5. Day 2, morning

Some may be tired this morning. Many people are, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Just maintain some awareness of it. Don’t become involved with the state of tiredness otherwise you will start to create some dukkha for yourself. You can just note and know that there’s some tiredness there without identifying with the tiredness and you can free your mind from that particular mind state.

This morning we’re going to talk about the sitting meditation again. We are going to refine our instructions for the sitting meditation.

5.1. Reflning sitting meditation instructions

Up until now we have been simply following the breath as it enters into the nostrils, glides down through the chest, comes to the abdomen, it raises, and then the abdomen falls and it comes back out again. We have been following it, in and out, trying to be as continuous as we possibly can. Trying to maintain our awareness in the present, internalizing that present moment awareness and following the breath. This is the preliminary step of just bringing ourselves into the present and trying to connect with the body a little bit more. Some of you will have noticed, that the breath doesn’t only go to the lungs, but travels right down into the abdomen. In fact, the breath can seem to flow all the way from the head right down to the toes and back 81 up again. There is a subtle movement of energy inside the body. They call it vayo dathu, the air element. It’s moving. The breath is part of this element. There are actually quite a few different types of energies flowing through the body. Those types of movements that the arms do, those types of movements of digestion and clearing the bowels and the bladder. All types of movements, the chest expanding and contracting, the abdomen rising and falling, the supporting feeling that’s coming up from down below and coming up the back into the head. These are all characteristics of the air element. Please try to follow them for a little bit.

As we start to stabilize our awareness, just on the path of breath sensations, some of you will have noticed that it is a little bit clearer at some points with regards to the physical sensations that are occurring. Some will have noticed that the sensation is greater around the nostril area, around the upper lip. They can connect there a little bit easier. For some people it is in the chest or the heart area. For others, it’s in the abdomen area. Lots of sensations are going on here as the abdomen rises and falls.

Now at this point in the retreat, I’d like you to choose one of these places and maintain your awareness just at that one particular place. So at this point we drop the chasing and the following of the breath as it flows in and out and we just choose a single place. Some people have already started to practice meditation having their awareness in the nostril area. That’s fine. You can maintain your awareness there, continue to practice in this spot as long as you’re paying attention to the touching sensation that is occurring there. Other people will find, that they feel their abdomen rising and falling more easily.

For those of you who are new to meditation, who haven’t yet established a practice, all those of you who have tried different meditations, I recommend that you try to practice at the abdomen. The rise and fall of the abdomen. At the abdomen we’re paying attention almost exclusively to the different sensations that are occurring there. The breath doesn’t actually arrive at the abdomen. There is just movement going in and out. That movement is the air element. The air element will manifest itself in many different ways. Sometimes there will be a pushing and pulling. Sometimes there will be a little bit of pressure. Sometimes there is some tension. Sometimes 82 twisting. At other times, it will be vibrating. There is lots of different physical sensations to be aware of at the abdomen. You’re not watching the breath going in and out. For those of you who have ever cut a piece of wood with a saw, we’re not looking at the saw as it goes in and out – that’s the breath. We look at the piece of wood and the little slit, that starts to be made there as we run the saw over the wood. That’s where we watch. You’re always watching just at that spot. We’re much more interested in the touching of the wood than we are in the metal of the saw. The saw will keep going back and forth. The breath will keep flowing in and flowing out. That’s just a conceptual framework, just a guide to keep us present. What we are interested in here, is the touching sensation on the physical body.

The first stage of our satipatthana practice is all about body awareness. It’s called kaya-nupassana, reflection upon the body. We’re interested in establishing mindfulness on the body. In fact, all meditation systems begin with mindfulness of the body. When mindfulness of the body is established, we can go on and establish all kinds of different types of meditation.

For those of you who are not going to watch the touching point at the nose, I advise that you watch the abdomen as it is rising and falling. Become aware of the physical sensations that are there. You need to put your mind down into the abdomen. You will need to keep it down there, to stabilize it down there. It will run up. It comes up to its old playground, the eyes and the ears. It loves to come up and manifest here. That’s where it’s been manifesting for most of our lives. Sights and sounds. But we want to try and bring our awareness down to the abdomen and become aware right of the very beginning, moving through and finishing. And then there’s a little gap. And then the abdomen falls. So we are paying attention to the movement of the abdomen and the sensations created by the movement of the abdomen. As long as the object of our mindfulness is either the sensation of touch or the sensation created by the movement in the body – our object is a body object – our practice will lead us to see sabhava, the ultimate reality of the four elements.

