with reality, in the sense of being sane.

So there is something in the Buddha's instructions relating to body which is about coming into contact with the actual in the present moment. With what we can concretely say is true. That is, we have a particular experience - our foot is touching the ground. If we say - my foot is touching the ground when it is in fact touching the ground, then we are in touch with the body foundation. This has nothing to do with any metaphysical examination of the foot, that it is not in fact a foot but an impermanent entity arising on conditions - that is the fourth satipatthana perspective. Here we are just looking at the fact that we have a concrete experience of a foot. In fact in the way that we look at the foot we need samattha and vipassana, calm and insight, but here we are solely looking at the side that brings the calm.

Slowing Down To come into the present moment we often need to slow down, as with the monk in the walking meditation. We are then able to weigh our experience. For a monk interested in assessing the 'safety' of his mental states, that weighing is aided by seeing tangible evidence in his body. In the film 'Stalker', the slow progress through "the Zone" is due to weighing the safety of each move. Stalker is making sure he is into contact with the tangible, and not the imagined, and that comes from awareness in the present moment. Is this way safe to go, now? "The Zone" being a landscape saturated with water where our heroes become soaked. In the same way we cannot get away from oury physical experience, it soaks into us. It is unavoidable. The men can't avoid getting wet in "the Zone", and we can't avoid the "Body Zone".

The treatise in the Satipatthana Sutta begins with the Buddha pointing out how the monk has to stay in touch with his body (and we could say more broadly, the tangible) - bhikku kaye kayanupassi viharati the monk dwells contemplating the body in the body. Kaya is body. When one practices kayanupassana, contemplation of the body, one enters the "Body Zone". This is first satipatthana or foundation of mindfulness, or frame of reference, looking at the world from the reference point of tangible experience. One dwells in the tangible perspective. The Buddha is saying inhabit your body, inhabit the tangible, know what is affecting you. Know the concrete. Our physical body is concrete experience. To dwell in it is to come at the world through the sense of touch. A perspective (to see through.) helps us see how different things relate but this isn't so much a seeing perspective as a 'touching' one. As far as the body is concerned we are primarily concerned with making our way through the world of touch, with navigating through the world of objects in the present moment. Touch can contribute to a changing perspective. The soft touch of our friends hand probably gives us a comforting perspective one minute, but later in life we may feel things are 'slipping through our fingers'.

Kaya and Rupa Kaya is body. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (Mindfulness with Breathing p31) has kaya meaning 'group' that can be applied to any collection of things. He says in this case kaya specifically means the groups of elements that are compounded together into a physical flesh-and-blood body. Perhaps compound is a good term for kaya, the body being compounded (made of separate elements). Kaya he says, can also mean a different group, like the elements that go to make up the breath (the 'breath-body). So the physical body is one group of tangible elements, and the breath is comprised of another. Both the breath and the body are concrete experiences.

Buddhism has another term, Rupa, close in meaning to body. It means Form. It is defined by Herbert Guentther as the objective constituent of the perceptual situation. We cannot say for certain that there are actual objects beyond our perception of them, so we cannot say rupa is matter. But we can say we perceive something. The objective constituent is that thing, objective because it would be what would be there if we could purge our perceptions of their subjective filters. Rupa is like the 'shape' that appears within each of our senses. Kaya in the same way isn't our physical body, but the objective constituent of what appears as our body through our touch sense. Form we experience through our senses; sights, sounds, smells, also in our mind: Ideas, thoughts, mental constructions (forms appearing in the mind sense). So the objective constituent of the perceptual situation. is what is there in our experience should we be able to see it clearly enough, but those constituents may be intangibles like ideas (and emotions and feelings) rather than tangibles like the body. SoKaya is the tangible component ofRupa.

An example of mindfulness of kaya is noticing the shape our body is taking from moment to moment, or of being aware of the sensations of touch inside the body. These are concrete things we can bring awareness to. We can have a sense of our physical presence, and the sensations at the surface of the body. On a very simple level, through mindfulness of body we manage the physical aspect of the world. We don't get run over by a bus. But we also manage our internal states, like the build up of tension inside our body. In an ideal world we would only develop muscular tension when we needed it. When we didn't need it, our muscles would be relaxed. In the East, monks practice moving very slowly while being aware of their bodies. They also practice martial arts. Bringing awareness to each individual movement (raising an arm, they know they are raising their arm, and so on) they have a chance to pick up on subtle internal sensations that indicate the development of tension, and so have a chance to relax that tension. This bodywork helps prepare them for meditation. Martial arts are often practiced alongside spiritual disciplines such as meditation because they help bring about mind-body coordination, fuller body awareness and relaxation.

This kind of awareness of the body has been neglected in the West, but this is slowly changing. As a complex stimulating society, there is an emphasis on mental form. Ideas dominate the physical. Even going to the gym can be because of one's (mental) image of oneself. This is perhaps why stress is so endemic in the West. To develop a non ego-based healthy relationship with their physical form, can for westerners can have a big effect.

Our Body forms a Large Part of our Experience If you have any doubts about how much our body forms a large part of our experience, think how much time you spend giving it attention or servicing its needs; grooming it, exercising it, eating, sleeping, etc. It is a lot of time. So we need to take it seriously. Our physical experience influences us very much. If we make that conscious, we are more likely to treat our body with the respect it deserves. If our body is not comfortable it is difficult to maintain calm mental states, because our mind will be constantly going there. So relaxation is an integral part of any effort to change our mental state. Our mind needs the support of our body, which means making sure it is comfortable and relaxed. We can work on the comfort and relaxation of the body using a meditation called a body scan. Here is one example of it. A Body Relaxation

Wherever you are sitting or lying down, make sure that you are comfortable. If you are lying down or sitting in a chair, make sure you will be warm enough. Wrap a blanket around you if you need one. It’s better though to try to stay awake, so if necessary open a window and let some cool air into the room. Take your time to set up comfortable conditions that conduce to you being able to be aware.

Rest your eyes on a point on the wall or ceiling. Let whatever is at that point gently stimulate your eyes. Take in the details, don’t go ‘to them’, let them ‘come to you’. Passively receive the stimulation of those details with eyes that are soft and yielding, and let the stimulation keep you awake.

When you feel you have set that up well, then notice the shape of your body. It has a certain shape. Reflect that your skeleton is there to support your weight. Position your body so that it can easily do that. Notice whether parts of your body are tense, relaxed, alive or dull. Have a general sense of what is going on for you physically. Notice what different things are happening in different parts of your body. While you do this, keep ‘receiving’ stimulation through softened eyes, via your focus on the wall or ceiling. Let that softness spread through your being. Soften your muscles, body tissue. Soften your mind. Soften your heart too.

Notice that your body ‘speaks a language’. Everything that happens to us physically does so through a medium, the medium of touch. Not thinking, or seeing, but touching. It only through touch that we can work with the body, just as it is only through words that we can use speech. Put to one side everything in your experience that is not to do with touch. Thoughts, visual impressions, sounds. Let them all go somewhere else, just for now. Let them ‘drift off’ to the other side of the room. Think of a place to put them, and put them there.

Now just concentrate on touch. Experience your body touching the floor, cushions or chair you are sitting on. Feel it touching the air and your clothing. It also touches itself, internally and externally. Your arm touches your side. Your legs may be touching. Once you have concentrated long enough on what your body is touching externally, take your attention inside your body.

Each part inside your body will be touching all the other parts that surround it. Pick any point deep inside your body. And one just next to it. Be aware that the first point is touching the second. Any touch can be hard and aggressive or it can be soft and caring. Now let the quality of the way the first point touches the second be soft and caring. Let it be kind. Let it be soft and reassuring, as when a friend places their reassuring hand on our shoulder. When we feel reassured at that point, take your time and repeat that same exercise at each point throughout your whole body. Let that soft, kind, reassuring touch be everywhere where your body touches itself. If at any time you experience thoughts coming back in, suggest gently that they wait to one side until you are finished. You are just concentrating on touch for now. Enjoy this experience of a soft, relaxed, and reassured body, for as long as you wish. To do a Body Awareness effectively we need to clearly comprehend that it is tangible form we are dealing with, not another type of form, like thinking. We may need to try to keep them firmly separated, as in the meditation, in order to make sure we have chosen the right one. In the body-scan we needed to put our thoughts to one side in order to concentrate on our bodily experience. At times this may be difficult, if we have a lot going on mentally, but any effort will be worth it. If we want to tidy the attic, we can't do it while we are in the kitchen. We can tidy the attic in our imagination, but that doesn't get the attic tidied. We have to actually be there to do that. So despite our (whirling) mind any time spent actually in the body will have a beneficial effect on it. Any time spent will give us a more solid foundation underneath our actions towards our body. This again is part of being tangible. To have a concrete effect (on the body) we have to be in the right place to create that effect, namely within the body frame of reference.

I developed this way of doing body scans from problems I had in meditation. In my early days of learning meditation, when led through a body scan and asked to relax various parts of my body as the meditation leader scanned through the body (often beginning with the feet and working upwards), I couldn't do it. Instead I experienced an increase in tension due to my lack of progress. Years later I realised what I was doing. Being more comfortable with my thinking faculty than my physical experience, I tried to do the body scan by staying with a mental image of my body, instead of the real thing. Not being my actual body, of course it didn't work! When we are comfortable somewhere it is natural we are hesitant to leave. The place I was comfortable was in my thinking faculty, but the trouble is, the world doesn't involve only the things we are comfortable with. It is a composite of realities (body, mind, emotions) that we have to deal with each on their own terms, rather than on our terms. We have to deal with all the forms experience presents us with, and for me that included body as well as thinking. So I had to learn to experience my body through focussing on the medium of touch.

Mindfulness overcomes Craving The monk contemplates the body ardently - passionately, clearly comprehendingly - he sees exactly what he is dealing with, and mindfully - undistractedly. He really cares about being aware of the bodily forms he is experiencing, like it makes a difference to him. He clearly comprehends which form is which. He doesn't mix them up. And he does all this mindfully. And as a result, the text says - he 'removes covetousness and grief in the world'. Covetousness and grief are translations of craving and hatred. Passionate and mindful contemplation of the body (in the body) removes craving and hatred from the world. That is quite a statement! How? As I said earlier Rupa was the 'objective constituent of the perceptual situation' and Kaya its tangible part. Objective as in undistorted by subjectivity. Craving and hatred are intensely subjective, They are all about getting what we want and not getting what we don't want. They intensely distort the objective situation of what is there aside from whether we want it or not. If we put our passion undistractedly into seeing things clearly 'in themselves' there is no room for distortion. Craving and hatred cannot be there at the same time as mindfulness. Therefore' we remove covetousness and grief from the world'.

The Neutral Object We might try to be (passionately) aware, using our body as meditation object in a body scan, but we can also use a neutral object like the breath as an object. Suppose somebody says 'Don't think of bananas'. We all know how difficult it is to not think of bananas. If we want to not do something (like hate or crave) willing (like with the bananas) doesn't often work. But what can work is passionately focussing on a neutral object (effectively, somewhere else).

The Mindfulness of Breathing In the mindfulness of breathing meditation we develop mindfulness by focussing on the details of our breath. We 'lift' our passion from 'the world', and try to become passionate about an object we might normally be dispassionate about, that is just neutral to us. The Buddha tells us of the practicalities -

And how, monks, does a monk dwell contemplating the body in the body?

Here, monks, a monk having gone to the forest, to the foot of a tree, or to a secluded place, sits down cross-legged, keeps his upper body erect, and directs mindfulness towards the object of meditation. Ever mindful, he breathes in, ever mindful he breathes out.

The monk sets himself up at the foot of a tree, in a secluded spot (or anywhere he won't be disturbed), in meditation posture (cross-legged keeping his upper body upright), and directs his attention to his chosen object (the breath). 'Ever mindful, he breathes in, ever mindful he breathes out.' How he does that is he hones in on the details of the object.

Breathing in a long breath, he knows, 'I breathe in long'; breathing out a long breath, he knows, 'I breathe out long'.

Being aware of the details of the breath anchors his attention in the tangible (the body of the breath). We can focus only on the details of one thing at a time (try otherwise), so if we are focussed on the details of the breath, the mind cannot hone in on the details of other objects (either internal objects, or external objects). With craving and hatred we often focus on detail, the details of what we want, the details of what he did to me. So if our attention is on the detail of our breath it is hard for us to be so immersed in craving (or any other negative state of mind).

'Ever mindful' is a condition, resulting from focussing on the detail of the breath, but it doesn't necessarily mean being 'ever mindful of the breath'. Following the breath creates the conditions for awareness to happen, leads to the consequence of being aware. Detail is at a specific point, where the word mind-ful indicates spaciousness within which one can be aware (of a number of things). One many mindfully take many things into account, as when one follows the four foundations of mindfulness. One can have a calm open perspective on many things. Or put differently, honing in on the details of the breath creates a kind of 'barrier' to the world. When we cannot focus on the details of more than one thing, our attention is stopped from wandering to the world (either to external forms or internal preoccupations). Each moment of focus on the details of the breath, our attention can't be elsewhere. It cannot go to the external or internal details, but being awake and wanting somewhere to go, it can go to the generalities.

Generalities and Specifics Edward Conze makes a point in (book?) about specifics versus generalities. He says the person 'in the world' is very interested in specifics and less interested in generalities. When a crime has been committed, they are very interested in all the details: the criminals upbringing, what precautions weren't taken, what actions the government is doing to stop this kind of crime. As if knowing all these details will somehow help. The 'spiritual' person, on the other hand, is more interested in generalities. In the same scenario, they will be concerned with issues like the states of mind of the people concerned and the conditions that might help their state of mind. Conditions like metta, patience, mindfulness. These are what will help rather than making new laws. They will also be aware of their own attitudes. They will see an ethical situation of which they are a part, that tinkering with details won't go anywhere near solving.

So holding our attention on the details of a neutral object like the breath stops us getting caught up in unhelpful specifics. It also throws our attention back on generalities. We are forced to become aware of our general state of mind, or the general state of the world (in need of compassion). A space is created that allows a broader picture of ourselves or the world to arise. If we are comfortable in our meditation posture, and attentive to the details of the breath, we have the chance to relax everything and just experience ourselves (while being awake). By staying awake we preserve the space to make some progress in knowing ourselves or reflecting on the world. The awareness will be relaxed and non judgemental. It will be open to trends and tendencies rather than the narrow specifics of judgement of self or other. It can give some relaxed attention to our inner world, some care and attention. Behind focussing on the details of the breath is not to become an expert in the nuances of the breath, but to create a field of mindfulness which can be directed. The breath just happens to be a convenient object. The detail could be watching a candle flame. It could be the details of the shape or sensation in our body while we are walking (as in walking meditation). Or the details of the body in a body scan.

Setting up Mindfulness in Front of Us A common phrase in buddhist scriptures is 'the monk, setting up mindfulness in front of him, proceeds mindfully' Here we have a kind of 'barrier' again. To set up mindfulness in front of us, when we are mindfully walking along a path, we might choose a point a certain distance ahead and pay attention to the details at that point. This keep our attention contained and not going out everywhere, allowing us to be more self-contained and for there to be a reflectiveness on our mental states, or on the world outside, while we are walking along the path, but also when we are moving about doing a variety of activities.

Percentages We can think in terms of percentages. We can try to keep the percentage of time where we know the details of what is happening at our focus as high as possible, and not worry too much about the lapses. When we notice we are being vague about the length of the breath, our mind will have drifted off. When that happens we just look at how long the next breath is, and carry on.

Having created our 'barrier' through paying the attention of a skilful craftsman, we have created a kind of container that has an inner and an outer.

Thus he dwells contemplating the body in the body internally, or he dwells contemplating the body in the body externally, or he dwells contemplating the body in the body both internally and externally.

We can look at what is in the container, what is inside the barrier (contemplating the body in the body internally), or outside the container (contemplating the body in the body internally), or both (contemplating the body in the body both internally or externally) without getting caught up in unhelpful details. Inside the container are the general tangibles of our physical state: how relaxed we are, our energy levels: bright or stoggy. Outside are the general tangibles of the world (the general shape of what's out there). We can pay attention to (contemplate our future in relation to) our general internal state (tension, posture and so on), or pay attention to (contemplate our future in relation to) our general external state (negotiating a safe passage through the world) or both (staying relaxed while negotiating a safe passage through the world). Either way we work with the tangibles giving them a better future. We relax, our energy evens out, we develop more tangible resources at hand.

The Second Stage The practitioner keeps his attention on how long each breath is, focussing on long breaths for a certain period depending on his / her experience, constantly asking 'Is the breath I have just breathed longer than the one before it? After a while he / she shifts to watching the details in terms of short breaths.

Breathing in a short breath, he knows, 'I breathe in short'; breathing out a short breath, he knows, 'I breathe out short'.

There are four stages constituting this meditation (one version of the mindfulness of breathing). This is the second stage of the four. In a similar way to other versions of the Mindfulness of breathing we might ask ourselves what is the difference between the first two stages? We are naming each breath in the first stage as longer than or shorter than the last breath. We are doing the same in this stage -looking at the relative lengths of successive breaths. But there is a (subtle) difference. That is, we have the notion short in out mind instead of long. We can be slightly more laid back (in our mind) watching for long breaths. It is slightly harder to watch for shorter breaths than longer ones because they come and go quicker, even though essentially we are doing the same thing. The difference is psychological. And in a way there is more detail in a shorter breath. As we progress through the meditation, this principle grows. We are challenged to see more detail and more subtlety in each new stage. What function does this progression serve?

'Standing Back' Before we created our 'barrier', our mind was free to jump about freely from object to object. Any detail we were following was detail 'out there'. We might be immersed in the details of our experience without much awareness being there. Suppose then we create our 'barrier' by focussing on the details of our long breaths. We are now able to stand back from the details of our experience because our attention is held in the details of our breath. Instead of becoming less involved with our experience, we can become more interested because the important thing in our experience isn't the specifics, which can just be distractions, but the generalities. Unable to be restlessly involved in specific objects, we are left with the more important (and interesting) questions like who are we are, what is the world all about. These questions will be concerning us, and making us restless, under the level of our distractions. By facing them, we can become calmer about them. The more we 'stand back' from the details of our experience, the calmer we can be about them. When we move to the second stage, if we are really doing it, it is harder to be lazy or vague with our attention than in the first, as we are having to watch out for shorter events. It is harder for us to stray off to distractions in between breaths. Short breaths constitute a more refined object. We have to 'stand back' from the detail in our experience even more to stay with a more refined object. Consequently we can become even calmer towards the general shape of our experience. To stay with the details of the object, we have to pacify ourselves in relation to the detail of everything that is not the object. In a word, we have to become calm. When we move to the third stage, this process goes further.

The Third and Fourth Stages

'Making clear the entire in-breath body, I shall breathe in,' thus he makes effort [literally, he trains himself]; 'making clear the entire out-breath body, I shall breathe out,' thus he makes effort.

Here our 'event' gets even shorter. We now are following successive instants of the breath, as continuously, moment to moment as we can. 'Making clear the entire breath-body is following the detail of the whole form of the breath, as the breath comes in and goes out. The more fine our sense of detail at the 'barrier', the more sensitive and calm our awareness will be to direct towards the four satipatthanas, when we wish to direct our attention there, which may come later. (Of course what happens at any stage depends also on us - we may not be very subtle in our awareness - in that case it is better to stick with a grosser barrier we are more certain about [even as gross as 'I am breathing in, .....I am breathing out'], than to get lost with a more refined one we aren't so sure of).

Calming The fourth stage involves deliberately calming the (gross) in- and-out breath. What begins to operate at this stage is a conditioning effect of one body (the breath-body) on another body (the physical body). If the purpose of the earlier stages is not knowledge of the breath but bringing a general awareness to the body, it follows that in this last stage the the body is the target, not the breath. A calm and subtle breath is a means to a calm body. NOT SO DEVELOPED AFTER HERE

'Calming the gross in-breath, I shall breathe in,' thus he makes effort; 'calming the gross out-breath, I shall breathe out,' thus he makes effort.

The other benefit of watching the detail of the breath is that it helps our awareness be here in the present moment, not off in the past or future. That helps us deal with the reality of our experience, which can only be creatively responded to in the present moment.

The text continues with a reflection on how the breath-body is conditioned. That whatever is there is not fixed, is The Anapanasati Sutta, the Sutta of Mindfulness of In and Out-Breathing takes us through such a process in detail.

(Not covered yet) The Sutta continues...

He dwells contemplating the origination factors in the breath- body,or he dwells contemplating the dissolution factors in the breath-body, or he dwells contemplating both the origination and dissolution factors in the breath-body.

Or his mindfulness is established as 'there is breath body only.' And that mindfulness is established to the extent necessary to further knowledge and mindfulness.

Not dependent on (or attached to) anything by way of craving or wrong view, he dwells.

Nor does he cling to anything in the world of the five aggregates of clinging. Thus too monks, a monk dwells contemplating the body in the body.

Satipatthana Sutta Other versions of the Mindfulness of Breathing In the version taught within the FWBO...... , the fourth stage consists of watching the detail of the fine sensation that happens at the tip of the nose or on the lips as the air passes into the body. Here, we are having to be more keenly aware of much finer sensation than in the earlier stages and the quality of our awareness has to change accordingly. This can be the most delightful stage. We are focussing on the most delicate often pleasureable sensation.

Ideally we should be bringing awareness to our body in this way all the time. Practically, it is easier to do within a meditation, where we have the conditions to be able to concentrate on consciously putting thoughts and feelings to one side. To give attention to our body and acheive the consequent relaxation, we might consider doing this form of meditation from time to time. Paying attention to the shape our body makes embeds us in the present moment, because it isn't an idea, which can fly around anywhere, but an experience that we are having now. An experience that only happens in the present moment. Mindfulness of the Body brings us down to earth. Let’s experience this for ourselves. When we pay close attention to what is happening in the body, we can then tell where the tension is. To effectively relax the tension the more precise we are the better. We can even build up a picture of all the different forms within the body and where they all are and how precisely they relate to each other: the bones, the tendons, the muscles. Where the form is hard and where it is softer. We then have an accurate map of the terrain.

The Body Moving When we are trying to watch our body when moving, it is harder than when we are sitting still. With both there will be constant lapses of attention. However, the more we are able to maintain our awareness, the greater our chance of avoiding an unnecessary build up of tension in our body. After all, most of the time tension develops when we are not conscious of the form our body is taking. Otherwise, why would we develop tension at all. If it were a conscious decision, what would be the point of that? To be mindful continuously of our body takes a lot of attention, and to do so effectively we usually have to simplify our experience, making there less information to take in. This means moving slowly in order to establish mindfulness, or sitting still in meditation.

Something on Posture

Articulation of the Body Let's look at what being articulate with our body means. I think we can see it in the graceful movements of a person doing Tai Chi. Their body and minds are coordinated. The pace of Tai Chi is slow and measured. Perhaps that gives us some idea of the bodies' natural pace. We obviously cannot live life at such a pace, but periodically, to restore inner harmony, we might need to go at that pace to let our body catch up. To go at a speed more true to the body.

In Tai Chi, there is a sense of balance, and of connection, that starts with the ground.

Slowing Down In the model of having one faculty leaving the others alone, it may seem like we would get nothing done. Surely it would take forever to carefully pay attention to each part of our experience, and not have one part harassing another. Everything would be so slow. It might be slow-er , but that's what we might need to do for a while to restore the balance between our faculties. What I am talking about here is a principle, an ideal of non-violence. The non-violence of one faculty toward another. Mindfulness is about taking care, and this is the care and respect of one faculty towards the others. When we take care we act appropriately in the situation. We treat a body as a body, as it is meant to be used. It is not an idea, a mental image, it is tangible, concrete, real. When we are stuck in one faculty, we can want to interpret everything in that faculties' terms. Stuck in thinking, everything is ideas. Stuck in the body, everything is sensation. Stuck in feeling, everything is emotion.

I used to have great problems relaxing in meditation. When lead through a body relaxation, I was so stuck in my head that my body came to me as a mental image. I had an idea of my body. When I tried to relax that idea, I got nowhere, because it wasn't the right thing, it wasn't actually my body. Later I realised that I had to put my thoughts and feelings deliberately to one side before I could see what my body was. I discovered it was a 'touching' thing. It operated only through the sense of touch, a completely different faculty from that of thinking or feeling. I had to work with it at that level. I was as if the whole of me was a three storey building. The thinking faculty was the first floor. The feeling on the ground floor and the touching faculty the basement. To relax my body I had to actually go to the basement. I couldn't do it from a distance, from the first floor. I had to actually be in a particular 'place'. It's a bit like relaxing the body involves moving the furniture around in the basement. We have to be actually physically there to do that.

It is the easiest thing to have ideas about things from a distance. We do this with people. We see clearly what they need to do. We then 'bother' them with advice. But we aren't actually them. We don't live 'on their floor'. We make assumptions about them based on our experience of us, but then we often aren't that in touch with who we are either. We are in touch with who we think we are, but that is a different matter. So in our distance and delusion we give advice, and it is often wildly inappropriate. In fact the other person probably has more information about their situation than we do, and left alone will come up with a better solution. But in our imbalance, we can't see that. We don't see clearly their potential and momentum.

Mindfulness and Movement The Buddha was asked about how he proceeded with his spiritual life. He said 'I don't push forward and I don't stand still.' We are not asking our faculties to stand still. Each of our faculties has its own natural energy. Everything in life has an energy that propels it forward, and we need to be mindful of that. A healthy body doesn't simply 'stand still'. It is a moving process, with metabolism. So too are the thinking and feeling faculties. When I say 'let the thinking and feeling faculties leave the body alone, and contemplate the body in and of itself', we are getting in touch with a process, not a stasis. We are looking our bodily processes, in terms of where they are leading. We want our body to move forward in a healthy way, not pushing forward but not standing still. Mindfulness naturalises the processes in all three faculties, so that they all move forward in a healthy way, not pushing forward but not standing still. Then what we have is three faculties, all moving, not pushing forward and not standing still. Each is moving forward in a way appropriate to its' own nature. As such, each will be in harmony within itself. And because their relationship to each other is non-violent, each is much more likely to be in harmony with the others.

The Inter-Relation of the Faculties The different faculties have different natures. The thinking faculty is quick, mercurial, like the wind. It dashes easily here or there. The body though is steady, grounded, concrete, tangible. Feelings are somewhere in between the two. When we are imbalanced. Too oriented, perhaps towards thinking, or body or feeling. Then we tend to be too dominated by the characteristics of the faculty. Bringing the others into awareness will tend to bring the overall characteristics of our experience more into balance. If our imbalance is towards thinking, leaving our body alone and contemplating its processes will tend to slow us down. If our imbalance is towards the body, leaving our thinking alone and contemplating its' processes will tend to quicken us up. If we are not imbalanced, and are simultaneously leaving each faculty alone, while at the same time contemplating its' processes, keeping all three faculties within a spacious awareness, we will tend to proceed at an even pace. Our pace will be vital but not frantic, and relaxed but not dull. Our pace will be a healthy one, natural to our whole being, that is neither pushing forward nor standing still.

This can be seen in the graceful movement of an accomplished person doing Tai Chi. The external form of their body and their minds look coordinated, but one also imagines that coordination internally too. That a harmony exists between all their different internal faculties. The energy is their body, their feelings and their mind. The pace of Tai Chi is slow and measured. Perhaps it gives us an idea of the bodies' natural pace. We obviously cannot live our lives at such a pace, but periodically, to restore our inner harmony, perhaps sometimes we need to slow ourselves down to such a measured pace.

Mindfulness and Craving I think when we have all three faculties moving together, it has a moderating effect on what each of them is doing. Suppose for instance we are besotted by fantasies. We cannot help thinking about a particular person and what we would like to do with them. Thoughts of them 'beseige' us. So our thinking faculty 'bothers' our feeling faculty. Come on, you don't want to feel like this. If you go after him/her you'll feel like this. And our body faculty. Come on, move in that direction. Suppose this is what is happening to us. What is it like as an experience? Well we feel harried. Or two out of three of our faculties do. So what can we do about this? Well we can try to 'leave them alone'. We contemplate them in and of themselves. When we do that out thinking faculty is forced back on itself. It is forced to think about what it is asking. Thinking about what it is asking has the effect of slowing it down. It may then realise that the benefits of pursuing this person might not be as great as it first realised. A bit more reality has come into its thinking, in a way a bit more body. And because of that, craving is reduced.

If you do have trouble relaxing, it is worth looking into various body based techniques. One that it will be useful to note here is called the Alexander Technique. I was talking earlier about how part of Mindfulness of the Body was about using the body correctly. The Alexander Technique helps focus our attention on its’ proper use. There are some good introductory books available on the Alexander Technique. It is advisable to seek out a qualified teacher if you wish to learn properly, without a teacher to check us we can get things wrong. But in order to illustrate the principles, I have included a simple lying down exercise called the Semi- Supine position. You may try it if you like, but bear in mind what I have said about having a teacher.

The Alexander Technique The Alexander Technique only began last century with an australian named F.M. Alexander. The story goes that Alkexander, an actor, was having trouble on the stage. He was losing his voice. It happened only when he was in front of an audience. Not very useful for an actor. Being a natural investigator, he set about looking at what he was doing with his body when he lost his voice, using mirrors. He noticed that there was a shortening in the back of his neck and his chin came up, which probably affected his vocal chords. The shortening probably came out of nervousness as he was about to deliver his speech. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he became very interested in how the mind and body function together. How the body has a natural use, seen in the postures of children and animals, which in adults can be ‘unlearnt’, and replaced by poor use. The Alexander Technique consists in relearning a natural way to use the body. Interestingly, poor use of the body can come from how we think about the movements we are about to commit, before we do them. If we want to relax, it is counterproductive for us to think about doing relaxation. Preparing to do something, we often first tense up in readiness to do it. Good use of the body involves having a relaxed body which only tenses where tension is needed. In Karate for instance the body is supposed to be relaxed throughout the movement of a punch until the very last moment where the power is needed and then the whole body tenses. Good body use also involves using its structure in the way evolution designed it to be used. We often unnaturally use the base of our neck as if it is a joint. It isn’t a joint. The only joints in the spine are where the head meets the spine and the hipjoints on the pelvis. The joints are designed to move freely, not to be held rigidly. Alexander also noticed the connection between lengthening in the body and relaxation. It is difficult for a long muscle to be tense.

Inhibiting Poor Use We normally think of inhibition as a bad thing. ‘He’s so inhibited’ But it can be a good one if it is stopping us doing something harmful. In the Alexander Technique this is what we do. We inhibit ourselves from a poor use of our body. The way it works is like this. It is subtle. How our body ideally should be used is represented by certain ‘directions’. Like Release the Neck. There are certain stock phrases we use. We ‘send directions’. These are subtle suggestions to parts of our body. At the same time we inhibit ourselves from doing anything at all about that. That is because we usually then out of habit do poor use.

We want something to happen, but we inhibit any doing of that. Remember the link between doing and tensing. Doing often leads to tension. The directions are more like a wish than a thought. As they are lightly suggested, they don’t constitute much of an action. Normally we would have a lesson with an Alexander Technique teacher, who would help us with directions and guidance. But there is a way we can work on ourselves alone, lying on the floor. It is called the Semi Supine position. Try this if you like. I found it a useful start to enrol on a short course with a teacher. That would be the best way to begin before carrying on using the semi-supine, but we have to work with what’s available to us.

Semi Supine You will need a blanket to put over you, and three medium width paperback books to rest your head on. Find a space on a carpeted floor large enough to lie down on your back, but where your knees will be pointing up towards the ceiling, with your feet flat on the floor. Your hands will be resting on your hips so your elbows splay out sideways. Your head will be resting on the pile of books. None of your neck should touch the books.

Set yourself this position for yourself, but don’t lie down in it yet. Instead raise yourself up, and rest for a while on your elbows. This allows your back to stretch out naturally for a while before you lie down properly. After a few minutes, uncurl your spine along the floor until your head is resting on the books, rest your hands on your hips and place your feet so your knees rise up toward the ceiling. If necessary to stop your knees splaying out, either point your toes inward slightly or rest your knees together. Lay here for a while letting your body settle into this position.

Then when you are ready, begin to send ‘directions’ to parts of your body. The most important joint in the body is where the head meets the top of the spine, the sub-occipital joint. Start with a suggestion. But make sure we don’t do anything about it. ‘May that joint be free to move’ ‘So that my neck can release, that my head can move in a direction forward (i.e towards my forehead) and up (upwards, in line with my spine), and my back lengthen and widen.’

Lie there without doing anything. You don’t have to do anything to support your body, the floor and books will put your body in a good shape for relaxation and lengthening of your limbs. Just do nothing, concentrate on that, and periodically send suggestions.

After a while, move your attention to your right knee and your left shoulder. Imagine a line between them. Again, while inhibiting yourself from doing anything about it, send the suggestion ‘May the line become longer’. Repeat the suggestion a couple of times, at intervals.

Then do the same with your left knee and right shoulder. Then, imagine a triangle, from your right shoulder to your right earlobe to the centre of your chest. Send the direction ‘May the sides of the triangle become longer’ while inhibiting yourself from doing anything about it. Repeat using the same triangle on the other side of your body.

Take your attention to your hip, knee and ankle joints. ‘May those joints be free to move’ ‘So that my knees can rise up effortlessly towards the ceiling’. Inhibiting yourself again from doing anything.

Then, ‘May my shoulder joints be free to move’ ‘So my arms can move in a direction away from my shoulders, lengthening.’ ‘May my elbow joints be free to move’ ‘So my forearms can move in a direction away from my elbows, lengthening.’ ‘May my wrists be free to move’ ‘So my hands can move in a direction away from my wrists, lengthening.’ ‘May my finger joints be free to move’ ‘So my fingers can move in a direction away from my hands, lengthening.’

And finally, ‘May my ankles be free to move’ ‘So my feet can move in a direction away from my ankles, lengthening.’ ‘May my toe joints be free to move’ ‘So my toes can move in a direction away from my feet, lengthening.’

We have been lying on our backs for up to twenty minutes. We need to get up gradually. First pick a side and roll over onto it, resting your head on the books. Stay there for a few minutes while the blood that has been settling into your back recirculates. Then continue to roll over until you are resting on your hands and knees. Stay there for a minute. Then walk your hands backwards until you are sitting on your heels, and then slowly stand up.

Alexander developed his technique out of his experience of his body and those of his students, and from his observations of the natural world, not from an idea. Ideas and body and feelings are separate faculties. Just like seeing and hearing are separate faculties. Each of our faculties; body, feelings and thoughts, is best dealt with on its own terms. We have to be mindful of each, but in its’ own way. Each has an internal ‘logic’ of its’ own. In the Alexander Technique, the directions we send to the body are very subtle. In inhibiting doing, we in a sense leave the body alone. We normally don’t do that. Instead, our thinking faculty in its’ excitement and planning often drags an unwilling body behind it. Our thinking has been bossing our body about. Everything has been oriented around ideas. We usually pay for that with stress in the body. The Alexander directions offer more of an invitation to the body. A gentle suggestion. To be taken or not. More welcoming because of that, and more likely to be assented to. We are inviting the body to come with us in its’ own way. A way that is natural to it. The body needs to be treated as a body.

We might think of the psychophysical organism, the mind and body, as made up of a group of individuals. Each responds well to being treated with awareness and appropriateness by others. And doesn’t respond well to not to be listened to or having its’ own needs met. It is like an internal non-violence. Mindfulness of the Body, of Feelings, and of Thoughts, is internal non-violence. Each is treated with respect for what it actually is. None of the faculties is imperative with any of the others.

