118: Retreat Dhamma Talk 13: The Beauty of Mindfulness

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SPEAKER_01 0:08

Sama sambodasa Nammo Tasabato Arahato Samma Sambo dasa Nammo Tasabado Arahato Samma Sambodasa Retreat series Dhamma Talk Number thirteen in retreat the most important thing is to know how to practice correctly and precisely so most of the retreat series will be oriented towards all focusing or emphasizing on the practice. So you will hear these instructions again and again, but from various points of views, from different approaches. And of course, along with it, some theory that is relevant to those facts. We are practicing Satipattana Vipassana meditation or full foundation of mindfulness. We use full foundation of mindfulness as a tool and practice inside vipassana meditation as Buddha has instructed and as he had intended. So one word for foundation of mindfulness we just call mindfulness. Mindfulness pali sati. So mindfulness can be associated with many different operations as long as you are aware, mindful. Let's take it called Buddha Nusiti. Buddha Nusiti is to the Buddhist quality. Siti is mindfulness. You are mindful repeatedly of the Buddha's quality. That's also is a mindfulness practice. Buddha Nu Sati. There are eight different qualities that have been easily described, dominantly described. You can pick up one and you can reflect upon one or observed upon one repeatedly. That's mindfulness of the Buddha's quality, that is mindfulness. When you practice that, you are practicing samatha meditation, concentration or fixed meditation. And with that tool, with that approach, you can attain up to first journalic level. Okay, the first stage of absorption. That's it. You can't go beyond that. Then I'll pick up another one. Okay. We know as breath meditation. Anapana Sati. Anapana is in-breath, outbreath. Satis mindfulness. You're being mindful of the in breath and outbreath. Again, that is the concentration meditation. Samatabhana. Concentration meditation. And the objective or goal is you can reach up to the fifth jjanic state. Okay? The fifth states of absorption. Up to that level you can attain that. So that is also sati, mindfulness. And of course we can go on. There are many things, but we are not talking about or to cover everything. Just want to show this mindfulness, sati. They are applied with the various approaches and tools and categories, and they can reach different kinds of objective. Between these two, just in a state of comparate absorption, degree of absorption, and what your objective is. This anapana sati is more powerful or stronger or firmer than the Buddha Nu Sati. You can know that way. And then of course we are practicing full foundation of mindfulness. In other words, it's also mindfulness, but we are observing all the four groups. Rupa, materiality, vedana, feeling and sensation, chitta, minds, and emotion, chaitata and chaitasika and dharma. All the five senses. So you can describe scripturally defined in that category in such a way. But also we can in one line, one sentence, describe that. Observing. Any and every object, whether it's physical or mental, regardless what, arising at the present moment. That ability to observe every and any object that is arising at the present moment. Continuously, constantly, and consistently. That is mindfulness. But that mindfulness, its objects are as such, every object. No discrimination, no selecting, whatever arises at the present moment. You simply observe. And that kind of observation, that kind of mindfulness is the most superior form of mindfulness. No mindfulness can come close to that kind of mindfulness. Most superior form, most powerful, most firm and strong, unshakable. They are called superior, the best, non-comparable. The reason is the objective, the goal of that mindfulness is to be liberated from all form of physical and mental suffering. No other mindfulness can achieve it. Only this kind of mindfulness can achieve the highest form of objective or goal or benefit. That's why mindfulness that has the ability to observe any and every object that is arising at the present moment constantly, consciously, is the best or most superior or powerful kind of mindfulness. Because of the goal. So now we know what mindfulness. And especially nowadays in the West, mindfulness is used for many other objectives and goals in a various form. Let's leave it as that. So when we are observing that kind of mindfulness, the best, most superior form of mindfulness. What does that mindfulness entails to? We need to understand how it is. At least we know. Observing the objects, any object arising at the present moment, uninterruptedly, without break, without gap, continuously. That is the procedure or how to execute or what to do. And that kind of observation, it is not simply just observing at that object alone. It's not sufficient. How? What kind of marks or characters are required in that mindfulness? You are aware of it. Let's say there's a skirmish or accident, car accident happened. And there are a few people watching. Let's pick up two. One person was watching, and then is aware that one car is turning left, another one coming, who's first, who's second, and crushed it. He's quite keenly aware of it and can describe everything. Because at that moment that person is not analyzing anything, not trying to judge anything, whose fault or whose right or who's wrong, exactly what is happening. That person recorded all this information and he or she is quite aware of it. That's mindfulness. There's no judgment. Simply an accident happened and it's fully aware of what it is. And then another person is watching the same incident. You see all those things that we just described, and on top of that, that person is aware of what is the license plate and the