A little note of warning for those of you who like to practice at the nose tip. Sometimes what can happen is that we loose our awareness as our meditation starts to develop. We loose our awareness of the touching sensation 83 and the mind turns toward the breath exclusively. And the breath transforms from an object of the body into a conceptual object. We start to watch the breath as a concept, as an idea. We start to imagine it as a particular flow, or a particular thing, or a tube of breath, or a tube of light or any type of other kind of conceptualizations. These manifest as various images, various pictures, lights, all kinds of shapes. This shouldn’t be a concern to you. If you start to see things in your meditation practice, just make a note of what is exactly going on. You’re seeing. Seeing is occurring. You’re not seeing with your physical eye but you’re seeing with your mind. Your mind is starting to generate some kind of images. Geometric patterns, colors or lights. Just make a gentle note, ‘seeing, seeing’. If you become excited if something starts happening like that, make a note, ‘excitement, excitement’. We want to stay on top of exactly what is happening. We don’t want to get stuck. We don’t want to get involved in the object. We don’t want to start identifying with the object. We don’t want to go into the object. We want to keep stepping back, keep detaching, this is not a meditation where we go in and start identifying with the body. This is a meditation practice where we step out and stop identifying with what is actually going on in the present moment.

Just a word of warning to you. For those of you who experience lights and sounds and colors, when you practice at the nose tip, just make a note. ‘Seeing’. Establish your awareness and wisdom at the same level as your concentration. In that way you will be able to balance the faculties. And Vipassana insight loves the balanced faculties. When the five faculties, faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom are balanced, Vipassana insight starts to flow. We’ll be talking about balancing the faculties as the week goes on.

So for those of you who wish to continue at the nose tip, you can do so. But for those of you who are new to meditation, I suggest establishing your awareness at the movement of the abdomen.

I strongly suggest that you work it out this morning four yourself. Don’t become someone who switches between the two places sometimes practicing at the abdomen, sometimes practicing at the nose always creating doubt about where you should follow the breath or what you should be doing. This is not the type of state that we need to be developing. We don’t want to 84 develop uncertainty, doubt within ourselves. We want to be clear about what we’re doing. So you need to choose one of these two places and stick with it for the rest of the retreat and that will be for your benefit.

The work of unremitting mindfulness and awareness on our breath as it arises and passes away, as the physical sensations arise and pass away, will lead to certain states of calmness. Quietness occasionally. When we start to connect with the breath, don’t get carried away by these beginning stages of meditation. It’s also interesting to experience that, but that’s not the end goal of our meditation. Whilst we are practicing in this way, rising, falling, rising, falling, I also want to incorporate a third object into our meditation practice. So we are changing quite a lot this morning. We are changing from chasing the breath as it’s moving in and out, to establishing the breath at a single place.

At the beginning stages of our meditation practice, we come into the hall, we sit down, arrange our legs, our hands, our eyes, establish our awareness in the present moment, just the present moment is our object, and then after a minute or so, we start to internalize – you can start to internalize before the minute is up if you like – just start to internalize that awareness keeping your mind deep inside the body. And when it runs up through another door, through a sound or through a thought, just gently bring it back. Don’t scold yourself but just bring it back. You have to be quite firm in the training of your mind. You can’t allow it to be slack anytime during the week. You will have to firmly decide, this is what you’re going to be doing here and work towards that goal. It’s no good working a little bit and then resting a little bit. That doesn’t really work. You can do that for many years and still the practice will not be successful. So I encourage you to work consistently and persistently.

When we’re watching the rise and fall of the abdomen, as it rises, we make a note from the beginning until the end of the physical sensation. So we are aware when it starts, we follow the sensation through till it finishes. And then the abdomen will start to fall. We’re aware of the beginning of the sensation, following it through and then it finishes. At the end of the outbreath, in, out, there will be a little gap there. In that gap, I want you to turn your attention, or focus your awareness, to the sensation of the whole body 85 as it is sitting there. Just for a snap second. Just for that little gap between the out-breath and the in-breath. So it goes something like this: ‘rising, falling, sitting’. We become aware of the whole sitting posture. And then: ‘rising, falling, sitting. Rising, falling, sitting’. So we are moving our awareness from the place here in the center of the body, where the sensations are strong – the vibrations are strong, the heat is strong, the movement is strong, the sensations are manifesting very well to observe at this location, as it rises and falls, we’re keeping our attention right here. As soon as the out-breath is finished, I want you to broaden your awareness, and become aware of the whole body. Become aware of the head and shoulders, down through the legs, just the whole thing. Try to capture the single sensation that is existing between the end of the out-breath and the beginning of the in-breath. So: ‘rising, falling, sitting’. What’s there? Try to activate your awareness and catch the whole body. This will continue to keep us in the present moment and it’ll continue to internalize our awareness. In fact, the rising and the falling keeps us present and the internalization on the physical sensation keeps us internalized. So we are trying to make it continuous by doing this over and over again ‘rising, falling, sitting, rising, falling, sitting’. This is not a new object. We’ve been doing it at the start of the meditation sessions already. The second minute of the sittings have been present moment and then internalizing. Try to take a snapshot of the sensation in the whole body. We’re not trying to create an image of the body. We’re not trying to imagine what we look like sitting on the mat. We’re just trying to experience: what is it now that you can feel?