Meditation Posture - allows a good use of the body, but also to allow the mind and the emotions space to articulate themselves too.

Background notes on Kaya (may be used or not)

Different interpretations of kaya One thing to be wary of is the enthusiasm with which the Abhidharma went into classifying the elements of existence, like the modern day scientist looking for a theory of everything. We need to make sure that what we are left with has that 'Taste of Freedom' the Buddha talked about, that it encourages us to practice.

The Atthasalini interpretation of kaya as the grouping of the skandhas feeling, sensation and volition seems more abstract than Vasubandhu's kaya as tactile sensation. It has less a 'Taste of Freedom' about it than the more concrete Vasubandhu interpretation, although I can see how it works.

The Buddha in one of his earliest teachings taught the five skandhas, out of concern to break up the idea of a fixed self. He said to think of a person as five 'heaps' of attributes, or skandhas. These are rupa, vedana, samna, samskara and vijjnana: or form, feeling, sensation (or perception), volition and consciousness. Each of these is not fixed and is in fact conditioned by the others, so we have a model of the person that is dynamic rather than static.

Bearing this in mind, the Atthasalini interpretation of kaya as feeling, sensation and volition gives us a breakdown of the psychophysical organism into three mutually conditioning phenomena: rupa, kaya, and vijnana.

Rupa is 'the objective constituent of the perceptual situation' and vijnana is consciousness. These fit together in the following way. When we meditate we anchor our attention usually on an object. In the mindfulness of breathing meditation this is the breath, or more precisely the details of the breath in the present moment. The Anapanasati Sutta is an extended version of this mindfulness of breathing meditation consisting of sixteen stages divided into four 'tetrads'.

The first tetrad is to do with kaya, then feeling, then mind, and the final tetrad is to do with the nature of reality. It is a meditation combining awareness of in- and out-breathing with attention on the four "Zones".

Rupa, consciousness and kaya are all linked. In our normal unmeditative waking state these three may be, as it were, 'all over the place'. We may not be very objective about 'the constituents of our perceptions' because we are subjectively involved with them, overlaying our likes and dislikes on top, and not seeing just what is present. Our consciousness to may be jumping around from one thing to the next, and our body a mass of excitations and tensions.

When we sit down to meditate we have a chance to bring some order to the situation. To see rupa more clearly as a result of steadying our consciousness and calming our body.

In the first stage of the tetrad on kaya we have an objective in terms of our perception to stay aware of long breaths. We practice just being aware of what is there in terms of the length of our breath. 'Breathing in long, I am aware of breathing in long.'

We can do this by trying to stay in the present with how long each breath is, perhaps comparing each to the previous one. What we will find is that sometimes we will know what is happening, but at other times we will drift off altogether or be there but just be vaguely guessing. So being aware of rupa can be quite difficult. It is dependent on our state of consciousness. It is also affected by what is happening in our body. But the good thing is, if we can become more aware of rupa, it has an effect on our consciousness and body.

In the second stage we change to looking for short breaths. We do this to try to sharpen our attention further as it is that bit harder to pay attention to shorter events.

'Breathing in short, I am aware of breathing in short.'

With each of these stages we are trying to be 'objective about our perceptual situation'. We are looking for rupa, what's objectively there.

In the third stage we are still concerned with rupa. We are still following the breath. But we are now also concerned with kaya.

'Experiencing all bodies, I breathe in..'

We bring in an awareness of our body. All bodies refers to all the different aspects of our experience that contain feelings, sensations/perceptions, and volitions. Different groupings of experience. The physical body is one. The 'breath-body' another. It too contains sensations, feeling and so on.

So we experience our breath, and our body, in fact we sink into any experience we could call a body. We immerse ourselves in all our experience, while breathing. We sink into our experience, while keeping objective about rupa. In a way we bring all kaya to rupa. We allow all kaya to be affected by rupa.

This stage should give us a sense of coming together, of bringing 'all bodies' together, our physical body, our breath, everything 'subjective' about us. In the fourth stage we deliberately use the fact that the breath-body affects both the physical body and the consciousness, by calming it in order to calm them. 'Calming the body-conditioner, I breathe in...'

There are various ways of doing this, one is to watch the sensations of the breath on the tip of the nose. As these are very delicate the breath will tend to become quieter, and the body and mind will follow.

Perhaps we can see kaya as a mass of 'subjective urges, impressions and sensation' that get in the way of our perception of rupa, and affect our consciousness unless we calm them down. This model makes sense in terms of what we are trying to do in meditation, that we want our body, by being calmed, to be a support for our consciousness and for the objective perception of our world. We want to be able to look at things clearly.

In the next tetrad having calmed body, we calm feelings (which are part of body). We look at priti and sukha in turn. Priti is more sensation- based(concrete feeling- kayika vedana) and sukha more mood-based (abstract feeling-cetasika vedana) . references for kaya p54 Guenther Philosophy and Psychology in the Abhidharma

The buddhist term kaya and the adjective kayika do not so much denote the physical body but an integrated organisation and function pattern. Kaya comprises the function patterns of feeling, sensation and motivation which in the ordinary human being who is torn by affects, are in a turmoil rather than in a state of being conducive to the realisation of blissful peace and illuminating wisdom. The texts are quite explicit on the point that kaya does not mean the physical body as contrasted with some mental or spiritual substance. We are informed that "kaya here means the three skandhas beginning with feeling i.e., feeling (vedana), sensation (sanna), motivation (samskara).

Atthasalini III 207 248 p84 Guenther Philosophy and Psychology in the Abhidharma

A particular feature of a healthy attitude is functional ease. This the author of the Atthasalini discusses from various points of view. This ease is found in what is termed kaya and citta. The term kaya admits of various interpretations and accordingly has been interpreted in various ways by those schools who acknowledge the Abhidharma. The author of the Atthasalini subsumes under this term the function complexes of feeling, sensation and motivation (Atthasalini III 248, 295), while Vasubandhu and Sthiramati understand by it some particular tactile element (Abhidharmakosa II 25 and Bhasya, Vrtti on Trimsika II, p27). The term Citta refers to perception and apperception (Atthasalini III 295). This ease is first of all a relaxation of tension, the absence of strain (passaddhi), it overcomes distress and the tendency to make light of everything (uddhacca) which are dangerous for meditation, which is, as has been pointed out before, the prerequisite for a healthy attitude. p150 Buddhadasa Bhikkhu Mindfulness with Breathing

Kaya Body, group, collection, heap, squad: something composed of various elements, organs, or parts. Generally used for the physical body; refers to either the whole body or its parts ("breath-body" and "flesh-body"). p31 Buddhadasa Bhikkhu Mindfulness with Breathing

The word kaya literally means "group" and can be applied to any collection of things. In this case, kaya specifically means the groups of elements that are compounded together into the physical flesh-and- blood body. The English word body can also mean group; we must simply be careful about which group we mean.

Let's observe for ourselves what makes up our bodies. What are the organs? How many are there? What kinds of elements are present? What parts and components come together to form a body? We should note that there is one very important component which nourishes the rest of this body, namely, the breath. The breath too is called kaya in that it is a collection of various elements. We will study the establishment of the flesh-body and its relationship to the breath- body. rest of section

My commentary - body as "group" A group is an example of something 'compounded' like everything else. It is not a permanent single entity, but as Guenther says in the top definition, 'not so much denoting the physical body but an integrated organisation and function pattern.

Kaya comprises the function patterns of feeling, sensation and motivation.' In terms of the skandhas, if as it says in the Atthasalini, kaya consists of these three, that only leaves rupa and vijjnana outside of itself, the 'objective constituent in a perceptual situation' and the consciousness perceiving, perceiving both kaya and rupa.

In this definition kaya begins to look like the 'subject' that can both be perceived by vijjana and can affect the perceptions of rupa. In fact rupa, kaya and vijjana will mutually condition one another.

So 'contemplating kaya in and of itself' is like taking the subjective part of ourselves in its entirety, and bringing consciousness to see what within it are good augurs. We condition it via rupa and vijjana. We do this by taking up a form, like the details of our breath, and trying to be as objective about what is happening with that form as possible.

The three bodies of a Buddha The use of kaya in Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya, the three bodies of the Buddha, can be explored in this Atthasalini interpretation. These 'bodies' exist on separate 'planes' of existence. The Nirmanakaya is the 'body' of the Buddha as it existed on the human historical plane. His consciousness, vijjana, on enlightenment turned to jnana, knowledge, would see rupa everywhere just as it is, without any obscuration due to kaya, that is feelings, perceptions, or volitions, getting in the way. His Nirmanakaya would be purged of any egocentric feelings, distorted perceptions, or unskilful volitions, and would only support his enlightened consciousness and activity. His bodily and mental experience we can imagine would be deeply at rest, and blissful without a trace of intoxication or anything else that would disturb his clear perception. more

The body of the Buddha as experienced in the imagination of a devoted follower is called the Sambhogakaya, the body of mutual delight. To the extent that anyone can imagine those enlightened feelings, perceptions, and volitions, they still exist. If nobody had the capacity to imagine anything, the Sambhogakaya could not exist, and the last anyone would hear of the Buddha would be at his passing away, but we all have this capacity to some degree. The devotee gains delight and encouragement and inspiration by being able to feel the influence of some kind of body of the Buddha, which keeps enlightenment alive for him, and the abstract principle of enlightenment in the universe has delight in being able to manifest itself. This body is often represented as an archetypal form, a symbolic buddha or bodhisattva that represents those enlightened feelings, perceptions, and volitions. more

The Dharmakaya is the 'top level'. It is the body of the Buddha existing on the plane of the Dharma, at the level of the nature of reality. If there were no Dharmakaya there might be the Dharma, a nature to reality, but it could not be discovered and embodied by a person. Enlightenment would not be possible. The existence of the Buddha at the level of the Dharmakaya means that Enlightenment eternally is possible. It is a potentiality in the universe. It is possible to have the required enlightened feelings, perceptions, and volitions. feeling zone

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 The word goes round Repins, the murmur goes round Lorenzinis, at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers, the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club: There’s a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can’t stop him.

The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing: There’s a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.

The man we surround, the man no one approaches simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps not like a child, not like the wind, like a man and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even sob very loudly - yet the dignity of his weeping holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow, and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds longing for tears as children for a rainbow

Some will say, in the years to come, a halo or force stood around him. There is no such thing. Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood, the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children and such as look out of Paradise come near him and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit - and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand and shake as she receives the gift of weeping; as many as follow her also receive it

and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance, but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing, the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out of his writhen face and ordinary body

not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow, hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea - and when he stops, he simply walks between us mopping his face with the dignity of one man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.

Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.

'An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow' - Les Murray

Sensibility

We feel only when we have sensitivity. The word sensible is interesting because of its two meanings that are closely linked. It means capable of being affected. It also means capable of being perceived by the senses or mind Also delicate, intelligent, marked by sense, cognisant, aware, appreciable, and sensitive. Lets look at the two ways we use the word sensible. The is as in sensibility, which is capacity of feeling, actual feeling, or susceptibility. Sensibility is always in relation to a sense. The visual artist's sensibility manifests in their being sensitive to combinations of shape, colour and texture, and to the emotions that can arise on the back of those. They are sens-ible to feelings arising via that sense. The second use of sensible is more about intelligence. We might think an action isn't sensible, like a child riding their bike on the pavement. When we aren't sensible, there is a chance people might get hurt. B ut hurt in comes in through the senses. Sensible in both cases is sensitivity in relation to pleasure and pain, either in one's sensitivity in receiving it, or in one's sensitivity to causing it.

Sentience If sensibility is the capacity to be sensitive to pleasure and pain, it is the sentient that feel it. They have the faculty of perception and sensation. Buddhism talks a lot about sentient beings. It is geared up to helping them escape the round of conditioned existence. It is the capacity to feel that disinguishes living beings from inert matter. In buddhism we are trying to deal with the full implications of being alive, so we need to take feeling on board, both in terms of sensibility and being sensible in the way we act.

The man crying is sensible to his feelings, and so is crying. The crowd are sensible to what is happening, they are all being moved in some way, some despite themselves. Not many people in the poem are indifferent and we would be shocked if they were. Perhaps seeing him displaying his emotions so unreservedly, they are sensible to his sentience, more than they might be normally. From a buddhist viewpoint this is a good thing: that he is aware of his feelings, and that others are aware of his sentience. To live better lives as living beings, we need to take on more what it is to feel.

The Feeling Faculty We could say a faculty a channel through which our energy flows, as in the imaginative or the thinking faculty. The word faculty comes from the root easy. Our faculties are the main conduits through which our energy most easily expresses itself. In terms of feeling, it is more like a conduit 'coming in' than 'going out'. It is what we are subject to. By virtue of our nerve endings we feel physical pleasure and pain. And, by virtue of being sensitive to how our life is going we feel fulfilment or joy or anguish or despondency. We are on the receiving end of feeling through our feeling faculty.

Mindfulness of Feeling But what was the Buddha's angle on feeling? Being 'the one who is awake' he would be awake to what is going down that conduit as well as down all the other conduits, like thinking, the physical faculty. In fact he would be awake to what was going on across his whole being. Each faculty being an easy route our energy can take he would know how to include and balance all of them so that the energy flowed freely, but not too freely. That towards each he would have a sensitivity, to feeling, thinking, or the body, but without allowing his attention to become overindulgent with any of them. He would be sensible in his actions but not rigid.

Faculties are things we develop, or have developed, and then use. At some point in our evolution there first arose the faculty of perception and sensation. There was a shift towards sentience, in the first experience of pleasure or pain. That then developed as a faculty. Later a thinking and imaginative faculty developed and with it language science and the arts. It is interesting the we call university departments faculties, as in faculty of the arts. It is there to develop what falls out as a natural category, like history or geography. In buddhism too we have the five spiritual faculties: mindfulness, faith, wisdom, energy (in pursuit of the good), and concentration. These are spiritual 'channels' we can initiate and develop.

The buddhist term for feeling is vedana (in Pali, the ancient language the buddhist scriptures were written down in). In the important text on mindfulness called the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha tells how to bring mindfulness, or awareness, to four 'foundations' and so reach nirvana. The second of the four is vedana. Satipatthana means foundation of mindfulness, or frame of reference. Sati is awareness or mindfulness, andupatthana means 'to place near'. A satipatthana is something we to place our awareness near. The four foundations are Kaya, Vedana, Citta and Dhamma, in english, Body, Feeling, Mind, and Mental Objects (sometimes Mental Concomitants). Buddhist commentators frame these slightly differently, but with vedana there is no variation of interpretation. We place our attention on what we are feeling. That means on whether what we are experiencing is a pleasant, painful or a neutral sensation. We place our attention near. Perhaps we have a first clue here as to how we don't become overindulgedwhen becoming aware of our feelings. We place our attention as close as we can, but not so close that we begin to lose awareness. We don't want to be swamped by our feelings, but we do want to be aware of them so we can take them into account.

The word foundation is a bit static, but positively it has connotations of providing safety. The question is, what do we do around feeling in order to be 'safe'? What is safety in terms of feeling? Rather than being static, keeping aware of ever- changing feelings is the opposite of being boring. To keep pace with what is happening we have to be alive and awake. We probably only experience a satipatthana as boring when we have absented ourselves from it. When we are not present it can't be a proper foundation. This most frequently happens when we are being vague where our attention is. In fact we could say life comes most fully to us when our awareness is embedded in the four foundations. We can think of the foundations as something safe to build our lives upon. Something that gives us our best foundation for living, our firmest basis for action.

'Frame of reference' is a bit of a dry phrase too. I remember it being used in relativity in physics. But a satipatthana is not an idea. It is better seen as a living perspective. The four satipatthanas aren't four things to work through on a tick list, but the four most crucial dimensions of life to engage with, if we want to be happy.

Lets take an example of using satipatthana: with the body. Suppose we've been thinking a lot. We haven't been giving much attention to our body. Then a car backfires. This gives us a small shock, and our body tenses up a bit, but we aren't very aware it has, we are just excited by our project. Through the day more small jarring things happen and gradually physical tension builds up, but because it is gradual we get used to it. We acclimatise, it becomes the given. But as well we think, ' Argh! If only I could get a friend to give my shoulders a few minutes massage.'

So we are aware there is a problem, but we are framing it from a perspective that makes it unlikely we will solve it. The problem is developing in our body, but we aren't seeing it yet from the 'frame of reference' of the body. To do that we have to get our attention near to our body. At the moment our attention is on what we want to do , our project. It is on thinking, and that what is happening in our body is getting in the way of that.

At some point a shift may happen. Perhaps when we are seized up with tension and can no longer do anything. Then we might remember how good we felt the last time we went down the gym. Sixty minutes training brought our body back to life again, and we found it easier to get back to and enjoy work. We left the "Thinking Zone" and entered the "Body Zone". We checked on our body from its own frame of reference and saw that things are 'not safe', so we built up a better physical foundation for ourselves by working out down the gym.

It is quite common to favour one 'frame of reference' over another, probably because we like 'being' there, it suits our disposition. But as we saw in the example, we can't solve all our problems from the one place. Thinking about things doesn't necessarily make them happen. We can only relax through being in the body. Knowledge from the bodies perspective is a good foundation for future actions relating to the body. Carrying on with our thinking activity was OK from a thinking point of view (it gave what we were thinking about a good future), but by favouring that we were giving our body a poorer and poorer future. Bringing our attention then back to our body, we saw that it needed something and went down the gym and put it right. Mindfulness works in the same way with the other foundations, including with feeling.

Conscious and Unconscious It seems crucial with feeling then that we are conscious, of feeling, but as feeling. If we are to successfully negotiate the world of feeling, we need two things: to be in the right place and to be conscious of what is happening there. As Geshe Rabten says -

To counteract the inate tendencies (to greed hatred and delusion in response to feelings), the Buddha taught a form of meditation called "close placement of mindfulness on the feelings". By means of this practice one develops a firm and lucid awareness of whatever feeling arises in the mind and then learns to intelligently respond to the experience instead of blindly reacting to it. From Geshe Rabten - The Mind and Its Functions p111

In the Satipatthana Sutta the Buddha deals first with mindfulness of the body. The practitioner should dwell contemplating the body in the body (be aware of the body from the bodies frame of reference) - kaye kayanupassi viharati. After that, they should dwell contemplating the feeling in the feelings (be aware of feelings from the feeling frame of reference) - vedanasu vedananupassi viharati. This means that they should know, experiencing a pleasant feeling, that it is a pleasant feeling they are experiencing, experiencing a painful feeling, that it is a painful feeling they are experiencing, and so on, also with feeling that is neutral. When they are experiencing any type of feeling, that they know exactly what type of feeling it is. They are also asked to know whether each feeling is worldly (samisam) , or spiritual (niramisam). I will go into these later on.

I am framing the Satipatthanas in a particular way, treating Body and Feeling as externals in that they arrive to us as experience. They are external in that sense. We keep them separate from internals , which are what we might do about them or how we might see them. Before we do anything about our experience, it is vital we honour it first as our experience. We are on safe ground if we make sure we are with our experience in the here and now. The internals are what we then do about that experience. They are internal because they are accessible to our control, as responses we have power over them. The internals are Citta and Dhamma. Citta is Mind but often rendered Heart. It is our emotional response. Dhammas, or Mental Objects, are the way our mind (Mano) grasps the world, our conceptions. The way we frame our response cognitively. Together they make up our complete response to experience, which is more or less compassionate and wise. Sometimes Citta and Mano (Manas) are used interchangeably. For example in the famous opening to the Dhammapada, Manas is sometimes translated as heart -

Phenomena are preceded by the heart, ruled by the heart, made of the heart. If you speak or act with a calm, bright heart, then happiness follows you, like a shadow that never leaves. (Access to Insight)

Other times it is translated as mind. But whether translated as heart or mind, the important thing is we have power over our mental and emotional responses, with what we do in the world and how we frame the world cognitively.

The Roots of Feeling

Worldly and Spiritual Feeling The Buddha exhorted his disciples to know 'a pleasant worldly feeling, as a pleasant worldly feeling...a pleasant spiritual feeling as a pleasant spiritual feeling...and so on.' That is to know at all timeswhat they were feeling (pleasure, pain or neutrality), and to know clearly the nature or source of the feeling. To know whether it was worldly (samisam) or spiritual (niramisam).

Samisam is sam - thoroughly, and amisam - of the flesh. Amisam derives from ama - raw [it being originally raw meat] hence the connotation raw, uncultivated, unprepared alsofleshy, of the flesh [as opposed to mind or spirit] Niramisam is spiritual in the sense of being ni - without amisam.. Not of the flesh. [Not material-based feeling, free from sensual desires, disinterested, cultivated, prepared]. Our interpretation can go two ways here. We could opt for a literal interpretation that is perhaps a bit 'christian'. We could treat samisam as carnal, lusty with the negative ethical connotations that go along with that, and niramisam as spiritual and therefore elevated. Buddhaghosa does this in his commentary on this section of thev Satipatthana Sutta (Way of Mindfulness), he says -

Pleasant worldly feeling refers to the six joyful feelings connected with the six sense-doors, and dependent on that which is tainted by defilements. Pleasant spiritual feeling refers to the six joyful feelings connected with the six sense-doors, and not dependent on sense-desire.

In the Salayatanavibhanga Sutta, which Buddhaghosa refers to in his commentary, the Buddha talks about household (gehasita) joy and renunciant (nekkhammasita) joy.

Or, we could treat samisam as just the feeling that arises due to having a body with senses. As I said earlier, feeling is a given. It is what experience presents us with. As such it is neither ethical or unethical. Ethics arises in how we respond to it. Through Citta. Feeling may arise as a result of ethics, but that is a different matter. But even with that, the feeling itself is still ethically neutral. That is because we have no power over it, to change it, we only have power to respond to it (ethically or otherwise). If we go with this argument, we have to treat samisam vedana as the raw unmoderated sensation resulting from having body with senses. It is feeling conditioned by kaya. Niramisam vedana in the same way cannot be elevated feeling. Instead I think it is logical to treat it as feeling that has come to us via Mind in the sense of our karmic responses (Citta) as the fruit of our actions. It is spiritual in the sense of being conditioned by how spiritual (ethical) we are. So niramisam vedana might result from us being greedy as well as from us being elevated. It depends on what our mind is doing now or has done in the past.

A simple example is being hungry. Due to having a body with not enough nutriments in it, we experience unpleasant (samisam) vedana. This unpleasant vedana is giving us a useful message. It is telling us to eat something. But even after our body is satisfied, we may carry on experiencing unpleasant vedana, but now of a different sort. Our mind happens to be in a greedy state. Conditioned by that we experience unpleasant (niramisam) vedana and we carry on eating. Later on when our mind is in a more elevated state we may regret having eaten so much. Perhaps we have seen the consequences of our greedy actions. We again feel unpleasant (niramisam) vedana. That pain, held in awareness, helps stop us being as greedy in the future. And so it goes. If our Mind has been in a more positively ethical state like contentment at the end of eating enough, we probably then experience pleasant (niramisam) vedana. Niramisam vedana all depends on how our Mind is moderating our experience. We may experience niramisam vedana when we think of the deeds we have done and are sensitive to the effects they have had on others (including on ourselves). We will feel unpleasant vedana if the effects have been harmful, pleasant if we the effects have been beneficial. How much niramisam vedana we feel will depend on the level of our ethical sensitivity. It is obvious why the Buddha would want us to distinguish between samisam vedana and niramisam vedana. To eat because we are hungry is helpful to our body. To stop eating when we have had enough is helpful to our mind.

Samisam vedana and niramisam vedana are just feelings coming in, not responses going out. Niramisam vedana tells us about our Mind's response. If we take notice of it we can change that response. Samisam vedana tells us what our body needs. Feeling is just experience to be responded to. As such it isn't true to say it is better to experience one thing over another. Feeling is just experience to respond to with intelligence. It is like a messenger, in fact several messengers coming from different sources. We need to get the message right and respond to the right source. Sometimes we get the message wrong. An example is the view that if we feel bad we must be 'bad'. It is not necessarily the case. It may be true if we are experiencing unpleasant niramisam vedana due to ethical insensitivity. But even then it isn't we are 'all bad', just our actions that were insensitive. And we are paying for it now anyway in suffering from unpleasant (niramisam) vedana. But if we are in physical or mental pain, how does that make us 'bad'. Surely we are just suffering from having a body or mind, and having a degree of sensitivity in those. We feel simply feel because we feel.

So feeling is important from the point of view of safety. We protect our body by paying attention to samisam vedana, and we protect the world by attending to niramisam vedana. There are two mental states hrih and ottapa that are called 'protectors of the world' (lokapalas). Hrih, ethical sensitivity to our own actions, sometimes translated as self respect or conscience. To the extent we have hrih we feel unpleasant vedana when we do harm, which motivates us to be more ethical in future, and so protect the world. With ottapa (oft translated as 'fear of blame from the wise') each time we do harm, when we think of what people we respect (the wise) will think of us, we feel unpleasant vedana.

Insensitivity With all types of vedana we can do things that encourage awareness of feeling, or we can desensitise ourselves. With intensely unpleasant samisam vedana we might use painkillers to damp it down. These relieve the pain by dulling our sensitivity. We can blot out unpleasant vedana in other ways. The 'great warrior' (anyone described as a 'killing machine' or compared to a force of nature) has to desensitise themselves to the consequencess of their actions. Neither a machine nor a force of nature has the ethical sensitivity that produces niramisam vedana.

Mood As well as samisam and niramisam vedana, there is a third type of feeling we haven't covered yet. What about something like our being sensitive to how life is going, or to what people think about us. Feeling depressed, for instance, isn't so much about sensations in the body, or about the response of our heart / our ethics, it is more about judgement. 'I am a failure' is a judgement. It is an evaluation. Conditioned by this evaluation we might feel depressed. That is we feel an unpleasant (heavy) sensation. But the Buddha doesn't mention a third mode of feeling in the Satipatthana Sutta. The Pali-English dictionary entry for vedana (p648) gives a reference to the Questions of King Milinda (253) (a text much later in origin than the Satipatthana Sutta). The context is a discussion between a revered monk Nagasena and King Milinda. They are discussing the question of an arahant (an enlightened being) experiencing bodily feeling (kayika vedana) but not mental feeling (cetasika vedana) whereas the unenlightened experience both.

Nagasena says that the arahant's mind 'proceeds in dependence on the body, but that the arahant is not able to exercise mastery as to that body.' This echoes my earlier point that the body is a given, an 'external', it appears to us as experience. Nagasena goes on - 'an ordinary person feels a bodily and a mental feeling because of the lack of development of their mind. Just as when a hungry ox tethered to a post with flimsy fastenings tears itself away from the post, the ordinary person when experiencing a bodily feeling their mind gets excited and when that happens they bend their body, contort it and roll about and then 'howl and yell and cry aloud in dread and distress'. On the other hand the mind of the arahant is 'well tamed, docile and obedient'. 'On being assailed by a painful feeling he grasps it firmly thinking it is not permanent; he fastens his mind to the post of concentration, and when his mind is fastened to the post of concentration it does not quiver or shake, but is steadfast and composed, although his body, owing to the diffusion of the perturbation of the feeling, bends, contorts itself and rolls about. This is why an arahant feels one kind of feeling, the bodily, not the mental.'

At Questions of King Milinda (44) Nagasena repeats the point that the arahant does not experience mental feelings, but adds the point that this is because of the 'termination of whatever is the cause, (whatever is the condition which is the cause and the condition of the uprising) of a painful mental feeling that he feels no painful mental feeling'. In still having a body with its sensitivities, the cause of the uprising of bodily feeling is still there, so bodily feeling persists. But the cause and conditrion of mental feeling is no longer there, so mental feeling desists. Mental feeling is conditioned by Mind. That doesn't mean Mind is no longer there. Perhaps it is better to say - Mental feeling is conditioned by Mind being out of tune with reality. When Mind is in tune with reality that condition ceases and so mental feeling ceases.

It is worth pointing out that this distinction between kayika vedana and cetasika vedana is not often mentioned in the early Pali Canon, and the earlier sources are said to be more reliable. It is mentioned though in the Salla Sutta (The Dart) which we will come to in a minute. We can try to make something of what Nagasena is reported as saying. The arahant is described as doing two things - grasping the feeling firmly thinking it is not permanent , and fastening his mind to the post of concentration. The first thing he does is grasp the feeling firmly: he keeps the feeling in his awareness, he doesn't run away from it. He thinks about its nature, that it is impermanent. He applies enlightened Manas to it. What we call right view. He also fastens his mind to the post of concentration. He looks to his state of mind, Citta. He stays with it. Another way of looking at this situation is he keeps up the other satipatthanas, he doesn't let them slip. He doesn't let the pain destroy the other objects of contemplation as satipatthanas. A satipatthana only stays a satipatthana while we are keeping our awareness close to it. Grasping the feeling firmly is staying in touch with the body (the tangible in the present moment) Staying concentrated is staying in touch with the development of Citta. And maintaining right view is maintaining contemplation of 'the dhammas in the dhammas'. But why would the arahant not feel mental feeling?

It might help now to look at the Salla Sutta, the Dart. The 'ordinary untaught run-of-the-mill (unenlightened) person' feels two types of feeling: bodily (kayika) and mental (cetasika) feeling. When they experience (physical) pain that is like them being pierced by a dart. But they then experience 'torment, grief, and mental stress because of that pain. The well taught noble disciple (let's take as the enlightened person) on the other hand feels the same physical pain but doesn't experience any angst about it, so they do not experience mental feeling. The unenlightened person feels two darts but the enlightened only one.

So what is mental feeling? Feeling conditioned by heart / mind (Citta) is niramisam vedana. It is said the arahant is beyond karma. What I take this to mean is they cannot but act skilfully. In addition, they have seen through the false distinction of subject and object. There is no I, me, mine. The question arises - Do they still experience niramisam vedana? One might think that the bodhisattva feels a lot. Why otherwise would Avalokitesvara, the archetype of compassion, cry at the plight of sentient beings? So it may be that this type of mental feeling continues. However there is also the point that in deeper concentration one leaves pleasure and pain behind and the bodhisattva is highly bent on his / her task to help sentient beings.

The other type of mental feeling possible is that which is conditioned by the activity of Mind as Mano ('the measurer'). Suppose the Mind grasps an object (dharma). The way Mano grasps it is to measure it. It has an idea about it, what it is. That idea will be fully in line with reality (if one is enlightened) or to some degree in line with reality (if one is wise) or totally off-beam (if one is an ordinary run-of-the-mill person). When the ordinary person grasps an object and calls it 'mine' they may feel pleasant (cetasika) vedana at the time. Grasping the same object with their mind, the enlightened person, measuring it as 'impermanent' doesn't feel a pleasant (cetasika) vedana. Later on the object breaks. The ordinary person's view (of the object as 'mine') is now undermined by reality. They now experience unpleasant (cetasika) vedana, conditioned by their view having been shaken. The view of the enlightened person on the other hand is not shaken, so they experience no unpleasant (cetasika) vedana on account of the breakage. Having the correct view on all conditioned phenomena everywhere and at all times, they would never need a message to point to the wrongness of their view, and so would never experience cetasika vedana.

Cetasika vedana is conditioned by thoughts, opinions and views. Thinking 'I am the greatest' or 'I am useless' are cognitions upon which arise a type of pleasant and unpleasant vedana. When the eye sees a visual form, pleasant or painful vedana arises; when the mind sees a mental object, an idea or an opinion, pleasant or painful vedana arises. Herbert Guenther goes into this more in Philosophy and Psychology in the Abhidharma . He calls cetasika vedana 'abstract feeling' or mood, as opposed to kayika vedana 'concrete feeling' -

(Feeling) imparts to every conscious content a definite value in the sense of acceptance ("like") or rejection ("dislike") or indifference. Mood, too, signifies a valuation, though not of a definite content but of the whole conscious situation at the moment. The fact that feeling in the form of 'mood' may appear quite independently of the momentary sensations, although by some exiguous [slender] reasoning it may be causally related to some previous conscious content, is brought about in the buddhist texts by terming this kind of feeling cetasika vedana which may be translated as 'abstract feeling', inasmuch as it is raised above the different individual feeling values of concrete feeling. It is clearly distinguished from kayika vedana or 'concrete feeling' which denotes that kind of feeling which is mixed up with and joins in with sensation.

Cetasika vedana comes on the back of a valuation of the whole conscious situation at the moment. rather than kayika vedana which 'joins in with sensation (the concrete). He thinks cetasika arises from contact with assessments connected with the mind. It may be seen as the mood we experience having 'taken stock of' (measured) our whole conscious situation. It doesn't mean our evaluation is valid, but mood is what arises on the back of it, and this is what we have to deal with in terms of abstract feeling. We might have measured our situation (had certain thoughts about it) and the way things are don't compare very well with thev way we'd like ithem to be. These thoughts may condition our experiencing a mood of depression. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy recognises this. That is, the effect our thoughts can have on our moods. It provides tools to assess the objectivty of our thoughts (which if we are depressed are usually quite unbalanced) as a way of reconditioning our mood. From a buddhist perspective we can look at things slightly differently. That whatever is happening in our mood gives us useful information about our views. Painful cetasika vedana is a sign that our views are not being confirmed by reality, and that we could benefit from re- examining them. The unenlightened's view about the world is topsy-turvy to the extent that reality keeps surprising them. Those who believe their loved one is permanent, suffer when they realise it is not the case. They experience grief, painful feeling, domanassa. Or they are dukkhi dummano, miserable and dejected (PED entry - see dukkha) When their views are confirmed, in reality, they experience mental ease, happiness, somanassa. To the extent that the world doesn't fit with our view of how it should be, we will suffer on account of that view.

As to what are correct views, there is an image used for the stage on the spiral path 'Knowledge and Vision of Things as They Really Are'. the stage of the arising of insight. A man puts his hand into water and each time he pulls it out there is a watersnake coiled around it with a mark on its forehead. He sees the mark and uncoils the snake and throws it back. The mark is one of the three laksanas, or marks of conditioned existence: impermanence, insubstantiality and unsatisfactoriness (dukkha). These represent the correct view to have about the nature of any mental object (dhamma). The snake, if we cling to it, will be an endless source of suffering, so if we are wise we will throw it back. So dukkha is the correct view of the nature of an object in terms of what we will experience if we cling to it. If we see an object marked by the sign of dukkha, we will refuse to invest our hopes of ultimate satisfaction in it, and so won't be let down. We will then only experience pleasant cetasika vedana in relation to that object. Perhaps this is what is meant by the bliss of release.

Pride too is connected to cetasika vedana, or more specifically is arrogance (mana). Seeing oneself as better than others, or even equal to, or worse than undermines the reality that we are not fixed and can change at any time. Pride comes before a fall (or a rise!) When we have done an action we are pleased with, that is (pleasant) cetasika vedana. We feel inflated abou ourselves. Later on, to the extent we were inflated and have come down to earth, we will experience more cetasika vedana (but this time unpleasant).

Know Your Mind p80 - Subjectivistic and Transpersonal feelings...where has he got this from? - source

Effluent (asava): One of four qualities -- sensuality, views, becoming, and ignorance -- that "flow out" of the mind and create the flood of the round of death and rebirth.

