Mindfulness and Conditionality: feeling
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 13 minute read This excerpt is from the chapter ‘The Undiscovered Foundations’ and it explores the way in which feeling (vedana) conditions happiness / Awakening. This excerpt follows on directly from Mindfulness and Conditionality: the body. vi Mindfulness of feeling conditioning happiness / Awakening Feeling When we are trying to transform feeling into a source of happiness, we need to bear in mind that when the condition of feeling is in place—as it always is, it affects body, mental states and views, contributing towards Awakening or suffering in the future, through the processes of expression, emotion and acceptance. EXPRESSION Firstly, there is expression. Feeling is expressed in the body; this is helpful to Awakening when it aids awareness of feeling, unhelpful when it is simply indulgent. Only mindfulness will help the monk discern that which will drive him towards Awakening and it is here that he places his attention and his effort. How might feeling affect the body? Firstly, we need to remind ourselves that feelings are expressed in the body. Feeling —–Expression—–> Body We need to ask ourselves; ‘Does that expression of feeling in the body lead to happiness or not?’ Expression that leads to happiness When we experience a feeling of pleasure or pain that feeling is often expressed in some way through the body, for instance in laughing or crying. When then should we laugh and when should we cry? We should laugh or cry when it helps us connect with how we are feeling, when it helps us to know how we are. Sometimes we need to have a good cry to connect with feelings which are present, but buried (and affecting us all the same). It is about sensing the tone of our grief, or joy; Does it feel like we are connecting through expressing it or are we only escaping? When we sit in meditation we are looking to be still and stable in our posture, though by sitting naturally, not rigidly. We try and set our body up to be as comfortable as we can, perhaps aiding this by doing bodywork beforehand. And whenever we experience physical pain or discomfort, unless we sense it may lead to injury, we try not to move. The principle behind this injunction is that in meditation we are trying to gently and kindly turn towards our experience, and that includes feelings of whatever kind. We are looking, over time, to deal with them rather than avoid them; this also applies to pleasant, joyful feelings. We seek to make our mindfulness and meditation...
Mindfulness and Conditionality: the body
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 14 minute read This excerpt is from the chapter ‘The Undiscovered Foundations’ and it explores the way in which the Buddha’s teaching on Conditionality; that all phenomena arise in dependence on (multiple) conditions applies in the case of the Buddha’s central teaching on mindfulness: namely the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. In this case we see how the body conditions the other Foundations: namely feeling, mind (including emotions) and views, in a manner similar to the cognitive model from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This excerpt follows on directly from The Satipatthana Sutta. ii The Cognitive Model Although the principle of Conditionality is explicit in Buddhism, we can see it operating implicitly in other fields, such as in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT is a psychotherapeutic intervention which looks at what can be observed and worked with on the ‘surface’ of our experience, rather than focusing on our internal states. It’s cognitive model[1] identifies four factors that influence moods, such as from depression or anxiety, and which, when changed, will change the mood. Environment–a mood can be changed by altering ones’ ‘psychosocial’ (physical or social) environment. To improve one’s mood one might choose to socialize with people who are positive and cheerful, or to tidy one’s flat. Biology / ‘Physical reactions’–a mood can be changed by altering ones’ bodily state, by taking better care of it, exercising more, getting better sleep, eating more nutritious food, and so on. When a depressed person takes exercise, thus generating greater vitality in their body, it is natural that their mood will lift to some extent. Thoughts–a mood can be changed by altering one’s thoughts, by consciously cultivating more balanced (less catastrophic) thoughts; one puts one’s thoughts ‘on trial.’ Behaviours–a mood can changed by looking for the effect of one’s behaviour on one’s mood and acting accordingly; if acting in a more friendly manner, even when one does not feel like it, improves ones’ mood then one should do that. iii Conditionality at work between the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Correlation between the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and the Cognitive Model Although the foundations are presented in a linear fashion, one after the other, in the Satipatthana Sutta they don’t stand from in isolation and the real juice occurs in the interplay between the foundations. If we are to understand how mindfulness works, we cannot treat the foundations in isolation, but need to see clearly how they are affected by each other. Perhaps as they both concern the human being and its’ situation it is not surprising that the four foundations and the four central aspects...