What can you experience? Hardness, softness, warmth, coolness, vibrations, tingling…capture the physical sensation that is occurring in the present moment right at the point between the out-breath and the in-breath. Become aware of the whole body as it is sitting there just for a second at the end of the out-breath. ‘Rising, falling, sitting, rising, falling, sitting, rising, falling, sitting, rising, falling, sitting’. So this becomes your new main object. Do this 80-90% of the time! Going around in this sequence trying to make it continuous. Trying to follow from beginning to end.

The snapshot has to be quick. In the beginning stages you may not be able to capture the sensation of the whole body. Don’t let that worry you. 86 Avert your awareness to the whole sitting posture and then come back to the breath. The more time you do it, the clearer it will become. Don’t spend your time trying to search for it at the beginning, this will disturb your breath! It’s very quick. It’s very short, as fast as your iPhone can take a photo. And then back to the breathing again. ‘Rising, falling, sitting, rising, falling, sitting, rising, falling, sitting’. We keep going around and around in this way.

For those of you who have been here before, you can even add the fourth object. Be aware that sometimes it can be a little bit busy for beginners doing the three stage sitting meditation before you’re going to the fourth. You can also become aware of the touching of the body on the mat. This is a fourth object. ‘Rising, falling, sitting, touching’. Touching is the sensation of the body sitting on the mat. It’s quite different from sitting. Sitting is the sensation of the whole body as a posture. Touching is a particular part, whether it’s your butt-cheeks or your knees or your ankles. I propose that you go from butt-cheek to butt-cheek. ‘Rising, falling, sitting, touching’. Feel that cheek sitting on the mat. There is a touching sensation there. And then: ‘Rising, falling, sitting, touching’. On the left side. ‘Rising, falling, sitting, touching’. On the right side. [or: ‘rising, falling, sitting, touching left, touching right’].

This will do many things for your meditation practice. Most importantly it will increase the amount of energy that we are using. Normally we breath about 12 times every minute. That is 12 times in and 12 times out. If we’re only noting the breath, we’ll spend a whole minute to just note 24 times. It’s not really fast enough. It’s not really continuous enough for our insight to break through. We add a few extra objects so that we can keep the mind busy and engaged with being in the present moment. If we only have two, we will find ourselves getting nice and comfortable and pleasant and then a kind of pleasant dullness comes upon us. It’s kind of nice but nothing really happens. Our meditation comes to a kind of plateau. Many people experience this. If we add an extra object, not only are we doing it 24 times a minute, now we have added 12 extra objects. We’re doing it 36 times a minute. So we need to use a lot more energy and effort to activate our awareness in the present moment. We are increasing our workflow by 50%. It’s very effective in maintaining our awareness continuously. You’ll 87 will find yourself becoming closer and closer, further and further, deeper and deeper into the body. You will be able to stay inside. For those of you whose mind is wandering in the past and future, you will also find, if you’re paying attention to more objects, then your mind will have less time to go wandering. You won’t get distracted. It takes a lot of effort to be continuously aware in this way. ‘Rising, falling, sitting, touching’. About that pace. We don’t interrupt the breath. So we keep going around and around that way. You may have to put your hand on the abdomen or you may have to take a couple of deep breaths to be able to find that sensation of movement. Take three or four deep breaths and then allow the breath to come to its natural breathing. Do not neglect the first and second stages of the practice. Don’t come to the hall and try to immediately start to watch your breath. You should establish your awareness in the present and spend a minute doing that. Establish your awareness internally. Spend a minute doing that. It’s important that you do this, so that the mind has time to calm down before we start watching the breath. We allow the breath just a couple of minutes to calm down and get to its natural state. We want it to be as natural as possible. We don’t want to be manipulating the breath in any way. Sometimes it will feel it is impossible to not manipulate the breath. And that’s ok. Just try not to do it very much. The breath has an intentional structure. So it is a little bit under the control of consciousness but most of the time we want it to be completely natural. So try to allow the breath to establish its natural rhythm at the beginning before we start to observe it.