Dukkha But what about dukkha? Unsatisfactoriness. How does it fit with vedana? Vedana is classed as three types: pleasant (sukha), painful (dukkha) and neutral (adukkha-m-asukha). That is one connection. Dukkha is one of the three marks of conditioned existence (laksanas). In that role it is more of a view of how things are, along with insubstantiality (anatta) and impermanence (anicca). Perhaps looking at the other frames of reference from an enlightened Mano, looking at Body we see the mark of anatta, looking at Feeling we see the mark of dukkha, as Buddhaghosa says -

Indeed, the mindfulness that lays hold of feeling is the Truth of Suffering. Thus the portal of deliverance for the bhikkhu who lays hold of feeling should be understood. and looking at Heart (Citta) we see the mark of anicca, that whatever we create, the effect of the good we do, is temporary. This would suggest dukkha as an enlightened perspective on feeling. That all feeling, short of enlightenment, is dukkha (compared to enlightenment).

The teaching on the three types of dukkha, bears this out. There is the experience of unpleasant vedana in the present moment. That is the first kind of dukkha (dukkha dukkha). It is dukkha relating simply to dukkha, to direct feeling. But we do experience happiness and pleasure as well as pain. The second type of dukkha (viparinama dukkha) takes this on board but also takes on the truth of impermanence. It is the frustration due to the fact that pleasant experiences are impermanent. When pleasant experiences end we suffer through craving more of them. As such this type of dukkha is linked to the Mind zone (Citta) and to our responses to our experience. The third kind of dukkha (sankhara dukkha) arises in relation to the mark of anatta, insubstantiality. Also called existential dukkha, it reflects the fact that whatever we create on the level of samsara will not be satisfying (in the Wheel of Becoming the image for the sankharas is a potter creating a pot. The Sankharas are conditioned by Ignorance - a blind man with a stick. This represents our tendency to formulate our volitions on the basis of ignorance. Effectively we create what cannot last. The pot will be insubstantial and fall apart.) The only way out of this kind of dukkha is to attempt to replace ones sankharas with volitional activities conditioned by the enlightened perspective, for example in trying to create a person free of greed, hatred and delusion. This type of dukkha is linked to the body frame of reference in that we are looking for tangible results that 'body forth' not ones that will die with us. I think people with few mundane needs (like the wealthy) but with little spiritual purpose suffer from existential dukkha the most.

Worldly and spiritual are relative not absolute terms. Ones worldly concerns will contain spiritual elements. Being sensible by not riding ones bike on the pavement is worldly in that it avoids pain on the sensory level, but it is also spiritual in that it involves consideration. When one sees the effects of being sensible, one might feel pleasure that is more spiritual than worldly.

[Notes...

Domanasia and Somanasia are primarily a mental phenomena. Everything produced in Mind has, however subtle a hedonic content (mildly pl or painful). Vedana is evaluated in two ways - * As Contaminated (or not), by clinging / hatred. Dhyanic experience (and aesthetic or meditative) is uncontaminated by these. * As Subjectivistic (Self Cherishing - Atman influenced) or as Transpersonal (Not Self Cherishing - cf Bodhisattvas resonance with others suffering - this is beyond self view) Dhyana takes us beyond clinging but it doesn't take us beyond (fixed) self view. Check out Contaminated - Geshe Rabten has it as consciousness affected by the afflictions, and Uncontaminated as consciousness in the minds of Aryas no longer affected by the afflictions. Depends what he means by Aryas. - Subhuti 51 Mental Events, Convention 2001 notes.]

Vedana is alwaysvipaka, a fruit, something happening to us. Cetasika vedana is a fruit of mental activity, perhaps of assessing our situation. Cognitive Psychology has a similar concept in the notion of core values, the deepest views we have about ourselves. The things that we really know about ourselves (These are often not objective even though we are convinced they are - "I am unloveable" is one). These core values repeatedly condition one mood (cetasika vedana), especially when recent experience confirms those views. One of the aims of Cognitive therapy is to help people work on these views to positively affect their mood, as seen in the excellent workbook Mind Over Mood.

So the body (and the senses) to the extent that we are sensible to them, are one root of feeling, samisam vedana. The ethical side of us, in the sense of ethical sensitivity (that we will generally feel better as a result of acting skilfully) is a second root of feeling, niramisam vedana. And our cognitions in relation to ourselves and the world contribute the third, cetasika vedana.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the American who pioneered using buddhist mindfulness techniques as well as Cognitive therapeutic techniques to help those experiencing chronic pain, (check if this is really is a quote) reflects to some degree what I have been saying. He talks about there being three dimensions to pain: the physical or sensory component; the emotional or affective component (how we feel about the sensation); and the cognitive component (the meaning we attribute to our pain).

Feeling in these three areas tells us something important, like a feedback loop. It tells us of our needs in each area. Physical pain tells us about the physical needs we have unmet, as in defects we have in the structure of our body. How we feel about the sensation and the meaning we ascribe to it tell us of our need for creative response and for creative understanding. This is a real value of feeling. Without it, or if our sensibility is dimmed, we do not get valuable messages about our functioning in the world. We are then unable to moderate that functioning to be more in line with reality. In buddhist terms we are unable to progress towards enlightenment.

'When experiencing a pleasant worldly feeling, I understand 'I am experiencing a pleasant worldly feeling''. Without knowing this, the practitioner would not know, a) what the message of the feeling was, and b) what dimension of experience it was refering to (physical, ethical, or 'transpersonal'), and so would not know which area needed what sort of attention.

If every moment of consciousness has feeling in it, allowing for neutral feeling to be feeling too, and that all the time any object in the mind will be producing feeling, whether it is pleasureable, painful or neutral, then it follows that there would be a feeling responses to each aspect of our being. In each faculty we would be sensible of something. (rewrite para)

Just like mental pain might be pain resulting from thinking (e.g. madness)

[Notes - Manasa - intention, purpose, mind (as active force), mental action. Manas - thought. Somanassa - Mental ease, happiness, joy. Domanassa - Grief, distress, mental pain. Defined at Visuddhimagga 461. Domanassa-indriya - the faculty or disposition to feel grief.

From Geshe Rabten - The Mind and Its Functions p110 Pleasure and pain are not the objects of feeling. They are the feeling or the experience itself. Thus they are of the nature of consciousness and arise in dependence on the mind's coming into contact with its various objects. Feeling is therefore the inherent quality of experience present in every mental state.]

[Notes - Subhuti talk Indriya is organ of sense or mind, vishaya is sense object, vijnana is consciousness illuminating it. All this together is contact. Every moment of consciousness has vedana in it. All the time objects in the mind produce pl/pain. Both Sparsa and Vedana are vipakas. We can't help our experience of them. - From Subhuti 51 Mental Events - Convention 2001 notes.]

Feeling is distinct from our response. That is something else. Being aware of feeling is being aware of an effect. Something that at the time it is happening to us, we are powerless to do anything about.

Interconnectedness of the Faculties It is difficult to stay aware of difficult feelings: physical, emotional, or mental, just on their own. That is, without a context that is supportive. That context doesn't have to be in the form of another person. It can be. The support may be within ourselves. The main thing is we are supported to be there with it. We feel safe to be there with it.

Support for Awareness of Feeling So where can that support come from. It can come from other faculties like the body. We all know how comforting physical contact can be during times of stress. Especially when the other person is relaxed. It really helps us relax too, and then it is easier to let the pain in, to accept it. It may make it safe for our real emotions to well up and we may start crying. If we have really had a good cry then we find we are more able to carry on. We have gotten rid of a deal of tension. So here we notice how even though the pain may still be there, relaxation helps us stay aware of it so it doesn't paralyse us.

So we are supported to be aware of feeling through relaxation. What else supports being aware of pain? If we are upset and get a kindly and patient response from another person that has a similar effect. It helps us relax. It also helps us to be kind and patient towards ourselves, which helps us sustain that relaxation after that person has gone. If we are gentle, sensitive, and aware: all that helps. This is the realm of the positive response from 'Mind' in its broadest sense, the third foundation.

The fourth foundation also helps. It is easier to stay aware of and accept feeling if we see it as an inevitable aspect of being alive. It is Dukkha, the most basic truth of buddhism, that existence is painful, inherently so. The more we can accept this truth, the less we will feel the need to fight our experience if it is painful. The more likely we are to be relaxed about it.

Mutual Conditionality In fact each of these foundations conditions the others. Pain conditions tension, but ...(blah, etc)

When we are in the "Body Zone" we keep throwing the nut to check on our experience from the physically experienced frame of reference. And we also have a "Feeling Zone", a landscape of feelings to traverse. When we are here, we keep throwing the nut to check on our experience from the feeling perspective, the hedonic frame of reference. This is the second satipatthana, the second foundation of mindfulness, or frame of reference.

Everything we experience has a particular form, a particular appearance, a shape within our senses. That is Rupa. We experience the 'shape' of a sight in the visual sense, a sound in the auditory one, and so on. With each 'shape' there comes a feeling tone. That 'shape' is felt as pleasureable if we like it, painful if we don't, or neutral. This process happens in each of our senses.

Experience is what our senses present us with, and it happens in the present moment and only there. We experience the five senses and we experience mental phenomena; images, ideas and so on, as 'shapes' within the mind sense.

Our total experience is like two maps superimposed, a map of feeling over a map of form. Where there is form, there is feeling, and vice versa. If we took all feeling out of our experience, we would be left with pure form. This could only be a theoretical exercise. We can't separate them in practice.

So if we look at a beautiful sunset, the experience of colours and shapes in the sky and clouds is form, and the experience of pleasure at seeing those colours and shapes is feeling.

Feeling is a major part of being alive and sentient. It is always there, and something we have to deal with. The Buddha thought it 'safer' if we face up to it, knowing what we are experiencing, whether we like it or not. Not facing up to it doesn't make it go away. We are always in the "Feeling Zone" whether we like it or not, just like we are always inthe "Body Zone", so it is better to accept that and work from within it.

This poem by Les Murray illustrates two things about feeling: it isn't necessarily something to get hysterical about, we can face feeling in a dignified way, and it is perfectly possible to go about life unaware of our deeper feelings until a situation brings them up.

The man in the poem experienced and faced his feelings, and then moved on to the next thing. But some of the people in the crowd, those who 'screamed who thought themselves happy', weren't at all in touch with what was going on for them. They were stuck, and couldn't move on.

We want sometimes to transform our feelings to something better, but we can only transform our feelings by first being 'in them'. Security in the "Feeling Zone" is about being squarely centred in our feelings, in knowing what we are feeling. Despite their tough Australian facades, all the crowd are sensible to feeling. They all have that in common even if they choose to suppress it. The man acts like a catalyst for feeling in the crowd, and some become aware of it despite themselves.

We often use the excuse to not be in touch with feeling that we need to get on with things. We've all got things to do. Or we hide our feelings behind the need for social order. Stiff upper lip and all that. But in the long term they will come out. As a strategy it doesn't really work. Like in the poem, at some point a catalyst will come along and we will feel our feelings, perhaps violently. It is best that we slowly get used to exploring our feelings on a more day-to-day basis. After all they may be wanting to tell us something really important we need to know. At some point we will, like the Buddha, need to face the difficult feelings that come up in relation to life, that it is dukkha. That life is painful and limited. And that this is the existential situation for every sentient being.

Dealing with Pain There have been some experiments done recently on the effectiveness of various strategies for dealing with physical pain. The strategy of distracting oneself was compared with the strategy of mindfulness, of paying attention to the sensations and really moving into them and being with them nonjudgementally. At the beginning it was found distraction works better than mindfulness, but after a while mindfulness becomes more powerful than distraction for tolerating pain. With distraction alone, once it breaks down and doesn't work, you've got nothing. At Home in our Bodies - An interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn p34 Tricycle Magazine Winter 2002

Notes on Feeling

(We must treat our pain gently, respectfully, not resisting it but living with it. When we do resist it, we need to treat that with respect too. The Practice of Nonpreference - Darlene Cohen p37 Tricycle Winter 2002)

The Practical Uses of Feeling We saw that, being aware of our bodies disposition made it easier to relax it, in fact to make better use of it. Being aware of Feeling also has its practical uses, it tell us when we need something. When we need food, water, or shelter, we experience the pangs of hunger, thirst, and cold. In danger, we get a charge through our nervous system that galvanises us into action. Each time a need isn't met, we get an unpleasant signal. It helps us manage our body. When we are sitting on our leg and cutting off the blood supply we experience pain, or numbness. It is a signal we need to change our bodies position. When we are injured, the pain we experience tells us we need to do something about it. Feeling is linked to the reality of the situation. Sometimes we will, but sometimes we won't be able to do anything about that reality. It may simply be out of our control. And that is a reality we just have to accept. Then feeling is often telling us about life. At the end of the film, Stalker's wife addresses the camera, and talks about her life with him - Mother warned me about him I was sure I'd be happy with him I never regretted going with him There was a lot of pain and grief

And if there were no sorrow in our lives it wouldn't be better It would be worse Because then there'd be no happiness either And there'd be no hope. That's how it is.

There is a certain Russian stoicism here, but I think also universal truth. Sorrow and happiness are somehow tied together. It is futile, beyond a certain point, to spend all our time and energy trying to eradicate our own suffering. There is something desperately unhappy about a person trying to design and execute a life without suffering. We are better accepting whatever comes, as part of life's richness. Pain is integral to life. It is realistic we expect a certain ammount of it, and that that is OK. Some things can't be fixed on their own level. There is a certain joy in holding a steady course through whatever life brings us. Somehow that brings us a deeper satisfaction than a life of studied avoidance of pain. Perhaps Stalkers' wife by 'If there were no sorrow.... there'd be no hope' means there'd be no hope or happiness because there would be a backing off from life, which is a kind of defeat. Without sorrow there wouldn't be the sense of satisfaction that comes with overcoming sorrow. There is a certain satisfaction in realism.

Acceptance This is reflected in the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and Stephen Levine. These two well respected teachers use buddhist techniques to transform people's attitudes towards pain, in particular chronic pain and terminal illness. In the pain management work of John Kabat-Zinn, acceptance is a strategy for dealing with chronic pain. Patients are encouraged to fully accept their pain by moving towards their experience and really feeling it. Not to experience less pain, that may happen but it isn't the goal, which is to just accept the pain without considering anything else. Like its ending. Such thoughts are just a distraction. They are time taken away from what is going on in the here and now.

With a terminal illness, we cannot put a plaster over it, neither can we 'manipulate' the body to put it right. For things that can be made better we can work on our illness, on the Body using surgery and on Feeling using painkillers, but for what cannot be made better we need acceptance. Perhaps Stalker's wife might have said 'without reality, there'd be no hope, and no happiness'. There is something about being with the reality of the situation that lets us to become calm.

Letting go into Pain Stephen Levine explores acceptance in 'Healing into Life and Death'. He doesn't mean healing in the sense of recovering from illness or experiencing less pain. He means it in the sense of accommodating ourselves perhaps to not getting better, which is more like a healing of the 'soul'. Someone with terminal cancer may be more 'healed' in Levine's meaning of the term than someone with an llness that is curable but who has difficulty accepting their situation. But this is only tested usually in extreme situations. When our pain is really intense, whether physical, or psychic at the loss of a loved one, our usual coping strategies are tested to the limit, and may then simply cease to work. We may then only be left with what Levine, and the Buddha, suggest, to let go into our experience, with kindness and awareness. There may nothing else we can do. Softening into our Experience Levine advises us to soften into our experience, to soften into the pain, whether it is physical or psychological. Yet intuitively this isn't what we want to do. We would rather brace ourselves, to protect the wound, which causes physical tension. The process of accommodation that Levine calls healing requires we open up and let in the experience of the wound, but with compassion. Pain can connect us to our inherent humanity because when we see our limits we feel more human. Our response then is compassion. When someone is kind to us, it helps us recognise how we are feeling. And vice versa. Being in touch with pain can trigger our compassion.

Permission to Feel But it doesn't follow just because we have a feeling faculty that we give ourselves permission to have those feelings. If we had parents to whom unpleasant experiences were distressing, we might have learned to hide such experiences from our parents to protect them, and consequently from ourselves. This conditioning makes it more difficult to accept unpleasant experiences when we have them.

If we have such conditioning, we may need to give ourselves permission to feel. It's not that we need to act on any feeling we have, we just need to permit ourselves to have it. It is our feeling. Our feeling about our experience. In fact, it is our feeling about our life at the moment. The only life we have. So it is really important to know how we feel (about that life), if we areto manage it. Giving ourselves permission to feel is giving ourselves permission to exist as a individual with our own unique feelings, and those are independent of whatever any other individuals may be feeling. The next natural step is we care about the person with those feelings, to care about how they feel. That we want them to feel better. But unless we allow the feeling, there is nothing to respond to. It is easy to ignore how one is feeling, and hold it at arms length, hoping "It'll change to something better in a minute", and that minute can go on for days. In my experience I avoid my actual feeling but also avoid having to face it as evidence of 'my life at the moment'. There is something mildly unsatisfying about doing this, which I recognise in the back of my mind. I aren't actually responding to my life as it is right now, because I'm not exposing myself to it. But when I stop and just accept "I feel ______", no matter how bad it is, it is a relief. At least I am now in a place where I can start, that is real.

Summary Throwing the nut for Feeling is putting ourselves in touch with the fact that part of being human is that we have feeling. It isn't everything but it is a significant part of our experience, that along with the other foundations we need to take notice of. In particular it is a motivator. So long as we stay tuned to how we are feeling, we will know when we need to change things to work on that feeling, to try to change it for something better.

Robert M. Pirsig in Lila - An enquiry into morals has a character that has some interesting things to say about the relationships between what he calls 'static patterns of value'. Evolution in the Darwinian sense he thinks has two aspects, a static and a dynamic. He says

'Evolution can't be a continuous forward movement. It must be a process of ratchet-like steps in which there is a Dynamic movement forward up some new incline and then, if the result looks successful, a static latching on of the gain that has been made; then another Dynamic advance, then another static latch.' The static patterns we see are the levels within nature. These are the Inorganic, the Biological, the Social and the Intellectual levels. Each has dynamically evolved out of the previous level. Life evolved out of the static pattern of inanimate matter, society out of the biological chaos of living beings, and so on.

He says this independence of levels would be impossible if everything were an 'extension' of matter as in a materialist world view. Matter is just one level in the overall system.

It is not difficult to see parallels here with the four "Zones". Body without feeling is just physical form, matter. Whereas feeling animates the biological level by making it sensible. Social conscience considers feeling and matter beyond the purely self oriented, and Intellect seeks truth (Dharma) beyond the social. We have to work on each independently through its own set of values, that is, within its own "Zone" not from the values of another "Zone".

Perhaps this is why the Buddha gave us the four foundations. They cover all four levels, each of which has to be valued in its own way. So feeling has to be fixed at its own level. Feeling in Meditation

Integrity None of the factors that make up our experience are fixed. Each is empty, and therefore can change. When we contemplate them, we take in where they lead and from that can come change. But as we saw earlier, it is vital for our awareness to be in the right place. it is vital we respect the integrity of each element of our experience, even though it is empty.

In the buddhist texts, there are descriptions by the Buddha of higher states of consciousness, advanced psychic states that can come about in deep meditation. These are called Dhyanas, and there are four of them. I think they illustrate what can happen when faculty is brought to a healthy state in itself, and is also in harmony with the other faculties.

Soap and Water Mixed The Buddha describes the first dhyana with a simile. In his day, soap came in powder form. He describes the first dhyana as a mixing of soap powder with water in such a way that none of either is left over. He compares the mingling of soap and water to the way pleasure suffuses the body in the first dhyana. He says -

As the water permeates the soap, the meditator permeates their body completely with the 'pleasure and joy arising from seclusion'

We could say there are two types of pleasure. 'Pleasure born from the senses’ and 'pleasure born from seclusion’. Pleasure born of the senses comes from the enjoyment of external objects. If we rely on such externals for our pleasure, we are dependent on those objects continuing to be pleasureable. We may be frustrated if that doesn't happen.

Pleasure born of seclusion though comes from our being mindful. By 'setting up mindfulness in front of us' we limit our contact with the world, and so are less able to get our pleasures from it. This forces us to develop it within our inner experience. This is what I think the Buddha means by pleasure born from seclusion. It is a pleasure independent of what is outside of us, coming solely from our inner experience, from our seclusion. When we are absorbed in meditation, this type of pleasure completely fills our body. No part of our body, we could say experience, as our experience is only rupa and vedana, is left out. The pleasure is the water, and the our experience (of rupa) is the soap. None of the soap is dry. In other words we are quite happy with whatever we are paying attention to. We are fully absorbed in an experience which is completely pleasurable.

None of the water is left over either. There is no ‘pleasure arising from seclusion’ outside of our body, our experience. In other words it is a completely contained experience. We aren't drawn outward to pleasures 'beyond'. There is no intoxication leading us into the world of the senses. We are completely self contained, within the activity we are doing.

That is our overall experience in the first dhyana, but what of the different elements of our experience. How might they experience 'pleasure born of seclusion'?

Pleasures born of Seclusion - In the Body When we are quietly absorbed in an activity, whether it is meditation or a different activity needing concentraton, we often experience our body differently to how we normally experience it. Being mindful of the detail in the activity, our mindfulness secludes us from everything else. Outside of the activity, there is no call to respond to external stimuli. We may be move our body, but it will be only in relation to the activity. This means the body has the chance to become quieter. There is less need to tense ready for action, and it can relax and stay relaxed.

It is interesting to note at what happens when the body is naturally more ‘in seclusion’ from the other faculties. This happens to some degree when we are sleeping, our body is ‘in seclusion’. Sleep protects it from the normal demands of waking thought. We may dream, and dreaming puts demands on the body, as we toss and turn with any feeling that is generated by the dream, but these external demands are never as strong as when we are awake. Sleep reduces external demands and creates seclusion. We are ‘cocooned’ in sleep. The body is effectively 'left alone'.

If it is really left alone during the night, and isn't disturbed by dreams, it has a chance to regenerate, to 'sort itself out'. It is interesting to note the choices that occur between waking and getting up. Sometimes I just jump out of bed as soon as I wake up, even though I aren't very rested after the night. This can be a sign I am out of touch with my body. Perhaps I may not have done much exercise recently and it is stiff. I may not have relaxed much in the night. Just getting up is almost an act of lack of faith, that I can do much about the state my body is in. My strategy then is to drag around my uncomfortable body all day, distracting myself with activity, but subconsciously it will continue to have a negative effect on my mental states all day. I haven't taken it into account when getting up. I haven't respected its integrity or given it enough seclusion. I am in an uneasy alliance with it.

I can have a different experience when I do manage to give it enough exercise and seclusion. In this scenario, I wake up but don’t get up straight away. I allow my body to lie there. I am awake, but I’m waiting. I'm not bothering my body about getting up. I'm just leaving it alone. Giving it some time to itself. I might lay there for twenty minutes, awake and aware of my body. If I have done some karate the day before, there may be some stiffness, but I just lay there experiencing the stiffness , without a mental commentary. Eventually I get up, but the time isn’t determined by thinking, it comes from my body. My body gets up itself.

Getting up like this is a more integrating experience. It sets me up much better for the day. I much more clearly take my body with me into the day. My body is may have its aches and pains to deal with, but it feels to me it will much more easily be able to look after itself. Which then gives me more confidence in myself, as I go out. We obviously can't get up like this all the time, but it is the principle behind it I am interested in. The principle of integrity.

I am giving my body the space to inhabit its’ experience, I give it seclusion. The pleasure arising from that is a pleasure born of a natural process arising from that seclusion. In seclusion the body resolves its own difficulties, or has a chance to. The pleasure born of seclusion in the body, like the water suffusing the soap, is a pleasure of completeness. A pleasure of competence. We are confident we can work with our body, and give it what it needs. It is a pleasure of self sufficiency. This body, for us, is enough.

Using the Body Well I think in general it would be good if we ‘let our bodies alone’ more. We could be less anxious around them. I sometimes aren't sure if I should I go to karate or not. I know my body needs it but I put a psychological burden on it, thinking it will be too much today given what else I have to do. I am ‘bothering it’. I just needs to go, not to think about it.

In fact, it is quite easy to just be physically upright all day, and not dwell on whether I am going or not, and when the time comes, to just go to karate. Dealing physically with whatever is there, again not worrying about it, I come home and feel better for it. There is no point at which it would be beneficial to harry my body to go to karate. Left alone it is happy to go. Thinking about it just gets in the way.

Bodily Practices Any practice of mindfulness or meditation, if we are really staying with it, will put us in touch with our body. I usually experience at a certain point in a meditation, a desire to stretch. I gently lean to one side and then the other, which releases more energy into the meditation. I find it pleasureable to know that through being mindful, things start to sort themselves out naturally.

Many people who are keen meditators, enjoying ‘pleasures born of seclusion’, also practice some physically based discipline, like yoga or a martial art. I use karate. I find that I need a mixture of exersion, relaxation, what I call inhabiting, that is being 'in my body' as I am in meditation, and stretching. I find I have to inhabit my body before it feels motivated to stretch out tensions. The body takes seriously the state it is in most keenly when it ‘inhabits’ itself.

Through inhabiting our bodies, we learn to work with them not from the outside in, as some sort of problem, but from the inside out, from a perspective of internal needs. The body in the first dhyana is one where we are in touch with these needs. We have contemplated body 'in and of itself', and through that have brought the best outcome for it. Pleasure born of seclusion. In bossing myself to get up, I am not ‘knowing my body as a body’. I am not mindful of it as a body, just as a thing I need to get around in. Leaving it alone, it will begin to tell me what it needs. It will begin to tell itself what it needs, and if it has space, it can begin to address those needs itself, whether they are for relaxation, energy, whatever they are.

Walking Meditation One way we can practice ‘leaving the body alone’, and then experience some of the ‘pleasures born of seclusion’ that come from it, is by practicing walking meditation.

Pleasures born of Seclusion - In the Feelings The second category of experience is feelings. The same principle of seclusion applies as with the body, in terms of ‘leaving alone’. We may not like how we feel. We might want to change how we feel. We might want to impose our will on how we feel. The feelings we have might not match our image of ourselves.

Again we just need to ‘leave them alone’. Just watch them, as feelings. We don't even have to obey a compulsion to act on them. It isn’t necessary. It is only interacting with the world again, not seclusion. Here instead, we are withdrawing from that and just looking at what we feel.

It helps if we don’t crowd our feelings with demands. A parent says to a young boy “You are alright aren’t you?’ He’s not really, but feels a pressure to say yes. Sometimes we feel other people make demands that we feel a certain way, usually about them. But it doesn’t help us contact how we feel.

We need to know how we’re feeling. The best way is to isolate our feelings from the world, and from our other faculties. It helps if we don’t express how we feel to the world, or feel obliged to have new ones in relation to it. In meditation we can practice this, our face can be unexpressive towards the world, and we can let what impressions come to us, perhaps external noises, just come to us, without being obliged to feel anything about them. This is how we seclude our feelings.

We ‘contemplate feelings as feelings’. We feel them, as feelings. Rather than just telling us how we are doing, they become important in themselves. Our feelings, felt, eventually may want to improve how they feel. Yet we don't intervene. We just leave them alone. They need to get themselves better. Gradually that happens, given space and time.

In the first dhyana, the emotional tone is that of joy and bliss. We could say this is the natural state our feelings would arrive at being left alone. I know that when people go on solitary retreats that this can happen. Being alone and free to do whatever they like, a natural ebullience can bubble up, as if there is a natural interest that goes out into activities if the feeling process is not interfered with. When we are alone, unless we distract ourselves, we tend to become more sensitive to ourselves as a living being, and living beings are notable for having feelings. We naturally would want to have pleasant feelings, and so when left alone, our feelings can experience 'pleasure born of seclusion'.

Some people are naturally better at being aware of their feelings, but the process is open to anybody, given the space, time and encouragement.

Being Solitary We may become aware of our feelings through meditation or by spending time on our own, or by being regularly mindful and self-possessed in our daily activities, but a more substantial way of doing it is to spend a sustained period in isolation from the world. This is called a solitary retreat. Ideally we go away to an isolated venue, the more isolated the better, and simply spend time on our own. We may meditate, or do some reading, but the main idea is to be by ourselves.

Knowing how we feel is important in terms of what we are doing with our life as a whole. It is very helpful to take time out on our own regularly as a way of checking, 'are we happy with what we are doing?', or by asking ourselves 'what do we really want to do?' For this reason, often after holding responsibility, buddhists will take a solitary retreat before moving on their next challenge. For the purposes of integrity, they will then know how they feel about what they are about to do.

Pleasures born of Seclusion - In Thoughts A third area of experience is thinking. What are the ‘pleasures born of seclusion’ in relation to thought. If we have set up mindfulness in front of us, our barrier, our attention can’t go beyond it out into the world to think about things there. It has to stay ‘this side' of the barrier. What happens then?

If we can’t think about new things, out there in the world, or express our current thoughts to the world, we are obliged to stay with the thoughts we already have. We will tend to reflect on the thoughts we already have, and take our understanding deeper.

In the first dhyana our thinking no longer jumps about everywhere, but is very clear and directed. The 'pleasures born of seclusion' in terms of thoughts are the pleasures of clarity and knowledge. The pleasures of a cool head that is making meaningful connections. In the first dhyana, two factors arise, called initial and sustained thought.

Thinking is oriented towards making sense of the world. When things do make sense it it is likely to experience pleasure.

Our head may start out full of disparate thoughts. But being alert and undisturbed, because we are focussing on the detail of our object, it is natural that some sort of dialogue would start happening among them. If we don’t give in to demands from outside, like dogmatic views that ‘must’ be held, those thoughts have a chance to work out an internal validity for themselves. They will ‘sort themselves out’ in a process of reflection.

Higher States of Consciousness These 'pleasures born of seclusion', of body, feelings and thoughts, lift us into a higher state of consciousness. It is obvious from the way these pleasures are developed through seclusion, that they can only come about through entering deeply into our actual experience across a broad front. The dhyana is a natural consequence of being alert to our experience in these different areas, aided the clear anchoring of our attention in the details of the object. Through this alertness, we ensure that we are taking good care of all the various aspects of our experience. No aspect dominates another. The world too makes no demands. The conditions are ripe for healthy internal natural development, which is what a dhyana is.

Given these conditions, something grows. Of the four progressive dhyanas, the similes for the second and third dhyanas contain lotus flowers. They are us, as we grow and unfold naturally facing all the different facets of our experience with kindness and intelligence, in meditation, away from the demands of the world.

Dhyana is not an End in Itself When people read about higher states of consciousness they get excited. In buddhism though, they are just the early stages of a longer path, and not the end in itself. They bring pleasure that is not dependent on the outside world. That is a start. But just as when one is rich, one can then be generous, so with these rich states of mind, it is natural that they are then shared, or used to benefit others.

Radiating Benefits So a meditator who develops the deep peacefulness of the dhyanas, when he interacts with others, has an calming and inspiring influence on them. They, on the other hand, not being in such a good state, have the converse effect on him. The overall effect is as if he has transfered some of his positive state to them. This is an act of generosity.

The First Dhyana Having set up mindfulness in front of us, effectively creating a barrier between us and the world outside, and in that seclusion, letting the various parts of ourselves also be secluded from each other within that, so that none of our faculties is ‘bothering’ any other, we have created the conditions for the first dhyana to arise. In that secluded state each faculty has the chance to ‘contemplate’ itself.

For example, if we dwell solely within the realm of the body, we will only be experiencing the sense of touch. We will be an experiencing body experiencing itself. Our body will experience various touch sensations. It will experience tension, vitality, lack of vitality in various parts. Each of these ‘leads somewhere’.

Fully taking on the state it is in, the body will naturally sense what touch sensations lead where. It will sense that tension doesn’t lead anywhere useful. Neither does sluggishness. Sensing this it will naturally, on its physical level, just let go, in the case of tension, or access vitality in the sense of sluggishness. It does this as easily as one might open a clenched fist. It is the same with feelings and thoughts. Not bothering either of these with imperatives from outside, the feelings or the thoughts that don’t lead anywhere useful, once they have been experienced, will eventually be seen from within that faculty as not leading anywhere useful, and from within that faculty can be changed.

The first dhyana, the state of absorption the Buddha is talking about in his simile of the soap powder and water, is the product of this seclusion. It it there are active what are called the dhyana factors. They are, in the thinking realm, vitakka, variously called Initial Thought, or Reasoning, and vicara, namely Sustained Thought, or Investigation. In the feeling realm, priti, or Joy, and sukha, Happiness. These also appear bodily as Rapture and Pacification, a physical calming down, and Bliss. Finally there is One-Pointedness, which is a factor to do with ones ability to stay focussed at the object of meditation, say the details of the breath.

We can see that these are positive factors associated with the different faculties, of thought, feeling and body. They are the natural states those faculties come into when undisturbed, and when left to ‘contemplate’ themselves.

It is as if they all get to come up to their best, given the chance, through our application of mindfulness at the object of concentration. In the first dhyana, we can think very clearly and in a sustained way, about anything we want. This stage of concentration is often used by buddhists to reflect on conceptual truths, such as those of interconnectedness or impermanence. Although these are more than just concepts, they are realities, at the level of thought we can contemplate them and satisfy ourselves as to their validity.

Going Deeper - The Second Dhyana However, it is not the end of the road to have a clear rational conviction about the nature of reality. After all, we often know what is the wisest thing to do, and then consistently fail to do it. Beyond the first dhyana in meditation are three further dhyanas, each of which takes us deeper and deeper. Each as it were takes our knowing more and more ‘to ground’. Ultimately we want to take whatever knowledge we have and in the first place get emotionally interested in it. To develop it as a passion. In the end we need to take it right into the core of our being, into our body. Thgis is what I mean by taking our knowledge ‘to ground’. A process similar to this seems to be operating with the dhyanas.

In the second dhyana, Initial and Sustained Thought, in fact all thought, dies away. One experiences the other factors more strongly, with the feeling-based ones predominating. The text says:-

The monk with the ceasing of reasoning and investigation, in a state of internal serenity, with his mind fixed on one point, attains and abides in the second dhyana of joy and pleasure arising from concentration, and free from reasoning and investigation.

In the first dhyana we had ‘pleasure and joy born from seclusion’. In the second dhyana we have ‘pleasure and joy born from concentration’. What might this be refering to?

In the first dhyana we have the three faculties, body, emotions and thoughts happily getting ‘contemplating’, minding their own business, supported by an awake state of mind that is fed by paying attention to the details of the breath. The faculties are like a group of people meditating.

When a group of people are meditating they are not interacting in the normal sense. But by virtue of what they are trying to do they can have a positive effect on each other. They inspire each other.

There is something about contact with what is going on in the feeling and body zones that both warms up and calms down the thinking process. It is as if thoughts slow down, change from a discourse, where they are moving from one viewpoint to another, to a non-discursive type of thinking, comprising of a stillness, a resting in one place, that is more of the quality of inspiration. We are usually inspired by something, which is the something the thought is resting on. The second dhyana is a place of inspiration, of joy and upwelling emotion. Yet it isn’t an upwelling in the sense of excitement. It is more an upwelling into depth or calm.

The image the Buddha has for this is of a deep still lake being fed from below by an underground stream. The stream represents the inspiration, coming it feels like from outside oneself. Perhaps we could think of the lake of our understanding being filled by that inspiration.

Of course, what is going on in the second dhyana is supported by the first dhyana. In a way that is still going on underneath, in the sense that each of the faculties is still ‘in seclusion’, each is still there in awareness. We haven’t stopped using our thinking or body faculty, just because we are experiencing the feeling one more. We can think, instead of closing down, that as we pass through the dhyanas, we are opening up to more and more. In the first dhyana we were open to our thoughts. On a clear platform of seclusion, we were able to run through them unhindered and clearly. In the second dhyana we are open to both our feelings and our thoughts. Reason and Emotion combined. The realm of the Artist, the Symbol and the Imagination.

