(Two modes of knowing and the mind-created nature of reality)
However, cognitive psychology and neuroscience have recently shown that there are two distinctly different kinds of knowing that involve completely different parts of the brain.
On the other hand, meditation and other spiritual practices often make it clear that our subjectively experienced reality is mind-created—exactly the realization I had in my teens, although I arrived at it from a different route.
Meditation is a science, the systematic process of training the mind.
Fully developed meditation skills also give rise to unique and wonderful mental states characterized by physical comfort and pleasure, joy and happiness, deep satisfaction, and profound inner peace—states that can open the mind to an intuitive appreciation of our interconnectedness and dispel the illusion of separateness created by our egos.
But even so, these peak experiences aren’t the ultimate benefit of meditation. While bliss, joy, tranquility, and equanimity are delightful, they are also transitory and easily disrupted by sickness, aging, and
(Awakening as the ultimate goal beyond transient bliss)
That higher goal is Awakening. Other commonly used terms include Enlightenment, Liberation, or Self-Realization. Each of these refers to a complete and lasting freedom from suffering, unaffected by aging, disease, or circumstance. True happiness, the bliss of perfect contentment, follows upon liberation from suffering. Awakening isn’t some transient experience of unity and temporary dissolution of ego. It’s the attainment of genuine wisdom; an enlightened understanding that comes from a profound realization and awakening to ultimate truth.
human life, suffering and happiness are entirely optional. The choice is ours. A fully Awake, fully conscious human being has the love, compassion, and energy to make change for the better whenever it’s possible, the equanimity to accept what can’t be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Although pain and pleasure are an inevitable part of
(The four core terms: śamatha, vipassanā, samādhi, sati)
These terms are: śamatha9 (tranquility or calm abiding), vipassanā10 (Insight), samādhi (concentration or stable attention), and sati (mindfulness).
Vipassanā refers specifically to Insight into the true nature of reality that radically transforms our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the world.
The Insights called vipassanā are not intellectual. Rather, they are experientially based, deeply intuitive realizations that transcend, and ultimately shatter, our commonly held beliefs and understandings. The five most important of these are Insights into impermanence, emptiness, the nature of suffering, the causal interdependence of all phenomena, and the illusion of the separate self (i.e., “no-Self”).16
Like two wings of a bird, both stable attention and mindfulness are needed, and when they are cultivated together, the destination of this flight is śamatha and vipassanā.25
(Awakening as accident made probable by sustained practice)
Also, brief episodes of śamatha can occur long before you become an adept practitioner. Insight can happen at any time as well. This means a temporary convergence of śamatha and vipassanā is possible, and can lead to Awakening at any Stage. In this sense, Awakening is somewhat unpredictable, almost like an accident. Although the possibility of Awakening exists at any time, the probability increases steadily as you
progress through the Stages. Therefore, Awakening is an accident, but continued practice will make you accident-prone.
The more clearly you understand the Stages, and why they happen in the order that they do, the quicker and more enjoyably you will walk the path toward happiness and freedom.
HOW THE PROCESS UNFOLDS Each of the Ten Stages on the path to becoming an adept meditator is defined in terms of certain skills that you have to master. Only when you have mastered the skills of a particular Stage will you be able to master the next Stage.
To make progress, you should correctly determine your current Stage, work diligently with the techniques you’re given,
and move on only when you have achieved mastery.
case, the important thing is to practice according to whatever is happening in your meditation in the present.
different. The secret to progress is working with the specific obstacles and goals appropriate to your current skill level.
Even a beginning meditator at Stage Two may have experiences that resemble those of advanced Stages. When this happens, you might overestimate your abilities and try to replicate that experience instead of working to master the skills for your current Stage. Such experiences have no real
significance in terms of your progress, although they do show you what is possible.
For householders who practice properly, it’s possible to master the Ten Stages within a few months or years. What you need is a regular daily sitting practice of one to two hours per day in combination with some of the supplemental practices described in
the appendices.