So in this way, we start to use this as our main object. ‘Rising, falling, sitting, touching. Rising, falling, sitting, touching’. Over and over again. Keep your mind in the present. Internalizing keep doing this. Keep circling around and around. If your mind starts to wander and you think of the past, make a note, ‘thinking’. Or ‘remembering’. And then quickly come back to the ‘rising, falling, sitting, touching’. Our main object needs to be followed as much as we can. We only note the secondary objects, such as hearing, when they’re actually disturbing the practice, when they actually come in into our cycling of the rising, falling, sitting, touching.

Some of you want to use the fourth object. You can use hearing. I find this also very useful to bring myself back to the present moment. Hearing is 88 an object which is always available. It’s always there. The ears are always hearing. We can’t turn them off. It’s a continuous object. It’s there. Of course, we are not always paying attention to it. But in our meditation practice we can use it, we can note hearing whenever it interferes our practice. Or we can incorporate hearing into our Vipassana. In that way you can do it like this: ‘rising, falling, sitting, hearing. Rising, falling, sitting, hearing. Rising, falling, sitting, hearing’. You keep your awareness at the center of the body. In and out. Then you broaden your awareness. And then you bring it to the ears. And then you bring it back down again. So you’re moving your awareness around inside your body. You’re following where consciousness, the bowl, is arising and you’re noting what’s in the bowl. Mostly we’re noting physical sensations. When we’re doing ‘rising, falling, sitting, touching’, we’re noting all the physical sensations. This is all body objects. This is all rupa. It’s all the four elements.

So try to let go of the conceptual idea of a body. Try to let go of the conceptual idea of breath. Tune your mind, tune your awareness to just be interested in physical sensations. Turn off the picture that you have of your body or your ideas that you have about the breath. Try to be aware of just what is exactly there without you painting your ideas on top of it. We want to get back to nature. We want to strip away the conceptual world and come back and visit what is actually going on in the body. This is the main part of our practicing in the beginning stages. We are paying attention to the body. We’re paying attention in particular to the postures. Walking, standing, sitting and lying down. During our daily activities we are trying to keep ourselves aware of whatever posture we’re in from moment to moment. We’re continuously aware and knowing that now it’s sitting. Continuing to sit. Now it’s standing up. Now it’s walking. Now it’s standing. Just try to keep your awareness in the present. Keep it inside and maintain it during the daily activities.

During the sitting and the walking meditation we use the posture as well but we’re also paying attention to the physical sensations. It’s really two kinds of objects that we use for becoming aware of the body.

Different people will break through in slightly different ways. We pay attention to the postures and the body sensations.

• 89 Those of us who are more inclined to watching the breath as it arises and passes, arises and passes, we are turning into the general characteristic of anicca or impermanence. Seeing things arise and pass away, arise and pass away.

• Those connecting with the bodily postures (the walking, sitting, lying down) you will start to become aware of the general characteristics of dukkha . You start to see that things are not so wonderful as you thought they were. Just a relatively speaking. There is some suffering going on.

• Those who manage to penetrate through the characteristics of the four elements, will start to become aware of the characteristic of anata or non-self. There will be no self that’s arising. You will see that this thing sitting here, is just a bag of physical sensations, without a bag. It is a field of physical sensations. We painted it, that it is a body, arms, legs, head, as me, as mine – these are just concepts! They don’t exist in the ultimate reality. They are man made inventions, which we have decided to call a body, an arm, a leg. And in your language you may have another word for it. This is just conceptual, this is not reality. Our Vipassana will go further than the conceptual and penetrate deeply to see the ultimate realities. We want to understand the nature of earth, water, fire and air.

We want to see the nature of rupa, matter. When we see matter, by default we will also see the nature of the mind. It’s immaterial, the mind has no physicality to it. We can’t know the mind by seeing it. We know it’s knowing and we know it’s power. It is energy. We can develop many different mind states, so that we can know rupa. Rupa does not know anything. It’s kind of dumb. Earth, water, fire and air – it’s a lump of stuff sitting there on the mat. It’s breathing in and out. Physical sensations are occurring. The four elements are balancing or unbalancing with each other as the day goes on. Sometimes it’s warm, sometimes it becomes hard, sometimes it’s vibrating. Physical sensations manifesting throughout the body.