As we go through the dhyanas our capacity to hold more develops. In the third dhyana we are open to Reason, Emotion and the Body. The inclusion of the Body brings stability. This is the realm of the Mystic, the Yogi. The image is of Lotus Plants growing in and immersed in water. The water of Inspiration is everywhere around the Yogi because it is everywhere in his body. His body is in the Inspiration, which makes it calm, stable, peaceful and blissful.

In the fourth dhyana, Reason, Emotion, the Body and the Object of Concentration are all included. As there is nothing now not included, we are in the realm of One-Pointed Concentration. So long as we continue to bring everything of ourselves to the Object of Concentration, we will stay here, totally absorbed in the Object. As such our mindfulness will protect us completely from anything. The Budda’s image here is of a man wrapped in a clean white sheet having taken a bath on a hot day, an image of purity and protection.

Concentration comes out of Experience It should be noted that at no point in this process are we asked to change our experience from that which it is. We should be more cheerful, ethical or whatever. In fact, according to the process I have outlined, that is counterproductive to getting into a dhyanic state, which in buddhism is seen as karmically very positive.

Our experience might change from being tense, or grumpy, into the dhyanas, but it only does so through entering into our experience as it is, and dealing with it using contemplation in the broadest sense, as outlined earlier. It is a non-violent approach, to our experience. Each faculty reflects on where its’ own experience leads to. It can only do this with awareness. The awareness provided by mindfulness.

This is what each faculty experiences when left alone to get on with it. I think the first dhyana is a state of harmony, based in seclusion from the world through mindfulness, and in internal non-violence between the faculties, body, feelings and thoughts. Each of the faculties has attained harmony within itself through contemplation of the outcomes of its internal states. If this is true, to attain dhyana, our mindfulness needs to be very broad based, and sensitive in a variety of ways. We need to keep opening up to all the foundations. We need to keep creating internal space within which that can happen, within which we can contemplate in ways other than thinking. Space that will stop us contemplating just with some of our faculties. Only by contemplating with all our faculties will we break through to Enlightenment. mind zone

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 Mrs Caroline Rhys Davids was one of the early western commentators on buddhism writing back in 1914. She contrasts the buddhist conception of mind with its ancient Greek counterpart-

where the Greek view, which we inherit, 'parcels off the flow and continuum of experience (into whole and parts, genus and species), dividing the knowable into bundles, and ranging the individual everywhere under the more general', the buddhist thinker, especially in the philosophy of mind, saw everywhere confluences, conjunctures of conditions and tendencies, from which at a given locus something individual came to pass. The buddhist 'stood for the emergence of the Particular', the Greek 'for the revelation of the Universal'. (Buddhist Psychology p8)

So what is Mrs Rhys-Davids contrasting? Mind isn't just that which examines the world, but is itself to be examined for what emerges from it. In buddhism Mind is about its own state, brought about by the confluence of conditions. It is more about its content than its philosophy. This points to it having an ethical dimension. These days we use skilful and unskilful, but,

'For the Buddhist, the ethical goodness or badness of a state of consciousness was a primary quality of that consciousness no less than, for us, extension and solidity are reckoned as primary qualities of external things, accessible to touch.' (Buddhist Psychology p10)

Or its ethical nature is as consequential as the world of tangible objects. She continues -

These ethical qualities 'are integral parts of the content of our mental activity, wrought up in its texture. (Buddhist Psychology p10, my italics),

In fact buddhist Mind has an ethical and a philosophical dimension, as indicated in having the two terms Citta and Manus for Mind.

Citta is sometimes translated as Mind, but better as Heart. It covers the texture of what emerges from Mind, as a response to our experience. Texture points to tangibility of our mental states. The entry in the Pali-English Dictionary says -

'The meaning of citta is best understood when explaining it by expressions familiar to us, as : with all my heart; heart and soul; I have no heart to do it.....; all of which emphasize the emotional and conative [impulsive] side of "thought" more than its mental and rational side (for which see manas and vinnana). It may therefore be rendered by intention, impulse, design; mood, disposition, state of mind, reaction to impressions.' (Pali-English Dictionary p?, my comment in square brackets)

The 'Greek side' of Mind is represented, by Manas. Manas is what perceives dhammas (mental events, the fourth satipatthana). Known as the mind sense, it perceives a mental object in the same way the eye perceives a visual object. Mental objects (also sometimes called mental concomitants) are anything that appears in the mind, that includes mental images, ideas, opinions, views, anything we name, concepts and so on. The Pali-English Dictionary says Manas represents the intellectual functioning of consciousness, Citta its subjective aspect' (Pali-English Dictionary p?).

The ethical nature of Citta is reinforced when we consider the term bodhicitta (the citta of an enlightened [bodhi] being). Bodhicitta is sometimes misleadingly translated as 'thought of enlightenment'. More accurately it is the 'will to enlightenment'. (Sangharakshita - book p?), the (transpersonal) force or impulse behind a bodhisattva who has vowed to help all sentient beings gain enlightenment. Avalokitesvara, the archetypal bodhisattva of compassion, holds a symbol that represents the bodhicitta, which he appropriately holds to his heart. It is a wish-fulfilling jewel (cintamani) that grants all desires. This is the heart's response of an enlightened being.

Unenlightened Citta is still an impulse, but of a different nature. What it is bent on varies. Sometimes it moves towards enlightenment (at a certain intensity this becomes the bodhicitta), and sometimes it moves away from it. An example occurs in the instructions read as guidance to a person who has just died, taken from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The book describes how a person, after they have died, see series of images. Buddha figures appear to them along with bright lights, as well as duller lights emanating from the mundane realms of existence. The text encourages the person to trust the light coming from the buddha, and move towards it, not towards the duller (but more familiar)light of ordinary existence. These choices appear over and over again. To move towards the bright light or the dull light. Generally what happens is the person, in a state of stress on dying, will want comfort and familiarity and will move towards the dull light of ordinary existence, but they keep having the choice to be guided by a more enlightened vision (the bright light). Eventually, usually, the person is reborn, and carries on their mundane existence. Whether we believe this will happen or not, it illustrates the choices that Mind (Citta) always has. At any one time Citta has a certain momentum and direction, which, because it is conditioned, can be changed, hence citta bhavana, a term for meditation (bhavana is development, so citta bhavana is heart and mind development, which is what meditation is). Hence meditation practices like the metta bhavana (the development of metta, or universal loving kindness), metta being a quality that can be developed as an aspect of citta.

Mind and Movement Any response is a movement, whether a compassionate response to the suffering of another person, or a grasping response to an object that attracts. In the compassionate response our mind moves. The word is anukampa, which means 'trembles with'. When attuned in this way to a fellow living being, when they experience feeling (when a 'psychic movement' happens in them) we feel that movement too, due to empathy. The largest 'psychic movement' anyone can feel is probably when a person dies. Attuned to that, we are moved the most. We resonate with their loss, with loss ourselves. Through being attuned to others in this way, we can learn from their experiences.

But most of the time the mind moves in unproductive ways. It moves towards food when not hungry, away from people it doesn't like. Moving all the time, it creates a world around it. Depending what we create with it, that world can be one of helpfulness and cooperation, or greed and violence. If we stop and look at the mind, in meditation, we can end up contributing stillness, love and insight to the world at large. In fact the world of the future is being created by movements originating in its inhabitants minds now. The world can go in any direction. Sentient beings all contribute to that. The well known buddhist phrase 'Mind precedes everything' is a statement about how we live in such a mind-driven universe.

The third satipatthana Citta is the third satipatthana, or frame of reference. As such it is the third thing we need to place our attention near if we are to remain safe. We need to pay attention to the texture of our heart, and the particular states that emerge from it. The text says -

'the practitioner dwells contemplating the mind in the mind' (bhikkhu citte cittanupassi viharati).

Other readings of this might be -

'the practitioner dwells seeing in accordance with the heart, the heart', 'the practitioner dwells seeing the heart with the heart', 'the practitioner dwells seeing after (the manner of) the mind, the mind', 'the practitioner dwells seeing the mind again and again with the mind', 'the practitioner dwells seeing repeatedly the mind with the mind'.

Or, the practitioner dwells seeing the heart from the perspective of the heart (from the perspective of ethics). Or, the practitioner dwells seeing the mind from the perspective of mind (from the perspective of awareness).

Basically the practitioner dwells (in meditation) seeing the textures and movements of their hearts and minds across a range of parameters. The way they 'dwell contemplating the mind in the mind' according to the text, is -

The monk understands the consciousness with lust, as with lust; the consciousness without lust, as without lust; the consciousness with hate, as with hate; the consciousness without hate, as without hate.....with delusion.....without delusion. The text is pointing to three ways in which the heart / mind can move. With or without lust. With or without hate. With or without delusion. Each of these forms a spectrum of movement. The question is to what degree (on the spectrum) is the mind moving with lust. This is worth knowing, because according to buddhism lust is a poison (one of the three poisons - greed, hatred and delusion). It does harm to the world (including to ourself). Another question we might ask is -"What shape is the heart making?", "What shape is it making of the world?", "What is the heart contributing to the world?" The function of this satipatthana is to make conscious whether we are responding to the world for its benefit, or to its poison.

Consciousness In the last section we saw it was easy to move from a feeling to a response without necessarily having known we've done it. One of the main aspects of 'contemplating the mind in the mind' is consciousness. To be conscious of unconsciousness in the mind. A first step may be to make our unconscious responses more conscious. Let's not forget our unconscious responses still 'make up the world (and our world)'. So it is helpful to know when we have made a unconscious choice. An example is when, experiencing 'depressing' sensations, like gloomy weather, without being conscious of it, we become depressed. We don't have to get depressed because of gloomy weather, if we are conscious of other choices, and that getting depressed is a choice we have unconsciously made.

Unconscious Responses to Vedana We can illustrate these unconscious responses to feeling. Suppose we feel tired, lethargic, a bit overwhelmed. Those are feeling as sensation, vedana. Our Mind might then unconsciously move in the direction of the mental state of depression. This is feeling as emotion, citta. Unconscious responses often fool us into thinking they are vedana, because they have a similar feeling tone to the original sensory stimulation. We unconsciously respond to dull sensation with a dull response. A reaction rather than a response. We may not even think we have responded. We just 'feel depressed', as if it is something happening to us over which we have no control. A 'heavy' experience doesn't have to lead to a 'heavy' mood. Vedana is sensation arising in relation to the form of our experience that we can respond to more or less consciously and creatively. We could say vedana is the sum total of all the 'hedonic' impressions that impact on us at any particular time. These may originate from a mixture of sources: physical, ethical, and cognitive.

Creative responses to Feeling Creative responses, on the other hand, will tend to be more distinguishable in tone from the original sensation, because they have been considered and chosen. A response of care and concern looks very different in feeling tone to depression. In fact it may seem counterintuitive because of that. We might feel the correct response is to go with the flow of the heavy sensation, and match it with a heavy response. That seems more like common sense.

Perhaps reactive responses, being so similar to it, obscure the actual experience.(eh?) Creative responses, perhaps because they are so obviously different from the experience, tend to reveal it more clearly. To respond creatively, we need to hold vedana, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says, in non- judgemental awareness. It also helps to be aware of the form it arose along with, its source. If we say, 'When I get in touch with my body, I feel (describe sensation)', we have a clear idea it is my body I am responding to. If the feeling arises from looking at how ones life is going, we have a clear idea it is Manas we are responding to. We experience the body only in the present moment, within the physical senses. That is useful to know. It grounds our experience of feeling. We know if we can locate a feeling in the body that it is a feeling and not a response. If a feeling originates in a view that may show up in the body too in some way. The body may be conditioned by it, and feeling may come out of that.

Feeling and Emotion The fact is we often confuse Citta with Vedana. This is reflected in the way we use the word feeling both for sensation (Vedana) and emotion (Citta). The Buddha gives them different names for a good reason. Vedana is the sensation presented to us at each moment by our experience. As such we have no control over it, but Citta is something we have choice over. We need to know what we have power over and what we don't, so keeping feeling as sensation and feeling as emotion separate in our experience is important. Otherwise we might not accept responsibility for what we do have power over (our responses), and falsely take responsibility for what we don't have power over (our feelings in terms of vedana). The consequences of these views being, in a negative state of mind we might think there is nothing we can do about it, and feeling bad we might think we deserve it.

Moving Towards It is easy when one doesn't like something to be pushed into a reaction by it. But we can regain composure by acknowledging the feeling - that we don't like what is happening to us. 'I don't like that', and carrying on. We don't even have to 'move away' from the unpleasant experience, just acknowledge the truth of how we feel about it. Something of this is encapsulated in the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. He uses buddhist mindfulness practice to help people suffering from chronic physical or emotional pain. Rather than trying to avoid it, he encourages the patient experiencing pain to 'move towards' it. This might seem counterintuitive, but it seems to work.

Why might it work?

If we move away from the pain, we are shielding ourself from it. This happens when we tense ourselves physically against it. Or, we recoil mentally from it. We do not want to admit it as part of our reality. That moving away is a withdrawal of awareness, of mindfulness, from a potential satipatthana.

Vidyamala in an article in Dharma Life magazine talks about a very difficult night she experienced, where because of a medical test she had to remain sitting upright with acute spinal injuries all night. After going crazy at the thought it wasn't possible, she reached a point in the night where in desperation a realisation came to her; that she could always cope with life one moment at a time.

When we try to escape our experience we escape the process of following the satipatthana sequence - body, feeling, heart / mind, assessment. We break it or don't even start. Once we have left the present moment, the body becomes an idea, not a reality, and we cannot start. If we break the sequence at feeling, we don't get the chance to move on to develop heart and mind.

When we acknowledge we don't like something, it is the truth of the situation. When we acknowledge physical pain, that too is the truth of that situation. Seeing the truth, it is easier then to 'move our mind' in relation to it, in a way that is helpful and productive. Perhaps by moving it towards the experiencer, and caring for them. Moving Towards One thing suggested by Stephen Levine's teaching, the man in the Les Murray poem, and by the 'wasp's nest', was that one needs to move towards one's experience. Particularly by bringing awareness and care to it. Perhaps too by facing it with courage. That is what the pure mind does. It engages in a real way with the objects around it. Particularly it engages with the four foundations of mindfulness.

Acceptance The man in the poem so fully accepts his feelings that he doesn't care about showing them to the whole city. What this does in terms of mindfulness of feelings is it puts him on solid ground. He cannot then be 'knocked off his perch'. There is nowhere lower to go. This is the truth of what is going on for him. And to this truth, from the crowd, comes a genuine response.

Motivation If we are a bit leaden dealing with people, we are probably still at the object stage. It takes less effort to treat people as objects than as living beings. Objects are predictable and easy to move like when we move a salt pot across a table. People are more complicated, moving them is no simple matter. All sorts of different conditions need to be met, before they will move. They often need to feel we understand them. That we are not just trying to impose our ideas on them. If we try to move them against their will, they will fight back. Yet they will be moved when, like with the grandma, we leave them alone to be themselves. True metta provides the conditions to move a being towards happiness, but not using force like an object, but instead using such nonviolent things as encouragement and consent.

Mindfulness (cf Lust) We need to be conscious of all four foundations, not just feeling or response.

Insight (cf Delusion)

After the 'shapes' of greed, hatred and delusion, the Buddha then goes into other 'shapes' that the heart/mind can take. Next he effectively says 'To what degree is the heart/mind expansive?' Taking Citta as a 'reaction to impressions', and feeling is an impression, we might ask ourselves 'how open are we to feeling in ourselves and others? This is the basis of the metta bhavana. Feeling is Vedana. We may be sensitive or insensitive to Vedana. That is one aspect of consciousness. Our sensitivity. But if we are sensible to feeling, it doesn't necessarily follow we will respond with an expansive state of mind. We might respond to suffering with anxiety, which is a contracted state of mind. But responding to suffering with an expansive state of mind, with perspective, is more productive. We are more likely to be able to be helpful. Compassion is an expansive state of mind but its near enemy, known as horrified anxiety, isn't. A different way we might think of the heart/mind being expansive is in terms of its scope of interest. How inclusive is our heart. for instance, in caring about other beings?

There may be various ways to think of our mind as expansive. I suppose one is expansive in the sense of covering all four foundations with awareness. We have practices in buddhism to develop in particular awareness, kindness and insight into reality. A mind that is most expansive would cover all three.

Kindness (cf Hatred) When we teach the metta bhavana meditation we often talk about getting into more positive expansive mental states, so perhaps this is a good place to look at kindness and the metta bhavana. To get an experiential feel for it, imagine a time when you were held warmly in somebodys gaze, and how it felt. A time when you were patiently waited upon, or someone was being very quiet and attentive to you, ready to listen to whatever you had to say. All those have the flavour of kindness. Or when someone was gently encouraging when we felt disheartened. A friendly hand on our shoulder. We all know the feeling, when someone is being kind to us. We feel valued. We are conscious that another person is shaping their own world to better fit us into it. They are creating space for, being sensitive to, whoever we might be.

Being kind is immensely useful. On the receiving end of it, we can be put back in touch with ourselves, the selves we've forgotten being caught up in the world. We aren’t always in touch with our fragile humanity, and one kind action by another person can put that back on the agenda. And it spreads. We then tend to be more sensitive to others in turn. In fact, if they are honest, probably all beings at heart want to be related to kindly. Each wants to be cherished, valued, and respected. Perhaps having an instinct for their own value, they know value is to be cherished. So one way of looking at it is kindness acknowledges the value of living beings. A kind person handles people carefully, so not to damage them. Of course they do this with awareness. Kindness isn't about being soft. We don't avoid the harsh realities. Sometimes we have to be 'cruel to be kind'.

Awareness of the Reality of People Because of these reasons we could say kindness is real in the sense that it takes on the reality of what people are, what living beings are. To get a flavour of this reality, imagine a child visiting her kindly old grandma. The childs’ experience of the grandma is they have a feeling of total unconditional acceptance. The child knows for certain they are welcome, there is no doubt about it. I am using a grandma as an example because the grandma often has less vested interest in a child than its parents. They are happy if the child is happy. The child picks this up, and is relaxed, and is more able to think about their own happiness and what they need to achieve it, not about pleasing their parents. That is all the grandma is interested in, and the child knows it. This example of the child and the grandma illustrates that metta is not about grandma's feelings. It isn't about a warm glow, but about the child's belief about the intentions of the grandma. It is about the 'shape' that the grandma presents to the child being of actual benefit to the child. The 'shape' of their mind and the reshaping of their world that comes out of that shape. They may reshape the childs' world by giving them objects of benefit but at root of any beneficial action is the 'shape' of their mind. Seeing people in this way is an act of the imagination. Our minds have to reach over to the other person to perceive a higher reality than one where we treat living beings as objects. Body and feelings can seem like objects even though they are part of oneself. But the whole is a different story. It is a person. A subject. A centre of experience. This is the reality of a person, a living being.

Visiting Grandma Imagine you are a child visiting your grandma. Old people in the family can have a less utilitarian approach to children than their parents. They aren’t so concerned with whether the children are being a success of not, they don’t have so much invested in them in that sense. They are just interested in if the child is happy. Which can be an immense relief to the child.

The child feels accepted unconditionally for whoever they are. Warts and all. They don’t have to be doing anything special. With the kindly grandma, they know for certain that whatever they do, it will be OK by her. When we are doing the Metta Bhavana, we can try doing it in this way. With each person we have to work on trying to have to same attitude to them as the old grandma, so that if they met us they would know for certain we were unconditionally behind them. When I have done the Metta Bhavana in this way I have found I need to work quite hard at the practice. It really feels like a kamatthana, a ‘place of work’.

The Metta Bhavana In meditation we consciously work on aspects of ourselves. We can work on kindness using a meditation called the metta bhavana. We take on developing kindness and sensitivity towards people, toward other living beings. Here we are being mindful not of objects, but beings. We are trying to dwell in what it is to be a living being. That is our place, house, abode, in this meditation. We forget sometimes the fullness of what being a person is about, and need then to remember. This often happens whenever someone is kind to us.

To get a flavour ofthe metta bhavana imagine a child visiting their kindly old grandma. The childs’ experience of the grandma is a feeling of totally unconditional acceptance. The child knows, for certain, they are welcome. Warts and all. They have no doubt about it. I am using a grandma here as an example because a grandma often has less vested interest in a child than its parents. They often are just happy if the child is happy. Thats the main thing they are interested in. The child really knows that intuitively. The grandma isn't just saying it. The child picks that up, and feels relaxed.

We aren't always like the kindly old grandma with each other. Sometimes people can be being friendly, but we can still feel uneasy in their presence. We still have the feeling they want us to be a certain way. They like us but perhaps we would be better without this trait, or we could do better at school. We could be different from who we are. This effectively means they don’t want the real us there. We are normally sensitive and pick that up. Grandma though dearly want you, the real you, to be there. She doesn't want you to be any different from who you are, unless you want to be. She is mainly interested in your happiness. The child with the grandma feels affirmed, feels free to be themselves. They are able to relax, to say and do what they like. Their life feels their own. And because they are encouraged to take possession of their lives, they feel good, about themselves.

That is the situation with the grandma and the child. Imagine other people feeling this way when they were with us. Or we did when by ourselves. This is the flavour of the metta bhavana. It isn't enough to just be friendly to people, we need to come from their perspective. To start to know and understand them, and know and understand ourselves. Without metta, we are at the object stage. We treat people as objects. Objects are predictable, easy to move, like passing the salt across the table. Moving people is a less simple matter. They are much more complicated. Many conditions need to be met before people will move. They need to feel understood them, that we aren't t imposing our ideas upon them. If we try moving them against their will, they will no doubt fight back. But they may be moved in all sorts of ways when, like the grandma, we let them be themselves. Metta is inherently nonviolent. It helps move beings toward happiness not by using force, but by using encouragement and consent.

Giving metta is like being at the grandma's end of things. We make the effort to give whoever we are with (including with in our imagination) a certain experience. The experience of the child when with the grandma. Of course, if we are with an actual person they may not have that experience because there may be all sorts of other things going on for them. Even the Buddha failed to get through to people at times. It takes two to make communication. But the important thing is the purity of our intention. We can work on having the internal attitude of the grandma no matter what is going on. Using this metaphor in the metta bhavana makes the meditation quite workmanlike. It becomes less about generating a feeling in ourselves (which metta isn't. Metta may condition warm feelings, but it isn't a warm feeling in itself) and more about being ready for another person. With each person in the meditation we have to imagine if they were there with us, what we would need to be like to convince them of our unconditional kind regard for them, just like the kindly old grandma.

We can’t create happiness for them It is not that our well wishing makes everything alright. It can’t. The conditions that create happiness come from multiple sources. Sources like our metta will help. If like Eric Berne, we present a strong affirming no-nonsense presence for them, it is possible they will ‘catch’ that and become affirming presences for themselves. But a proportion of the creative conditions have to come from them.

The Metta Bhavana In meditation (citta bhavana) we look at what is there (in terms of citta) and modify it if necessary. The Metta Bhavana meditation modifies that aspect of citta which perceives the reality of living beings. Like the grandma with the child, we approach living beings with an un-self- referential interest in their welfare. We are interested in their experience (of life) and we wish them well in our heart of hearts. This is all there is to the meditation. Meditation reflects the fact that if we don't sit down and consciously develop something, if we leave it to chance it may not happen. There will always be something else to do. We could see the metta bhavana as clearing mental space just to consider living beings. To dwell in the realm of what it is to be a living being. Our abode is just that. We might think of different meditations as different houses or rooms that we go and dwell in for a while. In each house we dwell with our hearts and minds on a different topic. In the metta house we just give our heart and mind to living beings.

It is said that metta has three sublime qualities. It is universal, unconditional, and unlimited (in intensity). We have already explored unconditional in the grandma not wanting anything in return for her kindly interest. True metta is its own reward. The reward is that we are aware of an aspect of reality, we are in line with reality, which can only bring satisfaction. Metta is also universal. Our mind can encompass the universe of living beings in the sense that in theory we can have the same love toward one being as toward any other being vin the universe. Fully developed metta has no preference. This is reflected in the symbolism of the buddha Amitabha (Infinite Light), the buddha of love, whose warm red light (read awareness) reaches all beings in the universe, illuminating them with love. Thirdly, metta is an illimitable. It can be developed up to an infinite degree of intensity. I find this quite encouraging. Such love must be able to move mountains, and is a long way from easy sentiment that then never does anything. To transform the world, to reshape experience across the planet needs a lot of 'impulse power'. Like Vajrapani (Reality-in-hand), we would have plenty of viria (energy in pursuit of the good)at our disposal. These three aspects point to metta at the far end of the spectrum, the metta present in an enlightened being. The principle in the metta bhavana is that we try to move our heart/mind towards this end of the spectrum. We try to extend the scope, intensity, and disinterestedness of our kindness towards living beings beyond its present level.

The best translation of Metta Bhavana is the Cultivation of Universal Loving Kindness. Bhavana is cultivation or development, in Sanskrit, and Metta is Universal Loving Kindness. Buddhists use the term metta rather than kindness or love because that helps it keep its specific buddhist connotations. But the overall feeling is that of kindness or empathy toward all beings throughout the universe. The Buddha in the scriptures asked his followers ‘imbue all the worldly directions with loving kindness’. This spirit is expressed in the Karaniya Metta Sutta, which shows the kinds of things we need to do to reach the freedom of nirvana, via the path of unlimited friendliness.

The best translation of Metta Bhavana is the Cultivation of Universal Loving Kindness. Bhavana is cultivation or development, in Sanskrit, and Metta is Universal Loving Kindness. As buddhists we use the term metta rather than kindness or love so as not to blur its specific buddhist connotations. The overall feeling is of kindness, empathy towards all beings throughout the universe. The Buddha asked his followers to ‘imbue all the worldly directions with loving kindness’. The spirit is expressed in the Karaniya Metta Sutta, which shows what we need to do, to reach nirvana via a path of unlimited friendliness.

It is interesting to compare what I have been describing above with the Karaniya Metta Sutta, to see how things fit.

The Karaniya Metta Sutta (The Path of Unlimited Friendliness) Translated from the Pali by Ratnaprabha If you know what is truly good for you and understand the possibility of reaching a state of perfect peace, then this is how you need to live.

Start as a capable person, who is upright (really upright), gently spoken, flexible, and not conceited. Then become contented and happy, with few worries and an uncomplicated life. Make sure your sense experience is calm and controlled, be duly respectful, and don’t hanker after families or groups. And avoid doing anything unworthy, that wiser people would criticise.

Then meditate like this: May all be happy and feel secure. May all beings become happy in their heart of hearts! And think of every living thing without exception: the weak and the strong, from the smallest to the largest, whether you can see them or not, living nearby or far away, beings living now or yet to arise - may all beings become happy in their heart of hearts!

May no one deceive or look down on anyone anywhere, for any reason, whether through feeling angry or through reacting to someone else, may no one want another to suffer. As strongly as a mother, perhaps risking her life, cherishes her child, her only child, develop an unlimited heart for all beings. Develop an unlimited heart of friendliness (metta) for the entire universe, sending metta above, below, and all around, beyond all narrowness, beyond all rivalry, beyond all hatred.

Whether you are staying in one place or travelling, sitting down or in bed, in all your waking hours rest in this mindfulness, which is known as like living in heaven right here and now! In this way, you will come to let go of views, be spontaneously ethical, and have perfect Insight. And leaving behind craving for sense pleasures, from the rounds of rebirth you will finally be completely free.

Desire Unlimited, Metta Unlimited The first sentence shows why we don't need anything back from metta, why metta is unconditional. Metta itself is what is truly good for us, other desires are not as good as metta. It implies that a new computer, or whatever, is not as good for us as developing metta. Metta that is unlimited in its intensity. But where do we get the unlimited energy we need to put into metta. Metta is essentially desire, so it must be a case of gradually transfering all the energies we put into our other desires, which aren't truly good for us, into metta. Instead of wishing we were in a different situation, we can just wish ourselves well in the situation we are in. That is more direct, and achievable. In our pursuits of happiness we often desire things which are symbols of happiness, like money and status. Things that aren’t it themselves but we think will bring it. Metta though is more direct. It is like contemplating the thing itself. We orbit the notion of what happiness is, and in that it becomes more real. Metta is unlimited, it never comes to an end. Chasing material possessions is only fulfilled by getting them, there is a limit to what we can get, material desire is always blocked. Perhaps rich people see this the most, and lose hope. But with metta our desire can never diminish. It can just get stronger and stronger. Our life can be channelled towards more and more meaningfulness. We can be more and more expansive and outward looking. That meaning doesn’t depend on what comes back. We can always be more interested in, more finely tuned towards, more sensitive to living beings. We can just go on and on developing it, leaving more and more of our old dull concerns behind. Often helping beings to be happier is simply about giving them our friendliness, interest and attention, about showing care and taking them into account. So we could say metta is about transfering our desires from the mundane things and to the desire for the happiness of all beings. It is difficult to desire two things at the same time. In the end they will be in competition. We need to choose which one to let go of, so we can put our attention on the other. This is effectively what the sutta says. Have a simple life of few desires. It also says we need to be capable.

To become rich or powerful in a worldly sense we need to be a capable person. There is no getting round this. It is obvious. It is less obvious superficially that we need to be capable to develop metta. But if you think about it, the powerful worldly person has strong desires that they channel to effect to get what they want. The 'powerful spiritual person' (read, with intense metta) has equally strong desires as the powerful worldly person. To channel those effectively, they need to be perhaps even more capable than the powerful worldly person. They need to be capable of delivering not just what seems to bring happiness (like money) but what actually does bring happiness (what is really needed).

In the first sentence it says if you understand the possibility of reaching a state of perfect peace, this is how you should behave. What is implied is faith that perfect peace is attainable. That insight is possible. This is the real motivation to transfer ones desires to metta, it is the good that metta leads to. And as we practice metta we need to see this working, see more peace happening. I imagine this is the grandma's experience. As trust develops between her and the child, there is more peace, more unspoke n understanding between them.

Link in with grannie metta qualities !!

The sutta then says to be upright (really upright). This is paying close attention to the details of our ethics. It follows naturally from a mind imbued with kindness. We will be keenly sensitive to the helpfulness of our actions. It is not about being vaguely good, but about being interested in the specifics of what is the right thing is to do at each moment. Then gently spoken, flexible, not conceited. These are qualities of harmony and cooperation. (get inside the experience) The grandma is flexible in the sense of letting the 'shape' of the child into her world. She doesn't think 'better than, worse than' but just 'as is'.

The Rationalle for Metta We may at times find it hard to connect with why we should develop metta. I have found a watertight argument for it if I reflect on the truth of three statements. Putting them all together leaves me with certain ethical implications.

Statement no. 1 Every living being wants to be happy Statement no. 2 Every action effects the universe Statement no. 3 We are interconnected to all the sentient beings in the universe

Statement no. 1 Every living being wants to be happy As we explored in the section on feeling, living beings are sensitive to feeling. Are there any exceptions? Are some beings indifferent to suffering? Why would they be? We have to be honest in our assessment, it may be convenient to think they aren't. One way or another all beings are oriented primarily towards satisfaction. We can see this in terms of needs. They obviously need food warmth and shelter. They also have higher needs like health, social needs, warmth, affection, all of which at any time may be satisfied or not. Even martyrdom brings a certain payoff, as a satisfaction about what one thinks one has politically achieved. [Pirsig on Ethics in here] A list of needs which the practicing buddhist might want to help beings with comes in the Bodhicaryavatara, a guide for the bodhisattva, the being who practices the path of altruism par excellence.

Quote - 'For all beings, may I be a wish fulfilling gem, etc' (List of needs)

This truth, if we believe it is true, underpins every action of every living being. No matter what they think, do or say, their primary motive is to meet a need for satisfaction. For happiness. For fulfillment. They think it will bring them those things.

Statement no. 2 Every action effects the universe The law of karma is that actions have consequences. Ethical consequences. What that means is each action brings about satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, for a living being affected by it. Each action creates a 'shape' in the experience of a living being that is either pleasant or unpleasant. Even actions we are unconscious of performing have still been performed and will still have an effect.

Actions are threefold - physical, actions of speech, and actions taking place in the mind: thoughts and mental impulses. Actions that satisfy are called skilful. Those that bring unhappiness are called unskilful.

Ethics is often a matter of sensitivity. We mostly cause harm, not out of malice, but through unawareness or insensitivity to the effects we are creating.

Statement no. 3 We are interconnected to all the sentient beings in the universe To the extent that a being is sentient, it will be open to influence through its senses including the mind sense. As another being we have the capacity to be an influence on its experience. In theory this influence exists for any being anywhere. We no doubt have largest effect on those we are in closest proximity to. But in principle we are connected with every being everywhere. To the extent that they have sentience, we can affect them.

Our actions then, have a ripple effect outwards.

If we think these statements are all true, we end up with the fact that we are connected to all the living beings in the universe, each of whom wants happiness, satisfaction, and that what we do has an effect on them. We would want the effect we are having on them to be as positive as possible, or we would at least have that desire. That desire is called metta, or universal loving kindness. It flows naturally when we really see these three truths.

We want the best for all life everywhere, so we shape our responses to provide that. We know that whatever we do, whichever way we move, we affect the world. So we create something, we mould a shape in the world that is an ethical shape. It is a kind shape, an aware shape, a generous shape. We do this in the shape of our actions, the shape of our speech, and the shape of our Mind

The Metta Bhavana - A Structured Meditation In the earliest mentionings of the development of metta the Buddha just said to flood all the directions of space with loving kindness. Later the metta bhavana became a structured meditation with five stages. In the first stage, we develop this loving kindness and sensitivity towards ourselves. There may be several ways of doing this We might take on the role of kindly grandmother towards ourselves. Are we unconditionally welcoming towards ourselves? We probably aren't. We could then try to develop more of an unlimited heart towards ourselves in the way the grandmother has one towards the child. The test is not in feeling we are welcome to ourselves, but knowing we are. The language of doing something toward ourselves can seem a bit strange. But we are as deserving of our attention as any being is. Metta is about generating the certainty and confidence that we are really are behind ourselves. If we have this certainty, it makes ourselves more robust. We can always come back to this source of confidence backing, that that at least one person in the universe is behind us.

One of the benefits of directing metta towards ourselves is we don't have to stay with our first response. Through metta, whenever we wake up in the morning feeling lacklustre with no interest in getting up, we can work on a different response. And carry on working on different responses all day if we wish. When we accept our initial response as the end of story, that is like the child facing indifference from the grandmother, nothing more can happening. But we can ask more of ourselves than that. We can change our emotions. If we don't like response to events, we can go about changing it by seeing it as a response. (over which we have power to control). We eventually find more creative responses by not just accepting the given.

We can do this with any person we are directing metta towards. We can go to work on our responses towards them, until we feel they would then be more certain about us in our responses. Until they felt unconditionally welcome.

Experiencing metta is knowing for certain someone is behind us. This usually happens through experience, seeing their consistent behaviour over a long time, we develop trust and faith that they won't harm us. But the onus is on the giver to convince!

Metta has a receptive and an active aspect. We develop receptivity to the sensitivities of living beings. But then we then act on that receptivity, with a feelingful response. If we manage to reorient ourselves emotionally, our desire for other things will likely diminish. Material and other egocentric attachments like fame and pleasures of the senses, will cease to seem as important as being kind and helpful. In this way we are drawn towards the Buddha and other buddhists.

