Different Aspects of Mindfulness

by Dhammasami | 2000 | 11,593 words

A Collection of Talks on Mindfulness Meditation...

Chapter 8 - Direct Experience

LEARNING ABOUT life through Vipassana meditation is not like book learning or learning something from the media. Through newspapers and electronic media, we are fed with how to describe and judge an event. We get and develop a lot of ideas and opinions from these sources. Different people may go on developing different ideas and opinions on the same event. Sometime it is hard to say which is the truth. Ideas and opinions are always value added. They are based on how a person judges what he or she perceives. It is not surprising that people have varied ideas and opinions. This sometime results in causing barriers and divisions in society. The Buddha was well aware of this fact of life. He discussed them as Puthujjana in Pali, which means people of different opinions. As long as we are not enlightened, we will go on forming an opinion and consequently will remain different.

It is recorded in the Bahuvedaniya Sutta, the Discourse on Various Feelings in the Majjhima Nikaya, the Middle Length Saying that during the Buddhas time, a man by the name of Pancakanga and a monk called Udayi were arguing one day on different types of feelings. The former said there are two kinds of feeling, pleasant and unpleasant. He repeatedly refused to accept the Venerable Udayis teaching that there are three including a neutral one. Pancakanga stated that the neutral type of feeling could be included with the pleasant one. Udayi, however, declined to accept this. They were overheard by Venerable Ananda, the secretary of the Buddha who reported the matter to Him (the Buddha).

The Buddha pronounced to both that different people describe feelings in different ways, and that both of them were correct. The feelings could be in either two or three categories, depending on the method of description (Pariyayato). When based on description and opinion, there is more likelihood that we come to different conclusions.

The famous story of six blind men conveys a similar message, as their opinions are based on their touching different parts of an elephant. This should convince us that before we see an object together with its causes arising and vanishing, we will not see the true nature of the world. Nevertheless, seeing something as a part of a process, not totally a separate identity, can give a more complete picture.

Learning in the Vipassana meditation is not based on description, idea, opinion or judgement. It is based on direct experience, which in many cases goes beyond the exact description of words. At times, we cannot name the emotional experience we have, and we find ourselves confused as to what to call it. This is a common experience for those who use naming technique in mindfulness meditation.

By paying bare attention to pain or tension, we experience it directly without any interpretation of the sort of pain or tension it is. It is hard to bear, prompting reactions such as impatience and frustration. Nevertheless we come to know directly that pain is like this and tension has this nature. We do not need to impose any idea on our mind that pain and tension are suffering but should keep the mind open to see their nature revealed directly to our senses. Try to see any object objectively as it arises. The objects, a meditation technical term for the world, will reveal their true nature as and when your mind is capable of seeing it. To be able to see the true nature of the world, we need to build up a strong and continuous presence of mindfulness. Mindfulness enables you to experience things directly and produces insight into them.

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