That said, there are several factors that determine how fast we make progress. Some of them we can influence, others we can’t. To start with, different people have different natural abilities for working with attention and awareness. Some lifestyles and career paths are more conducive to developing these skills. Also, some people are better able to discipline themselves to practice regularly and diligently. Regardless of your natural abilities, you absolutely must master Stage One, “Establishing a Practice,” to make progress. Life factors and stressful events can also affect the process. Losing your job, the death of a spouse, or a health problem can set even an advanced meditator back to the earliest Stages.
This just serves as another reminder that meditative accomplishments, like everything else, depend on certain conditions, and can therefore be influenced by worldly events. Another factor that affects your progress is the problem of compartmentalization. We have a common tendency to separate meditation practice from the rest of our life. If the skills and insights we learn on the cushion don’t infuse our daily life, progress will be quite slow.
Just as a scalpel is more effective for surgery than a large knife, skillful means and positive reinforcement are much better for pacifying the mind than blind, stubborn persistence. Finesse and patience pay off.
The Ten Stages Of Meditative Training
Diligence means engaging wholeheartedly in the practice rather than spending your time on the cushion planning or daydreaming. Goals: Develop a regular meditation practice. Obstacles: Resistance, procrastination, fatigue, impatience, boredom, lack of motivation. Skills: Creating practice routines, setting specific practice goals, generating strong motivation, cultivating discipline and diligence. Mastery: Never missing a daily practice session.
This sequence is so important it’s worth committing to memory—the untrained mind produces distractions that lead to forgetting, which results in mind-wandering. In Stage Two, you only work with the last event—mind-wandering.
is patiently and persistently hold intentions to respond in specific ways to whatever happens during your meditation.
At every Stage, all “you” really do
(Attention versus peripheral awareness: the key distinction)
In this book, whenever the term awareness is used, it refers to peripheral awareness. It never means attention.
The distinction between the two is key. The failure to recognize this distinction creates considerable confusion. You work with attention and peripheral awareness to cultivate stable attention and mindfulness—the two main objectives of meditation.
“Concentration” as a concept is rather vague, and in danger of being misinterpreted or of having meditation students bring their own preconceived ideas to it. I prefer to use the more accurate and useful term, “stable attention.”
For many, everyday life is a combination of distraction and hectic multitasking. Having focused, sustained, and selective attention is a much more peaceful and engaging way of experiencing the world.
Spontaneous Movements of Attention
After directing your attention to the breath, you’ll soon find that your mind has wandered off. For this reason, you also have to learn how to sustain attention. This means you want to stop all spontaneous movements of attention.
(How unconscious processes govern sustained attention)
Why? It’s possible to voluntarily direct attention. However, the part of the mind that sustains attention for more than a few moments works entirely unconsciously. We can’t use our will to control how long we remain focused on one thing. Instead, an unconscious process weighs the importance of what we’re focusing on against other possible objects of attention. If an object is important or interesting enough, attention remains stable. If something else is judged more important or interesting, then the balance tips, and attention moves elsewhere.
Repeating simple tasks with a clear intention can reprogram unconscious mental processes. This can completely transform who you are as a person.
This is the very essence of meditation: we reprogram unconscious mental processes by repeating basic tasks over and over with a clear intention.
When the mindfulness of a samurai warrior fails, he loses his life. When we lack mindfulness in daily life, something similar happens. We become so entangled in our own thoughts and emotions that we forget the bigger picture.
Mindfulness allows us to recognize our options, choose our responses wisely, and take control over the direction of our lives. It also gives us the power to change our past conditioning and become the person we want to be.
This is because having sati actually means that you’re more fully conscious and alert than normal. As a result, our peripheral awareness is much stronger, and our attention is used with unprecedented precision and objectivity.
(Mindfulness as optimum interaction of attention and awareness)
Mindfulness is the optimal interaction between attention and peripheral awareness.