The Metta Bhavana - a led practice

Give attention to how the conditions around you support meditation, paying particular attention to body and feelings. Set up your posture so it is comfortable, and then be in touch with feeling. Know the form your body is taking and bring awareness to its future: is your bodily position sustainable. Is how your body is in line with how it has been designed to be used? Once you have established a good structural position you can maintain, is there muscular tension you can relax? Scan through the body using a practice like the body relaxation on p-- until you feel you have given your body sufficient time to settle and relax. You can come back periodically through the meditation to re- check and make adjustments when necessary. Be aware then of feeling (that is, of each separate type). Be aware of sensation whose origin is in the body, kayika vedana: physical pleasures and pains. Then be aware of your general mood, cetasika vedana: the pleasures and pains arising when you consider life and the outcomes that have come to you from it. Your hopes and disappointments and the feelings they cause. Finally be aware of any feeling that has a source based in sensitivity that is ethical in origin. When you remember things you have done, or how you have been in your actions in life, do feelings arise in relation recalling your actions? Try to be clear with each feeling which type it is, and then accept each as if it is a message arriving for you, in the present moment. When a message arrives it is no good pretending it hasn't arrived, or doesn't exist, or says something different to what it actually says. We need to be clear we have a message, what it says, and who sent it, in order to have a coherent reply. If the message is from our body, our reply needs to be addressed to body. If it comes from a mental source, from ideas about how things are, or we think should be, our reply needs to be directed to there. If our pleasure, or pain, is ethical, it is our ethics we need to address.

Bearing all this in mind, and coming regularly back to these feelings as the meditation continues, we can now begin to formulate our response. Our response is already going on, without our being conscious of it. At each moment we respond to our experience. We respond to all the different types of feeling. But with each type of feeling we can frame a response that is more positive than the one we have now, a response of loving kindness, of metta. Namely that whatever is happening, may I be well, may I be happy, may I not suffer, may my life be filled with meaning, with care and understanding.

The mettaful response to physical experience, is 'May I not suffer physically. May my body be well. May it be healthy and free from painful physical sensations'. From this response comes the impetus to look after ourselves, our bodies, more carefully. The mettaful response to mental experience (Ideas, conceptions, views) is something like "May I make progress'. We want to not suffer pain on account of how we see life. We suffer this sort of pain when our perspective is shattered by reality because it is not real. That cannot happen if we have generated insight, wisdom, and so thereby stay happy. The third type of mettaful response is towards our feelings about our actions. It summed up by the response 'May I be free from hatred'. It is no use whenever we fail to act with skilfulness, to pour scorn on ourselves. It doesn't help and is just more unskilfulness. It is more appropriate to love ourselves even when we feel pain about our actions. In fact it is important to do both. Self-metta protects and encourages our self, and feeling pain about our actions protects those who we may harm in the future by encouraging us to act more skilfully.

So we begin the metta bhavana with our response to our self. We spend enough time on that response to enable us to feel we have made some progress in it. Then we move onto our responses to other people. In fact to all sentient beings. We try to do the same thing we did with ourselves with others. We reflect they too have feelings, of the three kinds; that they experience physical sensation, mood (mental feeling), and ethical sensitivities. Just as we want the best for ourselves, we want the best for them too. Just because they are sentient. Because they have these different sensitivities.

We might think metta is about not causing beings pain, but it is more principial than that. When the health of ones body benefits from going through a pain barrier on a run ('no pain, no gain"), or when one positively benefits from disillusionment, are instances of how feelings might be subordinate to metta. The primary consideration is metta. We wanting what is best in each of the three areas, for beings in general.

So after we have developed care and sensitivity towards our own experience, which constitutes the first stage of the meditation, we usually then add four more stages. In the second stage we choose a good friend. In the third a person we feel neutral towards. These stages represent us moving first beyond ourselves and then beyond liking. The truths of metta do not depend on either of these. The truth is other beings, depending on their sensitivities, feel the same pains as we do. We don't have to like them for that to be true. They don't have to be us for that to be true either. We carry on in the fourth and fifth stages to develop metta toward a difficult person (an enemy) and then we expand the metta out to include representatives of all sentient beings everywhere. At each stage the process is the same. We imagine sentience in each being in turn and try to get 'behind them' with metta.

The way we do that in practice can vary depending on what works for us and may vary at different times. Simple repetition of phrases like 'May (the person) be happy. Free from suffering. May they make progress' can work simply by reminding us of the implications of them being alive.

Buddhism isn't about the avoidance of suffering.

Ways of Developing Metta

Keeping It Simple - A Gentle Process When we do the metta bhavana meditation it can be enough that we simply inhibit ourselves from dwelling on things other than people for the period of the meditation. We can even do this outside of meditation. Just reflecting on people, on living beings and their situation.

We can do this by clearing space in our minds, trying to keep it clear, and quite gently and gradually, almost by osmosis, letting people inhabit it. We need to do this gently and gradually because that is how when we meet someone we like to be greeted. It is easier to relax and feel at ease in somebody else’s company when we feel they have created a space for us to enter their world, and to do that at a pace we are happy with, that is if we want to. A space imbued with qualities like patience, kindness, sensitivity. That then feels like a real invitation to be there.

Some people quite naturally have this gentle sensitivity and openness to people they might meet, as if they are already oriented that way. But if we practice the metta bhavana in the right way, anyone can gradually develop that. Once we have opened that space in our minds, which is like our offering an invitation, we might need to wait for the invitation to be taken up. That might depend on the quality of our minds at the time. We may need to be patient. However, there are things we can do while we wait. We can, for one, think of someone we would like to be there for a while. We could begin by thinking about ourselves, about who we are. We could think about different aspects of ourselves. About all the different desires we might have. That might help us ‘turn up’. The main thing is that we end up with both the space and sensitivity to let a person be there, whether it be ourselves or another, and that we feel that person also consents to be there. At that point we can feel we are in a relaionship with a real person.

Once that relationship has become established, that might then be the stage where we decide to take that person ‘on board’ more as a person. We might consider them in terms of the happiness and sadness and the general range of emotions that they experience. If we have a genuine kindly relationship set up with them in our minds, it is natural that we will then experience a heartfelt concern for them that things go well for them and not badly. This concern we feel is metta. It can be felt toward any living being that has the capacity to feel happiness or sadness, fulfilment or frustration. It can be felt to greater and greater degrees, theoretically without limit.

In the meditation, we might just stay with that person in a kindly way, or we might decide to strengthen our wish, to really get behind them in an encouraging way. We might try to turn our desire, which we often easily find is strong for other things, for loved ones, for material possessions, or even for ideas, into an urge of a similar strength in wanting people to be fulfilled. If we do this, we might notice quite a difference between our normal attitude towards ourselves or others, and this more metta-ful response.

Metta and Motivation We may have thought we were really behind our lives and what we were doing, but then discover, once we really do it, that we weren’t so much behind it after all. Metta, or Universal Loving Kindness, in a phrase, is like a fuel that enables good things to happen. Without that fuel, there will be no real desire to create happiness. Without metta, we will just tread water, we don’t really make a concerted effort to create anything. We might appear to do so, but in reality it is usually weak and halfhearted. We lazily grasp at the nearest and most obvious thing that might give us some pleasure. Money, status, sensual gratification. Yet deep down we know these things are ephemoral. If we really have metta, we look carefully for something of more substance to build our lives upon, and once we have seen what that is, we systematically and robustly go about putting that in place. Depending on how much metta we have, that thing will be really satisfying. The more metta, the more we will apply energy and close attention to our task, and the more satisfying is the likely outcome. In order to get Enlightened, the Buddha must have had a lot of metta! Metta, or simply kindness, is really important. It is the real motivator. On my four month ordination retreat I kept a picture of Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche in front of me when I was meditating. Underneath his kindly face I wrote the word Kindness. I found having that in front of me gave me the motivation to get through the retreat.

The view from Citta Citta is the heart's response. Where Mano looks out on the other foundations and 'measures', Citta responds to those foundations. It responds to the body (Kaya), feelings (Vedana) and mind (as Mano).

Lets look first at how Citta responds from the perspective of enlightenment, bodhicitta. Citta in its enlightened aspect manifests a response to feeling (samisam, niramisam and cetasika) in sentient beings by 'trembling with' them (anukampa), a response of compassion. That is the empathetic response to feeling. There is a response to body and mind too. It seems like the response to body is direct help. Avalokitesvara in his thousand armed form holds out implements that will help different beings in their different situations. Tangibles. (Food, teachings, things that actually have an effect (not just empty sympathy)) His body aura represents his merit. It is dark blue, which I think is significant. Dark blue is the colour of Aksobhya, whose hand gesture touches the earth (read body). Dark blue represents what is real; what is really needed. It is the colour of wisdom. His bodily actions have (tangible) wisdom in them. In the body chapter I talked about the notion of truth to materials. The bodhisattva is the master craftsman when it comes to working with living beings in terms of their forms. What about Mano? What is bodhicitta's response to Mano?

The actions of a bodhisattva are perfumed by wisdom. He saves living beings despite there being no (permanent) living beings to save. But just because intellectually that is the case, he isn't beguiled into thinking that it doesn't matter what happens to living beings. He is aware how, to them, it does matter. Their experience matters. Their feeling matters.

I am not quite getting this!

Metta as Universal We could be kind to ourselves, our loved ones, our friends and then to a lesser degree to other people we don’t know so well, in a sliding scale moving outwards. The intensity of our metta would decrease the further we went out. This is the situation for most people. Most of us have a limited ‘sphere of interest’. But metta is about having an unlimited sphere of interest. To have it equally strongly for all life anywhere.

It is not easy to create a space for and a sensitivity to some people and maintain that, while at the same time keeping others out. Keeping others out requires hardening and hardening works against sensitivity. To open ourselves to some life we have to open ourselves to all life. Life itself becomes the principle around which we orient ourselves, and if we do that it becomes harder to discriminate between one lot of life and another.

Metta and Wisdom With strong enough metta we are motivated to develop wisdom. We will want to know the best way to get fulfilment. We won’t be interested in going up any blind alleys. In this sense, metta, rather than encouraging gullability, works against it.

Being open to others through metta isn’t about being soft and easily worked by other people. It is about being soft in our sensitivity to them. Yet it is also about being highly motivated in what is the best for all.

It is clear that one person manipulating another is not that. Aspiring to wisdom, we wouldn’t let that happen. Instead we would assert our concern that that person take the wisest direction, and we would help ourselves and them see what that direction is. As they become stronger, compassion and wisdom grow together. They become informed by each other. The compassionate take care to be wise. The wise know the value of caring. If we set off developing one, if our urge is strong enough, we end up developing the other. Metta then leads to wisdom

Metta and Ritual Metta is linked with meaning. Having it towards someone one would hope that their life would be meaningful to them. Ritual is a way of acknowledging things that are meaningful to us. Therefore ritual practice follows naturally out of metta practice. If we let opportunities go by to mark events of significance, we lose the chance to take that significance in. If ritual and ceremony are seen as ways to give space to and mark events of significance, it is out of metta that we perform them. I think it is useful to see rituals in this light, as actions growing out of kindness. That ideally we only should do ceremonies and rituals for this motive. They are only there to help the future happiness of those engaging in them.

We can think of marriages and funerals like this. A change in circumstances is being marked. Whether it has been a consciously choice, as with marriage, or reality has thrust it upon us in a bereavement, it is an occasion to pause and reflect, and wish well in the new circ umstances. Its' meaning is based in metta.

Ritual also gives us the opportunity to express our support to people in their changing circumstances. During a ritual, everyone knows what that change is. In the space created by the ritual, all mundane concerns are kept at a distance. Ritual space is created for dwelling on significance of events. When they are in it, people are less distracted from that. The space is kept clear, for the event, and for well wishing toward the participants.

Ritual is an extension of metta because essentially it is oriented towards peoples' welfare in the future. Ceremony helps us pause in order to allow the human and the significant to arrive, can also be seen as an extension of metta. Any break in our day-to-day reality like this is an opportunity to bring in a more mettaful dimension, and to collect and reflect on our experience, and become more human as a result. In that space we can make symbolic offerings or gifts to each other to express our metta.

Mind in Action

Ethical Precepts That ethical momentum takes us in a particular direction. If we know what is happening in our 'Heart and Mind', we have a choice to change its direction. We can do this 'on the go' as it were by reflecting on the 'ethical shape' we are making for beings. We can do this by having a list of 'shapes' we are convinced bring benefit to beings and comparing our shape to that list. The simplest list are the Five Precepts. It is worth remembering that these are not rules, they are shapes we have seen in the universe that we see bring benefit to beings. The list is only an aide memoire to that process of reflection that needs to go on all the time. In fact we can see the precepts as symbols pointing to the reality of the ethical nature of the universe. They are more about that reality than about us. We don't have to practice them! No one is making us. But if we choose to enter the "Mind Zone" which we could also call the "Being Zone" or "People Zone" we will be interested in what really brings fulfilment to beings. We will then tend to draw them out from that reality. The list is formulated in two ways. The ethical shapes that aren't helpful to beings - the negative formulation, and the ones that are - the positive formulation.

The first precept is the pivot around which all the others turn. In the negative formulation it is...

Panatipata Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami I undertake to abstain from taking life

In the positive...

With deeds of loving kindness I purify my body

If we add together the three 'truths' I mentioned earlier; that all beings desire happiness, that actions cannot avoid having effects, and that we are ethically interconnected with every being in the universe, we come to a stark conclusion. That we cannot avoid every single action we do being a condition contributing toward the welfare, or suffering, of every single being in the universe. We are responsible for those effects.

But we might think "So what, I don't care. What have they ever done for me?" and this is an understandable thing to say. After all, we have been on the other end of every single beings' actions too, which may have caused us suffering. But what about the animals and plants that have provided us with food. Even though it wasn't their choice, it has still brought us benefit.

The point is, given the facts, we have a choice. We can choose to take on the three 'truths' or choose to ignore them. If we choose to take them on, certain consequences follow. In terms of our effect on every single being in the universe, we try to make our shape as beneficial as possible. And in terms of their effects on us, we acknowledge our debt for what they have given us, and try to be understanding and forgiving for any harm they have brought us. In this way we enter the "People Zone" or "Being Zone". We mix with them. We move among them. We learn to be with them. And we learn to be with ourselves.

That in the broadest sense we bring benefit to beings. In the negative formulation that is avoiding bringing them harm through our 'shape'. That would include any form of violence, particularly killing but anything that takes away from their quality of life. On the positive side it means actively promoting their welfare through our 'shape'. In a word, being kind, caring, friendly.

Metta Metta may start out as an impulse in our minds, but with increasing intensity it broadens out to become very practical. After all the shape we are making is a shape across our whole being, so how is our body putting out energy to help beings? How also are we working with our emotions, developing our awareness and intellegence to help beings. There are stories in the buddhist tradition of monks putting themselves out in extreme ways to 'create a shape' that helps living beings, as in confessing to a crime he didn't commit to save a criminal from a cruel death, calmly taking his place. This was a practitioner whose metta was very advanced in its intensity. Advanced enough to feel his own experience was of no greater importance than the experience of a compete stranger.

Generosity The second precept is generosity.

In the negative formulation...

Adinnadana Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami I undertake to abstain from taking the not-given

In the positive...

With open handed generosity I purify my body

Contentment The third precept is about not causing harm as a result of our sexual activity In the negative formulation...

Kamesu Micchachara Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami I undertake to abstain from sexual misconduct

In the positive...

With stillness, simplicity and contentment, I purify my body

Truthful Speech The fourth precept is about speech.

In the negative formulation...

Musavada Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami I undertake to abstain from false speech

In the positive...

With truthful communication I purify my speech

Awareness The fifth precept is to do with developing awareness In the negative formulation it is...

Surameraya Majja Pamadatthana Veramani Sikkhapadam Samadiyami I undertake to abstain from taking intoxicants

In the positive...

With mindfulness clear and radiant I purify my mind

With the precepts and the practice of meditation we are trying to bring more consciousness to our responses. To bring them into awareness, but first we need to develop awareness. In fact awareness and ethics go hand in hand. The more ethical we are, the more we will want to develop awareness, and the more awareness we have, the more we will see the need for ethics. They support each other. They lean on each other like supportive conditions. We can cultivate and refine our awareness through meditation practice, and can then apply it to our practice of ethics.

Mind and Creativity As the Dhammapada verses indicate, Mind brings something into existence. It cannot help it. We shape the world by the form we bring to it. That form might be our mental outlook. If our perspective is other regarding, that will have an effect on the world. If we are generous with what we have, it will positively affect the world. And the converse will be true. Take a character like Ebeneza Scrooge from Dickens 'A Christmas Carol'. Hunched over his desk counting his money, he doesn't make a very pleasant shape either physically or as a person. Not a pleasant form to be with. But later he became one, when he gave the Cratchets a merry christmas. We can influence the shape of peoples' experience by giving them what they need. By being generous, friendly, straightforward. By letting them be themselves. Anyone can improve the experience of another person, if they bring awareness to them. When we do this we also create a good shape for ourselves, because we are looking out on a better world.

Making a Good Shape for Ourselves We can practice being aware of our 'shape' in our everyday life by trying to make that shape kind, friendly, generous, aware, honest and contented. We begin by trying to be a good shape to ourselves, by being a kind presence. Then we extend that out to others. This is the practice of ethics,. We can refresh and intensify that practice, working with the 'shape' of the mind, then, by practicing meditation. Wisdom comes later when we reflect on the nature of reality. This is the creative path that buddhists take to develop their 'shape'. It is called the Threefold Path, and consists of Ethics, Meditation and Wisdom.

Expansiveness similar to (put together)

Concentration Go into rupaloka and gods here, and dhyanas relate to shapes presented to world

The Gods and Ethical Form Buddhism was born into the theistic culture of Hinduism and despite not being a theistic religion itself used concepts current in the culture to talk about elements of its own teachings. So the Buddha took the concept of the Hindu priest, the Brahmin, and reinterpreted it in terms of a true spiritual practitioner, 'the real Brahmin...'. He did the same with the pantheon of gods, who he reinterpreted as advanced ethical beings abiding in higher (than mundane human) states of consciousness, abiding in 'the dhyanas'.

He also reinterpreted the concept of rebirth. In Hinduism one caste was fixed, as higher or lower, and one was repeatedly reborn into the same caste, and so into a higher or lower 'class' of existence. One's fate was fixed, even the possibility of one practicing ethics, was fixed at a certain level. Someone in a lower caste would be adjudged incapable of spiritual practice, which was reserved for the higher priestly Brahmin caste.

The Buddha saw every being at every level as capable of awareness and of ethical practice, so he retained the concept of rebirth but changed the context. He saw that through ones actions one could be reborn in a higher realm or 'class' of existence, or a lower, or stay the same, depending on if ones actions had been ethically skilful, unskildul or neutral. One could take this teaching literally, one actually is born in a particular realm, or take it as one ends up with a particular kind of experience, like a God-like experience. He enumerated six realms, represents six 'shapes' ones psyche might present to the world and these are vertically arrayed. At the top is the God realm. Then comes the realms of Humans, and Jealous Gods. Below them the realms of Animals, and Hungry Ghosts. At the bottom, the Beings in Realm. One would move between the realms as a result of ones actions, of body, speech and mind. The 'shape' one presents now feeds back into one's later experience.

Gods, Form and Creativity So how does a being move from between realms. Lets look at a move from the human to the god realm as an example. Generosity is ethically skilful. Any human being who is being very generous is displaying their understanding of the needs of living beings. Their needs in terms of the "Body Zone" and the "Feeling Zone" Or, more than just the needs of Body, the needs of Form which all the needs of the physical and the needs of the other senses too, like aesthetics for instance. As Form and Feeling constitute our received experience, this means all needs in terms of experience.

They may also teach them meditation and the dharma which meets needs in the "Mind Zone" and "Dharma Zone", although there they will have to do the work themselves.

This person, no doubt motivated by metta, is moving towards a universal perspective, one that takes into account every being he comes across. Metta is an illimitable, so his care, his loving kindness has the chance to become more and more intense. He has the possibility of putting more and more energy into helping provide for the needs of living beings. Metta is also unconditional. He has the chance to purify his motivation until he only acts generously because he sees the need, not because he wants something back. And what other beings have universal, powerful responses that don't require anything in return? Gods. So in buddhism we do have this link between loving kindness and Gods.

Metta is one emotion in a set of four, that includes compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity, all variations on metta. These four are called the Brahmavihara, or 'Abodes of the Gods'. So by practicing these intensively one begins to enter the God realm. Or, this is where the Gods live!

Even though still a human being, by intensifying, universalising and unconditionalising one's care, by expanding ones perspective, one becomes like a God. Rather than leaving Gods outside the buddhist cosmology, in this way the Buddha has re-contextualised them within it. They are traditionally the most creative beings in the universe, creative in terms of Form that is, meeting the needs of living beings par excellence. However, the Gods are not at the top, they may be creative and powerful, but they lack insight. They are safe in the "Mind Zone", but lack a safe foundation in the "Dharma Zone".

In the God-like state we experience ourselves as capable. We know the right thing to do, the right thing to say to bring about a desired result. We can work easily and knowledgably with Form. We know how to bring happiness to living beings through it, and we know how to work creatively with mental states to transform them into blissful ones in meditation, the higher states of consciousness called dhyanas.

We can access these states in meditation. They make up what is classified as the rupaloka, the 'world of form', as opposed to the 'world of sensual experience', the kamaloka, which we normally inhabit. In the kamaloka we are preoccupied with what is 'out there'. With what is coming in to us in terms of experience, and particularly whether it is pleasureable or not. That is the shape, the form, we are interested in. But in the rupaloka we are more interested in what we are 'giving out' especially if our perspective is imbibed with metta. We are as interested in creating pleasant forms for others, as in consuming pleasant ones for ourselves.

The rupaloka is made up of strata of Gods, or if you prefer beings in God-like states. Gods in buddhism are beings made of light. The higher up they are in the pantheon, the more subtle their form, the more powerful their radiance, and the longer their span of life. We can interpret this in terms of mental states as the more subtle and refined are their mental states, the more universal is their awareness in its scope (the larger their area of concern), and the more robust is their positive emotion.

This last point is interesting. The Gods have a lifetime. They are not eternal. They may live a very very long time but eventually when their positive emotion falters because it is not grounded through having insight, they will fall out of the god realm and be reborn.

The Buddha however has gone beyond rebirth by virtue of gaining enlightenment. His positive emotion is permanent because it is grounded in insight. He is safe in all "Zones", "Mind Zone" and "Dharma Zone" alike. The enlightened figure most comparable to the Gods is Amitabha. He is the archetypal buddha that is associated with meditation. He is the Buddha of Compassion, and his name means 'Infinite Light'.

His light, his awareness, is actually universal, not just big or working towards universal. It sees everywhere where beings are. His concern is unlimited. Infinitely intense, and is completely unconditional. And his being in that state is permanent. He is sometimes seen as a different figure, Amitayus. Amitayus's name means 'Infinite Life', his lifespan is infinite, which would imply a positive emotion that is completely robust, that will never fade.

Calmed is calmed,

Great is great,

Unsurpassed is unsurpassed,

Liberated is liberated, Positive Shape cannot disappear despite emptiness. Image remains forever in blue sky Colour and shape represents citta, citta then needs to be sustainable in a dharmic context (the blue sky of shunyata)

Fruits of the "Mind Zone" Karma-vipaka Safety in "Mind Zone"

Non Violent Communication If we can’t stay with where our emotion is, the colour and brightness of our feeling will not be available to us when we want to turn our emotion to a positive direction, as in the metta bhavana, the meditation on loving kindness. We may even begin to see emotion itself as an enemy to be tamed, when it is just an aspect of being human. Our emotionality is a truth we need to be comfortable with. When we don’t acknowledge what we want to do, it usually comes out anyway, in a contorted form that impacts hurtfully on others. If we ‘sit on it’, we may eventually explode violently. Being conscious of our response to feeling can make that response more ethical. A technique called Non-Violent Communication, elucidated by Marshall Rosenberg, makes the process conscious.

The theory is that feelings arise on the basis of needs. Unmet needs lead to feelings such as frustration. Met needs to ones such as satisfaction. In our terms read needs as Rupa and Vedana, feelings as Citta.

We might be angry with someone because they are making a lot of noise. Our unmet need is for peace and quiet. So we can say to them 'You know when you are banging that drum, I feel angry because I need peace and quiet to concentrate on what I am doing, so could you stop banging the drum.' NVC has a four stage process of Observation- Feeling-Need-Request. It expresses our point of view, gives information about our situation, including our feelings, in a way that invites the other person to help us, usually to improve our vedana. Being non-violent, it ends in a request and is totally optional whether they will help us or not. The alternative, in this case, maybe shouting at them, or being sarcastic, may get them to stop, but it leaves the relationship in a worse state than before.

The interesting thing here, in terms of what we have been talking about, is that we have to be in touch with our needs, for that read vedana and rupa. Our needs might be for practical forms, such as for food, water, or shelter, or for social forms, like stability, respect, and consideration, or they might be forms to do with autonomy, like choice, or to do with meaning, like creativity or understanding. We have to be in touch with what supports us.

These forms also mainly give us pleasure. They encapsulate how we want our life to be. Of course, what is really important is that they are just that. We can ask for them, but it is not helpful to expect them as a right. We negotiate with others for them, but they can always decide to say no. Yet even if they say no, we will still have made conscious our ideals, which is useful for us. reality zone

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 In the last chapter we dealt with the heart, Citta, bringing awareness to our impulses and the world that is created with those. This chapterdeals with a different aspect of Mind, its more reflective side, Manas.

In the Satipatthana Sutta the Buddha says -

"And how, O bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu live contemplating mental objects in mental objects?

"Here, O bhikkhus, a bhikkhu lives contemplating the mental objects in the mental objects of the five hindrances.

"How, O bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu live contemplating mental objects in the mental objects of the five hindrances?

"Here, O bhikkhus, when sensuality is present, a bhikkhu knows with understanding: 'I have sensuality,' or when sensuality is not present, he knows with understanding: 'I have no sensuality.'

The monk begins by understanding which mental objects are in his mind, here sensuality. This is essentially the same as the previous section - 'a bhikkhu understands the consciousness with lust, as with lust; the consciousness without lust, as without lust' The five hindrances constitute the first of five sections of mental objects covered in this part of the sutta. The others are the five aggregates of clinging (the skandhas), the six internal and external sense-bases, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the four noble truths. So how can we make any sense of this?

The Pali for Mental Objects is Dhammas (Sanskrit - Dharmas). We could say the word Dharma has meanings on a range of levels. At the top, it is truth itself, with a capital T. The truth that the Buddha discovered of the way things are, conceptually expressed as praticca samutpada. On the next level, serving that top level, it is the teachings of the Buddha. On the level of description of phenomena, we use the term dharma for what we normally think of as things, as objects. We cannot describe these as things or objects without distorting the truth in some way because like all phenomena they are impermanent and insubstantial, so we call them dharmas, as a way of reminding us of their (true) nature.

The translation here of dharmas as mental objects (also sometimes mental concomitants) reinforces the fact that it is Mind that perceives phenomena. Mrs. Rhys-Davids points out that [buddhist] 'commentators connect Mano [Mind] with minati (ma), to measure. And it is more usual, when the intellectual functioning of consciousness is refered to, to employ mano; vinnana representing the field of sense, and sense-reaction, and chitta standing pre-eminently for the subjective, inward-looking aspect of consciousness [the Heart]...' (Buddhist Psychology p19).

The Pali-English dictionary entry for Mano (p520) comments - 'As "mind" it embodies the rational faculty of man, which, as the subjective side in our relation to the objective world, may be regarded as a special sense, acting on the world, a sense adapted to the rationality (reasonableness, dhamma) of the phenomena, as our eye is adapted to the visibility of the latter. Thus it ranges as the 6th sense in the classification of the senses and their respective spheres.' It goes on to say - 'Thus it is the sensus communis (Buddhist Psychology p140, 163) which recognises the world as a "mundus sensibilis" (dhamma). Both sides are an inseparable unity: the mind fits the world as the eye fits the light, or in other words: mano is the counterpart of dhamma' And - 'Dhamma as counterpart of mano is rather an abstract (pluralistic) representation of the world, i.e. the phenomena as such with a certain inherent rationality; manas is the receiver of these phenomena in their abstract meaning, it is the abstract sense, so to speak.'

Bearing in mind that Mano is the abstract sense that perceives dhammas, lets look at what comes next in the sutta.

He understands how the arising of the non-arisen sensuality comes to be; he understands how the abandoning of the arisen sensuality comes to be; and he understands how the non-arising in the future of the abandoned sensuality comes to be.

This is the mental object (sensuality) in the context of an understanding of the Dharma. How it came about, when not there before. How it disappeared once it was there. And how it was prevented from arising again once it had been gotten rid of. The mental object is seen in the broader context of the Dharma. It is conditioned and impermanent. I think this is what is meant by 'the practitioner contemplates the dhamma in the dhammas' - bhikkhu dhammesu dhammanupassi viharari. He contemplates the Dharma in phenomena, contemplates their true nature.

In the dictionary definition of Mano above, Mano is refered to as an abstract sense, and that it embodies the rational faculty of man. I want to propose that Mano is that which holds a perspective. A view, on the phenomena it perceives. Citta perceives something and its response is movement, what am I going to do with it. Mano's response is more like what is it? Or, it is a (description). Most of the time our mind in the sense of citta is not moving to help all beings gain buddhahood. If it were it would be bodhicitta. Most of the time too, our mind in the sense of mano does not have an enlightened perspective. It has some other perspective. It sees deludedly. Contemplating the Dhamma in the dhammas is the process by which the practitioner looks at his or her views on the phenomena around them in order to see more clearly where those views lead. If their view is the Dharma, being true that view has the best future. It cannot be undermined. But perspectives that are less true will in the future be undermined.

This is graphically illustrated in an image (where-source) used for the stage of the path Knowledge and Vision of Things as they Really Are. A person is dipping their arm into a pool of water. Each time they pull their arm out, a snake has coiled itself around it. The snake has three marks of its forehead and seeing those the person uncoils the snake throwing it back. The marks are the three laksanas, the marks of conditioned existence. They represent the fact that every conditioned thing is impermanent, insubstantial, and not ultimately satisfying (dukkha). Seeing that clearly we throw back what attaches itself to us. Water snakes (nagas) are often linked with views in buddhism. They are at a deep level, difficult to get at. They attach themselves to us. We talk about grasping a concept as in understanding it, but it is more like views grasp us, and hold on. We need to gently untangle ourselves from them. see p91 Mindfulness with Breathing

The view from Mano There are three basic views in buddhism. The hedonist view, the eternalist view: both wrong views, and the enlightened view, the Middle Way between those two extremes. Or we can say, there are three ways in which Mano grasps dharmas, two wrong ways and an enlightened way. Mano looka out on the other foundations and 'measures'. It looks out on the dharmas (mental objects) of the body (Kaya), feelings (Vedana) and heart / mind (Citta).

Lets look first at what Mano sees from the perspective of enlightenment. The enlightened mind looking out on conditioned existence, sees the three marks of conditioned existence (laksanas). That is how it measures conditioned existence. Enlightened Mano looks out on the other three satipatthanas: body, feeling, and heart / mind. We could say seeing them, it sees the three laksanas: insubstantiality (anatta), unsartisfactoriness (dukkha), and impermanence (anicca). Perhaps we can correlate the three satipatthanas with the three laksanas. The laksana most clearly associated with feeling is dukkha. Enlightened Mano, viewing (the foundation of) feeling, sees dukkha, the greater perspective of feeling is dukkha. Conditioned existence from the frame of reference of feeling is in the end dukkha. Only by transcending conditioned existence are we safe from dukkha. What about the other laksanas?

The laksana to connect with body is insubstantiality (anatta). Kaya means group, an aglomeration of elements, a compound. When we meditate on the compounded nature of the body, as in the meditation of the progressive stages of decomposition of a corpse we see that insubstantiality. But there is an argument too for connecting insubstantiality with heart / mind (Citta), if we think of Citta as a kind of self. Anatta means 'no fixed self'. If we associate self with body it is appropriate to associate anatta with body. But if we associate self with heart (as in soul), after all it is a 'me' who gets into those various skilful or unskilful mental states, it is appropriate to associate anatta with heart / mind. Enlightened Mano sees in this case Citta as insubstantial. It sees the (unenlightened) heart as wavering. Aware of that tendency in Citta the enlightened are firm in their resolve and develop bodhichitta. Likewise there are arguments for associating impermanence with either body or heart / mind. Seeing Citta as impermanent frees us up to change it (through perpetual self transcendence). Seeing the body as impermanent frees us from clinging to it. Whichever laksana we do link with body and heart / mind, the important thing is that the foundationms are covered by the laksdanas. We don't see body as permanent for instance.

Unenlightened Mano sees the three other foundations not as they are, perhaps we could say distortedly. Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure in the here and now, because there is no substantial belief in anything else. One concentrates on having experiences, as pleasureable as possible. In this extreme view, Citta (read ethics) is sacrificed to Kaya (read, the tangible) and Vedana. One overweighs the importance of the first two foundations (read as ones experiences) in relation to the others. They are seen as more substantial than they actually are, while intangibles like ethical sensitivity are seen as less substantial than they actually are (airy-fairy notions).

Eternalism is the second extreme view that goes with hedonism, and its opposite. Body and (pleasureable) feeling are discounted. They now are seen as insubstantial compared to the (eternal) soul that can be released through ascetic practice. The soul is permanent.

When Mano sees one of the foundations not in terms of a laksana but as a viparyasa (a topsy-turvy view, like permanence), it distorts its perspective on the other foundations: so seeing Citta as permanent shifts ones reliance to it and away from Kaya and Vedana. so there must be a second unenlightened way that Mano sees body. Anatta is no fixed self, rather that no self. The two extremes are no self and fixed self.

[[ Insert condensed version of 'Discovery of Abstraction' first when talking about the 'abstract sense'. Then later when talking about other ways of grasping dharmas (grasping with Imagination, grasping via symbols) talk about evolution of symbolism. Include Imagination as guesswork. Can put Hamlet in that bit. ]]

The First Abstraction At some point in evolution there was a quantum shift, represented by the myth of Prometheus. Prometheus is said to have given man fire. Before we can make fire, we need something else first, abstraction. So perhaps that is what Prometheus really gave. Abstract thinking. [Note that later the Gods punished him for his 'arrogance'. He was immortal. His punishment was, tied to a rock, each night a vulture pecked out his liver, but the liver grew back the next day. What is this saying? - perhaps it is saying that no matter what one abstracts from the world, one cannot escape ones (painful) experience.] The notion ‘hot’ is an abstraction. There would have once existed a time when no animal would have experienced an abstract notion, like 'hot'. They will have experienced hot things, like natural fires caused by lightning striking dry hillsides, but there would be no separation in their minds between the objects they were experiencing, and qualities those objects might have. There would be hot bush, hot rocks, hot sun, but nothing abstract like heat.