The sitting posture will reveal its own set of characteristics. When we avert to the sitting, I want you to try to grab the most obvious sensation that’s there. If you can’t yet feel the supporting – there is kind of a flow that’s coming up from underneath supporting the body, it’s natural floating there 90 all the time – if you pull your mind inside, you’ll be able to experience this supporting sensation. There’s also vibrations. There’s also the temperature aspect. There’s also just the aspect of the sitting posture.

I would like you all to do the three or four stage sitting meditation. It will be busy – because it is busy – but it will be very beneficial. With this extra work, the mind has no time to wander, go thinking or planing. We sharpen our aim with directing consciousness – we are using awareness and wisdom to direct our consciousness – to the place where the physical sensation is most clear. And we are following it. From beginning to end. And then we’re broadening our awareness capturing the whole body. Then we’re coming back in again. Keep circulating, keep looping around and around. Don’t worry if it is not clear for a first few minutes, just keep doing the work and then the mind will follow and start to know what to do. It understands during the breath it needs to be here. At the end of the breath it becomes wide and takes in the whole body. You train the mind with various objects. Like going to the gym.

Make sure, there are no gaps during the noting process! From beginning to end, from beginning to end. If you become aware – and you don’t have to search for these sensations, but if you become aware of some vibration, if that’s the predominant sensation, make a note ‘vibrating, vibrating’. Try to make that an objective object. So we can step back from it and stop identifying with it. If there is some pressure, or if you feel some pushing, make a note of that. ‘Pressure, pressure’. ‘Pushing, pushing’. If you feel it’s kind of twisting. Make a note of that. If we can already follow the breath as it comes out, in, it starts to penetrate, it starts to go in into each other. The mind and the object become very close to each other. They come very close right up in your face, in your awareness, in your consciousness.

Whatever is the predominant sensation, must be observed and noticed. We should spend 80 or 90% of our time doing this rising, falling, sitting, touching, rising, falling, sitting, touching. If you want to do the fourth object: rising, falling, sitting, hearing, rising, falling, sitting, hearing, rising, falling, sitting, touching, rising, falling, sitting, touching. You keep going around and around like that. Only noting the other external objects when they come to interfere with our cycling. Only when they interfere. We want to stay as 91 much as we can with the main object, as much as we can in the present, as much as we can internalizing.

In the first two days, when you’re a little bit tired, you will find this kind of hard work. For the first few days you’re doing it and no results are occurring. But what we’re doing is putting the conditions in place for insight to unfold.

This is how we practice with the body door. This afternoon we will go into examining feeling, the first object of the mental door. But first we’ll stick with the body.

Also whilst we’re practicing in this way, during the walking meditation, you can become aware of the arising of various sense consciousnesses. Sense consciousness arises at the eye door, the ear door, the nose door, the tongue door and the body door. It’s very impermanent. It arises for a fraction of a second and then it passes away.

As our Vipassana practice develops, we are going to go through four foundations of mindfulness. We are going to look at the physical sensations, which we have been talking about for the last few days. We’re going to look at feeling which is either pleasant or unpleasant. We are going to look at various mind states. The state of mind with greed or hatred or delusion. And we are also going to be looking at various reactions and thought processes that we may have. So there are four foundations of mindfulness to establish our awareness in the present moment, to block craving from being from entering. And we’ll be going through these as the week goes on.

5.2. True Vipassana technique

When we are paying attention to the rising, the falling and the sitting, sense consciousnesses will be activated. Sometimes we will hear things. We’ll start seeing things or smelling things. These sense consciousnesses are arising and passing away. You can make a note of them. In fact, true Vipassana practice includes all six doors. We note and know them as they arise and pass away at the six doors. As my old teacher used to say, note it, know it and let it go. Whatever is arising. The instructions this morning have been for the body door. That’s just one of the doors. We are just paying attention to the body, its posture and its sensations. But the other doors are also opening and 92 closing continuously. So we’ll need to start to become aware of them as well. In the beginning, we start with a selected small group of things to train the mind on. The rising, the falling, the sitting, the touching, the hearing. This is a select group so that we can start to train the mind to be present [ directed awareness ]. As our practice develops, we start to let go of this selected group of meditation objects and our awareness opens up and becomes choiceless [ choiceless awareness ]. We start to watch whatever is arising, whenever it is arising at the eye door, the ear, nose, tongue and body doors and the mind door as well. Once we’ve established a certain level of stability in the mind, once our awareness and wisdom have become concentrated or stabilized, then you will be able to bounce between the various doors.