Attention analyzes experience, and peripheral awareness provides the context. When one or the other doesn’t do its job, we misinterpret, overreact, and make poor decisions.
The condition in which the mind “stands back” to observe its own state and activities is called metacognitive introspective awareness.
Although it may not seem like it, there is always more than one way we can respond, which means there’s a continuous process of decision making going on as well. The quality of these moment-to-moment decisions depends on the quality of the information made available by both attention and awareness.
Everything we think, feel, say, or do from one moment to the next—who we are, and how we behave—all ultimately depends on the interactions between attention and awareness. Mindfulness is the optimum interaction between the two, so cultivating mindfulness can change everything we think, feel, say, and do for the better. It can completely transform who we are.
You simply do exercises where you practice sustaining close attention and strong peripheral awareness at the same time. This is the only way to make consciousness more powerful.
You have mastered Stage One when you never miss a daily practice session except when absolutely unavoidable, and when you rarely if ever procrastinate on the cushion by thinking and planning or doing something besides meditating. This Stage is the most difficult to master, but it can be done in a few weeks.
Our new motivations will come from a place of generosity, loving-kindness, and shared joy. We will discuss these positive qualities in later chapters.
Judgment and impatience about our practice undermine our motivation and encourage Doubt. In the later Stages, subtle, unconscious traces of aversion can keep mental and physical pliancy from developing, and prevent the Meditation Factor of Pleasure/Happiness3 from arising.
(The function of laziness and its antidotes)
Laziness is being resistant to doing some particular activity. Laziness is usually thought of as something negative, but it serves a purpose. It keeps us from spending time and energy on unnecessary, unproductive, or unpleasant activities. That time and energy can then be used for activities that contribute to happiness, survival, and reproductive success. Laziness also motivates us to use our skills and intelligence to come up with easier ways of doing things. Laziness arises when the cost of an activity seems to outweigh the benefits.
There are two antidotes for Laziness and Lethargy. The first is to motivate yourself by thinking about future rewards.
Laziness makes it hard to start a task, but once we start, it’s easier to continue. If we get interrupted, though, laziness can return and make restarting difficult.
Directed attention becomes powerful and automatic enough to completely overcome Laziness and Lethargy.
Even when we consciously set aside or unconsciously repress worry and remorse, the mind remains agitated, affecting our body and emotions.
Our past shapes our current perceptions and behaviors, and unresolved issues can stand in the way of peace of mind, joy, and happiness in the present.
unskillful intent, even the most subtle, is like a small bit of grit reducing the mind’s performance. As a virtuous person, you’ll enjoy a peace of mind that enables you to reach the highest Stages of meditation. Of course, there are many other benefits to being virtuous, but the practice of virtue is intrinsically rewarding.
Agitation Due to Worry and Remorse is a specific state of mind. The Meditation Factor of Meditative Joy6 is also a state of mind. Since the two are opposites, they cannot exist together—the continued presence
You will learn to work smart, not hard, using finesse, patience, and positive reinforcement rather than willpower.
When attention is accompanied by greater awareness, we have strong mindfulness, meaning we can refocus and stabilize our attention wherever and whenever it’s needed.
Yet, how do you train something that happens unconsciously? Simply take a moment to enjoy and appreciate “waking up” from mind-wandering.
(Why peripheral awareness must not be restricted in early stages)
Stages One through Four aim at gaining more stability of attention. Beginning meditators often try to stabilize attention by focusing intensely on the breath and pushing everything else out of awareness. Don’t do this. Don’t try to limit peripheral awareness.
Don’t limit peripheral awareness. To cultivate mindfulness, allow sounds, sensations, thoughts, memories, and feelings to continue in the background.
let it come, let it be, and let it go. Learn to accept these distractions, recognizing that they will go away by themselves, only to be replaced by others. Stay on task while staying relaxed. Just enjoy the process.