The first animal to abstact a quality from an object began a whole new way of being. It had the first idea, and irt is the idea that we consider separates man from the animals. The moment of this happening is represented in the opening sequences of the film 2001 - A Space Odyssey. Two tribes of apes are trying to ward each other off in competition for the carcase of a dead mammoth. They do not yet have weapons. None has yet created a weapon. Then a black monolith appears. I think the appearance of the monolith is a symbol for a quantum shift in consciousness. It appears later in the film when the computer Hal starts becoming autonomous from humans. In this case it represents the first abstaction of a quality from an object. The monolith gives out a piercing noise. While standing among a pile of bones, one ape sees a bone and starts hitting other bones with it. He then starts hitting other apes with the bone, his tribe joins in, decimates the other tribe, and takes the carcase for themselves. The ape had first made the abstraction ‘weapon’ and then had created a weapon by putting together the abstraction and the objects around him. It was the same with the invention of fire. Once he had made the abstaction ‘heat’, he is then free to use it to create fire. He can then look at how fire is created in nature, and imitate the conditions. He imitates the spark of a lightning strike on a tinder dry hillside with the spark made from two flints colliding on pile of dry grass. and a spark when two pieces of flint accidently collide. Not too difficult once he had the abstraction.

The First Symbol But what about symbolism? Man not only created tools but he created symbols too. The qualities ‘heat’ , ‘weapon’, and ‘tool’ are tangibles in the sense that with them we can make tangible things: central heating systems, nuclear weapons, a spanner. But what about the intangibles of life, like truthfulness, goodness, etc. We can't make objects with them, but to express them we need something else: the symbol. If you like symbols are the objects that contain the intangibles of existence. And conversely they are abstract, like the monolith. The first moment for symbolism was when man created the first 'monolith', or other symbol, in his mind. Perhaps it went something like this. He made an associative connection between the sun radiating light and heat that helps things to grow, and say, a person who was radiating a beneficial influence (the wise elder of the tribe) to others, or perhaps the fruition of the harvest. The thing they had in common was something like bountifulness. To represent that quality, bacause he would want to remember things that were intangibly useful to him as well as the tangibly useful, he needed to put it in something. A symbol is essentially such an abstract container. A stone circle would be such an early symbol.

Symbols mimick the reality they express. The monolith is a good example of a symbol. Representing in one appearance the birth of the process of abstraction, it has a blackness that is so black, it is almost an abstract blackness. It mirrors and points to abstraction. Symbols usually also have something mysterious, ungraspable, about them, that cannot be summed up in words, cannot be interpreted literally. That is because the reality they represent is also ungraspable (by words). It is ineffable, something about which one cannot tell a story (in-e- fable). It wouldn't be consistent to represent the ineffable by summing it up in words, unless the words were used poetically or metaphorically, and so became symbolic. Ordinary words are suited to describing objects (like chair or table). They are too object-like to do justice to the ineffable.

Symbolism as Adult Play A child playing ‘hide and seek’ becomes accommodated to losing people, searching for them, hunting, surviving pursuit. These are all things it is useful to have experience of in adult life. It is approaches through play, realities it does not fully understand. But as adults they carry on have realities they do not fully understand, and so it is natural their play continues. They don’t know about their 'place in the universe’, or how the universe is ordered. Just as a child takes a piece of plasticene and moulds it into shapes in its hand, so man takes the intangibles of nature, abstracts shapes from them and moulds them into symbols. Each symbol is a container for what cannot be contained in another way. It is a kind of pretend object. The abstraction ‘tool’ is placed in a real object, a piece of flint, to make an axe. The abstraction ‘order’ cannot be placed in a real object, it has to go into an abstract object like a circle, a symbol (a pretend object) that we can try to approach. Once we have the ‘pretend object’ we can come into relationship with it. The stone circle was perhaps one of the earliest examples of a ‘pretend object’ used in this way. It brought the sun (‘abundance’ ) down to earth, which would be of great significance to a hunter-gatherer society. Then doing actions (rituals) in the circle: dancing, ceremonies, the tribe would be putting 'abundance' on the agenda. Perhaps dwelling on abundance later led to agriculture, as they saw that abundance wasn’t just random, but could be planned.

The Abstraction of ‘Views’ As man saw patterns around him in the universe, beyond the abstract ones that could be practically used, he began to form ‘views’. What came first were simple perceptions of the ‘rough shape’ to things in the world. The land he roamed around on, on which he spent most of his time gathering food and doing mundane tasks was familiar. But then there was the dark and mysterious ‘down’ dimension he would glimpse at in the mouths of caves, and would know little about. Places of great fear. There was also the ‘up’. The sky, sun, stars. These were also unknowns, but from them came warmth, wonder, changes and occasionally magic. Most of his time he would be too busy surviving in the present moment, not thinking at all about the future, to look 'up' or 'down', but occasionally he might get some inkling of the ‘shape’ to the unknown, he might form a view about the universe. Perhaps the ‘shape’ was, in the future you could go ‘up’, towards light and magic, or ‘down’ towards darkness and fear. Perhaps mans’ first imaginative stirrings were like this. In Greek myth, before the Gods came the Titans, cyclops-like figures with one eye representing crude primeval energy like the horned primeval Balroc from ‘Lord of the Rings’ coming up from the depths in a halo of fire. Perhaps the way man found to ‘play’ with these forces was to personify them. The reality of the infinite space above and of the depths underneath the land is hard to interact with. But a personality is easier to interact with. ‘Above’ becomes ‘Sky God’. ‘Below’, the Devil. It might seem strange to think of a God as a symbol for something larger. A difference though, between the undifferentiated ‘Above’ and the personification of a Sky God, is that the God can take things personally, like we do. Taking things personally represents a shift in man’s attitude from that of the animals. I assume when an animal feels pain, it doesn’t take it personally. To take it personally it has to abstract an 'I' first. Man though, often thinks, ‘Why me?’ This is because man has developed ideas like destiny, fairness, providence and the concept of a self. He has ‘personified’ the future. Future is an abstraction too. He has become conscious of himself as an entity with a future, as opposed to an animal more wholly occupied with its sensory experience.

In his ‘play’ with the notion of ‘God’, man is approaching the reality of his place and future in the universe. He is trying to come into relationship with the forces in the universe that affect him through that play. Sometime a culture has a multiple Gods, sometimes just one. It is harder to ‘play’ with one God because they represent everything. One benefit of personification is we can identify with the personification. If we identify the ‘shape’ of bountifulness in nature, and then personify it as a God, if we identify with the qualities of that God, we can be in contact with being more bountiful ourselves. This concept is behind the principle of divine kingship. When anger is present, he knows with understanding: 'I have anger,' or when anger is not present, he knows with understanding: 'I have no anger.' He understands how the arising of the non-arisen anger comes to be; he understands how the abandoning of the arisen anger comes to be; and he understands how the non- arising in the future of the abandoned anger comes to be. When sloth and torpor are present, he knows with understanding: 'I have sloth and torpor,' or when sloth and torpor are not present, he knows with understanding: 'I have no sloth and torpor.' He understands how the arising of non-arisen sloth and

Hamlet Hamlet cradles the skull of Yorick, his father (the king's) jester, who had bore Hamlet on his back 'a thousand times' - "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest" This passage is from the graveyard scene in Hamlet, one of Shakespeare's most famous reflections on death. In holding the skull, Hamlet is holding two things, in balance; the positive qualities of his friend, and the reality of his demise. In the "Mind Zone" we dealt with creating positive qualities. Here in the "Dharma Zone" we have to deal with the reality of demise. The reality of the nature of existence which is impermanent. We could also call this the "Reality Zone". We have to a greater or lesser degree, to pick up the skull and hold it in our hand. Holding the scull is holding the right view, but as Hamlet does, we hold it while being safe in the "Mind Zone", while being in a positive frame of mind. When we 'throw the nut' within the "Dharma Zone" that tells us whether we still have right view (that no matter what we do in the "Body", "Feeling" or "Mind" Zones they are all impermanent, and subject to decay and death). Each time we throw the nut in the "Dharma Zone", we are checking the 'safety' of our view about life and death. At this point in the play Hamlet, through his trials, has reached safety, some sort of resolution with death, which is lucky because he dies soon after.

Creativity and Change While we are in the midst of creating things, we don't always remember they change. We remember for short periods of time but then drift off into a different view, that somehow we will go on forever. We then build our lives on this unsafe view, but it is not a good foundation. When the world we build on this view collapses, we suffer. We are only 'safe' while keeping in mind the Dharma. In the graveyard scene, Hamlet also reflects on the destinations of great men. He says 'if one traced the noble dust of Alexander the Great, one might find it stopping a bung hole (a hole in a beer barrel) -

Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall t'expel the winter's flaw [squall]

Even the god-like come to an end. Alexander created a great empire, but his body is now dust stopping a beer barrel. However great we and our creations are, reality will at some time dash us, and them, 'on the rocks'. This is mirrored in the derelict imagery of "the Zone". Stalker and his companions scramble through a world of derelict buildings, rusting machinery, of things falling apart. When Stalker throws his nut for Reality, this is what he comes back to.

Impermanence All things are impermanent. We cannot get away from that. But this fact is neutral, it has two sides to it. Things fall apart, but things also come into being. Without change there would be nothing new. We would never get better at anything. We would always be the same. Impermanence allows movement in both directions. Towards decay, and towards growth. Alexander may become dust but a Buddha may also appear in the world. There is infinite possibility in the "Mind Zone" for taking on board change. In any situation there is always the possibility of transcending it. Of having a creative response with whatever is happening. This is the ultimate buddhist message. It is possible to transcend the 'mass of ill' that comes with the world of conditioned existence if we act from an enlightened insightful perspective. Insight comes from holding in our mind both "Mind" and "Dharma" Zones. We stay upright while change is happening. We look to the shape we are making, while being aware of the reality we are in.

Blue Sky This is represented in buddhist art whenever we see a buddhist icon depicted sitting in a blue sky. The blue sky is symbolic of the "Dharma Zone", the way things are, conditioned existence, emptiness, impermanence. The figure represents the "Mind Zone". The "Mind Zone" is not swallowed up by the "Dharma Zone", it stays 'above it', transcending it, separate from it. The icon's rich attire can be seen as symbolic of the positive mental states, the calmness and serenity that come when a Mind is liberated, when it is undisturbed even in the face of impermanence.

The work in the "Dharma Zone" is not to get 'sucked into' the blue sky but to see it, to keep a perspective on it, to keep aware that conditioned things ARE blue sky. When we are attached to something, if it ceases, it disappears back into the blue sky. If we cannot let go of it, we will be in danger of disappearing back into the blue sky too, of losing our perspective. Imaging Reality The blue sky is a poetic image for reality. It works for me as an image. But different people respond to different images. If the question is keeping in mind reality, staying in the "Dharma Zone" and contemplating it, the next one is how best can we do that. How can we keep it alive for ourselves. Being conscious about the process of imagination seems to be how we can work with this. The "Dharma Zone" is the "Zone of Views". When the Buddha was wandering around India 2500 years ago he came across a wide range of religious practices and philosophies. The situation is the same for us today. There probably always will be a plethora of different views about reality. Somehow we have to sort through these to find the right one, the true Dharma. The Buddha passed through various phases on his path to Enlightenment. He tried out different practices; meditatrion, asceticism. He had already experienced the life of luxury as a prince. Each of these he tested for 'safety' and found it wanting. Finally he came to a view that stood the test, a view summed up by what he called the Four Noble Truths. That life is characterised by suffering. That this suffering is caused by attachment. That there is a state beyond suffering, Nirvana. And a way to get to this state, the Noble Eightfold Path.

Trial and Error Rather than just take one view on and stick with it, either because of cultural reasons or personal preference, as many do, the Buddha-to-be kept an open mind. He 'played' with different possibilities, only abandoning them when he learnt they didn't work. He was looking for a complete philosophy, one that would satisfy one's whole being, not just a part. Ideologies, like those today, could be harsh, unkind, though perhaps mentally stimulating. Asceticism was one of these, and he almost died from starvation practicing it. Neither was the life of luxury very satisfying for different reasons. But eventually he came to a 'middle way' through trial and error that did bring satisfaction to his whole being. The Buddha- to-be kept going in the "Dharma Zone" with courage and determination, but he also displayed flexibility. Even playfulness. One of the main turning points came after he gave up asceticism, which was killing him. He remembered a carefree day he had had as a child, one watching his father ploughing a field. He remembered sitting under a Rose Apple tree and spontaneously experiencing a naturally calm and happy state when he wasn't trying to do anything. After this remembrance he began a new approach, one that was to lead him to enlightenment. Given the forcible striving he had been doing before, and the unforced nature of his childhood memory, it seems like the new approach he adopted we might characterise as more playful. Not that he didn't still have fierce determination. After all, the next thing he did was to prepare a meditation seat, sit down on it, and say 'Flesh may wither, but I shall not get up from this seat until I have realised the goal'. I don't think determination and playfulness are exclusive. It is more the type of playfulness that comes with wisdom. Not taking oneself oh-so-seriously. One doesn't identify with one's zeal. One starts to identify with how things are, which is that they cannot be forced, only played with.

And interestingly enough, it is play that helps us learn. Certainly as children. But also I think as adults. In fact the nature of reality is play, so play is an appropriate way to learn from it. Light plays on a wall. It is rarely an even beam. There is usually some dappling effect. The closer we go into nature there is more playing, dappling, going on. One thing plays on another. In fact buddhists talk about the play of conditions, meaning all the factors, the conditions, helping something to happen. These play, they 'dapple' too, because of the play of the conditions supporting them, and so on. Reality isn't earnest, it dapples. To tune into it we need to dapple too.

This comes from a central truth in buddhism. That is that all events, all realities, are never the product of one or two simple causes, but of an unfathomably complex web of conditioning factors, all of which are conditioned themselves. Each plays on the reality just as the flickering light from a candle flame plays on a wall. They flicker, they come and go, themselves conditioned by their own conditioning factors, which also come and go, and so on ad infinitum. Thus, in the end, it is very difficult to say much about reality. Reality is ineffable, it cannot be described. In particular, its origins cannot be described. A full description of the origins would involve infinite ammounts of detail about the conditioning factors, the origins of which are themselves too complex to describe. A fable is a story, therefore something in-ef-fable is something that one cannot tell a story about, not because it doesn’t have a story, but because its (hi)story is too complex.

Looking for Themes We won’t get very far if we try to understand reality by tracing the details of the origins of all the individual strands that contribute towards making it up, and get beguiled by the detail. What is important are not the details but the general patterns. We can only hope to see structure, recognisable themes, within the detail. And how do we do that? By not focusing on the details!

If the reason why we are interested in knowing about reality in the first place is not academic but practical, we will be interested only in what has practical benefit. It doesn’t matter that we can’t grasp the precise mechanics of how something has come about. The Buddha taught that when someone is shot with a poison arrow the important thing is to get rid of the arrow and poison, not worry where it came from. The details don't help us stay alive. We need to be thinking ‘What is the important theme to think about here? The Buddha would no doubt say kindness was one. If two people are locked in an argument and both are angling to find the weak spot in the others argument, there is an unhealthy obsession with specifics, as if one fact being wrong would demolish their case. But we saw earlier that reality doesn’t work like that. All things arise through a multiplicity of conditions, not just the one.

General Truths It is much better to think in terms of generalities. Am I generally making an effort to be kind. No matter if I slip up specifically now and then, is that generally the case. If it is, I don’t need to worry too much when I do slip up, I can apologise in that instance, yet not allow myself to feel too guilt-ridden in the knowledge that generally I am making the effort with people to be kind most of the time. Similarly with other ‘general’ trends, paying attention, being wise, trying to not cause harm, and so on. We can apply the same thing to the other person. ‘In spite of what they might have said then , do I feel they generally have my best interests at heart?’ We can also apply this to the way we look at reality. Some things may last a long time, but generally speaking, in our experience, they are impermanent. Generally, attachment to things leads to suffering for us when we eventually have to part from them. Generally, it is a good idea to try to be truthful.

There is a good example of this in the play the Merchant of Venice. A young merchant Antonio borrows three thousand ducats from Shylock the moneylender, for a shipping venture. He has nothing to offer as collateral and as he has been insulting to Shylock in the past, Shylock makes him enter into a bond, that if he cannot pay the money back by a certain date, he forfeits ‘a pound of flesh’, taken from anywhere on his body. Antonio's venture fails, and Shylock is unwavering about his bond, no doubt encouraged by the Venetians’ continuing disrespect for him. Antonio’s friend, Portia pleads for Shylock's mercy. She famously says:-

The quality of mercy is not strain’d It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Shylock is focusing on the details of his bond. Portia implies that wanting his pound of flesh is strained. In focussing on the detail he is being forcible, legalistic, unnatural, and ignoring the broader need for compassion, for mercy. Mercy isn't strained. It drops like gentle rain from heaven, everywhere, on all equally. Portia is asking Shylock to consider just being kind, never mind the details of the bond. She is asking him a spiritual question, ‘What pattern of behaviour is he using? She is inviting him to be less strained. In a way, to be more playful. Shylock finds it hard to spot the ‘pattern’ of kindness after his cruel ostracism from Venetian society for being jewish. Not being allowed to ‘play a part' in the society later meant he found it hard to be kind, flexible, playful with Antonio, when it came to his bond.

The Patterns in Existence The buddha-to sat down and resolved to gain enlightenment. Perhaps when he did that two things were going on. Remembering the Rose Apple tree experience perhaps he remembered the positive effect of being in touch with more playfulness. The effect of being more relaxed and natural. Being sensitive to the play of conditions, rather than trying to impose order on them. The second thing that was going on was his continued search for the 'meaning of life', for the solution to the problems of suffering, old age and death. It is interesting that at the stage just after remembering the Rose Apple tree he should make a vow. It is rather foolish to make a vow unless we feel confident we can keep it. It is undermining if we make a vow and then break it. He must have felt confident that his direction was set and it was only now a matter of time before the patterns within existence would unravel for him. And in a short time they did. The dharma appeared to him. The patterns in existence came. He saw that actions have consequences - the law of karma. He saw that it was an ethical universe where it mattered what you did. He saw how things came about through conditions - Praticca Samutpada - and ceased when those conditions ceased. The dharma dawned on him, and completely and permanently changed him. He became imprinted with it, he became enlightened. He could now never go wrong in the "Dharma Zone", being permanently on a sure foundation in it.

It is interesting to see how the ...... show up in the aesthetics of a tradition. The elements of naturalness and structure show up in the Japanese Zen garden, which is a mixture of the natural and the manmade. The "Dharma Zone" and the "Mind Zone". The Zen garden is carefully ordered but in a way that is meant to look natural. The trees are carefully pruned so that they look more natural than if you left them to themselves. As Alan Watts points out in his book Uncarved Block Unbleached Silk, the idea is 'to work upon nature with skill and craft, but to move in the direction in which nature is already going'.

In a Zen garden we come into relationship with the natural world, but in a way that is structured, designed. The gravel is raked into swirls. These patterns can stand for the ethical patterns of nature, for the fact that actions have consequences and so on. They can stand for the fact that we need awareness, we need to develop Mind. Play and Learning There is something about play that is intensely receptive. A young girl runs across the grass wondering how her legs work. A baby puts things in its mouth to test them. It is all very empirical. A learning about experience. Later children come to learn facts (which are only approximations anyway) but to continue learning about experience they need to keep up this playful curiosity even into adulthood. Play is dipping our toe into the "Dharma Zone". It is less learning about facts, and more learning how to be in the world. We are all faced with various situations, and in play we learn about the emotions that come with those situations. We gentle explore them and through that develop emotional literacy. Play is an inner attitude that keeps a flexible working perspective. When we stop playing, we calcify emotionally. Playfulness implies being happy to be wherever we are. Whatever comes we are light about it. As when the Zen master eagerly runs into the tiger’s cage.

When we are tense, it is harder to keep ourselves going continuously. With playfulness we have less tension in the mind. Children have less tension because they are without responsibilities. Zen masters have less tension because whatever responsibilities they have are subsumed within the wider context of learning about reality. They are often playful with their disciples, which is no doubt teaching them which is more important. Play helps with perspective. Perspective literally means to look through. It implies space. Play also means freedom of movement, as in the play of a rope. It implies giving something a certain latitude. When we play with something we approach it from different angles. We put it in our mouth, we bounce it, we generally test out what it does.

We also may play at something. We play to understand, or test our skill, or make friends. We improve them as we play. There is always something we haven't mastered, something we don’t know. Playfulness contains the tacit admission of ignorance. When are aloof from playing, it may be to shore up our ignorant self. We try to kid ourselves we don’t need to play anymore. But we just cut off our route to learning. The child is aware how much it has to learn. The enlightened master is wise, like Socrates, because of a perpetual learning attitude. Reality is constantly ineffable, beyond conceptualisations, so can always be learned from.

Play and Spaciousness In play we need space. We may need a physical space to play in, a playground. But we also may need ‘psychic space’, that is to be affirmed in our play, our learning. It helps if children feel their play is approved of. Not that they are wasting their time. It helps if they are getting a positive message about it. It is the same for adults and learning. We all benefit from having encouragement to play and learn. Meditation is essentially this. It is like having the space, latitude, and freedom to play at being a different person. To go beyond the normal bounds of who we presently think we are, in order to explore and engage with unknown facets of ourselves. To explore the shape of being kinder, wiser, calmer, and aware. Through taking the space to play at being different, we learn to become different.

Play and Focus There is space, and there is focus, something played at, like Doctors and Nurses, or Hamlet Prince of Denmark. We can be pretending to take on a role in order to have some experience of a situation. One benefit of play is that it can be difficult to approach aspects of life directly without having rehearsed them. Unless we get some practice in advance we aren't readywhen they come. We can approach a situation like illness that we will meet in later life by playing Doctors and Nurses. It being a pretend situation about an aspect of reality it helps us approach it gradually, indirectly, even tangentially. We can stay calm while taking on some of the reality too. Meditation has these elements to it too. The calming aspect is called samattha. And the reality, or insight element, is called vipassana. We need a balance between them if we are to take in new learning and yet be stable.

Learning and Symbolism So if as children we have these playful strategies we use to learn, what learning do we do as adults that isn't about learning facts. We have hinted at it before with Shakespeare and Hamlet. We have culture and religion. These are our extensions of play into adult life. Well they are so long as we are still treating them playfully, which regretfully isn't always the case. They can always ossify back into dogma. But lets look at them as if they are play, as if they are primarily about learning about reality. Lets look at them as if there is no basic difference between a baby putting something in its mouth to test it and an experienced buddhist visualising a buddha in their meditation, and a . Each is testing something out, trying to see what it is. Each is trying to receive information, to be open to reality. The difference is in the degree of reality. The action is the same.

The Symbolon How we ...... is exemplified in the symbol. A symbol represents an aspect of reality. It reminds us of it. In a way it is a smaller 'portable' version of that reality. We know that reality, the patterns in nature, cannot be grasped, they are ineffable. A symbol gives us something that can be grasped, but it has therefore to be easier to grasp than what it represents. We cannot grasp the patterns in nature because we exist inside them, they are bigger than us. But we can create a substitute that isn't bigger than us, a symbol. A symbol has to be abstract. If it represents reality it cannot be real itself. Two real things would have to be the same thing, the only option is that it is abstract. Appropriately the word symbol originates in a story. In ancient greece two friends possessed a inscribed clay tablet. On going theirr separate ways they broke the scroll and each took a half with them. When they later reunited, they were able to rejoin the tablet and read the text. The halves were called symbolon. The completed tablet represents the pattern of existence that the symbol is pointing to. The fact that it is broken in two represents the ineffability of that reality. It cannot be expressed in words. It's story cannot be told. The whole tablet cannot be carried around, cannot be held in the mind. Iit is too 'big', it isn't portable. Yet a reminder of it, the symbolon, can be carried around with it. The symbolon is a partial version of it that is portable. Reality can be a strong reflection. It helps if we can translate it into something more portable, and palatable. Something to carry around with us. Symbols and stories makes the experience of reality less intense because they are to a degree abstract. Stalker isn't an actual person, for instance. On a symbolon we can still read bits of the text, get hints about the meaning of the whole, something of the reality filters through. We also need to remember that the text on the symbolon is not the whole text. It is only pointing to it. The aim is to read the whole text, to get the meaning behind the symbol. Which is symbolised by the reuniting of the friends. Something comes together in our mind and we see the meaning behind the symbol. When we dwell on the symbol in its incompleteness, we get some sense of the ‘shape’ of the reality it represents, something filters through.

Thye Greek ‘symballein’ literally means ‘the same place’ so the symbolon stands in our minds for the completed tablet. It occupies the same place for us even though it is still partial. So when we respond to a symbol, say a statue of the buddha, we let it be in the same place for us as the real buddha. We treat it as if it is the real buddha. That way we come into relationship with the real buddha through it. It is a means to an end. We wouldn't be able to hold the real buddha in our mind, unless we were one ourselves. A real buddha would be able to carry around the completed tablet being big enough to hold that reality. But for us, we need to play with symbols like archetypal buddhas and bodhisattvas. We need to 'carry them around' with us, not literally of course, if we want to engage with the real thing. We aren't yet ready to carry the whole tablet, which we need to take seriously. The whole tablet will just weigh us down, make us heavy and ponderous, when we need to be natural and playful. We are better trying to read our symbolon for clues as to what is on the full tablet. That way gradually we can learn to carry the full one. We can read our symbolon by meditating on these buddhas and bodhisattvas, and by engaging with them in ritual and devotion, which will help us approach the qualities of the true enlightened experience. In the final part of the book we will explore these practices.

Other Ways into the" Dharma Zone" Ultimately we need to contextualise all our experiences within the "Dharma Zone". We can do that through symbolism as we have seen. There are other methods too. What works for us may depend on our temperament. The main thing is one way or another we do it.

Conceptual Ways In Another way we can enter the "Dharma Zone" is conceptually. By thinking about the nature of existence. We can dwell on the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, on Praticca Samutpada. We can try and see things in those terms. This is leading in with our mental faculty. This brings us into the "Dharma Zone" and helps us stay there.

The Cognitive Approach The aesthetic/ symbolic approach is one approach. Some people will be more comfortable with conceptual reflection on the dharma. In the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, {Footnote: An extended version of the Satipatthana Sutta} the fourth foundation, Dharma, consists of a several sets of dharmic lists. The meditator is asked to reflect on these in turn, by 'contemplating the dharma in the dharma', that is seeing the Dharma in what is present in him (the Five Hindrances, etc). He reflects on it in terms of the dharma, sees/understands it in that context, sees it from the "Dharma Zone". Each list adds a new perspective, until they have all been thoroughly seen from the "Dharma Zone".

{Footnote: The text goes - 'Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu dwells contemplating the Dhamma in the dhammas in the five hindrances. And how, bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu dwell contemplating the Dhamma in the dhammas in the five hindrances?

Here, bhikkhus, when sense-desire is present in him, the bhikkhu knows, "There is sense-desire in me," or when sense-desire is absent in him, he knows, "There is no sense-desire in me." He also knows the reason why the arising of non-arisen sense-desire comes to be; he also knows the reason why the abandoning of arisen sense-desire comes to be; and he also knows the reason why non-arising in the future of the abandoned sense-desire comes to be....and so on through the Five Hindrances.

He knows how sense desire comes about, and disappears, he sees it in a dharmic context, which conceptually means from the perspective of Conditioned Coproduction. Any state arises conditionately. It isn't part of a fixed self, but part of the dharma. Reflecting this way makes it possible to transfer one's reliance from (empty) phenomena, over to the dharma. , 'Contemplating the Dhamma in the dhammas in the five hindrances' is looking for the Dharma (emptiness) in the dhammas (the five hindrances)}

Direct Experience The third way of "contemplating the Dhamma in the dhammas" is direct experience. Tibetan buddhism uses this approach a lot. Vajrayana buddhism, the 'Diamond Way', enshrines a very pragmatic and down to earth path. It uses a lot of ritual, symbolism, and devotion. Some of the practices are physically arduous. In one one prostrates oneself on the ground, while reciting verses and visualising enlightened figure in the sky, for the complete length of a 400 mile walk from Lhasa in Tibet, to the site of the Buddha's enlightenment in India, repeating the prostration every couple of paces. The idea is, with this sort of practice, we soon directly experience the truth about how much we are really into our practice of buddhism. We contemplate the 'Dhamma in the dhammas', but the dhammas are us. It is like watching the film Stalker, but imagining having Stalker 's experience as he has it in the film. He isn't experiencing "The Zone" as a ' place for a stroll'. If we are watching the images of the rain-soaked Stalker, we can enjoy not getting wet. But at some point in life we will metaphorically get 'wet'. We will have the experiences Stalker is having, being wet, afraid and wretched.

We can see the Mahayana (blue sky) and Vajrayana (direct experience) approaches as complementary. One is a gradual and aesthetic path. We can always stop the film/ meditation and make a cup of tea. It is to some degree distanced from reality, even though it is in touch with it. This lets us relax. There is 'aesthetic cushioning' towards the reality. The direct approach though brings the reality unmediated, and with it a sense of urgency. We need both. It depends on what we need at the time. When we are tense, we need to relax. Then the 'blue sky' approach helps. Sensitive people are attracted to poetry for this reason. But if we are dull and complacent, we may need a shot of reality to wake us up. Then the 'vajra' approach restores our sense of urgency.

The main thing in the "Dharma Zone" is to become imbued with a dharmic perspective. Not just knowing something with a part of our being, as in intellectually, but one that informs everything. Not just 'aesthetically' either, but with all the faculties we have. This is what we mean by fully enlightened. In the "Dharma Zone" we are dealing with views. Not all views are fashioned by the intellect. A view is an explanation, a construction. We can have a construction in the intellect, or a constrution in the imagination, like a piece of art or a symbol. We have to find our own way to explain reality, one we are happy with. The nature of the imagination is to 'envision'., but that envisioning may be intellectual. The dharma can be represented in any faculty that can hold information. Our psyche has various 'conduits' through which it might come in. We might feel it emotionally. It can even be a physical experience. People tend to use the language they are most comfortable with to explain reality to themselves. They are fluent in a variety of languages. This leads to conceptual explanations of the Dharma, symbolic representations, and ones that come through tangible experience.

Fluency Perhaps the reason we need a 'comfortable language' is because the "Dharma Zone" is the hardest to acknowledge to ourselves that we are in, it being the realm of insight, which to us is the unknown. It is hard enough staying with the known, with the "Body" and "Feeling Zones". As we move through the foundations, they are harder to stay with. We need more help to remind ourselves where we are. The "Mind Zone" benefits from our practice of meditation. It helps us simplify our experience, by screening off the outside world, so we can more easily see what's going on. We need meditation and yet more things to stay in the "Dharma Zone". To stay in the "Dharma Zone" we need the help of a guide. Usually someone that knows more about it that we do. It may be a real person or an imagined 'other'. We can imagine the historical Buddha and what he did and said, as a guide. We can imagine a symbolic buddha or bodhisattva, and take them and their symbolic attributes as a guide. Or, as Tibetan buddhists do, we can let a living person, a lama, represent that guide, and we act as if they are enlightened.

These broad methods of guidance have been adopted by the three great phases of buddhism, respectively, the Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. When we are in the "Mind Zone" we can develop all sorts of qualities, with the danger that we then appropriate them and attach them to our sense of self. So we can't always keep a perspective on what we are doing. That is why we need a guide. To keep a perspective on us. The safe view in the "Dharma Zone" is thatwe have no permanent self. There is nothing for our appropriations to attach to. A guide can help us see this fact, help us relax into the "Dharma Zone". If we are using a symbolic guide, like a visualised figure, or a lama, they symbolise having that safe perspective in the "Dharma Zone". If we put our faith in them, we can then feel safe from our own 'unsafe' views, and can relax.

Engaging with the Dharma is engaging with the Buddha and with the Sangha, the community of insight holding buddhists, . These three things are called the Three Jewels, being that which is most valuable in buddhism.

In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha says you won't see him by external marks. In other words, he means don't confuse his image with the reality behind the image.

a storehouse of useful associations for us around that topic. It can remind us of teachings and relationships

Holding reality in poetry / drama.

In mythological stories, individuals are often transformed in the course of a journey. They develop wisdom coping with the events of the journey. So we could say mythology is like a "Wisdom Zone".

Citta and Dharma make a pair just like Rupa and Vedana. Vedana always comes with Rupa as our immediate experience, and Dharma always accompanies Citta as a bigger context to any response we have to our experience.

The art of play is to get the balance right between these two sides, so there is both enjoyment and learning.

Images are useful that help us bridge that gap, and cover all four foundations. They need to help us strike a balance between the abstract and the tangible, so that we include both. It is better not to get too abstract and lose sight of our experience, or too embedded in our experience and lose sight of the shapes to reality beyond it.

We might grasp the concept 'Impermanence' intellectually, and because of that be fooled into thinking we've 'got it'. Yet words are small and easy to utter. Reality is much bigger than we are, which a symbol can convey much better than a concept. The symbol for the impermanence and emptiness of all phenemena is an infinite blue sky. This isn't small, it gives a better sense that reality is bigger than we are, that we have to fit into it.

Kaya is bodily form, and now we have Dharma as Symbol, a different kind of form. Kaya is tangible, Symbol is abstract experience although it is not the thing itself, but the finger pointing at the moon. We are trying to get to the experience of the moon. The Diamond Sutra...... etc.

The four Satipatthanas start with body and feeling, experiences that are real and mundane, kaya and vedana. We respond to them with all the creativity we can muster, trying to manage the worlds of form and feeling for the benefit of all, working on ethics and meditation. But we don't stop with being creative just with form. In the end we create a symbolic form in our imagination that helps us grope towards the transcendental, that is beyond form. We try to see beyond the outer symbolic form of the transcendental, to the higher reality, the dharma, it represents. That which is ultimately beyond our imagination.

[Stalker is a film. It is art rather than life. Yet being art it it gives us a more spacious colourful way to see the nature of reality than a dry conceptual formulation. We wander through this "Zone", not checking on the views we have, and fall into death traps because of them.]

[Hamlet Hamlet holds Yorick's scull in his hand. This image is a good one to represent someone with. Hamlet is just a man. He is not enlightened. What do you do if you can't cope, if you can't metaphorically speaking hold the scull in your hand. Stalker keeps returning to "the Zone". He keeps reminding himself what it is like. His wife pleads with him not to go "...... " but as he says it brings meaning to his life. It brings perspective, and through that perspective brings safety.]

[Dilgo Khyentse There are two things to consider. There is the reality (the scull) and the person holding it (the wise person). Personally I am attracted to the image of an old Tibetan Lama, Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche. He has such a warm kindly expression on his face that I feel encouraged by it to practice. I feel a personal spiritual connection with this man, even though I have never met him. He represents for me someone who is able to cope with reality, and smile as he does it. I use him as a symbol. I have a picture of him on my shrine. In a way it doesn't matter if he isn't enlightened, his face symbolises more kindness than I feel I have and that can help me move forward.] connections

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 WORKING WITH THE FOUR SATIPATTHANAS

The four satipatthanas or "Zones" are the context. They are that within which life and buddhist practice takes place. All buddhist practices relate to this context. Whether a monk is walking mindfully along a jungle path, sitting in a zendo, or playing a thigh-bone trumpet amid the vivid colour of a Tibetan puja, it is the same context. The orange clad monk follows an inward looking path of mindfulness and contemplation, examining his experience. The Satipatthana Sutta is one of the main reference points for his practice. He finds his way into each "Zone" in turn and practices contemplation. His emphasis, in the vipassana tradition is to undermine a sense of self. There is no me walking the path but just walking happening. This is one of the functions of naming his experience - Nama-Rupa. There is his naming an action - 'lifting the foot' (Nama) and the form being observed (Rupa) but where in that is the self? Of course he has to choose the right "Zone". His emphasis is 'seeing into' (vi- as in divide, plus passi- to see). He is occupied mainly with what Sangharakshita calls the spatio-analytic method (see px) and it is natural his interest is more with what is going on within each satipatthana than with how they relate as a whole. This method of practice is represented in the buddhist tradition by the Theravada (Way of the Elders) as practiced in Burma and Thailand. Mahayana buddhism later took up a diferent approach. It focused on the spatio- analytic method (all dharmas are empty) but added the dynamical-synthetic. All dharmas were conditioned by and conditioned other dharmas. Hence interconnectedness. Where the Hinayana leaned towards wisdom, the Mahayana balanced it with compassion. So practice of the four satipatthanas in effect became both about contemplation within each satipatthana and about the relationship between them.

