1) Beginning Meditation (5-8 minutes):
Guided, bringing minds into the present, settling into our bodies, finding the
breath and following it, returning to the breath when the mind wanders,
short/long breath, entire breath body; breath-body only.
2) Brief Review of Last Three Weeks'
Talks - Contemplation of the Body in the Body
3) Questions/Discussion from Last Week
4) Mindfulness of Feelings - with this
section, the Sutra turns from the material (physical) side to the mental side
of experience.
a) Definition:
the mental factor that experiences the affective quality of an object - a tone
or quality of being pleasant, painful, or neutral.
b) Distinguished
from "emotion", which is a complex array of perceptions, volitions
and mental formations based on an initial feeling of being pleasant or
painful. Emotions are often based on
stories we tell ourselves.
c) Types
of feelings:
i)
Pleasant worldly feeling
- pleasure or enjoyment with some worldly object as it’ basis, e.g., an
enjoyable discussion, reflection on success of your children, thinking of a
delicious meal, or beautiful music.
ii) Pleasant
spiritual feeling - pleasure or enjoyment with some
spiritual object as it’s basis, e.g., something connected to the
meditation experience, such as thinking of one’s perceived attainments.
iii) Painful
worldly feelings - displeasure, sorrow, grief,
dissatisfaction which arises because of some worldly matter, e.g., didn’t
get job applied for, achieve goal set for oneself, or relationship with
children or spouse is not satisfactory.
iv) Painful
spiritual feelings - disappointment or discontent
with one’s practice, especially after some success where there is not a
firm foundation, e.g., discouragement that one is not progressing
satisfactorily.
v) Neutral
worldly feeling - distracting thoughts that arise in the mind.
vi) Neutral
spiritual feeling - equanimity established.
d) Sometimes
it’s experienced passively based largely on the input from the
object, such as
i)
a sunset giving rise to a pleasant
feeling
ii) stubbing
your toe gives rise to a painful feeling, and
iii) seeing
the same tree you see every day gives rise to a neutral feeling.
e) Sometimes
the feeling is determined by perceptual overlays and in some cases can
overpower the affective quality of the object itself.
i)
The tree you pass by everyday
generally invokes a neutral feeling.
ii) If
you meet your future spouse under it, and that relationship is pleasant, pleasant
feelings will arise because of that association when you pass the tree.
iii) If
you and your spouse get divorced, and that experience was unpleasant, unpleasant
feelings will arise because of that association when you pass the tree.
iv) Perception
mediates the feeling.
v) The
Chain of Dependent Origination
(1) The
Emergence of Feeling and Craving (See Chart)
(2) Reactivity
and Guarding the Sense Doors
(a) You
can't help that you have a body.
(b) You
can't help that you have sense organs.
(c) You
can't help that you have sense consciousness.
(d) You
can't help that there are sense objects that impinge on your sense
consciousness through your sense organs, which is called
"contact".
(e) These
processes are automatic and beyond the ability of the mind to control or be
responsible for.
(f) The
mind's reactive tendency is to grasp at pleasant feelings
or the object that caused it,
(g) or
to reject unpleasant feelings or the object that caused it.
(h) By
setting up mindfulness to recognize these sensations as simply as a pleasant,
painful or neutral feeling, we weaken and eventually eliminate that built in
tendency to react to the pleasant feeling with grasping and clinging, to the
painful feeling with aversion, displeasure, fear and worry, and to the neutral
feeling with dull indifference.
(i) All
three of these feelings arise, persist for a little while, and then to pass
away - they're impermanent.
(j) What
appears as one feeling will show itself as a succession of short, quick
feelings just arising and passing away.
(k) We
then begin to break down the association of feelings with a separate self.
(l) We
begin to realize, by applying bare attention, that feelings are just
separate events that occur based on certain causes and conditions.
(3) By
"Guarding the Sense Doors" --
(a) At
the point of Contact, we are aware of the moment of
contact, observing it with bare attention and with equanimity, which does not
give the feelings which are naturally associated with that contact an
opportunity to distract the mind from its mindfulness.
(b) At
the point of Feelings, we become aware of the pleasant,
unpleasant and neutral feelings as soon as they manifest and before the mind
has an opportunity to become identified with them as THIS IS MY FEELING or I AM
THIS FEELING or THIS FEELING IS HAPPENING TO ME -- and reacting by grasping
(pleasant) or pushing away (unpleasant) or becoming indifferent (neutral).
(c) There
is no ONE experiencing the pain or the bliss, both are selfless processes. The Feeling is the feeler.
vi) Meditation
Practice (20 minutes)
vii) Questions
viii)
Homework
(1) Sitting Meditation - daily for
longer periods (afterwards, note your experiences in your journal)
(2) Read the Sutra (through
The Contemplation of Feelings) and Sutra Notes
(3) Practice Exercises (below)
(1) The Emergence
of Feeling and Craving (Chart)
(3) Practice
Exercises for Mindfulness of Feeling
x) Closing Meditation