Truly Understanding the Teachings of the Buddha A comprehensive guide to insight meditation Anthony Markwell Truly Understanding the Teachings of the Buddha A comprehensive guide to insight meditation Anthony Markwell Dhammapada XI, 153-154 «Through many a birth in samsara have I wandered in vain, seeking the builder of this house (of life). Repeated birth is indeed suffering! O house-builder, you are seen! You will not build this house again. For your rafters are broken and your ridgepole shattered. My mind has reached the Unconditioned; I have attained the destruction of craving.» According to the commentary, these verses are the Buddha’s “Song of Vic- tory,” his irst utterance after his Enlightenment. The house is individualized existence in samsara, the house-builder craving, the rafters the passions and the ridge-pole ignorance. This book was typed based on the Dhamma talks given by Anthony Mark- well by one of his retreat participants. The book is handed out as a gift with the permission of Anthony Markwell but it has not been reviewed by him or anyone else. Therefore please be tolerant with typing mistakes, inconsisten- cies or inaccuracies of the Pali language terms. © 2016 Anthony Markwell, 2019 revised edition No material contained herein may be copied or reproduced without prior written consent. Contents Day 0 Afternoon Talk Orientation 1 Evening Talk Meditation Instructions 15 Sila 17 Sitting meditation 19 First stage: Internalizing awareness – letting go of past and future 21 Second stage: Feeling body sensation – letting go of the body 22 Third stage: Using the breath to maintain awareness 24 The four elements 24 Walking meditation 34 Day 1 Morning Talk 43 General outline 43 Noting, Knowing, Letting go 53 Afternoon Talk 63 Awareness of daily activities 63 Wise attention 66 Labelling technique 71 Karma 72 Day 2 Morning Talk 80 Reining sitting meditation instructions 80 True Vipassana technique 91 Afternoon Talk 99 Feeling 100 Day 3 Morning Talk 113 First hindrance kāmacchanda 116 Second hindrance vyāpāda 119 Third hindrance thīnamiddha 122 Fourth hindrance uddhachakukkucca 124 Fifth hindrance vicikicchā 128 Afternoon Talk 132 First enlightenment factor sati 133 Third enlightenment factor vidya 137 Painful sensations 143 Day 4 Morning Talk 147 Second enlightenment factor dhamma vicaya 147 Intention 154 Afternoon Talk 160 Third foundation of mindfulness citta nupassana 160 Craving 162 Ignorance 163 Aversion 164 Wrong attitude 165 Day 5 Morning Talk 177 Intention and desire 177 Contentment 179 The ive 181 faculties Balancing the ive faculties 186 Developing the ive faculties 188 Afternoon Talk 193 First noble truth 193 Craving, conceit and views 198 The six sense bases 199 The ive aggregates 201 Identity view 204 Day 6 Morning Talk 209 Enlightenment factors, bojjhangas 209 Fourth enlightenment factor piti 211 Fifth enlightenment factor passaddhi 213 Sixth enlightenment factor samadhi 218 First jhana 223 Second jhana 225 Afternoon Talk 227 Second noble truth 227 Third noble truth 234 Nirvana 236 Dependent origination 239 Dukkha creating process 240 Dukkha ceasing process 241 Day 7 Morning Talk 246 Seventh enlightenment factor upekkha 246 Third jhana 260 Fourth jhana 262 Determined striving 263 Afternoon Talk 266 The ten pāramī 275 Summary Final words 282 Chanting Morning Chanting 287 Homage 288 Going for Refuge 289 Taking the Eight Precepts 290 Evening Chanting 291 Recollection of the Buddha 291 Recollection of the Dhamma 291 Recollection of the Sangha 292 The Sublime Attitudes 293 Appendices Appendix I 295 Four foundations of mindfulness and the ive aggregates 295 Appendix IIa 296 The noble eightfold path, the ive faculties, the seven factors of enlightenment 296 Appendix IIb 297 Right concentration 297 Appendix III 298 Dependent origination 298 Appendix IV 299 Vipassana insights (vipassanā ñāṇas) 299 Appendix V 300 The four noble individuals (ariya-puggala): 300 Anthony Markwell 301 «May this gift be for the gift of dhamma. May this gift be for other beings to realize the teaching.» Day 0 Afternoon Talk Orientation Welcome to Wat Kow Tahm insight meditation center. This afternoon we are going to have an orientation talk for our seven day silent meditation retreat. First of all I always like to start the retreat by offering our thanks to Mae Chee Ahmon Pun, our 92 year old nun, that lives here in the monas- tery and also to Steve and Rosemary Weissmann, who helped develop this meditation center. Over 25 years they taught more than 8000 people here. They developed this whole meditation center. Rosemary and Steve, with some of you may have meditated with, came here when Rosemary was 35. She left a couple of years ago when she was 60. So we always like to