Metta is a direct consequence of considering interconnectedness. We see that our heart (Citta) has a conditioning effect on the experiences of others (Kaya and Vedana).The bodhisattva doesn't consider their needs separately from other beings, there is just a web of interconnected needs. What we do in one satipatthana conditions the others. Hence the buddhafield. In the Mahayana literarture conceptions of body, feeling, heart / mind and dhamma are all mixed together. We have the dharmakaya for instance. And the sambhogakaya, the body of mutual delight. Mahayana literaturte tries to express a vision showing how the satipatthanas are interconnected, with the intention that we pay more attention to that interconnectedness.

The third phase of buddhism called the Vajrayana (the'diamond way') perhaps drew the Hinayana and Mahayana together, drawing the symbolism of the Mahayana down into the reality (vajra) embodied in the present moment. It represents in that sense an interpenetration of wisdom and compassion.

The Theravada followers of the Buddha, wearing yellow robes and follow similar meditative practices. Their literature is the Pali Canon. Texts in the original Pali language they claim date from the Buddha's day. This inwards looking phase

What we do in the "Body Zone" affect what happens in the "Mind Zone"? Are they independent of each other?

This second 'strand' is the dimension of interconnectedness, which focusses on how one thing affects another, a theme we have already come across with the Metta Bhavana.

If we can work within one "Zone" like the orange clad monk, we can work with an awareness of how one "Zone" affects another, which is more the outward looking path of compassionate activity.

In the second section we will be looking at that, at interconnectedness, and how the "Zones" work together.

INTERCONNECTEDNESS

The "Zones" together We have seen how to select a "Zone" and work within it. But how does what we do (or don't do) in one "Zone" affect what happens in the others. Or how does any one thing affect any other. As we saw in the section on Metta, one of the truths in buddhism is that all things are notes:- contemplative', a person we imagine choosing to withdraw from the world rather than live in it; the monk, the forest dweller, the meditator, the mindful monk in orange robes.

The second great phase shifted the emphasis from inner- to outer-, or inter-. It was called the Mahayana. It grew parallel to but peaked later than the Hinayana. It emphasised interaction, altruism. Its literature consisted of great imaginative pan-galactic treatises of spiritual interaction. Rather than an emphasis on internal purification through self examination it emphasised the purification of the universe through wisdom and skilful means. The great Mahayana Sutras are hymns to connection and beneficial spiritual influence. What becomes important is ones sphere of influence.

How do they relate / How do these zones communicate with each other / How do the parts interrelate and relate to the whole /use only stuff I have already.

This comes from the truth of Praticca Samutpada, Conditioned Coproduction. No ' thing' is an 'island'. Nothing exists in isolation from other things. Everything is part of a 'web' of conditions that have an effect on each other.

In the third section we will be looking at a third dimension to buddhist practice. The Tibetan playing his thigh-bone trumpet corresponds to the use of imagination, including ritual and symbolism.

These three emphases; contemplation, inter- relatedness and imagination, correspond roughly to the emphases of Hinayana (now Theravada), Mahayana and Vajrayana practice.

Hopefully at the end of these three sections we will have a clearer notion of how the strands of buddhism fit in the framework of the "Zones". Differentiating between the "Zones"

The "Zones" Separately The first thing we have to do to work effectively in a "Zone" is to be in it, to inhabit it. There are four "Zones" and a question is - Are we in the right one? Being unenlightened we are easily deluded, and being in the wrong "Zone" is one way we can be deluded. Being in the right "Zone" is then an aspect of wisdom. We can only check how 'safe' our situation is in a "Zone" if we know for sure we are there in the first place.

In fact that delusion can be dangerous for us. If we cannot sink down into our physical experience when we are anxious and in need of reassurance, our thinking faculty is likely to run away with itself, creating more and more anxiety. Only in the "Body Zone" are we able to relax. The energy associated with anxiety can be 'earthed' by bringing attention to our physical experience especially low in our body, allowing it to rest within the sense of touch, in the present moment.

Being in the Right 'Medium' In the Satipatthana Sutta the Buddha says bhikkhu kaye kayanupassi viharati which is translated as " the monk dwells contemplating the body in and of itself" (alternatively, " dwells contemplating the body in the body"). This phrase 'in and of itself' sums up the importance of being in the right medium. We enter the "Body Zone" only through the sense of touch, its 'medium'. If we aren't in touch, we are in the wrong medium, we are observing from another "Zone".

If the Buddha had only said " dwells contemplating the body" it would be more ambiguous, but he clearly said "dwells contemplating the body in the body". If we are not in the right 'medium' something basic goes wrong. We cannot change something if we are not in the place where it is.

I talked earlier about the link between alienation and ownership. If we are in the wrong "Zone" we are alienated from the right one and we cannot own what is going on there. Not owning it we cannot take seriously our position in relation to it, and then do something about it. One example is confusion between feeling and emotion. A feeling is something we experience in the now, whereas an emotion is a response to the now. To own our emotional responses we have to realise that that is what they are. They are not feelings happening to us, and so in the "Feeling Zone", but responses, things we are choosing to do, and therefore in the "Mind Zone". It is common to mix these two up and so not take responsibility for our actions, because in terms of being actions we are alienated from them.

An example of mixing "Feeling" and "Mind Zones" up is when we think we are experiencing a feeling, of depression, when we have already moved to a response, again of depression, but are unconscious we have done so.

The feeling and the response are two different things. We choose to act depressed, perhaps because of depressing circumstances, but they are different. We must own our depression as something in the "Mind Zone" to have the possibility of changing it as a mental state. We can't do that if we think it is in the "Feeling Zone".

In fact theoretically, we could confuse any two "Zones" in this way. I mentioned earlier my trouble relaxing. There I probably got confused between "Body" and either "Feeling, "Mind" or "Dharma Zone". I couldn't relax my body because I was alienated from it. I was stuck in thinking about it rather than being within the experience of it. Maybe I was 'doing' anxiety in the "Mind Zone", or as the "Dharma Zone" is where we frame our views about the world, through thoughts and images, perhaps I was there. But a thought is just a thought.

We mix up thoughts and feelings all the time. Suppose a person expresses an opinion about us. We are then asked how we feel about it. We may reply 'I feel criticised'. But this is not a feeling, it is an opinion, about them. A thought. That they are criticising us. A feeling is more like 'I feel unhappy'. It is a pleasant or unpleasant sensation or mood.

There are in fact twelve possible wrong combinations, if we take each "Zone" and the three ways we can be alienated from it. For the sake of completeness I have listed these along with their delusional consequences in Appendix 1.

With such a lot of possibilities for getting it 'wrong', we need clarity. We probably all have "Zones" we prefer to be in, and others we aren't so sure about. Some we feel more comfortable in. They may match an image we have of ourselves, or our personality, but all four "Zones" are really there for us all of the time. If we try to stay in just one or two, we end up in delusion, and from that will get into difficulty.

An example of getting it right comes in the story of Bahiya. Bahiya was an ascetic desperate to know the Buddha's teachings. The Buddha, seeing he was ready, gave himhis most pith teachings.

Bahiya said to the Blessed One (the Buddha):

"But it is hard to know for sure what dangers there may be for the Blessed One's life, or what dangers there may be for mine. Teach me the Dhamma, O Blessed One! Teach me the Dhamma, O One-Well-Gone, that will be for my long-term welfare and bliss."

"Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no you in terms of that. When there is no you in terms of that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."

Through hearing this brief explanation of the Dhamma from the Blessed One, the mind of Bahiya of the Bark- cloth right then and there was released from the effluents through lack of clinging/sustenance. Having exhorted Bahiya of the Bark-cloth with this brief explanation of the Dhamma, the Blessed One left.

Now, not long after the Blessed One's departure, Bahiya - - attacked by a cow with a calf -- lost his life. Then the Blessed One, having gone for alms in Savatthi, after the meal, returning from his alms round with a large number of monks, saw that Bahiya had died. On seeing him, he said to the monks, "Take Bahiya's body and, placing it on a litter and carrying it away, cremate it and build him a memorial. Your companion in the holy life has died."

In the final state of Enlightenment, the Buddha says, 'in reference to the seen, there will be only the seen'. With the heard, sensed, cognised, the same, only them. Bahiya took up the teaching, and gained enlightenment. We could say he saw each part of experience for what it is, he didn't mix them up. He didn't mix up "Zones" like I had done learning meditation. In doing so, he didn't identify himself with one part of experience or another. He didn't have 'leanings'. And so saw things just as they are.

In the text it says, when he does see 'in the seen only the seen, etc'

there is no you in terms of that. When there is no you in terms of that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."

We cannot be objective about what we are sensing if our 'self' is in the way. That self can make us prefer experience, or idealism, and so limit the scope of our awareness to just part of the whole. To just some of the "Zones". Someone perpetually in discomfort might identify strongly with the "Feeling Zone". Someone perpetually outgoing and active might identify with the "Mind Zone". Or the sensualist with the "Body Zone". But when we favour one "Zone" over the others, we lose the completely realistic perspective.

Insight Bahiya gets 'himself' out of the way of being aware 'across the board'. Or, another way of putting it, by being aware 'across the board' he gets his illusory, in terms of permanent or substantial, self, out of the way.

So it is important to keep our eye on all the "Zones" in turn and to make sure each time we are in the right one. Once we are sure we are in the right "Zone", we then contemplate what is in that "Zone" from that medium. In terms of Stalker we check the direction is safe by throwing the nut, and then move about. We keep checking that our foundation is secure. imagination

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 IMAGINATION

I have given a separate chapter to the topic of imagination even though it fits within the framework of the four satipatthanas in the fourth, because it is such a big topic. IImafgination is the way we grasp reality (mental objects)in order to make sense of the wider picture. It can be that but cahn be done with more or less insightfully. And because imagination is a guess that is only confirmed by future events, it is not easy to say in the moment what is real (imagination) and what is fantasy. The fantastic may actually connect us with something of importance that we need to include (be mindful of). The 'ground' of staying aware of mental objects includes imagination. How safe that ground turns out to be (in that "Zone") depends on the truth of that imagination.

In considering imagination, everything we have mentioned, about mindfulness in the various "Zones is relevant. The main point with mindfulness being to be 'safe' in each "Zone". That is why we imagine anything in buddhism in the first place. The orange clad monk walking mindfully on a jungle path is in the same 'place' as the maroon robed Tibetan chanting amid tha cacophany of a colourful puja in a Himalayan monastery. They are just taking up different emphases within the satipatthanas. The one's buddhist practice is more based in mindfulness of the body, the others' more 'grounded' in imagination.

It is a question of what each is already bringing to their buddhist practice. If the idea is to be grounded across all the four satipatthanas one needs to work on those one is less grounded in, hence the different emphasis between Tibetan and Thai practice. The Tibetan and theThai have different collective predispositions, probably conditioned by their very different environments. One lives in a tropical zone with its lush and abundant jungle, the other on a harsh unforgiving mountain plateau. These will have conditioned them to have very different collective temperaments, although with each collectivity there will be variation between individuals. As a result the Tibetans are very earthy people. One cannot imagine many Tibetans not know what they are feeling or where their body is. They come to the practice of buddhism already being quite grounded in themselves. It is quite good then that they balance out this pragmatism with imagination, which is why their buddhist culture is so rich. The Thai on the other hand lives in a very rich environment. For them the practice of being aware of the body and its movements, of naming the events in their experience is a counterbalance to this richness. They need to be grounded in the tangible here and now of physical experience in their buddhist practice. The point being that whatever disposition is already there, the flavour of ones buddhist practice balances that out with what needs to be there.

This raises a question for practitioners in the West. We live in a culture different from both the Tibetan and the Thai. What flavour should our practice have to balance what is there with what needs to be there. We need first to look at our culture and then our individual tendencies within that culture. I suppose our culture is characterised by choice, individualism, and now, technological sophistication. If our mind is used to jumping from one object to the next, we do a lot of imagining basically - what experience can we have next, what can we buy?, faced with a form of buddhism with a strong imaginative flavour and a plethora of forms (Tibetan deities) we carry on developing our already well developed imaginative faculty but we don't balance that out with what needs to be there. Somebody like this is likely to benefit from practicing a form of buddhism where they don't have a choice about what experience they are going to have. They just have to deal with the concrete reality of what's there. The tangible: body and feelings. It is a question ultimately of self knowledge. We need to know what our particular tendencies are, and that within the wider tendencies of our culture. Some westerners will be fine with the esoteric wackiness of tibetan buddhist forms, but they will be those who are already well grounded in themselves. People who are at home with the pragmatic. But if we are not like that perhaps we need to consider focussing on a more grounded form of practice.

The other western predispositions: individualism and technical sophistication, have their counterbalances in the metta bhavana (citta bhavana) and the practice of Sangha, and something to balance out all that thinking. We get excited about technology, the internet and so on. That is a view perceived by Manas. There is evidence that excessive use of the internet can increase the incidence of mental illness among teenagers. (develop argument)

So with all this in mind let's move onto looking at the imagination and how it works.

Channelling our Imagination In a previous chapter we looked at metta,universal loving kindness. Metta brings awareness to beings. Beings are one thing we can bring our imagination to. Whatever we imagine about them will impact on living beings. To engage with living beings positively we need to use our imagination towards them positively.

In this chapter we will look at facets of the imagination in general, and buddhist uses in particular. When we contemplate, we engage with the future, which requires imagination. Imagination is essentially about going beyond the end of our noses. It is taking it on that there might be a bigger picture, a bigger shape beyond what appears to us. The buddhist bigger picture is represented by the Buddha, who had the imagination to see there was a problem inherent in existence, that all beings, universally, face death. But he also had the imagination to see beyond this fact too. He realised it was possible to deal with this truth, the truth of how things are. In becoming a Buddha, an 'awakened one', his imagination turned into reality. But first, let’s take a look at what we might mean by imagination in esxperience.

The Experience of Imagination - The Image Suppose we experience a difficult situation. We can't see a way out of it. Our mind is blurry, we mentally writhe around, turning this way and that. We don't have any confidence of the best way forward. We are stuck in the mud, which is an uncomfortable place to be. Suddenly we find ourselves in a new situation. It feels like a place of greater freedom and openness. Suddenly we see a few options, the future has opened up. Because we now have a path forward, we feel better. Our imagination has created a new situation. This is one way we can look at imagination. Essentially what has happened is we now have an image to move towards. One aspect of ourselves is showing the way. Imagination always involves some kind of image but not necessarily a visual one. It is some sort of prefiguration of the future. But that can be a feeling, even a physical sensation, an intuition, a hunch, depending on the person. But whatever it is, it is something we can move towards, a beacon that can guide us. It tends to happen in a language we are articulate in. For some that might be sound: music soothes the savage beast. For others, movement. For a dancer, the shape their body makes. For an artist, a certain combination of shape and colour. For a poet, a metaphor. It isn't an end in itself, but it gives us a beginning, a map, a place to begin our exploration, a place we will eventually have to take the whole of ourselves if our imagination is real. The image takes the lead and we have to follow.

Poetry and Metaphor An example of how the image draws a path for our imagination to work with comes in a poetic metaphor. In Alphabet , the Czech poet Miroslav Holub gives us a few such images.

Ten million years from the Miocene to the primary school in Jecna Street.

We know everything from a to z.

But sometimes the finger stops in that empty space between a and b, empty as the prairie at night, between g and h, deep as the eyes of the sea, between m and n, long as man’s birth, sometimes it stops in the galactic cold after the letter z, at the beginning and the end, trembling a little like some strange bird. Not from despair.

Just like that.

Beyond knowing the a to z of everything since the Miocene, there is the ‘galactic cold after the letter z ’. Between the a and b , 'the empty prairie at night'. The finger of our measuring Manas stops and trembles, quivering at the unknown. We think the world of facts is safe. In fact it isn't safe at all. It only seems safe because it has the illusion of certainty about it. When our finger sometimes stops between facts and pauses to consider the potentially more rewarding but seemingly unsafe world of the imagination, it trembles a little. It trembles with life. In the long run it is safer be alive with the keener realities of life, the ‘galactic cold after the letter z ’ to learn to live with the emotions that come up in relation to them, than to hide from those realities behind facts. In 'the galactic cold after the letter z' is some of the empty dispassionate coldness of the universe, and pausing with that metaphor we feel an emotional response to that that is milder than being out in space. Being an image not the full reality, it is manageable. But at the same time we rehearse the emotion of the full reality.

Realisation Metaphors are like careful stepping stones into the unknown. Like Stalker throwing the nut, tentative progress is made into the unknown, in this case through poetry. ‘Empty as the prairie at night’. ‘Deep as the eyes of the sea’. Each is throwing the nut and stepping into the reality. At each step there is an experience of something beyond what we already know. The poet or artist, at home in the language of the image, chart the way. They provide the stepping stones. Like Stalker in the film, they may not go into 'the Room' themselves, but they are interested in the journey. They are interested in being guides. This brings us to the question realisation, of embodiment. In terms of the metaphor of 'the Zone' the Buddha went into 'the Room'. He realised his vision. He became enlightenment embodied. What does this mean? He was able to make what was in his imagination (going beyond suffering) tangible within himself. He went beyond suffering. This is the difference between reality (in terms of the imagination) and fantasy. Our imaginings will turn out to be fantasy unless we can realise them. As the Buddha so candidly said 'all puthujunas are mad'. All unenlightened beings are mad in that their imaginings don't match the reality. If one part of us takes the lead manifesting an image, the process is only complete when the rest of us 'catches up'. The process for a visual person leading with a visual image will be complete when their body and feelings and heart 'catch up'. Someone into science fantasy who identifies with a character will be living in fantasy until they become like that character. We need to be realistic who we imagine ourselves to be, and, we also need to imagine ourselves beyond who we are now. Imagination and realism working together.

The catching up may have to happen for other people in a different way. The image of the way forward for the army general is all about bodies. He sees a strategy in terms of troop movements. He is the expert in logistics. He knows how to marshall troops and all the tangible aspects of waging war. Like all good managers his imagination is led by tangible concerns, by the embodied. To fully realise his vision (which may in his imagination be about defending the values of his nation) he will have to bring his other faculties (his sensibility, ethical outlook and wisdom) up to the level of his proficiency with tangible things. As the competent thief who asked a Zen master,whose mindfulness he admired, how do I improve my practice of mindfulness, and who was told to be aware of people, the general may have to become a 'warrior of peace' to realise his own imagination. Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have been both a good general, and a humanitarian.

Metaphor is one doorway that the imagination can take in approaching the unknown. Other doorways that do a similar thing are symbol, archetype, myth and legend. They are all devices that create 'space' for contemplation. Let's consider how they might work.

Space for the Imagination - The Metaphor Les Murray, the Australian poet, says: ‘Poetry is a zoo in which you keep demons and angels’. As a metaphor, it is not meant to be taken literally. Taking it literally you don’t get anything useful out of it. But taking it metaphorically.. Poetry isn’t literally a zoo. It isn’t a place where we keep animals. That is certainly true. But in some ways, it is like a zoo. It has a similar ‘shape’ to a zoo. It is a collection, of images. Within poetry one finds interesting unusual things to look at. One finds emotional responses, for instance. Like in the zoo, where the animals are often rare and exotic, some are frightening; fearful, so in the poem the emotions evoked can be rare and exotic, frightening and fearful, like angels and demons. So there is some truth in that too. So in Murrays metaphor there are two truths going on simultaneously. Poetry isn't like a zoo. Poetry is like a zoo. Like a koan the mind doesn't know which to rest with, the literal truth or the truth that is true by association. It ends up hovering, trembling like Holub's finger, in the space in between the two truths. And that is the metaphor. (See fig.1). We have two statements, both of which are true, so we can’t dismiss either one of them. We are forced to keep in a relationship with them both. But to do that, we have to move ourselves into the space between them (the galactic cold) When we dismiss either truth, the space disappears. If we take only the literal truth, the space disappears. If we take only the truth by association, the space disappears. It may be uncomfortable to stay in the space, so we may want to tip one way or the other and so make the space (the creative tension) disappear. If we keep in contact with both truths, the space is kept alive and we have to inhabit it. It is a space of uncertainty, unknowing, so we cannot put it into a box and label it. It is a bigger reality than we are. Nature is a diverse and complex place that we cannot easily sum up and 'put in a box’, so nature is a good comparison. We have to take on board all its’ complexities and contradictions and live in it. Of course we can and do try to put nature 'in a box' through science. That removes any contradiction or paradox from our view of nature but it also takes away our potential to inhabit and learn from it, we see it as only to be managed. But back to the metaphor. If we can stay 'in the space', we will wonder what is ‘beyond’. We will be open to the new, the unexpected, life itself. Not just to trying to fit everything into our a to z of received experience, but being open to the experience of being ‘in the galactic cold after the letter z’.

Being 'Carried Over' Staying in the space provided by the metaphor we are ‘carried over’. That is the Greek root of the word metaphor (meta-, over, pherein - to carry) You could say by staying 'in the space' we let ourselves be carried over into a new experience. This implies a certain trust. It implies letting go of any need to be in control. We aren't in control of reality anyway, so the metaphor helps us get used to this. Poetry is by its’ very nature a gradual introduction to reality, a controlled introduction, rather than a sudden one as into chaos. We can always tune out from a metaphor. A good example of what many people think of as fantasy in the sense of a delusive use of the imagination is fairyland. 'He's off with the fairies' meaning deluded. In the Middle Ages though people really used to believe in them. But keeping in sight the two truths we can see Fairyland as a metaphor for something else. The Encyclopaedia of Fantasy tells us about how we enter into fairyland-

Faerie, is the land of the fairies, or fairyland. It is therefore an ‘otherworld’ perhaps linked to ours, though access is seldom physical in the normal sense. The most common methods of access are by going ‘into the woods’, by river, by being transported by the winds (usually the North Wind) or by dreams (though Faerie is seldom portrayed as a dreamland; rather, memory of being there is as of a dream)

Entering into Dream We seem to have to enter in Fairyland by letting go, into nature. Either external nature; the woods, the river, and the wind, or internal nature; by letting go into our subconscious, by dreaming. We could say this is just letting go into our experience, which is also part of nature. Letting go into how we are at any time, not resisting our experience. Letting go into how we feel about things. By letting the forces of nature, including our internal nature, take us where they will, we are trusting we will be alright if we do that. Entering a river, riding the wind, dropping into a dream, all of these involve trust.

To be 'taken by the wind', we have to be light and impressionable, not heavy and resistant to change. Entering the woods implies our being natural, able to be at home among the mosses and ferns, the dampness and the eerie half light. We trust ourselves when we let sleep 'take us', when we give up control to our subconscious. In the woods, and in our dreams, we are in a place where we are faced with the unpredictable. We don't know what is going to come at us. We are concerned more with our survival than with ideas. Ideas often don't have much relevance when we feel threatened or afraid. What comes up here is our animal past. Will we get out of there or not? So we have to let go into this, into our fears, into our knowledge of what might happen to us. Letting ourselves experience our more basic, and deep seated, emotions, and trusting we will be alright when we do that.

Trust leads to Transformation So we do this. But where does the fairy come in? Well, perhaps the fairy represents something else that we do as we do that. We don't only let go into chaos, into dissolution, into reality. We also look after ourselves as we do that. The fairy is our taking care of ourselves.

So there is a difference here to be noted. There is a difference between control, and letting go with care. When we attempt to control or manipulate reality, we start off with ideas rather than feelings. We don't let go into our feelings, in fact the opposite. We hold them at bay while we develop a theory that will 'hold' reality. But the trouble with this method is that while we may develop the most sophisticated and beguiling theory ever, it is still only a theory. It is only ideas. Ideas do not control reality, as we soon too easily find when we step out from the world of thinking.

If we follow this path we just develop a split between our thinking and other faculties. So what happens if we let go but take care of ourselves as we do that. Well, for one thing, we learn about the reality of our feelings. But in a relaxed way. We accommodate ourselves to them. But what is the fairy metaphor also telling us. What are fairies like?

Well fairies are magical. And what is magic? Magic is like a rabbit appearing out of a hat. Something coming from nowhere. Or seeming to do. It may not have come from nowhere, but we can't understand where it came from. Something wonderful ??? out from a metaphor. We can put a book down.

Letting Go - The World of the Fairies Take an example of a metaphor associated with imagination and fantasy. The fairy, or nature spirit, is one. We might choose to think of fairies as real, but we might also consider they might be a metaphor for something. Suppose we did that, and then started to look for a possible explanation. Suppose they represented a particular mental state. What might that be?

The Encyclopaedia of Fantasy tells us about how we need certain conditions for creativity to happen. We are relaxed, open. Open to ourselves and caring for ourselves. Open to what is outside of ourselves. Letting that imprint on us too. If we can let go, and allow ourselves to be ‘taken’ by the forces in nature, something else then can happen. We can then experience the ‘spirits’ of those places. But only if we are receptive enough.

We may at first feel fear, but if we can continue letting go, that fear may transform into magic. Especially if our fear gives way to wonder. The wonder that going along with being in nature.

Perhaps the figure of the fairy represents a changed perspective in us. When we can fully accept nature as unpredictable, that anything could happen to us, we may lighten our expectations of it. Living more in the moment, everything, like magic, seems to come out of nowhere. Everything appears as a bonus.

In the buddhist scriptures there are various examples of magical occurrences. The Buddha rises up into the air and emits jets of water from his body. Perhaps this is meant to illustrate an internal state of mind, a magical one that goes along with internally letting go into the realities of nature.

Magic Magic, we usually think, is when something appears even though the origins of it seem inexplicable by the laws of nature. A stage magician tricks us that they have defied the laws of nature, when they haven’t really. Or it may be that somebody is very skilful at something, and it seems like magic because we can’t imagine how they did it. The magician was originally a Magi, or wise man from the East. Here we have a link between magic and wisdom. The wise man knows about reality. He / She knows enough about the forces of nature to be confidently able to advise about them. This can only have come about through sustained getting to know those forces by letting themselves be ‘taken’ by them, basically through letting go.

In the ‘Lord of the Rings’, Gandalf the wizard begins the story as Gandalf the Grey. Near the end of the first book he is involved in a battle with a giant horned demon, the Balroc, from the Underworld. The demon is very primordial, wreathed in a halo of fire. It maybe predates man it is so old. It certainly doesn’t look at all sensitive to any kind of communication. Gandalf’s fellow travellers feel despair as he falls into the pit after the demon, fearing him dead, but unknown to them, he carries on the fight under the Earth, emerging after a long time a changed being. Now more powerful, he has become Gandalf the White.

Having fought this primordial demon, Gandalf’s knowledge and power have increased. It is as if he has taken on some of the power of the demon, but that power has been purified, turned to the good. It’s incandescence now makes him glow white.

We can see the demon as an aspect of Gandalf, an aspect of the nature of himself that was unacknowledged. In the story he went with it, into the bowels of the Earth, into the depths. He let himself go there, really meet it, even though he was also fighting it. He experienced it and got to know it. Perhaps he even did the Metta Bhavana for it.

Self Possession One important point is that he stayed separate from it. He went with it but he also fought it too. He didn’t let it possess him. Through the power of his magic, in a way his trust, he keeps it at bay, while at the same time learning its’ strengths and weaknesses. Finally, in one way or another, there ceases to be a problem. Whether internally, or externally, it is tamed. It is no different when we wrestle our ‘demons’. When Gandalf was with Balroc, it was the equivalent of accepting his actual feelings, rather than how he would like to feel. We all have that demon of feeling to face. Gandalf didn’t get swamped by the feeling. or in mythical terms, possessed by the demon. He kept his integrity in that way. But neither did he want to hurt it.

There is more to us than just that feeling. We need to stay with it, but keep it at bay, using our own magic, whatever that might be, until there is a transformation.

Magic and Transformation As we get better at staying with emotion, perhaps we can begin to work magic ourselves. Perhaps we can pull rabbits out of hats, metaphorically speaking. Accessing the less conscious parts of ourselves, and letting go of control, might allow other energies to come through. If we put ourselves into the hands of the magical forces of nature, then, as if from nowhere, magical transformation can happen.

Imagination and Feeling - Arnold Mindell My friend Ratnajyoti is an intuitive type, with a lot of experience dealing with his own and other peoples' feelings. It helps that he is naturally non-conceptual. One year I remember him saying he had had quite a difficult time over quite a long period. But he also said that he had been very pleased to have stayed with his feelings through most of that. He said 'I feel no matter how bad it gets, if I stay with my feelings I won't go wrong". I am not all that good at staying with feelings myself, but I have some intuition he is right.

Ratnajyoti is a fan of Process Work, or Process Oriented Psychology, as developed by the psychologist Arnold Mindell, who has a keen interest in shamanism. Ratnajyoti has led me through some Process Work on a couple of occasions to help me get in touch with my feelings. The process involved an intuitive sensing and reflecting back in a range of ways of what I was doing. Sometimes he asked for images, sometimes he got me to move, sometimes he imitated my mannerisms. The end product was on both occasions I finished with a non-conceptually expressed sense of what I was feeling. One time it was an image of a wasps nest in my chest. In another I was a sheep clattering my hoof on a rock.

Channels and Familiar Media I said earlier that it was useful if one wanted to be aware of feeling to try to be aware of the form that it arose with. Looking in Arnold Mindells' book, ‘Working on Yourself Alone’, I found an exposition on what he called ‘channels’. These are the ways Mindell identifies human beings use to 'dream' or store messages for themselves. His list consists of Bodily Sensation (which he calls Proprioception), Visualisation, Hearing, Movement (or Kinaesthesis), Relationships and World Phenomena. I'm not quite sure what some of these mean, but I think I get the general drift. I think the principle is that these are all ways we can 'image' a feeling. We can represent it visually, by sound, as a physical feeling, as a movement, and so on. Different people though may be most comfortable in different channels. Some people are visual types, some physical, some auditory.

In terms of Form, some people find it easier to stay aware of their visual sense, some their sense of touch, some their sense of hearing. It will be easier for a visual person, an artist, to contact how they are feeling if they link it to a visual form, and so on.

We can translate what might be a difficult experience in an unfamiliar medium, by switching channels. We then 'envision' the feeling in a more familiar medium. The one we are more comfortable in.

For example I am a visual type, comfortable in the visual channel. I explored an difficult physical feeling I had in my chest, in a session with Ratnajyoti. It was frightening. Ratnajyoti asked me what it would it be if it was visual. The answer was a wasps nest. Instead of the physical sensation there was now a wasps nest in my chest, which felt more comfortable. I was then able to explore what that might mean, in terms of my feeling. Imaginative methods like this may be useful if we cannot tune into how we are feeling.

A Midsummer Nights’ Dream We can see examples of magical transformation in Shakespeare’s play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. In the play a group of lovers and ordinary country folk enter a wood at night. They appear also to enter a fairy kingdom. It is a realm of enchantment, where all sorts of magical events happen.

In the story two lovers, Hermia and Lysander, elope into the woods to escape the jurisdiction of Athens, its' ruler Theseus having forbid their association on the plea of Hermia's father, Egeus. Egeus wants her to marry another, Demetrius. Hermia has a friend Helena, who loves Demetrius, but it is unrequited. Demetrius is also in love with Hermia.

Demetrius follows them into the woods and Helena follows him. All four are now in the woods.

In terms of what I was talking abouit earlier in the chapter, entering the woods can symbolise letting go into nature, in particular our nature. Letting ourselves experience what we are experiencing, particularly our feelings. In terms of the four, maybe that is what they are now doing.

Hermia and Lysander are in love, but their passion is not acceptable to Hermia's family and to society. Helena is in love but her love is unrequited. Demetrius has the love of Egeus but not Hermia. They all have something to grieve about.

So they enter into the woods, but it is also a fairy kingdom. This means that they have let go into nature, but are also looking after themselves. They are taking care as they do that. They have metta, kindness, towards themselves and each other. And because of that the fairies appear.

They appear in the form of Oberon, king of the fairies, and his servant Robin Goodfellow, Puck. Oberon intervenes. He wants to redress the imbalance between Helena and Demetrius. He sends Puck off around the globe to find a flower, love-in-idleness. It's juice has the property, squeezed into someone's eye, of making them fall in love with the next person they see. Puck is sent off to pour the juice into the eye of Demetrius, when Helena is near. But he gets the wrong person, Lysander, who then falls in love with Helena, and forgets his love for Hermia. Chaos then ensues among the four. When we dream, we often behave uncharacteristically like this. We often aren't logical, and our behaviour can be socially unacceptable. In fact anything can happen. There is something about dreaming where our imagination has the space and latitude to range freely anywhere. We have a raw, rich, unhindered imagination.

In the end Puck's mistake is rectified and balance is restored. Under the spell Demetrius falls for Helena, to her disbelief.

Although at the level of the rational, chaos ensues, we can also see this as an opening up of possibilities. Chaos allows change. It represents new possibilities. Demetrius now loves Helena. Having let go into his feelings, with care, a change of mind has occured. He now is seeing Helena differently. He is now being kind to her. Changing his view has changed his preference.

At the end of the play there is a reconcilliation. There is a restoration of order represented by marriage. Both couples, through their ordeal are wiser. Theseus too has softened. He is due to be married to Hyppolita, and the play concludes with a triple wedding.

At the start of the play, the social order, represented by Theseus, was rigid and inflexible. Now it is more humane. Through letting go into nature, and caring, the dimension of feeling has now become more acknowledged. So what is the value of that? In terms of metaphor, we are being presented with many metaphors as we dream, as are the protagonists in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. When we dream we can see each ‘wacky’ juxtaposition as a metaphor. In the Dream, Bottom is a man, but he also is a man with the head of an ass. That is the metaphor here, that he is both! He, and we, have to try and live in the space. The space where it is both true that we are logical, reasonable, responsible people, and are animals of unfettered appetite! How do we feel about being in that space? Maybe a bit uncomfortable.

When we are dreaming and are being presented with many metaphors, it is as if we are being read a poem. As with a poem, we may not understand our dream, but occasionally a phrase in the poem or an occurrence in the dream will strike us. It will ‘strike a chord’. We will feel there is perhaps something of significance there for us. A seed out of which some understanding might grow. Every night, and in any dream-like process, seeds are planted which later have a possibility to grow and enrich our lives, if we can give them the right conditions. Seeds of possibility.

If they seem fantasy-like, we don’t need to ‘strangle them at birth’. The process of them coming into contact with the rational will sift out the useful. Yet without the seed producing process of dreaming, we would not have anything to sift.

In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ it is due to the actions of the fairies that these more primitive urges are revealed in people. In the lovers. Even in Titania, there is even a hierarchy of revelation among the fairies.. By spells and enchantment, and by using aids, a flower, from the natural world, Oberon causes his servant Puck to help reveal to those people, their baser natures. Oberon, king of the realm of Fairie, would have a role in ordering his realm. I don’t think his aim in using enchantment was humiliation, maybe to some degree, in his jealous retaliation at Titania. The enchantment he used brought up to the surface the truth about the baser instincts of the lovers and Titania, in a way revealing their fuller selves. These selves being now more conscious, even though it might look more chaotic, is actually a step towards order. Things now are more transparent and so able to be seen more clearly and if necessary changed.