For the beginning stage, we try to stay at the main object as much as possible, as I said. If any of these other doors are activated, you can quickly note them and come back. When our practice is fully developed, we won’t need to stick with the rising, falling, sitting. We will be able to be aware in the present moment to whatever is going on. Arising and passing away.

So we try to maintain our awareness on the main object, but for the sake of completeness, the body and mind receives all its information into through these six doors moment after moment. One door opens and closes, another door opens and closes. Consciousness can only arise in one location. And then it passes away. It does so very rapidly, so that we build up a perception of the world. We hear the dog barking and see the dog, maybe through two doors (hearing, seeing) or three doors (with smelling), then our mind goes through our recognition system, our perception, we recognize it as a dog. We have seen it and we can smell it and we can hear it. So we paint a picture of what it actually is. A conceptual view of what is actually there. When we start to do this, that means our mind is going out into the story of that barking. It’s going out through the eye door.

What we want to be able to do is to maintain our awareness internally and allow consciousness to arise and pass away, arise and pass away, arise and pass away with us just observing, just witnessing what is going on. We’re not going into the story. We are stepping back from the story. When there is a sound outside and you have an ear, ear consciousness arises. When there is a visible form and you have some eyes, eye consciousness arises. 93 When you have a nose and there is a scent, nose consciousness arises. We normally call this hearing, seeing and smelling. I want you to make a note when you notice that the body has been activated in this way. If you notice that the eye door has been activated, make a note, seeing. Don’t get stuck in what you are seeing. That is called looking, watching. You have gone through the door and you’ve gone to the object and you’re starting to play with it. You have become engaged with it. So our meditation practice is to come inside, to notice that one of the sense doors has been triggered and just make a note. Seeing is occurring. This unit is sitting here, its eyes are open, seeing is occurring. Hearing is occurring. Smelling is occurring. There is a physical sensation of touching, touching is occurring. Sometimes it’s going into the past, remembering is occurring. Sometimes it goes to the future. Planning is occurring. This is what we want to get down and note. We are not interested in the content of what we are hearing and seeing. We don’t care if it’s a yellow dog or white dog. Or a brown dog, or a tree, or a rock. We’re not interested in what we are seeing. We are interested in the fact that seeing is occurring. We’re not interested in that someone’s T-shirt is pink or green. If we are noticing details like that, that means we’re going out through the doors. We don’t make a note green or pink or whatever, T-shirt or person. We’re not making a note like that. We’re coming back before that starts to be identified with. We’re coming back if we note, «oh, the process of seeing is occurring and finishes». «Oh, hearing is occurring.» Finished. Smelling. It’s finished. Rising, falling is occurring. Hearing again. Planning. Future.

The six doors are opening and closing continuously throughout the day. If we are unmindful of them, each of those events will be subjectified. Each of those events will be appropriated and identified with either as me, mine, I or some variation of that ego experience. But if our awareness and wisdom is able to note and know, if we’re able to keep up with the doors as they arise and pass away, we won’t go into the stories of the content. We won’t start to identify with the story and pictures and ideas, that we create when we see and hear and smell and taste things. We will be able to be very present and aware and able to see exactly what is going on. This body does see things, does hear things. There are physical sensations going on. These are our objects. Don’t think of physical pain as stopping you from meditation. 94 That pain is the object of the present moment. That wandering mind is the object of the present moment. So it doesn’t matter whether you can keep your mind continuously with the breath – of course, it’s preferred. Of course, that’s what we’re trying to do, what we’re aiming for – but if your mind is wandering for the first few days of practice, or the physical sensations, the numbness, the sore back, or the tiredness, whatever your experience is in the present moment, that can also be an object of our meditation. What we’re most importantly doing, is turning our experience, our life, into a field of objects. And we’re stepping back from those fields of objects so that we can see them just arising and passing away without becoming involved with them, without identifying with them. When we see in this way, it’s called clear seeing – Vipassana.