car make of one car and another car. And also the two drivers. Male, female, young, old. Or when they come out of the car, whether they look drunk or they look dizzy, and so on and so forth. Every aspect. Again, without judgment. There is no partiality, totally impartial, recorded everything. And that's mindfulness. And between the two, the second one has the superior, more powerful mindfulness ability than the first one. Of course, we all are observing as instructed. And again, some yogi can observe, aware and know and record some aspect of it. Some yogis aware, know, and record more aspects of it, of the same object of the same thing. That's where the difference is. Both are practicing the superior form of mindfulness. But still there's a difference between the two. So from that, what do we know? There is a various level of various degree of various depth of observation power and recording power that is different from one to the other. So we can say one is you are mindful, you are aware, you cannot just reject it. One yogi is, but know just enough. Okay, let's take the default object as an example to talk. Rising, falling, rising, falling, rising movement, falling movement, rising movement, falling movement. Who knows? Aware. Quite keenly. But all that is one day rising and falling, a week later, rising and falling, a month later, rising and falling, a year later, rising and falling. That's it. That is the level of observation power that person has, and that's where it is. Another person observe. See the rising and see the falling with time, with practice again and again. Of course, there's a variation between those things. We'll talk about why the variations happen. But that person knows the rising movement and falling movement. That person knows the when the rising starts, the beginning of the rising, and then various stages of rising and also the the end. Quite acutely. And then the same thing, beginning of the falling, various stages of falling, and then the end of falling. Knows those things. Not only that, not only the beginning and the middle stage. Middle stage are many stages, many little mini movements contained in that middle stage before the final end when you cannot expand of your abdomen anymore. Many mini movements, many intensity of pressure. Increasing, increasing, increasing. They become quite aware of it. So the two yogis are different. The first one is aware of it, know about it. He thinks he's doing a great job. She's thinking doing a great job. But observation is not deep enough. So there is the care and attention is not great. Doing it as instructed, I'm observing. But the intensity of care that you give, intensity of attention that you give is not great enough. Only know that movement, rising movement, falling movement, and that's it. So that can be for lack of a better word. We can call it not deep enough, careless, non-attentive. Or English word they use to translate the Pali word called alkantewa, pawitati. They call it superficial. Okay. You observe superficially, but you are aware. And another person is you just build so much attention and so much care. Follow the instruction. Instruction is given the same to everybody, but it's just a different is how the application is. Because of that, there's a movement, there's a beginning, there's a various stages of movement, there's an end, and so on. There are many more, but this will be sufficient. That means that person has a great attention to it. In other words, that person is going deeply into the job object, is penetrating the object, it is observing or investigating the object thoroughly and completely. That's what it means. Non-superficial. Just one word, superficial or non-superficial. But what does it non-superficial mean? That's it. But at the same time, you're not trying to create a situation to understand. You are not dissecting it, you are not analyzing it, you are not projecting any intellectual understanding to it. Simply recording. Simply recording, simply noting. Just like an archaeologist, archaeologists go to the site. And what do they do? They do nothing except that little pick the brush and gently unfold the object. And they draw picture exactly. They make pictures, they draw pictures pieces by pieces, and everything is simply recording the information. No interpretation right on the side. Just like that, this meditator is simply recording the experience of that observation of the object at the present moment. That's what the yogi or meditator is doing. That way one must observe. That way one must investigate. Stick to it thoroughly, completely, all round it. Or other words used are deeply penetratively. In Pali is Aukanteva Parwitati. When you observe that way, you establish this superior kind of mindfulness, the best kind of mindfulness, which can take you to the liberation stage from all physical and mental suffering. So if your mindful has those kind of aspects, those kind of qualities, those kind of beauty, if you have that, you have established that superior kind of mindfulness. Of course, not just one. If you listen carefully to the first statement, you establish that kind of a superior kind of mindfulness, constantly, continuously, uninterruptedly, with no break, no gap. So in other words, one object after another, one object another, continuously. The object arises awareness right there. Follow that object from the beginning to the end. Another one comes up, you engage to the another one and continuously one after the other. That kind of thing. So in other words, whenever the object comes up, there must be a precise aim. You must be aiming at the new object that is coming up. Precise aim. That means you are acutely aware of the arising of the new object. And once you got a precise aim, next one is you apply force or energy. You push. You