This principle operates with buddhist practice all the time. In spiritual practice, it is better to consciously include all the different sides of ourselves, who we fully are, when we come to try to transform ourselves, not just the ‘nice parts’. If we don’t acknowledge them and bring them into consciousness they will no doubt surface in other, probably more destructive, ways. So what might enchantment be about in this context?

The Rite of Fascination Tantric Buddhism has what are called the four Tantric Rites. A Tibetan teacher may use one or more of these rites on a disciple. One is the rite of Fascination. The teacher enchants the disciple. What this does is to make the disciple want to spend more time with the teacher. They also become very drawn to whatever has made the teacher so fascinating, and become very receptive to being taught, which is of course good for them. So attraction can be used as a skilful means towards what might need to happen for a disciple, enchantment as love amitabha

When we enter into dream, or into Fairie, we can be aware that in a way we are being shown something. Something about our more primitive nature, that is there under our rational facade. And who shows us it, well the fairies do. Perhaps they are our guide in that world.

What should we to make of Fairie? We have three choices. We can take it literally as a place, or as a metaphor, or we can dismiss it altogether. Each choice has various consequences.

Taking Fairie literally, we enter a fantasy world and move away from reality. If we dismiss it altogether, we block out a lot of colour and magic from our lives and live just with facts that we can be certain about. We only accept what we feel can be proved to us. This is also not a very real stance.

Thirdly, if we take Faerie as a metaphor, playfully, we get the colour and magic, the experience that comes with it, but are left with also with a responsibility to take on board what having the experience of being with fairies might mean, as a teaching about life.

Fairies are light, quick., they know the secret properties of the flowers and herbs. They represent the enchanted side of being in the woods, in nature. The magical positive side of it. It is interesting that enchantment is one way we can transform our primitive urges. In traditional societies there was the witch doctor, or shaman. Today we have hypnotists, casting a ‘magic spell’ on our psyche. They certainly don’t work by appealing to reason. Instead hypnotism uses rhythmic oscillation, and a low modulated voice to induce relaxation, lightness and make the mind highly suggestible. Just like with the entrance to ‘Fairie’ on the wind, the mind is induced to be light and trusting. The waving of a magic wand has that similar movement to and fro. Repetition is part of the process of enchantment.

Rhythm A strong element in ritual in rhythm, or repetition. There is a thread that connects rocking a baby to sleep, the process of hypnotism, tribal drumming, hypnotic dance music, and the repetition involved in religious rituals, including mantra chanting. All of these involve physical or verbal repetition. When an experience keeps returning, it is as if we learn to trust it, and we can relax, like the constantly returning heartbeat that keeps us alive. Through repetition the mind is led into a trusting and relaxed state, which then favours it being open to suggestion. Of course what is suggested needs to be what helps us towards the truth, rather than a delusional fantasy, as brainwashing involves a similar technique. Once we are in a receptive trusting state perhaps there is no further need for hypnotic rhythm to attract our attention. Once we have receptive awareness, it is less necessary. The tribal drum call would draw the tribe together from across the plain, it would remind them of their social context, reassure them in that. The Shaman...

Enchantment The aim of enchantment is to draw our interest from our basic urges in the present moment and onto something enchanting outside of ourselves that calms our spirit. In terms of our normal hungers and fears when we are ‘in the woods’, the fairy represents this process of enchantment and pacification. It is similar to the way that ‘music calms the savage beast’. In hypnotism, our basic desire might be to smoke, but the hypnotist gives us an enchanting experience outside of that, that somehow helps us forget that desire. It can draw us into a more positive outlook

In ‘A Midsummer Night’ Dream’, Fairie has its’ own order. Oberon is the king and he has a servant Puck., and his queen also has her attendants. In his magical way he tries to bring fairness to his kingdom. His power comes from his assured knowledge of the nature around him, in particular the ‘laws’ of Fairie, as in, what plants brings about what effects. He asks Puck to find a flower, called ‘Love-in- idleness’ which contains a juice , which if squeezed into the eye of a person, makes them fall in love with the next thing they see.

What is implied here is that he knows, in this world of animal desires and fears, how to manipulate the chaos of those desires, how to give them order. He does this through metta.Through his servant Puck he tries to make Demetrius, who is rejecting the desperate love of Helena, fall in love with her when he sees her . Of course Puck gets it wrong and causes chaos. The fairies are the spirits that represent being able to ‘charm’ ones chaotic emotions or lower nature, that otherwise would not be interested. They are a kind of skilful means. ‘Fairy’ is perhaps an imaginative way out of being ‘lost in the forest’, whether taken literally, or metaphorically, as in the forest of our primeval emotions. A kind of light perspective that can move easily, magically among them, transforming them with spells. In Cinderella the Fairy Godmother appears to lighten her spirits by turning her rags into a gown and a pumpkin into a coach.

Symbolism in Buddhism

The Buddha From the time of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, buddhism has exhibited a range of symbolic forms. Symbolism that appears in its teaching, that appears in its canonical texts and scriptural expressions, in its architecture, its codes of dress, and in its ritual forms. I want to look here at how that symbolism has evolved in the course of twenty five centuries in order to get a universal message across over changing times and cultural eras.

That symbolism begins with the Buddha. Formerly Prince Siddhartha, he gave up the princely life to join the itinerant community of truth seekers that pervaded India during that time, a time of great religious ferment. It seemed like the world and his wife were out there in the jungle, meditating, debating, practicing austerities, looking for the solutions to the questions of existence.

Eventually though, Siddhartha was the one out of the many who broke through to the answer. He gained Enlightenment. He became the Buddha, the ‘one who is Awake’, awake to what reality really is. Awake to where complete happiness could be found. Esssentially he saw attachment as being the source of our suffering because we would always in the end be separated from what we were attached to. He went beyond all attachment.

After his enlightenment, the Buddha wandered around India. He spoke to all sorts of people, kings, beggars, other wanderers. Eventually he built up a group of disciples, some of whom also became enlightened. Like him they also wandered about, staying in the jungle, or perhaps on land given by the local king. They begged for alms in the local villages, as did the Buddha.

Living simply like this, the Buddha and his disciples dressed in robes made from scraps of material. They probably wore beards. The robes were coloured with the saffron coloured earth. Everything was practical, to cause as little harm as possible to the environment. Only later was symbolism developed to represent ideas such as renunciation, as in the orange robe.

One of the qualities that marked the Buddha and his disciples out from other mendicants was their noble bearing and stature. The scriptures tell of moonlit nights where an assembly of 1500 monks would sit in total silence meditating all night. I can’t think of anything more symbolic of what buddhism is about than that.

Symbolism did appear frequently though, in the Buddha’s use of simile and metaphor in his teaching. He used simple and down to earth metaphors, often of a ‘physical’ nature. To illustrate the joy that arises when one is no longer afraid of any experience, he says ‘Take the thatch off and let it rain!’ Rain exists, get used to it. Then you won’t live in fear getting wet.’

I think it is quite important to see the value of these examples he used. He wants our understanding to not just be intellectual, but to ‘permeate our bones’.

Theravada Buddhism The present day schools that identify themselves most with this first era of buddhism are the ones in Burma, Thailand and other countries in SE Asia, that call themselves the Theravada, or ‘way of Elders’.

They can be identified by their orange robes which mirror the saffron coloured rag robes of the Buddha, and which symbolised renunciation.. Their shaven heads symbolise ‘going forth’ from the world into homelessness, as when Siddhartha cut off his own hair and went into the forest. As well as these two symbols, they carry begging bowls as the Buddha did, and also go on an ‘alms round’, although this is often more formalised.

However their central symbol is the Buddha himself. All around Burma and Thailand very beautiful, and probably very expensive, golden buddha figures that can be seen sitting or lying down in ornate temples.

These representations of the Buddha, some quite large, have aquired features, essentially symbolic, that the actual buddha would not have had. These ‘symbolic’ buddhas are called rupas. Rupa is Sanskrit for form. They are our window to get at the reality of who or what the buddha was.

The symbolic features include; the ‘bodhic protruberance’, or bump on the top of the head; elongated earlobes; long fingers. All these have evolved in the same way as symbolic indicators of aspects of the buddha.

Summary The buddhist symbolism is SE Asia can be very aesthetically beautiful. It is elegant and pictorially evocative of the qualities of the buddha. It centres very much on the historical buddha, and on orange robed monks. Symbolically it portrays how elevated and ‘other-worldly’ the Buddha is. There might be a danger here of the gap seeming too large to cross, for the ordinary Thai monk. They might not even try. How can they match all that richness and expense. They might think the Buddha was unique, a one-off, and so unlikely to be emulated, certainly not by them.

The scriptures of Theravada buddhism are laid down in the Pali Canon. In the Pali Canon, there is also a different kind of symbolism, that is more ‘otherworldly’. It involves interactions between the Buddha, and various ’mythical’ non-human beings, including nature spirits, ‘yakshas’, and gods, ‘devas’. These ‘otherworldy’ beings continue on in later parts of the buddhist tradition. These gods need to be understood within the buddhist context. They are not the same thing as the all powerful vengeful gods of xxxx . We need to see why.

Most of the world’s religions are theistic. They involve a God, or Gods, as their central focus. Buddhism, on the other hand, is non-theistic. Its’ central focus is the Buddha. It also features gods to some degree, but they are subordinate to the Buddha. In a way their position demonstrates the relationship between the old religious values and the newer, more enlightened ones, embodied by the Buddha.

Buddhism grew up within the theistic, Brahminical, tradition, basically within the context of Hinduism. The priests of the society at the time of the Buddha were called Brahmins, and their chief deity Brahma. As in many religions of that era, sacrifice was a common way to appease their God, and they employed it. Sacrifice is a symbol of power of one over another. It is essentially based in fear, fear of God’s power.

In the modern West our views about gods often revolve around this aspect of power. Either we want to blindly give ourselves over to a power that will lift us out of this spiritually sterile material world and into a ‘new land’, as in the New Christy Minstrels, or we mock religion, as for the weak and powerless, who we see as lacking competence in the real, material, world. Both of these views are extreme views that put all power in the hands of God, which we either totally accept of reject as fantasy.

The buddhist view of gods is that they exist, they have power, but they are never the whole story. As all things arise in dependence on multiple factors, there is always a factor that comes from ourselves. So even if Zeus were to blast us with lightning, how we responded to that would also affect the outcome for us. If we responded with equanimity, not reacting even slightly, seeing ‘in the seen only the seen’, we might gain enlightenment on the spot. That is the sense that the Buddha is beyond the Gods, he is essentially beyond their reach. There is a story of the Buddha meeting xxxxx (?) Nothing in reality according to Buddhism is permanent. So even Zeus would fall at some point. Actually, in the greek myths he does live fearful of being usurped. If at the point where that fall began, he responded with equanimity, not reacting even slightly, seeing ‘in the seen only the seen’, he might at that point gain enlightenment, he might rise up to become a Buddha.

The Gods of a culture tend to represent that cultures’ deepest attitudes and fears about what is ‘out there’. A bedouin crossing a desert seeing constant mirages would not grow to trust visual forms, therefore his sense of security would better come from a God who had no visual form, as his does. One could only be trained in an unforgiving environment by an unforgiving god. Many gods required fear.

As we saw in the previous chapter, a person’s response to anyone or thing ‘higher’ than them, can range a spectrum of responses, from fear, based in superstition and self preservation, to true worship and devotion, based in a heartfelt wish to have the qualities of that person. It depends largely on what that person brings to it. So we have responses to religion based in fear and those based in love. We also have a range of Gods. We have Gods who are unforgiving, vengeful, and those that are kind. And as withthe Greek pantheon, a whole range of characters in between. The difference with buddhism is that existence is seen as a continuum up to Enlightenment, all states are only relative to that. The gods in buddhism are part of that continuum. As the continuum takes in meditation as part of its’ path, the gods have come to be associated with that. Many of those ‘otherworldly’ beings that appear in the earlt texts, do so it the context of meditation. The Buddha is meditating and a ‘goblin’ decides he will make his hair stand on end with his ‘hullabaloo’. Of course it has no effect. The Buddha says: When he has reached the goal in all things that are his, The Brahmin is beyond this goblin with his din.

...’all things that are his’ refers to his own reactions. Mastering himself he is beyond the influence of any spirit, or other external force, no matter how pwerful. The inclusion of supernatural figures in buddhist iconography serves another purpose. It serves to show other states that we might rise and fall into, and the benefits and hazards of being in those states. We could at times, when things seem to be going really well, feel as if we have risen up into a god-like state. Our reputation in the eyes of others may be high, we seem to be able to ‘make things happen’, we feel good, we feel empowered. We probably can’t remember when we felt the opposite of this, when we were ‘falling apart’ and dependent on the compassion of others just to get by.

So the god realm illustrates a danger. It illustrates that we can get complacent in identifying with our feelings, our talents, our social position, all of which can change. Things cannot be relied upon just because they are going well. Until we can cope with all experiences, not just good ones, equally well, as the buddha could, we won’t be ‘where it’s at’ according to buddhism.

The state cof concentration in meditation, called dhyana, can be a very pleasant state to be in. It is almost as if as we become less distracted, more kindly, more ‘there’, our life rises up before us as a possession, as our creation. We have more capability to influence it. In fact we become more god-like in relation to it. Yet ultimately ‘Life is King’, it is in charge of us, not the other way around. We have to see that our god-like state has to be put to service to a higher reality, the buddha-like state, whose kingliness rests it its’ acceptance of life’s supremacy. That ‘in the seen, there is only the seen’.

In the pantheon of gods in the buddhist scriptures are described creatures of greater and greater radiance and subtlety of being. Yet the greatest radiance of all is reserved for the dark red Buddha, Amitabha, the archetypal Buddha of Compassion, the Buddha of Infinite Light. The emergence of the archetypal Buddha represents a quantum shift in buddhist symbolism into a new realm, that of the Great Way, or Mahayana.

Mahayana Buddhism The buddhism that focussed on the historical buddha, his renunciant lifestyle and his pursuit of individual emancipation through breaking through into wisdom, culminated in the Theravada, which we see in Burma and Thailand. However a different strand began to form in buddhism, that eventually went to China and Japan, called the Mahayana. It called itself Great Way in opposition to the Hinayana, the Lesser Way, a term it used for the strand that became the Theravada. But why have more than one strand of buddhism, surely there is only one path to Enlightenment? All buddhism leads to Enlightenment, yet each set of teachings exist in a particular context, a cultural context and one of actual practitioners with actual prior dispositions. A buddhist teaching emphasising strong willed effort is not helpful in a context where, out of anxiety, people are already trying too hard. A teaching good in one era can over time lose its’ potency, not because it is bad in itself, but because its’ context changes.

What at one point was innovation can later saturate the culture to the exclusion of everything else. Henry Ford’s novel use of mass production in the 1930s which helped America escape the Great Depression eventually became the consumer society, mass production for its own sake, which is then a problem in itself, especially for the environment. The Buddha’s innovation in seeking the truth and emancipation for himself may eventually have led to a culture of unhelpful self-preoccupation among the monks of the Hinayana. As the Mahayana began to replace the Hinayana around 500 years after the time of the historical buddha, with an emphasis on helping other, I assume this may have been the case.

Another factor in a new ‘regime’ emerging may have been an increasing difficulty it feeling the presence of the ideal itself. The Hinayana had focused on the historical buddha, but now 500 years after his lifetime, it must have been much more difficult to feel his influence as a vital teaching force. There may have been the suspicion in peoples minds that Enlightenment was specific to him and to that time.

To redress these imbalances and reinvigorate the teachings there emerged several innovations; symbolic, or archetypal, buddha figures, a symbolic universe, enlightenment as a ever-existing possibility, and an emphasis on compassion.

The seeds of these innovations would have dated back to the Buddha. Just as in dream, images can appear unbidden which strike us with significance, which if we are wise we will try to remember, so, out of meditation, similar occurences can happen. A form might appear that strikes us as ‘truthful’ to what we know of an ideal.

In the story of the days following the Buddha’s enlightenment, he apparently sat unsure whether what he had discovered, being so sublime and subtle, could be taught to anyone. He was inclined not to teach but remain silent. After an intervention by Brahma Sahampati, the Great God, imploring him to teach, he opened his eyes and had a vision. He saw the whole of sentient exisrtence arrayed in front of him like lotus flowers in a pond. This image struck him as ‘truthful’. Yes people are like lotuses, some are closed, some partly open, some fully open. Some are stuck in the mud, some well clear of it. Soime may be open enough and clear of the mud of existence to be able to grasp some of what I say. The lotus became a symbolic family

Levels of Gods..... more on Pali Canon gods... Phase 2, Archetypal Buddhas evolve Bodhisattvas giving away merits Relation to Gods Universal symbolism inj Mahayana

Enlightenment Just as if there were a pool of water in a mountain glen-- clear, limpid, and unsullied--where a man with good eyesight standing on the bank could see shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also shoals of fish swimming about and resting, and it would occur to him,'This pool of water is clear, limpid, and unsullied. Here are these shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also these shoals of fish swimming about and resting.' In the same way--with mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability--the monk directs and inclines it to the knowledge of the ending of the (mental fermentations). He discerns, as it is actually present, that 'This is suffering...This is the origination of suffering...This is the cessation of suffering...This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering...These are (mental fermentations)...This is the origination of (fermentations)...This is the cessation of (fermentations)...This is the way leading to the cessation of (fermentations).'His heart, thus knowing, thus seeing is released from the fermentation of sensuality, the fermentation of becoming, the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there is the knowledge,'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.' Fruits of Contemplative Life Sutra

This is the Buddha's description of the experience of nirvana as told it to King Ajatasatu. The King had asked him about the 'visible fruits of the contemplative life', namely what tangible benefits could he look forward to should he take up the contemplative life, becoming a spiritual practitioner and follower of the Buddha. The Buddha puts those benefits in a clear image. Imagine a mountain glen, he says, or more precisely imagine being up a mountain and looking down into the water of a mountain glen. What would that be like. The air would be fresh, clear, probably cool and invigorating. It would support a feeling of wakefulness, alertness, vitality, mental vigour. At the same time, there would be a feeling of spaciousness, as one felt the cares of the world recede, and as the expansive perspective of the cloud topped landscape took its place.

The Buddha is pointing us in a simile toward actual physical experience. Can you remember the experience of being up a mountain. It's exhilarating, but not just mentally or emotionally. Physically it is a strong experience as well, in fact that is often the strongest experience - that of charged and bursting physical vitality - because of the ascent to get there.

Although the Buddha is speaking figuratively he will have chosen this image for what it evokes. Perhaps he wants us to think of enlightenment as being supported by a charged up body. In any case he has chosen an image rather than a word.

Once there we look down into the pool. Such a beautiful image. Shoals of fish swimming about and resting. Clear transluscent water. Pebbles, shells, and gravel. The image alludes to the mind at enlightenment. It is as if the everyday mind, symbolised by the water, has been purified etc to the point where it offers no resistance, is totally transparent to, to the direct perception of the nature of reality, as symbolised by the objects in the water.

The Buddha continually sees the nature of reality as simply and continuously as one might observe objects still and moving in a clear pool. Beyond those images, the rocks and fish, reality is ineffable, beyond description. Ultimately no-one can tell a story about it that will be a complete and comprehensive description.

It is as if Reality responds with a clue, mountain pool, rocks and fish. Out of suffering, and the tension of not knowing, comes a symbol. It points in the general direction with a image.

Without that ‘need to know’, and a sense of urgency about it, we wouldn’t have symbols, or poetry. William Carlos Williams says ‘Man dies through lack of what we call poetry”

The Buddha used images in his teaching a very great deal. Often they related very much to everyday experience. It is interesting to see why that might have been, in the words of the 20th century buddhist monk Lama Govinda, who is talking about an aversion some people can feel towards what he calls visions, and I take to mean archetypal buddhist images used in devotion, such as Avalokitesvara, the archetypal embodiment of compassion.

He says 'One may object, that such visions are purely subjective and therefore nothing ultimate . However, words and ideas are nothing ultimate either; and the danger of getting attached to them is all the greater, as words have a limiting narrowing tendency, while experiences and symbols of true visions are something that is alive, that is growing and ripening within us. They point and grow beyond themselves. They are too immaterial, too 'transparent', too elusive, to become solid or 'thingish', and to arouse attachment. They can neither be 'grasped' nor defined, nor circumscribed exactly. They have a tendency to grow from the formed to the formless - while that which is merely thought-out has the opposite tendency, namely to harden into lifeless concepts and dogmas.' Lama Govinda xxxxxx

What I take from what he said is that, if you have an image, or a story or a myth, the way in which it articulates itself within your mind over a period of time, assuming you accept it, is it gains in meaningful association as time goes on. It grows beyond us. You see more and more relevant connections between it, on the 'mythic plane', and your ordinary life, on the more mundane plane. If it is a myth or story you relate to, over time it becomes more vital, pertinent and central to the meaning of that life. That is because you add meaning to it as time goes on, through association. On the other hand, when something is expressed more conceptually, Phases of Buddhism - Summary Throughout the history of buddhism from the buddha through to the vajrayana, we have a progression. Spiritual qualities at first are embodied in a person, the Buddha, or in his enlightened disciples. In the Mahayana they have become abstracted into symbols, into jewels, archetypal Buddhas, pure lands. By the Vajrayana another change has happened. They now reside in acted-out symbols, rituals, interactions with magician Gurus, all day pujas.

Each era brought a compensatory strategy. For an increasingly remote historical source, the compensation was to make the cosmos that spiritual source, that enlightenment could spring up anywhere at any time for anybody. In that way the Mahayana succeeded the Hinayana. Yet the Mahayana, in encouraging its practitioners to address helping ‘all sentient beings’, may eventually have become watered down, a bit fantastical, not that practical.

The vajra, the diamond, a crystallisation of energy representing being here now with reality would blow away this fantasy. In the Vajrayana things became more personal, tangible. Using ritual, symbolic action, you could be brought up close to the truth of where you were at relative to a symbolised Enlightenment. You stood in the sacred space and one faced, and perhaps feared, ones guru, Padmasambhava, the master of the dark forces of the subconscious, who could see right through your ‘spiritual practice’.

Each ‘system’ succeededthe previous one by necessity. Perhaps today, where each individual has increasing access to the world’s collective history and culture, a new use of symbolism in buddhism needs to evolve. One that can resist being treated as an interesting cultural artefact. One that will satisfy the rational and urbane mind. One that can make a meaningful practice of buddhism for many. appendix

work in progress as of feb 07 Ó Mahabodhi 2007 Appendix 1

Being in the Right 'Medium' [some repetition] In the Satipatthana Sutta the Buddha says " the monk dwells contemplating the body in the body (or, in and of itself)" The phrase 'in and of itself' sums up how important it is to be in the right medium. We enter the "Body Zone" only through its medium, the sense of touch. If we aren't in the medium of touch, we are in the wrong medium. Implicitly then we are observing from a different frame of reference. If the Buddha had said " dwells contemplating the body" it would be more ambiguous, but he specifically said "dwells contemplating the body in the body". If we are not in the right 'medium' something basic goes wrong with our practice. There is delusion there. And we cannot change something if we are not in the place it is. I talked earlier of the link between alienation and ownership. Being in the wrong "Zone", we cannot own what is going on there. We are essentially alienated from the right one. Not owning it we can't take seriously our position with it, and do something about it if something needs to be done. One example is a frequent confusion between feeling and emotion. A feeling is something we experience in the here and now, where an emotion is a response to the now. To own our emotional responses we have to realise they are not feelings happening to us (and so in the "Feeling Zone") but responses, things we are choosing to do (in the "Mind Zone"). The consequence is we don't take responsibility for our actions, because as actions we are alienated from them. When we think we are experiencing a feeling of depression, but when we are actually unconsciously having a depressed response, is an example of this. Feeling and response are two different things. In fact theoretically, we could confuse any two "Zones" in this way. I confused between "Body" and "Dharma Zone" on that I couldn't relax my body because I was alienated, stuck in thinking about it rather than being in the experience of it. We readily mix up thoughts and feelings. If a person expresses an opinion about us and we 'feel criticised', it is not a feeling. We are having an opinion about them. A feeling is something like 'I feel unhappy', or a pleasant or unpleasant sensation or mood.

There are in fact twelve possible wrong places we might be, three for each satipatthana. I have listed them with their consequences. The twelve 'delusions' are -

Alienation from Body

I am alienated from my body because I am too much

* in my feelings

I might be experiencing a lot of physical or emotional pain which I think of as my body when it is just pain conditioned by my body. At the level of my body I can still relax even if I am in a lot of pain.

* in my heart / mind

I am caught up unconsciously in a mental state without being aware of its physical counterpart (as when experiencing sloth and torpor, for example). I am preoccupied and obsessed.

* in dharmas (mental objects)

I am caught up with ideas about reality rather than the thing itself, in this case my body. My awareness is stuck in an idea of my body rather than real thing. Therefore I cannot relax. Alienation from Feeling

I am alienated from my feelings because I am too much

* in my body

I treat feelings as less transient (and more substantial) than they actually are, when the truth is they come and go, as we say, they are only feelings. I give them more weight than they deserve, sometimes treating them as a real (i.e. material) threat, not as useful information I can maybe use. For instance when my anxiety persists even when there is no material threat.

* in my heart / mind

* in dharmas (ideas / mental objects)

I am caught up in ideas of feelings rather than real thing. I come out with advanced philosophical statements about the dharma but I am unable to get in contact with how I feel about impermanence and so on (i.e. that I am scared about it).

Alienation from Heart / Mind

I am alienated from my heart / mind because I am too much

* in my body

My practice relies on external (tangible) observances of religious forms (as in rites and rituals as ends in themselves) rather than on observing what is actually happening in my mind, in my internal mental states. This is ß¥lavrataparåmarßa one of the three fetters that hold us back from really practicing wholeheartedly (as marked by the stage of stream entry).

* in my feelings

I don't take responsibility for my responses to my feelings. Being stuck in my feelings, I mistake unpleasant feelings (as in unpleasant sensations [including mental sensations] that have a depressive feel about them) for unwholesome mental states (as in the mental state of depression) that I am choosing to indulge . When I experience pleasant sensations (as when I am experiencing a warm glow durinmg the metta bhavana meditation) I think that is metta (a positive mental state).

* in dharmas (ideas / mental objects)

I am caught up in an idealised version of my emotional response rather than real thing. Because I idealise a noble emotional response I think I have that response already. Perhaps a product of romantic fantasy.

Alienation from Mental Objects

I am alienated from mental objects because I am too much

* in my body

When I am faced with symbolism (poetry, mythology, culture) I cannot get past a literal interpretation of it. I want toi know immediately and in concrete terms what may be elusive and hard to grasp. (a link with the mahabhutas?)

* in my feelings I experience a feeling and treat it as a symbol for how things really are. I extrapolate from the feeling the truth, the feeling is symptomatic of how things are! (something is typical of what to expect).

* in my heart / mind

I identify my mental states with the nature of reality. When things are going really well and I am being consistently creative (which is equivalent in buddhism to the god realm) I think therefore that things are permanent. Appendix 2

Cognitive Therapy I have been using a model from the field of Cognitive Therapy (see Fig. 2) to help me think about the way that the four satipatthanas interact with each other. The model illustrates well the interconnectedness between the different 'aspects of life experience'. The main factors within the model look very similar to the four satipatthanas. This may be because they refer to the different parts of a person, which, both in therapy and in buddhism, need to be taken into account. These days a branch of Cognitive Therapy called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is being used in conjunction with buddhist mindfulness practices to help people work with chronic pain, or with depression and other difficult emotions.

The cognitive therapist asks the client questions about those five aspects of life experience: thoughts (as in beliefs, images, and memories), moods, behaviour, physical reactions and the environment (past and present).

CBT focuses on the effect our thoughts (cognitions) and behaviour have on our experience, but looking at the model the implications are broader than that. Each of the five aspects independently conditions all the others, as seen from the connecting lines in the diagram. With each link the conditioning goes in both directiions. Mood is also conditioned by our physical state and so on.

Physical Reactions correlates in the four satipatthanas with the body satipatthana ("Body Zone"). Moods correlate with the feeling satipatthana or "Feeling Zone". Thoughts: our assessments, evaluations, opinions, views, correlate with the dhamma satipatthana or "Dhamma Zone"because dhammas are mental objects as they appear to us within our mind sense. The correlation between Behaviours and the citta satipatthana is more tentative. However, if we extend behaviours to include an ethical dimension and the way we shape our consciousness (heart / attitude / awareness), then that correlation hold too. Behaviours correlates to "Heart / Mind Zone". The fifth aspect of the model, Environment, is implicitly there in buddhism as the the world and its events within which the others take place.

I think the important contribution the CBT model has made to my understanding of the various elements of our experience and their conditional relationships is that it shows visually what buddhists know conceptually about the phenomena of experience, that they are interconnected and condition each other.

The other point it brings out for me is that the 'aspects' are clear and distinct, and should be accurately distinguished from each other. It is easy to mix them up in our awareness. It is the job of cognition to categorize mental objects with accuracy. The practice of socratic questioning in CBT assesses the accuracy of individual thoughts, but the model itself is a cognition that aids accuracy. Buddhist commentators on the Satipatthana Sutta emphasise accurate distinction between the satipatthanas, a 'cognitive function' arising from wisdom. Discriminating wisdom sees clearly the distinction between phenomena.

I think the difference between CBT and buddhism is probably more one of scope than type. Buddhism covers the same area but has a broader scope. It extends the notion of Behaviours into ethics and the cultivation of awareness, and Thoughts into wisdom (although wisdom is implicitly there in socratic questioning). It also uses formal sitting meditation, which I propose would be a way of harmonising the four main aspects of life experience in the model (physical reactions, moods, behaviours and thoughts) in a way that mutually supports them all.

However I think CBT helps buddhism by being clear on a 'mundane level' how our ordinary faculties interact.

Being clear what is what In this separating out in CBT we need to separate out physical reactions (body) from thoughts, mood and behaviour, because we want just to work on the one not on the others. When we want work on our physical health, we don't want to be having ideas about our physical health (whilst watching TV), or to be immersed in feelings about our physical health, we want to change our actual physical experience.

So if we want to positively condition our mood using our physical faculty, we have to do some exercise(go for a run) until we get the required result. The method is very empirical. Suppose we feel a bit depressed, a mood. That mood will condition our thoughts, behaviour, physical reactions, and environment. We may begin to think we are useless. We may stop going out of the house so much. We may begin to avoid our friends. We may start to feel more heavy and sluggish. And we may begin to neglect cleaning the house. These changes may in turn recondition our Mood. Because of them, we may feel even more depressed, and begin spiralling down in a vicious circle. One thing follows another, one reacts to the other, without our intervention.

This is how we end up in a negative spiral. But we can work it the other way. We can use conditions to pull ourselves out of depression too by reconditioning our mood from any of the other factors. Suppose we work from environment backwards. We contemplate our (now untidy) environment, and where it leads in terms of our mood. It dawns on us that it contributes towards our depression. But it is counterintuitive to do anything about it, we won't feel like it. So we have to work against our instincts, in fact ignore how we are feeling, and start tidying up. Once we have finished, our pleasant environment is there to help cheer us up. It is the same with reconditioning mood from any other factor. We have to ignore the mood to do it.

We can work on our mood from our body. By contemplating the sluggishness of our body and its effect on our mood. Seeing it doesn't help our depression, we go for a run. Again we have to work against the influence of our mood. We have to lift ourselves above it in some way. We have to ignore it. When we have finished our run we will have a good feeling in our body that will support an improvement in our mood.

We can work on our mood also from how we behave. Our intuition will be to be withdrawn, to not go out to people, and to not do anything much. This behaviour reinforces our depression because we get no stimulation from achieving anything, or from meeting people. If we can see this behaviour doesn't help our depression we can choose a different behaviour. We can act cheerfully, be friendly toward the people around us. We can carry on doing things. Again we have to ignore our mood. But from with this new behaviour things are likely to happen that are unexpected, that give us hope. We may get something new happen that conditions a more cheerful mood. At least we are less likely to keep remermbering we are depressed because we have our behaviour to remind us of it.

Finally we can work on our mood from our thoughts. In Cognitive Psychology (ref. Mind over Mood) there is something called a thought record. It is a way of seeing the thoughts that arise as a result of our moods. We write down a list of moods we have experienced in a particular situation. We then write a list of the automatic thoughts that sprung up with them, things that just popped into our heads at the time, perhaps if we feel a bit depressed one thought was 'Nobody loves me'. We then go through the list and pick the 'hottest' thought. What at that time is the most 'burning issue' for us. If it is that we feel nobody loves us, that is a thought that is conditioning our mood of depression. Again we have to ignore our mood (that is conditioning that thought) and see how that thought is probably not helping our mood. In fact is it even true. If it isn't true we don't need to be so depressed. So what we do next is to put the thought 'on trial'. We say what is the evidence backing up that thought, write a list of all the evidence we can think of; what is the evidence for the thought, write that down. Then putting all the evidence together we come up with a more balanced thought (more based in reality). We then reassess our mood, which most of the time through this process has improved.

In all of these examples what we were doing was counterintuitive, but yet was the right thing to do. What does this tell us about intuition? It tells us that intuition like everything else is conditioned. It is one part of the whole, that on its own may simply be wrong. But held as one factor with other factors it is more likely to contribute to what is right.

What we have been talking about with the satipatthanas in terms of safety, we cannot just accept each "Cognitive Zone" unexamined and be safe. Our process is the same here as contemplation with the satipatthanas (true views in the "Dharma Zone" corresponding to true thoughts in the "Thought Zone"). And if we are able to work creatively with any "Zone" it improves things in the other "Zones". Meditation posture is a good example of this. A good posture: vitality, relaxation and stillness in the body, supports awareness of feelings, mental states and reflection on the nature of reality. 'Safety' in one "Zone" improves 'safety' in all "Zones". The way safety in one "Zone" improves it in another can be seen when we look at the twelve possible combinations where one "Zone" conditions another, and the area covered by that combination - notes.. Keeping the "Zones" going simultaneously If we don't have a good foundation underneath us in the "Feeling Zone" (if we aren't in touch with how we feel) we won't feel close to our human existential situation and it will be difficult to care about or empathise with the pain of other beings, so it will be harder to develop ethical sensitivity in the "Mind Zone" and in the "Dharma Zone" our reflections will be a bit academic, not galvanised by the urgency of suffering. Feeling supports activity in the "Body Zone" too. There it gives us information about our bodies health. If we have been checking our path in the "Mind Zone" and "Dharma Zones" we will care enough about ourselves to work on the other Zones, and we will not be discouraged when our efforts fall apart. If we don't keep up contemplation across all the "Zones", as is implied by the Satipatthana Sutta, we lack an important element in our jigsaw. What we will probably find is that the missing element solves our problem when we return to it. If we habitually forget to include how we are feeling in our considerations as we go about practicing ethics and reflecting on the nature of existence, those practices will really come alive when we do access how we feel about them. Conditioning "Zone" "Zone" conditioned

Body Feeling

Heart / Mind Meditation Posture

Dharma

Feeling Body

Mind Empathy

Dharma Urgency

Mind Body

Feeling

Dharma

Dharma Body

Feeling Objectifying Thoughts

Mind Mahabodhi is a member of the Western Buddhist Order living in Manchester, England. He is known for being a populist in the vein of mahayana buddhism. In On Safe Ground he brings his thinking to bear on the Satipatthana Sutta, the most important text on mindfulness in buddhism, forging links between mindfulness, meditation, the imagination, and cognitive behavioural therapy.

Pauper Publishing Manchester