We have to see the physical objects, we have to see the mental objects, we have to see causes and effects and linkages between these two, and if we can practice in real time with this real data – things that are actually occurring in the present moment – then we will break through and stop seeing the individual characteristics of each event and we’ll start to see the general characteristics inherent in all conditioned phenomena. All the phenomena arising and passing away at the six sense doors are impermanent. All phenomena are suffering, when it’s identified with. And all phenomena is nonself, it’s out of control. It’s not happening to anyone. It’s just happening. There’s no see-er, but there is seeing occurring. There’s no hear-er, but there is hearing occurring. Physical sensations are occurring in the body, but they are not yours. They don’t belong to you. If you identify with them – suffering will be your friend.

You have a physical pain in the body and you identify with it, it gives you suffering. If you don’t identify with it and see it clearly for what it actually is, it doesn’t give you any suffering! It is just a physical sensation, it’s just a mental state. If we become sad for example, if we identify with the sadness and start to think, «oh, I am sad, I am unhappy, I am depressed, I am worried», we will give ourselves suffering. If we can step back from it, note it, know it and let it go, then we’ve stopped identifying with it. That sadness may still be there, but it doesn’t cause any dukkha. It doesn’t give us any suffering because it doesn’t belong to us. We haven’t accepted it. – So we step 95 away from that stuff.

For the moment we’re doing it with the physical sensations, but we’ll start to move to the other doors as well. We observe the knowing that’s arising in the present moment. As Ajahn Sumedo says: «The practice is, now is the knowing.» This is the state of the mind when it’s just knowing what is arising and passing away in the present moment. Have a think about that! Now is the knowing. We are just knowing whatever is there without getting involved in it. When we don’t get involved, it passes away and then a new object arises. We don’t get involved, it passes away and then a new object arises. And a new object arises. If we can do this effectively and efficiently, this process will become extremely rapid. We will start to see things in a very radically different way. It kind of looks like it’s all so solid and happening. That’s because we’re identifying with the objects of our consciousness. For long periods of time. For days and years, we have been identifying with our body, with our emotional states. We have been identifying with our reactions and judgments, with our views and opinions. Until they stay for a while. We don’t really get to see them passing so rapidly. But when we disconnect it and step back, when we put the car in neutral, and, yes, we are still rolling down the hill. There is still the rising and passing away but we are detached. Dispassionate towards what is going on. We’re starting to let go of things. Meditation is the practice of letting go. So we increase our focus on letting go to sense doors.

Don’t get trapped in sense doors! Don’t get trapped in sight and sounds. Don’t start delighting! We are not doing the walking meditation to look to the jungle or look at other people’s bodies. Don’t allow the mind to go out during the food time. When you sit there just be objective and aware that you’re putting food into your head that’s being chewed. Watch the lower jaw as it goes up and down. Then there is some swallowing. There is some tasting occurring. There may be some pleasantness, some liking. These things are all going on. But don’t get absorbed into them, especially into your own thoughts, into your own emotional states. Stop identifying with them.

If you are feeling tired and lazy, recognize tiredness is there. Laziness is there. Try to disconnect from it. Don’t identify with it. When you can do that, the tiredness will be there, but it won’t be unpleasant and you won’t be 96 affected by it. It’ll just be there as an object. As soon as it is seen clearly, then it can no longer form a base for the sense of self. The object has been seen clearly. You will not identify with that. It cannot be a base of me, mine and I. It cannot be a base of self. So there is cessation in that moment.

You only need to do that continuously. Object after object. Of course, we will miss a few and we note a few. We will get stuck in some old thought patterns. Then they start to come up. We will get stuck in them. Try to pull yourself out as quickly as possible.

If you are starting having conversations with yourself or with others, imaginary conversations, stop that as quickly as you can. If you notice you’re having a conversation with yourself, ‘talking, talking’. ‘Madness, madness’. Just be aware that there is some delight in that conversation. Even though you want to be meditating, «I just think to the end of this one. Just allow me to think a little bit more and I will just get to the end of this one.» Stop it quickly! Train your mind to stop that from going into the content. Come back and observe the structure. The content will take us away. The content has led us on a wild goose chase. Our whole lives! The content we’re following around, we’re chasing after craving’s desires, wishes and wants, we are following that. So now is the time to just drop that. «Well, it started thinking.» ‘Thinking’. «Conversing.» ‘Conversing’. «Thinking again.» ‘Thinking’. «Again.» ‘Thinking. Thinking’. And then come back to your rising and falling. ‘Rising, falling. Rising, falling. Thinking. Rising, falling. Sitting. Remembering’.