push it so that the mind goes and stick with the object. Okay? Contact with the object. You can say stick, you can say contact. Contact with the object, in other words, it is rubbing the object, it's feeling the object, it's sensing the object. That's what it is. That's the job it is done. And you're doing that, that is called investigation. Doing that till the object disappears or dissolve. That way one must do. And aim, in other words, you aim and you push. You aim and you push. So when you aim and push, you really need that. That is the most important thing. You aim and you push. What it is is, let's say you're playing a bowl, bowling. You are playing a bowling, there's a tanpin. You have a bowling ball. What do you do? To the best of your ability, you aim it. And you own it, and that's one thing. That is exactly like aiming the object that is arising at the moment. A pin pops up, you aim. After that, you swing your hand and push the ball, throw the ball towards the pin. Of course, in there, there must be enough force or power or push so that the ball can go where you have directed. If there is no enough, not enough power, it will go into the gutter and roll down and you miss the object. But when you apply enough force, the ball goes straight and strike. And then all the ten pin fails. That is one observation. And of course, if you are rookie, sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss. Especially rookie. A few times they hit. And most of the time they miss. But you do repeatedly again and again and again. You go to the bowling alley four times a week and play two hours a day all the time. And after about two, three months you become very, very efficient and competent. You begin to hit the strike many times, but you have to do again and again and again regular practice. But on each and every that's the aim and the swing and the push has to be precisely coordinated. And then the same thing repeat again and again. Practice and practice. That repeated practicing is bhavana. Okay. You can call it bhavana, that repeatedly practicing. You are developing your mind. You are developing your thrill. That kind of thing is needed. And to be able to do that, what do you need? You need that energy. You need that energy to throw. Without that energy or effort, you cannot accomplish that. So energy becomes very important. First of all, you have to have the aim and you have to have the push and throw. One or two times everybody can do it, but our job is to do continuously and constantly, and that needs a consistent application of energy. And how can we get that energy? That energy can be developed. You don't have to automatically, I'm going to put effort, but it can be systematically developed. First of all, whatever you are doing, you must know exactly what you are doing, at least on a theoretical or intellectual level. Which means you must read, you Google, you go to online, you see YouTube, and so on and so forth. You read, you listen, you watch, and then you use your intelligence to understand it. And when you read enough, when you listen enough, and when you have dissected with your intelligence enough, you begin to gain a certain level of confidence. I know. And also this makes sense. That is the kind of understanding it gets. As soon as you got that understanding, automatically you become a little more excited. That's one way. That you become a little excited is you just look at it as well. I'm getting excited. If you have converted into a different pattern, that means energies are arising in you. The different way of putting that I am becoming excited is energy is arising in your mind. That's how you develop your energy. And that is the first one. And then you go to the next level. Okay, I'm practicing these things. So what? What do I get out of it? Simply put, straight. What's my cut? What's my set? What's my benefit? You ask the question. And then when you ask the question, you have to find it. Again, we are at the level of reading, listening, discussing, and then trying to reflect upon the information we gather. So you study the benefits, and then you figure out and you find out what the benefits are. If you do this, what kind of benefit that's it? We can just simply recite from the scripture seven kinds of benefits, and on top of that, we can add on so many things that are benefiting us in our daily life because of this practice. Health whites, cultural whites, manner whites, behavior whites. Those are not even described in there. These are little sight bonuses. Even these high bonuses are big and great for us in our daily life. So you look into the benefits and you like what you see, you like what you hear, and then if you really like it, that means you want those benefits. You want to possess those benefits. And when you want to possess those benefits, what happens? You have a desire to own it. But at the same time, you can't get it for free. You can't get it for free. To have these benefits, you must do something. You must, what are the causes of getting the benefits? Benefits are effect. So the causes, the causes is you have to do. So in other words, second stage is you have the desire to attain these benefits. Automatically, it means you have a desire to execute the things that make will make you attain these benefits. Desire arises. And if I have converted and shown you in a different way, that desire to own it, to have it, is there's an enormous amount of energy arising in your mind. That's how you develop your energy and effort in you to practice. It seems like simply you are doing this, doing this, reading this, reading that. But at the same time, if you deduce this to the bottom line, you are developing energy in you to execute this task, to do this task, to tackle this task. That's how one develops energy. That