Mindfulness and Conditionality: views
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 6 minute read This excerpt is from the chapter ‘The Undiscovered Foundations’ and it explores the way in which views condition the other Foundations of Mindfulness. This excerpt follows on directly from Mindfulness and Conditionality: mind. viii Mindfulness of views conditioning happiness / Awakening Views When we are trying to transform our views to be sources of happiness, we need to bear in mind that when the condition of views is in place—as it always is, it affects body, feeling and mental states, contributing towards Awakening or suffering in the future, through the processes of perspective, mood and thought. The Satipatthana Sutta teaches the monk to develop mindfulness of his views with regard to: The five hindrances By becoming clear about which mental states lead directly to suffering, or hinder it being overcome, and are therefore unconducive to Awakening, he is motivated to root them out. The fluid nature of his person By becoming clear that his personality is fluid, being made up of five impermanent qualities, called heaps (skandhas)—namely form, feeling, apperception, volition and consciousness, he is motivated to let go of all notions of an unchanging self. Fetters that arise to spiritual development in relation to sense experience By becoming clear that the source of happiness for himself and others does not lie in sense experience (including mental imaginings) but rather in cultivating skilful mental states in meditation, leading to pleasant spiritual feeling. The seven factors of Awakening By becoming clear about the spiritual qualities that do lead to Awakening–namely mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, ethical robustness, joy, tranquility, meditative concentration and equanimity. The four Noble Truths By becoming clear (developing insight into) how suffering is overcome, he realizes the four Noble Truths. In practising mindfulness of views, the monk ensures that the views he holds about everything pertinent are in line with reality and conducive to wisdom, to Awakening, to Nirvana. The above categories form a kind of ‘inverse hierarchy’ in terms of views. Before he can do anything, the monk needs to be clear he is in a mental state which is going to hinder his progress before he even starts. Secondly, he needs to understand that he can change. Thirdly, he needs to know to look for that change not in the ’outer world’ of the senses but in the ‘inner world’ of skilful mental states. Fourth, he needs to clarify which positive qualities he needs to develop if he is to attain Awakening. And finally, he needs to underpin his practice with wisdom, by understanding the nature of reality (in...
Views
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… 10 minute read This excerpt is from Chapter 8, ‘Mindfulness the Undiscovered Foundations,’ in which I explore the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Pali: satipatthanas,) and here, ‘Mindfulness of Mental Objects (Pali: dhammas.) I am particularly concerned to clarify this key section of the Satipatthana Sutta: current interpretations of ‘mental objects’ and ‘dhammas‘ have lacked conviction amongst commentators. Views I have arrived at ‘Views’ as my translation of dhammas, and this is how. Dhamma roughly is ‘what can be remembered’ or ‘what can be borne in mind’ (Pali: dharetabba), hence the translation of dhammas as ‘mental objects’ and sometimes as ‘phenomena.’[1] ‘Mental objects’ doesn’t tell us very much about what dhammas are, although two things we do hold in the mind are ‘concepts’ and ‘images.’ Buddhism teaches that we have not just five but six senses, with the mind being the sixth sense called manas. As humans we have evolved to make assessments about the world around us. These assessments can be at the level of thought, although prior to thought, evolution taught us the more gut-level instinctual response of fight or flight, where information resides at the visceral level on a ground of learned experience. According to Sagaramati, a view is a deeply ingrained attitude, not simply an opinion; it arises on one or all of Buddhism’s grounds for faith: reason, intuition and experience. When we come across something that meets one of these criterion as a means either for survival, to avoid pain, or to bring joy and fulfilment, we don’t need to consciously make an effort to place that ‘mental object’ in our mind, it naturally gets stored there. In this way views naturally arise based upon a mix of feelings, gut instincts, and reasons; in fact, often it is emotion that plays the bigger role, only for us to later come up with rationalizations for the views we hold. The process of bearing a mental object in mind, i.e. in the mind-sense manas[2] (Pali,) involves apperception or recognition (Sanskrit: samjna; Pali: sanna.) Through life we are taught the conventional conceptual meanings of concrete objects and abstract concepts: chair, desk, popularity. Once we know these as names, we can recognize them when we see them. But we also recognize images: a person’s face, a landscape, a painting, a visualized Buddha. ‘Although when manas is translated as ‘mind’ dhammas tends to be rendered accordingly as ‘thoughts’ or ‘ideas’, note that dhammas qua the object of manas as the sixth sense faculty refer not only to thoughts, ideas or concepts, but to mentality in its broadest denotation:...
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