When you’re thinking this over and over again, this is not meditation. You’re wasting your time. You are allowing your mind to get absorbed in the object. We don’t want to get stuck in the object. There is your thoughts, your past, your future, the sound of coughing, the sound of dogs, the sound of insects. Whether it’s the sights of the jungle or other people. Don’t allow yourself to go into your judging mind or your comparing mind or your liking mind or your disliking mind. Don’t go into the story! Vipassana practice is all about stepping out of the story. It’s about detaching. We are detaching, turning, transforming our fast flowing experience into a field of objects that can be noted, known and let go. Noting, knowing, letting go. Noting, knowing, letting go. When you do this continuously, object after object, your mind 97 will fall into a nice state of freedom, of detachment, a state of dispassion where you won’t find any of the content of the dependently arisen, conditioned phenomena of the mind and body. They no longer hold any interest for you. You will have seen through them, through the magic show that the mind presents to us. You will be able to let it go. You will be able to live freely. You won’t be a slave of your emotional states for your own thought reaction patterns. You can break out of your reaction patterns. You can break out of emotional states that you have been experiencing for a long time. It’s quite possible. In fact, people have been doing it for 26 centuries. This is how we get a happy and peaceful life. When we step back from the noise and the nonsense of the mind, step back and have a look at that stuff, the mind won’t become interested in it at all. It sees it only as objects for the arising of self. It’s just a continuous show of me, mine, I, this is for me, that’s not for me, that’s mine, identifying with stuff, identifying with the emotional states, identifying with everything. Creating a dichotomy in the world, a duality, a separation from everything else. When our Vipassana practice is successful, when we’ve managed to remove this sense of I from our experience, we go back to nature, we go back to what the Buddha called dhamma. We’ve experienced dhamma for ourselves. We’ve experienced the truth. We don’t need anybody to tell us what the truth is. We don’t have to believe anybody, because we have experienced it for ourselves. There is a state of calmness, coolness and peacefulness watching this never ending flow of mental and physical phenomena. It’s all conditioned and dependently arisen. It doesn’t belong to you. It’s old karma manifesting from the past. When the conditions are right, that old karma can manifest. We are then reacting to it. We’re engaging in it, we’re involving ourselves with it creating fresh karma, which there goes and gets recycled again. Our experience is the manifestation of our old intentions and our reactions to that, our creation of new karma, which is going on all the time if we are unaware. Of course, with mindfulness and wisdom in the present moment, we can stop this process from happening. We kind of short-circuit it. And we can free ourselves from the mind.

Just a little exercise, when you go to the viewpoint. Be still and aware and watch the six sense doors opening and closing. Don’t get stuck in the content. We don’t want to know what we are smelling but only that smelling 98 is occurring. Smell consciousness is arising in the present moment. That’s our experience right now. That’s our experience of eating right now. Tasting is occurring. Hearing is occurring. And then it passes away. It arises and passes away. So go to the viewpoint and just rapidly note ‘hearing, seeing, touching, hearing, seeing, touching, smelling,…’ try to bounce between the doors without getting into the content. See how far you can go with it. See how fast you can note it.

The faster you note it, the bigger the gap becomes, the greater the space created around the object. If your noting is kind of slow and sporadically, sometimes you note and sometimes you don’t, then you will be opening a little gap and then closing again. Opening a little gap and closing again. But if you can note consistently and continuously, you’ll open the gap until eventually it stays open for quite some time and you will start to experience the arising and passing away of mental and physical phenomena independent of desire. You’ll see it in the present moment. And that is accompanied with a great deal of bliss, a great deal of happiness.

Now we’ll practice some walking mediation. As far as the walking meditation is concerned, for those of you who would like to increase their walking meditation you can as well. You can also increase to four stages. ‘Lifting, rising, moving, placing’. Four steps. ‘Lifting, rising, moving, placing’. Four stages just like in our sitting meditation! ‘Rising, falling, sitting, touching’. Do you see the similarity? We’re using a structure to train our awareness in the present moment.

I also suggested that you stand still in one spot and just move your foot back and forth at least five or 10 times each foot, so that we get used to the sensation on the sole of the foot. It’s the sensation on the sole of the foot that we’re following here. You should not have an image of your foot in your mind, you should not look at your foot. These are all conceptual things. We want our meditation to break through to ultimate reality. So we are only paying attention to the physical sensations in these for stages. There are different sensations in each stage. When you lift the foot up, what is that sensation lifting up? Is it heavy or does it feel light? When we place the foot down, what does that feel like? Is it heavy or does it feel light? You can investigate that for yourself.