“You” Are Not in Control of “Your” Mind
(No self controls the mind: meditation as collective consensus)
Mind-wandering happens constantly. It’s so much a part of our normal experience that we rarely notice, leading us to believe we are the masters of our own minds, in constant control. Meditation shatters that myth pretty quickly. Even the simplest instruction like “Keep your attention focused on the breath” reveals how the mind, in a sense, has a mind of its own.
Rather than pass judgment, let your meditation practice illuminate what’s really going on: there is no self in control of the mind, and therefore nobody to blame! The mind is a collective of mental processes operating either through consensus, or through a very temporary dominance of one process over the others.
Ultimately, meditation means training a complex, multipart system (the mind) to work cooperatively, coherently, and consistently through a shared consensus toward common goals. If you can embrace that fact and let go of the notions of “I,” “me,” and “my mind,” your practice will go much more smoothly.
Figure 13. One part of your mind might wear a big hat marked “I” for a short period of time, but it has no inherent ability to keep that up for long. Inevitably, some other mental process with a different agenda and different conditioning takes over and becomes the “I.”
“Monkey-mind” makes you feel restless, and must be dealt with differently than ordinary mind-wandering.
The basic rule for training the mind in meditation is to always intentionally select the locus of attention. That is, you must intentionally choose the “area” (i.e., breath sensations, bodily sensations, thoughts, or some combination) you want attention restricted to. Every practice for achieving stable attention is based on this principle.
You let the mind keep moving, but only within the boundaries that you’ve intentionally set. Instead of trying to hold the monkey still, you give it a larger cage to move in.
“This isn’t working, there must be an easier way,” or “I could be doing something better with my time.” These thoughts and feelings arise because something you wanted, hoped for, or expected hasn’t happened.
force the mind to comply. But when one part of the mind tries to force itself on other parts, this only creates a struggle that feels like an exercise of willpower—and willpower can never succeed in overcoming this kind of internal resistance. As one part of the mind tries harder and harder to rule the roost, the struggle only increases, feeding the disharmony-dissatisfaction-impatience cycle.
You have mastered Stage Three when you no longer forget the breath. This is also the first Milestone Achievement: continuous attention to the meditation object.
Introspective attention can only produce a conceptual snapshot of what was just happening, a kind of delay or echo, whereas introspective awareness is capable of continuously monitoring the mind. This is a rather subtle point. Take some time to think about it, since it has important consequences.
At this Stage, the arising of strong and persistent distractions is actually a sign of progress! You’re coming into contact with primal drives, untapped capacities, hidden archetypes, and powerful emotions arising from deeper parts of the mind.
This is a very significant event in the progress of your practice. However, this powerful material doesn’t always surface right away, but may instead be preceded by strong feelings of restlessness and impatience. They’re like the tip of an iceberg, indicating that much more lies just below the surface. So, if you experience restlessness, don’t suppress it. Accept it openly, inviting whatever lies below to come up.
This disruptive material comes from past emotional and psychological challenges, and the more of these you’ve faced, the more you’ll encounter. Some may be quite traumatic, such as sexual abuse, the loss of a parent, or childhood bullying. But major challenges aren’t the only cause. Lesser trials that easily go unrecognized, like teasing, parental favoritism, or the pains of adolescence, play their part as well.
The strategy for dealing with emotions, thoughts, or images is simply to ignore them for as long as you can. Then, just like with pain, when something becomes too strong to disregard, make it your meditation object. Don’t resist, avoid, or reject this potent material.
Don’t focus on the breath too intensely for too long at this Stage. If you attempt exclusive, single-pointed attention before you have enough training, you lose introspective awareness, becoming vulnerable to distractions and dullness. Make your attention more intense, but in as relaxed and gentle a way as possible. It helps to aim for a balance between attention and introspective awareness.
(Recognizing and correcting subtle dullness)
Subtle dullness has three characteristics: (1) the vividness and clarity of the meditation object decline; (2) both extrospective and introspective peripheral awareness fade; (3) there is a comfortable, relaxed, and pleasant feeling.