thank them for their hard work they've done to develop this place. The buildings, the walkways, the gardens, the meditation areas, all the terraces, everything they have carved out of the jungle. So we are really very much appreciative, that we could walk into this place two years ago and everything is set up for us to do meditation retreats here. Essential to their activities, Mae Chee Ahmon Pun, our nun, has been here for 50 years. We have Mae Chee Nanika, who has been cooking here on every retreat, every month for the last 27 years. So we thank them for their efforts in the work in developing the center and giving us the chance to come and practice here. Koh Phangan is very famous for its full moon party and its various 1 Day 0 Afternoon Talk Orientation other parties, but there is another aspect to the island. There is a lot of yoga and other healing types of workshops going on, all types of spiritual activi- ties are going on on the island and many types of meditations from many different traditions. We offer our retreat here in the hope that Koh Phangan will lead to your spiritual evolution and allowing us to become more useful members of society. Keep that in mind when you're meditating this week. This orientation talk is meant to give us some introduction and some additional information as to the purpose of our meditation retreat here. We'll be talking about the word «meditation». We'll be talking about a «retreat». We will also go through a few of the guidelines that we like to follow here and also we’ll be having a look at the silence. I very much and warmly welcome you here. Let's have a good retreat together. After I inish this orientation talk, you will have the opportunity to ask questions, that you may have before we enter into the silence. First of all, let's have a look at this word «meditation». What is the meaning of meditation? We use it to refer to training of the mind. To the cul- tivation and development of particular mental faculties. The faculty of faith and conidence, the faculty of energy, the faculty of mindfulness or aware- ness, the faculty of concentration and the faculty of wisdom. These ive fac- ulties are what we are referring to, when we are talking about meditation. When we are developing meditation, we are developing particular qualities of the mind, that come to increase and grow in strength, which leads us to deep and profound understandings and insights. So the Buddha’s teaching is often divided into samatha and Vipassana, or calmness meditation and insight meditation. Here we will be practicing satipatthana or the foundations of mindfulness, which leads to both samatha and Vipassana practice. We will be joining them both together. Just like a bird has two wings, we join them together, so we can make the mind stabi- lize and then we can see things as they really are. We will talk more about the meditation practice later this evening. Satipatthana meditation is all about investigating our own mind and body process. Over the next seven days, we will be attempting to continuously activate our awareness in the present 2 Day 0 Afternoon Talk Orientation moment. We will be trying to stay in the present moment and internalizing this present moment awareness into our bodies. So we will be in the pres- ent, internalized, and we are trying to do this continuously. Try to remember these three words: present moment, internal, continuously. That's what we are trying to do here on the retreat. We are observing our own mind and body process looking at our body, its physical sensations here and there, looking at our mind, its mental states and its thoughts. We are looking at the pleasantness and unpleasantness that can arise both from physical sensations and mental sensations. We are observing our reactions to things, our liking and our disliking. We will be most interested in observing our identiica - tion and appropriation of mental and physical phenomena. Our meditation practice here this week, it's only about investigating this thing here. We w ant to understand what this mind and body process is. This is what meditation practice is all about in the Buddha’s teaching. We are investigating it, s o that we know it and see it clearly. This is the meaning of Vipassana, to see things clearly. The only thing we need to understand and see clearly is our own mind and body process. The rest of it works itself out. It's ine just as it is. We do have issues, however, in our mind and body process. So we will be investigating them, primarily to see them as impermanent, to see them as unsatisfactory, relatively, and to see them as non-self, to see them as imper- sonal. The mind and body process is impermanent, it is unsatisfactory and it is impersonal.