Practice
#1 Clear Comprehension of Purpose:
If
you were about to touch someone, you would STOP and observe (with bare
attention) your intention to touch the other person. If you discover that
the intention of the touch is to subtly intimidate, you would allow the
intention to pass away without acting upon it. However, if the intention
is to express compassion or support, you would allow the action to occur.
Practice
#2 Clear Comprehension of Purpose:
If
you were about to offer an individual some advice, you would STOP and observe
(with bare attention) your intention to offer the advice. If you discover
that the intention of the advice is to manipulate the other person, you
would allow the intention to pass away without acting upon it. However,
if the intention is to help the person avoid experiencing some difficulties,
you would allow yourself to communicate your advice.
Practice
#3 Clear Comprehension of Purpose:
If
thoughts about the future come to mind, you would STOP and observe (with
bare attention) your intention to think about the future. If you discover
that your intention to think about the future is to avoid dealing with
a current issue, you would allow the intention to pass away without acting
upon it. However, if the intention is to think through the most effective
way of handling a current issue, you would allow this line of thinking
to occur.
Practice
#4 Clear Comprehension of Purpose:
In
general, whenever you are about to go forwards or backwards, look forward
or backward, bend or stretch, dress for the day, eat or drink, chew or
savor, pass excrement or urine, walk, stand (in a line), sit, fall asleep,
wake up, speak or remain silent, look at the intention behind that activity.
If the intention is unskillful allow it to rise and fall without acting
upon it. If it is skillful, allow the activity to express itself.
Practice
#5 Clear Comprehension of Suitability:
If
someone is communicating about a recent loss and you determine that your
intention to touch that person is motivated by compassion, you still need
to decide whether that touch is likely to be misinterpreted by the recipient.
For example, if the person you are about to touch is a member of the opposite
sex, you have to consider if the touch could be misconstrued as being sexually
motivated. If this is the case, you would restrain from touching that person
and express your compassion in more "suitable" ways.
Practice
#6 Clear Comprehension of Suitability:
If
one of your friends is telling you about a problem he or she is having
and you determine that your intention to give advice is motivated
by the desire to be helpful, you still need to consider if your
friend is merely using the communication as an opportunity to “vent," rather
than wanting to hear any "advice" at this time. If this is so, you would
withhold your advice and just continue to listen.
Practice
#7 Clear Comprehension of Suitability:
If
you decide that your intention to think about the future is motivated by
a desire to modify an aspect of your life to bring it into alignment with
your goal of achieving self-mastery, you still need to consider whether
you have enough information to assure that this reflection will be: a worthwhile
investment of your time. Although there may be some value in considering
alternatives, a better use of your time may be in collecting additional
information about your choices.
Practice
#8 Clear Comprehension of Suitability:
In
terms of meditation practice, if your purpose was to go someplace to meditate
or hear a dharma talk but the area was filled with people celebrating,
you would avoid that area due to its unsuitability.
Practice
#9 Clear Comprehension of
the Domain of Meditation:
Activities
used to "escape," such as watching television or daydreaming, are not inherently
"wrong" or "bad." However, when they are used unskillfully, they act as
impediments to self-mastery. By creating the habit of determining
how we can use each moment of our lives to further our awakening process,
we may decide, for example, to continue watching television but not watch
programs which foster thoughts of violence. We may choose to continue daydreaming
but to change the content of our daydreams from sexual fantasies to thoughts
of expressing loving-kindness in the world.
Practice
#10 Clear Comprehension of
the Domain of Meditation:
Specifically,
the domain of meditation means "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness." In
the midst of whatever we are doing: going forwards, backwards, looking
straight on, looking away, bending, stretching, dressing, eating, drinking,
answering the calls of nature, walking; standing, sitting, sleeping (the
point at which we fall asleep), waking (the very moment we awake), speaking,
and in keeping silent, we maintain mindfulness. We are to keep paying bare
attention in each moment while observing the true characteristics of our
experience.
Practice
#11 Clear Comprehension of
Non-Delusion:
To
cultivate clear comprehension of non-delusion, we need to deeply investigate
how our psychophysical organisms can operate without the existence of a
permanent "self." (For example, in going forward and in going back — there
is only the intention to move, the corresponding movement, and the awareness
of the intention and of the movement — all rising and falling from moment
to moment.
Practice
#12 Clear Comprehension of
Non-Delusion
There
is a powerful two-step technique which can help us to conduct this investigation.
However, it takes the kind of attention and concentration that is cultivated
through our meditation practice for this technique to become more than
an interesting intellectual exercise.
First,
ask yourself before and while engaged in each of your activities, "WHO...?"
For example:Who is walking? Who
is eating? Who is angry? Next, examine these experiences to see how they
are occurring without the presence of a "self." The following are examples
of how it works:
(Example
#1)You realize that you intend to
eat. You stop and ask yourself, "WHO intends to eat?" You immediately observe
your mind, paying bare attention, and discover that the thought, "It is
time to eat," arose because your mind became aware of the physical sensation
of hunger. In other words, the intention to eat was "conditioned" by feelings
of hunger. There was no independent self that made an isolated or arbitrary
decision to eat. The thought occurred because of the interaction between
various elements of the mind and body.
(Example
#2)As you begin eating, you stop
and ask yourself, "WHO is eating?" You observe your experience and notice
that "eating" occurs as an interactive process between mental intentions
(e.g., to look at the food, to pick up a fork, to open the mouth) and the
carrying out of those intentions by the body (e.g., the food is looked
at, the fork is picked up, the mouth is opened, and so forth). In other
words, the physical steps involved in the process of eating were conditioned
by the intentions which preceded them. There is no independent self in
the body which is able to look at the food, pick up the fork, or open the
mouth. The body gets its directions from the mind.
(Example
#3)As you begin enjoying the food,
you stop and ask yourself, "WHO is enjoying?" You investigate and realize
that as the food touches the tongue, an
agreeable taste is experienced, which causes a pleasant feeling to enter
the mind. In other words, the pleasant feeling was "conditioned" by the
tongue coming into contact with an agreeable taste. The
pleasant feeling and the awareness of the pleasant feeling certainly "exist,"
but no independent "self is doing the enjoying.
The
author of the foregoing exercises is Matthew Flickstein
of the Forest Way Insight Meditation Center, Inc. in Ruckersville, Virginia.