You may have already noticed this, but if not, make a point of observing what happens to the meditation object when subtle distractions increase and decrease.
You will be introspectively aware of a sense of comfort and ease, rather than of dullness.
In this Stage, you will also periodically check in with attention to look for the presence of subtle dullness.
Dullness of any kind is always pleasant, except when you actively resist. You’ll be aware of a sense of comfort and ease, rather than of dullness.
When our practice is this enjoyable, there’s a strong temptation to see ourselves as adept meditators.
If some disturbance—an unexpected sound, someone coughing, or a door slamming—causes you to jerk or feel inwardly startled, then dullness was probably present. Other examples are when you’re surprised to find yourself taking a deep breath, or when you suddenly find yourself correcting for a slumping posture. If you were really mindful, you would have been aware of needing to do these things before they happened automatically. As a general rule, the more mindful you are in the moment, the more difficult it is to be either startled or surprised.
It’s even helpful to examine your meditation session after it’s ended, searching for any signs that subtle dullness may have been present.
Hold the intention to remain continuously aware of what’s happening in the mind, moment by moment.
The best way to detect subtle dullness is by making introspective awareness stronger. The key to doing that is intention.
Use the techniques of following and connecting.
Also, never rely on the subjective “feeling” of alertness and clarity. Examine the actual quality of both awareness and attention.
Systematically investigate discrete body areas, examining all sensations, but looking in particular for sensations that change with the breath. As you get better at this, begin combining smaller areas until you can observe sensations with equal clarity in large body regions. Anytime you realize you’re in a state where perception is much more powerful than before, shift your focus back to the breath at the nose. Sustain this heightened perception as long as you can, and when it declines, return to the body scan.
Use the body scan when subtle distractions aren’t too strong or numerous, and when your perception of the meditation object and peripheral awareness are both fairly clear.
However, with true exclusive focus, almost all the perceiving moments of attention are focused on the meditation object, without any increase in non-perceiving moments.
Finally, because non-perceiving moments carry less vital energy, the mind’s overall energy level drops.
Finally, body scanning involves the intention to perceive extremely subtle sensations in unfamiliar areas of the body. This recruits still more moments of consciousness, increasing the conscious power of the mind and leading to greater mindfulness.
Mastering this Stage doesn’t involve reaching any particular level of mindfulness. Your mindfulness will continue to grow stronger through all the later Stages. Rather, it is the ability to consistently sustain and increase your overall mindfulness in each meditation session. Your meditations will steadily improve with each sitting.
Like in the movie The Matrix, we inhabit a virtual reality built from concepts and ideas, except that—as far as we know—we’re not all plugged into a central computer.
The result of experiences like these is profound Insight into the relationships between attention and awareness, sensory experience and conceptual thinking, and the role of binding moments. Still, such Insight can’t happen unless you have completely overcome subtle dullness and cultivated mindfulness with powerful introspective awareness.
(Cultivating metacognitive introspective awareness)
You cultivate metacognitive introspective awareness by intending to know, moment by moment, the movements of attention, the quality of perception, and whether your scope is stable or expanding.
Are thoughts present in peripheral awareness, and if so, are they verbal or nonverbal? Is the mind restless, agitated, or relaxed? Is it joyful, or perhaps impatient? At the beginning of this Stage, there will be a lot of variety in these states and activities, giving you many opportunities to cultivate metacognitive awareness.
For now, if you ever find the focus of your attention shifting to pleasure, abandon the jhāna and bring yourself to a state of full alertness immediately. Absorption without metacognitive awareness isn’t really jhāna, even if it’s pleasant. If you accidentally train your mind to become dull in jhāna, you’ll have to unlearn that before you can use jhāna to advance your practice.
Therefore, try to extend your meditation periods so you have enough time not only to enter jhāna, but also to practice sustaining it.
If you can consistently enter and remain in this first whole-body jhāna for up to fifteen minutes without interruption, you can start practicing the second jhāna, also using the whole-body method, described in Appendix D.