Since this meeting occurred on July 4, Peter talked about the Buddhist approach to “…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. We explored the concept of the Middle Path, between agitation and sedation, too much faith/rigidity and too much skepticism/disorganization. Peter emphasized that the application of mindfulness cultivates equanimity, a dynamic process of balancing energy and cognition, guided by benevolent intention.
This recording provides training in the practice of “body sweep” meditation, which Peter received training for during a retreat with S. N. Goenka’s assistant trainers. They call this practice vedanupassana, mindfulness of feelings, which is the second of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. This training, an hour of practice, provided prompts for aiming attention at a particular spot on the body and sustaining that attention to develop the Awakening Factors of Investigation of Phenomena, Energy, and, of course, Mindfulness. It requires a lot of preparation through developing concentration to the level of upacara samadhi, access concentration. It can be quite frustrating for a beginning meditator, as the power of investigation is initially quite weak; it’s important to recall that this is meant to cultivate investigation, and not a test of willpower.
On this second night of the retreat, pancanivarana, the five hindrances, were described; their causes and their antidotes.
This dialogue describes piti (joy) and sukkha (happiness) as the result of increasing concentration, due to the setting aside of the hindrances. Once the energy of consciousness isn’t “dumped” into the hindrances, the mind naturally becomes buoyant, resilient and interested in investigating what has arisen in awareness. Rapture, a potent manifestation of joy, develops in stages as the mind moves into the extraordinary levels called jhana, which will be discussed the next few meetings.
Continuing the ongoing discussion of the Seven Factors of Awakening, this week the focus is on two of them: dhamma vicaya (Investigation of mind states) and viriya (Energy, or Right Effort). Peter pointed out that investigation, effort and joy are energizing factors, while tranquility, concentration and equanimity are calming factors; mindfulness monitors their action and coordinates their mutual influence of each other. Investigation and effort are linked to vitakka (bringing attention to a mind state) and vicara (sustained awareness of the mind state). Right Effort is explained in terms of four applications, in order to eliminate the unwholesome mind states and maximize the ongoing effect of wholesome mind states. The entire process is considered as the practical description of vipassana (insight into the true nature of reality).