is before the practice. You are doing all these things before the practice. And now you're ready with full of energy to expand and execute. And you use the energies and you execute it. What? Every object that arising at the moment, you aim it with precision, and then you throw it with such a amount of energy, it goes straight in in contact with it, and you just rub it, stick it, investigate it, penetrate it, and then let go when it finished. The same thing goes repeatedly again and again and again. Of course, if you want a scriptural word, I just talk about sadha and chanda. Sada is faith and confidence, chanda is noble desire. I just put it in a very descriptive form about sadha and chanda. That's it. Sada and chanda will produce enormous amount of energy for you to execute before you start practicing. So these are the qualities that is needed. Qualities that needed to produce that beautiful superior kind of mindfulness. And then these energy you have to put again and again and again, continuously, constantly, uninterruptedly, no brick, no gap. Let's take an example that we can understand for what we just said. Why do we need to do that? Let's say you have a car and your battery runs down. You can't start, so you have to recharge it. When you recharge it, let's say you bring up the right chord, connect to the right source. Okay, aiming, correcting, connecting. And then you start the ignition. When the ignitions come, what happened? That's ancient revolt, revolution. I don't know, thirty thousand, fifty thousand, hundred thousand per second going on. Room, room, room, room, room. And let's say you start it for about two minutes and you turn it off because you want to go and have a little smoke break. And then you come back and do it again. The next time you just turn it off because you have to go to the washroom again. If you keep on repeating that, the battery would never be charged. So what it is is you connect the right thing, you turn the right thing on, and you make that engine run, revolved, a certain revolution per second, continuously for about 30 minutes or one hour, then the battery will be fully charged. It needs the momentum, it needs the continuous momentum for the battery to be recharged. The same applies in this mindfulness. If you are taking a break, a gap, a little talk here, a little talk there, a little looking around here, there, a little looking around there, relaxing a little bit, slouching a little bit, leaning a little bit, that's a break and gap. And if you do that, your mind will, your sati will never be fully charged or will not be charged. That mindfulness will become strong and powerful. It will be the inferior kind of mindfulness or even very weak mindfulness. But if you keep that observation uninterruptedly, just like the battery, then the mind becomes fully charged, then the mind becomes really powerful, firm, strong. And which means the mind mean specifically sati mindfulness. The mindfulness becomes a powerful one, superior one. Those are the little things we need to understand with clarity. When you understand that way, you exactly know why you are doing what you are doing and how we must do. That is very important. Instruction is very simple, but to follow the instruction to a T is also critically important to develop this kind of superior kind of mindfulness. Otherwise you do develop but not that superior, somewhat inferior. So that's how it is. You have to have all these qualities, all these beauties in this mindfulness. And now you are mindful. What does this mindfulness do? What kind of things? Okay. What kind of quality it expressed? And if you have mindfulness, what is happening? What is happening is you are observing the object. Just say this rising and falling object. Rising, falling, rising, falling. I won't go into detail, but you are observing in details. Rising, falling, rising, falling. And if you have this superior kind of mindfulness, you are always in touch with that rising movement and falling movement. You do not lose that object. You don't lose track of the object. You are a great tracker. Whatever the object is, you don't lose the object, you don't lose track of the object. In other words, the object doesn't disappear from your field of attention. If you lose the object, if it disappears from your field of attention, in other words, it is not in your memory at that moment, it is not in your awareness at that moment, that means you forgot the object. Another way of saying is you forgot the object, which is arising at the present moment. It is arising, it is right here. You are supposed to be with it, but you are not there. You were somewhere, you forgot the object. So this mindfulness, what does it make you? It makes you not to forget the object. In other words, it makes you to be totally heedful of the object. That is what mindfulness delivers. If you have that mindfulness, you will never lose sight of the object, you will never lose the track of the object, and you will be totally in sync with the object. If you want to use the one word, that is the function of mindfulness. Function of mindfulness is not to lose the object, not to forget the object. Do be with the object at all times. That's a function. Only then, if you have that function fulfilled, you are with the superior kind or beautiful kind of mindfulness. And then of course, now you know exactly what they are, you know how to apply that, you know what the this mindfulness does for you. Up to that point it's great. Then what is this mindfulness? How does it come to give me some sort of a benefit, even immediately, not from a distance. I want to know what the benefit of this mindfulness is to me at this present moment. What it is is this mindfulness comes in. Whenever this mindfulness comes in, what happens is if you are