The Satipatthana Sutta
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 19 minute read This excerpt is from the chapter ‘The Undiscovered Foundations’ and it explores the basic structure of the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha’s central teaching on mindfulness. The path of mindfulness Mindfulness has been touted as a great solution to the problems of modern life, and many Westerners today will have been introduced to the concept. While respectfully touching upon its origin in Buddhism, advocates of mindfulness move quickly to emphasize its non-religious nature, citing its universal applicability in current times. Chewing a raisin with awareness or looking at a flower mindfully; these are examples of sensory experiences which can be practised and appreciated by anyone, regardless of their belief system. Such sensory experiences provide us with a cue to slow down and notice our life, and to not let it pass by in ‘busyness.’ In our fast-paced world, time itself has become the shrine at which we, as mindfulness practitioners, might worship in three-minute bursts as we take breathing spaces from the sphere of digital information that dominates many of our lives: never-ending emails, burgeoning apps, smart phones constantly interrupting us with social media notifications and alarm reminders, all catching us in an endless stream of information. Mindfulness practices help us to manage our reactions and agitations, supporting us in releasing tension. So, we build mindfulness into our day; we might share our meditation sessions with friends and strangers on meditation apps, we’ll chew our food more slowly, and we’ll build a structure of awareness into our day. We fit mindfulness into our lives, experiencing its benefits. This is good, it works, it’s definitely worth doing, and it’s certainly better than not doing it, but mindfulness has so much more potential and scope. For some, mindfulness is deeply embedded in every single aspect of the living of life. The most advanced Buddhists practice, or strive to practice, the ‘full-works’ of mindfulness, encompassing connectedness with others, ethics and actions, the imagination and insight, the whole of life, the whole shebang, all of it. Whilst modern mindfulness emphasizes the development of awareness in the present moment, its actual origin in Buddhism was exclusively concerned with whatever is life-affirming or life-denying, in Buddhist terms ‘skilful’ or ‘unskilful’, ethical, not ethical. In the early days of Buddhism mindfulness was encountered by the Greeks who settled the Indian subcontinent in the wake of Alexander’s conquest. The Greek king, King Menander, sought to understand this intriguing religion. Upon enquiring about the mark of mindfulness, he was told that mindfulness is to be aware of that which is ‘light’ and that which is ‘dark’ and to stay with the...
Kindness As Constructive Imagination
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 10 minute read This excerpt is from the chapter ‘The Evidence Bases in Religion, Science and Politics,’ in which I explore how kindness is developed through paying attention to what living beings truly are: a process Tse-Fu Kuan calls ‘Constructive Imagination.’ Feeling and emotion Metta—Universal Loving Kindness–is one way that we redirect our emotions along the most wholesome pathway; it is, however, very important first to be clear about the difference between feeling (vedana) and emotion–as an aspect of ‘mind’ or citta. Sangharakshita: ‘When Buddhist psychology refers to developing mindfulness of feelings, however, something rather different is meant from the “getting in touch with one’s feelings” with which psychotherapy is concerned–something less complex, perhaps more useful. Indeed, being able to identify feelings (in the sense of vedana as defined by the Buddhist tradition) is what makes it possible for us to follow the Buddhist path. The Pali term vedana refers to feeling not in the sense of the emotions, but in terms of sensation. Vedana is whatever pleasantness or unpleasantness we might experience in our contact with any physical or mental stimulus. ‘To understand what we would call emotion, Buddhism looks at the way in which that pleasant or painful feeling is interwoven with our reactions and responses to it.’[1] Feeling as vedana, then, is just experience: specifically the experience of pleasure, pain or neither. On the other hand, the etymology[2] of the word ‘emotion’ is connected with ‘moving out,’ in the sense of ‘responding.’ Emotion, then, is that aspect of the mind or psyche (Pali: citta) which ‘moves in relation to experience.’ Citta encompasses the sum total of how the psyche moves in response to experience: it therefore includes thinking, emotion and the distribution of attention: It is useful to consider the above diagram. In the teaching of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (satipatthanas,) the Buddha says we need to bring mindfulness to four areas, if we are to bring happiness into the world, avoid suffering and ultimately attain Nirvana.[3] These foundations are body (kaya,) feeling (vedana,) mind (citta) and views (dhammas) and they all condition each other. Usually that conditioning, when taken between feeling and emotion, involves moving towards pleasurable experiences that are desired and away from painful experiences that are undesired—and maybe not responding at all to neutral experiences. Emotion then is most of the time an unconscious and reactive response to feeling; while feeling and the emotion feel to be one thing, they are actually distinct. Feeling is just what is presented to us in the moment: thus, it is something we...
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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