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; breathing/knowing.
2) Brief Review of Last Five Weeks'
Talks - Contemplation of the Body in the Body; Contemplation of Feelings
3) Questions/Discussion from Last Week
4) Contemplation of Consciousness
a) What
is Consciousness?
i)
Consciousness is the awareness of
each sense object as it presents itself to the sense doors (eye, ear, nose,
tongue, body, mind).Like a flashlight, it merely illuminates the sense field
without interpretation, modification, or an attempt to control the
experience.It is accompanied by mental factors, such as volition, feeling,
perception, but these are separate phenomena.
ii) What we call Consciousness is not a single,
persisting entity which maintains it’s identity through the changes of
experience. Rather, it is a succession; a continuum of momentary acts of
Consciousness. Each act is a single event which endures very, very briefly.
During that event, Consciousness performs a function of knowing an object. (See
Handout: Sense Door Process)
iii) Analogies: movie (individual
frames); twirling ember; theater marquee sign, television (pixels).All appear
to be solid, continuing phenomena, but are actually constantly changing
momentary events.
b) Wholesome (skillful) and unwholesome
(unskillful) states of mind.
i)
Consciousness is permeated with
associated mental factors, all of which may be categorized by the ethical qualities of
wholesome or unwholesome.
(1) Consciousness, or citta,
is just the pure act of experiencing an object - like a clear light which
illuminates an object. It takes on the ethical quality which is given to
it by the associated mental factors which arise with it.
(a) Those mental factors which make the
citta unwholesome are called the defilements. The primary defilements are the three
unwholesome roots: greed or lust, hatred or aversion, and delusion or
ignorance.
(b) The three wholesome roots
are: non-greed (manifesting as generosity or nonattachment), non-hatred (manifesting
as loving-kindness, sympathy, and compassion), and non-delusion (manifesting as
wisdom or understanding).
(c) Connected with these three roots are
many other purifying mental factors (some 25 are mentioned in the Abhidhamma).
ii) The
most important mental factor is volition.Why?Because volition is what
leads to actions which have corresponding effects -- skillful thoughts, words
and deeds lead to pleasant and harmonious results, while unskillful thoughts
lead to unpleasant results and disharmony.This is the Law of Cause and
Effect.It's a natural law, just like gravity and relativity.
c) The first task in Contemplation of
Consciousness is to identify the type of consciousness that has arisen.
When unwholesome states are not seen and identified, they’ll just go running
through the mind, one after the other, invoking all sorts of unwholesome
thoughts - and in that way they will accumulate strength. Example: thief in the
night vs. well lit street adequately patrolled by the police.
d) Mindfulness acts as an obstruction
to the unwholesome states - as soon as they are identified, they pass
away.Why?Because the mind cannot have more than one object at a time -- if one
is mindful, one is not experiencing the defilement.Mindfulness is actually
viewing the memory of the previous moment of consciousness.
e) Practice Exercise #1 (10 minutes) --
Recognizing the Qualities of Consciousness:
i)
Focus on the breath.
ii) When
the mind is distracted, determine the root of what is going on in the mind:
(1) Is
it rooted in greed/hatred/delusion or in non-greed/non-hatred/non-delusion?
(2) Is
it grounded in grasping on to pleasant feelings or attempting to avoid
unpleasant feelings or just indifferent and a sense of malaise?
(3) Is
it grounded in generosity, loving-kindness, compassion, and/or wisdom?
iii) Apply
bare attention: free of judgment, decision and commentary.Just "know"
the state the mind is in.There is no need to apply thought processes to it.Once
it is identified, just BE with that state, with an open heart and mind, full of
compassion for the conditioned mind.
iv) When
the mind state being observed passes, return to the breath once again.
f) Questions
g) Practice Exercise #2 (10 minutes) --
Recognizing the Characteristics of Consciousness:
i)
Focus on the breath.
ii) When
the mind is distracted, notice the characteristics of Consciousness as it
becomes the object of your attention.
(1) Notice
the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and selflessness of Consciousness
(a) When
one becomes concentrated and one's attention moves away from an object of
Consciousness -- be it the breath, a painful sensation, a distracting thought
-- STOP . . . be aware that not only has the object disappeared, the awareness
of the object has also passed away.
(b) There
is just the arising and passing away of Consciousness.
(c) There
is no One who is aware, just Consciousness arising and passing away with
its object.
iii) Questions
iv) Homework
(1) Sitting Meditation - daily
(afterwards, note your experiences in your journal)
(2) Read the Sutra (through
The Contemplation of Feelings) and Sutra Notes
(3) Read Four Foundations of Mindfulness
by U Silananda (through Contemplation of Consciousness)
(4) See Anattalakkhana Sutta (Discourse on Non-self) by Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw
(5) Practice Exercises (below)
(2) Practice Exercises for Contemplation of Consciousness
vi) Closing Meditation