doing it well, the object arise and you are totally aware of it. Object arise, you are totally aware of it. In other words, what? You are face to face with the object. That's what's happening. You are face to face with the object. In other words, you are in a confrontation mode with the object. Face to face means it is just right in there in your face. That means something is confronting you. Confrontation. It gives you a mode of confrontation. A mode of confrontation is it is right in your face. There's nothing you can do other than that. To face it. And when you are facing, when you're confronting with it, the object that is arising at the moment, in a way, that is, that mindfulness which is confronting the object is actually doing a protector's job. It's protecting you at that moment. You are not aware of it, but the mindfulness is, so to speak, it's protecting you or protecting the mind. What are you this what is this mindfulness protecting the mind from? Because the mind has or we have enemies constantly attacking us. What is this enemy? And one word is called mental defilements, loba, dosa and moha, which is greed, anger, and delusion. We won't go into detail, you know what it is. These three big emotions or these three big mental factors are always pulling string on us, we are dancing like a puppet because these three big are pulling string. But when we are confronting or facing the object at the present moment, you are so engaged in there, that means you have the superior mindfulness on you. At that particular moment, these mental defilements cannot attack you. They are attacking, but mindfulness is become like a shield, a barrier, a protector. And how does this mindfulness arise? Because one is engaging or confronting the object at the present moment. Because of that, there's mindfulness. Because of the mindfulness, the mindfulness automatically turns into a shield, and whatever mental defilements come in, they bounce off. That's how mindfulness becomes a protector or guardian for you. But has to be a superior kind of mindfulness. Nothing touches it at that moment. That in one word or translated word is called manifestation of mindfulness. Mindfulness manifests itself to become the protector and the guardian for you from the mental defilements. That's what it's become. So when it becomes a protector, guardian for you from the mental defilements, that means you are safe from the attack of your enemies. When you have mindfulness, you are safe and secure from your enemies. You are safe and you are secure. In other words, you are at peace. If you are have a safety and if you have security, nothing disturbs you. Nothing disturbs you mean you have peace. You are at peace. That what mindfulness gives you, it manifests itself into a guardian and a protector from your enemies and give you security, safety, which turns into peace. That's a manifestation of the superior kind of mindfulness for you when you are establishing that. And whenever you have that peace, what happened was at that moment when you're secure and when you're safe because of the mindfulness, at that moment what happened was all the mental factors that is operating at that moment. When you said mindfulness, mindfulness is not the only factors, but it is the critical, most important factor that is operating. When you operate with precision, there are also many other mental factors, cheetah seeker, are arising together. And because of that continuous, powerful mindfulness, suddenly samadhi concentration arises. What does the samadhi do? Samadhi has the power to unite. Unity. It brings all the mental factors into a united force. And when they become a united force, no mental defilements can coexist in that domain. Because of that, you have that peace. But one must understand with clarity. And in here, you have that. That is what this superior kind of mindfulness does. And then, of course, one thing we need to know what causes this mindfulness. The cause of mindfulness. The cause of mindfulness is in one word. And here, whenever we say cause, we don't talk about the distant causes or many causes. We talk about the immediate cause. Immediate cause of mindfulness is sannya, perception. Okay, perception. But perception, ordinary perception could be right and correct. It could be also wrong, right or wrong. And in here, this is the firm and strong perception. This perception is based on the proper investigation without bias, without judgment. And it perceived certain characteristics. When these characteristics are there, it recorded. And if you can establish this firm and strong perception, that is the cause. That cause is the mindfulness. So we must have a firm and strong, unbiased, imperial perception. That is the proximate cause of mindfulness. So we now know how a beautiful consciousness or beautiful consciousness related with the mindfulness, superior kind of mindfulness is built and constructed and established. And if you look at the whole thing, it just gives us, the Buddha has taught us, our elder has taught us how to practice this full foundation of mindfulness with precision and with accuracy to establish this kind of a beautiful, the beautiful mindfulness. So may all of you be able to practice satipattana vipassana meditation and be able to develop or establish beautiful superior mindfulness, sati, samasati, as soon as possible. Sadhu Sadhu Sadu Buddham Bujami Bujami Sangambujem. Let's share our merit Imaya Dhamu Dhamabatipatiya Buddhambujem Damanu Damabatipatiya Dhamambujem Imaya Damanu Dhampatya Sangambujami Adha imaya padipatiya primochesame idame bonya aswatiya vahahodu idamesilam megapalanyanasha bicho bonyabadam sabasadhanam de sabesada suki da hondu sadu sadu sadam buja me dham buje.

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Yeah, thank you very much.