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Mindfulness of Breathing (44) Investigation Factor of Awakening

Let me say a few minutes here about the investigation factor of awakening. It's usually called investigation. People who look into this will say that it's probably not the best translation, but it's a pretty good one overall. It's an overarching generalization because it involves an exploration, a discovery, and a deeper discernment of what our experience is.

This process of exploration in English is often called investigation, but if investigation means a kind of deeper probing and searching, it's not what is referred to when we're doing this vipassanā^[1] practice. Rather, it's a state of openness and receptivity to allow the experience to show itself fully to us.

For me, it's represented by the question, "What is happening here? Just what is it?" But we never look for an answer. It is more that the "what" prompts a clear looking, a clear discovery of a silent sensing, feeling, or perceiving of what is here. In doing so, we're beginning to enact or tap into our capacity for freedom.

It's so easy to be caught and entangled by our experiences, by our thoughts, by our feelings, and by what's happening in the world. There are so many ways we get entangled, so many ways in which we get attached. We get reactive to how things are, and when there's reactivity, reactivity by itself is not freedom. To respond with choice, to respond with wisdom, can be an enactment of our freedom, but to react is not.

If we're always reacting and being pulled around by our thoughts, hijacked by our thoughts, and if we feel like we're a victim of experience, then we haven't discovered freedom. One of the ways this freedom can begin is in acts of mindfulness, to be mindful of what's here. But acts of mindfulness can also grow to be a little bit stronger forms of freedom, which is investigation: to see, to discover what is here.

Dhamma Vicaya and the Details of Experience

The core investigation that's part of vipassanā practice is what Inés talked about yesterday: dhamma vicaya^[2]. Vicaya comes from the prefix vi and then the root word caya. Caya means to heap up or to accumulate, and vi means to separate.

Human beings have an amazing and very important capacity to generalize, to lump things together, and to hold concepts of things altogether. They're useful, but they can also limit our ability to see clearly what's here, to discern and distinguish the details of our experience.

For example, if I say that I had a difficult morning with the technology, well, that's a generalization. But what specifically was the experience like of being here with technology this morning? Some of it was quite delightful, enjoyable, and inspiring—to see the people in the retreat, to see the people on YouTube and in the chats. Some of it was quite nice for me, exploring the Dharma as I spoke. It was nice to sit and meditate while there was some quiet for me.

Then there was the issue of the technology. There are so many different devices and things here that I got confused about which battery charger was supposed to be at home and which was supposed to be here. Suddenly my laptop went dark. It wasn't actually an unpleasant experience at all; it just was what it was. Suddenly this was there, and there was an issue to look into.

Probably the most unpleasant part of it all was needing to ask my wife for some help when she's busy at home, and also wondering how I was going to get back up and running in time for the Zoom people. Then there was the awkwardness of realizing that some of you on YouTube could hear what I was saying, and wondering what impact that had on people meditating.

But that was all very particular, and as I distinguished all the different parts of it, I wouldn't say it was a challenging morning. It had its unique challenges and its own particular things, but I didn't lump it all together as a lousy morning with technology. If I wrote out the details and distinctions of moment-by-moment what was happening, there were challenging parts and not-challenging parts. There were pleasant parts, and maybe some parts that were not so pleasant.

This ability to begin distinguishing and not lumping is essential. If you know the distinction between lumpers and splitters, Buddhism thrives on being splitters—on really seeing more and more carefully what's actually happening here and what the details are, rather than generalizing about things.

Wisdom and the Effort Factor

This clarity of mind gets cultivated through mindfulness. When the mind gets clearer and clearer, the details, the particularities, and the unique little component parts of experience begin revealing themselves more and more.^[3]

Where that becomes particularly important is when the capacity to distinguish, to see the details of what goes on, goes together with the wisdom factor. There are many things that are considered the factor of wisdom in this practice we do, but one of the core aspects is being able to make the distinction between what is helpful and what is not. It is the distinction between what is wholesome and what is not, what is healthy and what is not. It is the distinction between what has an "ouch" in it or an "ah, this is good," or the distinction between where freedom is and where freedom is not.

That distinction is what wisdom is capable of making. Mindfulness puts us in the clarity to see things as they are, clearly, and wisdom sees what is useful and what is not. That distinction is where we discover the path, where we discover where the choices can be.

With the simple distinction between being entangled in experience and being free, when we investigate it with wisdom, we see it's actually better to be free than entangled. To the degree that we have the capacity, we put effort and energy into going in the direction of freedom, and in this case, we investigate, discern, or see more clearly what the experience is.

So, it is said that the investigation factor of awakening—that clarity of mind that can really see the details of experience, not lumping it into a generalization of what it is—inspires the effort factor of awakening. It gives us energy because we see, "Oh, this is the direction to go. This is where freedom is. This is where peace is. This is where the lack of stress, the lack of suffering, is found." That's inspiring, to make that choice and go in that direction.

Going in that direction is another manifestation of our capacity for inner freedom. As we walk this path, we keep discovering more and more ways in which we can manifest or enact our freedom, until at some point, freedom becomes a state that we live in, as opposed to something we find in the details of how we live and the choices we make in our lives.

So, mindfulness leads to the capacity to see clearly. That is called discernment, making distinctions, or investigation. That in itself then is a prompt or a catalyst for the effort factor in practice, so that the effort factor of awakening can get born and come to fulfillment.

That will be the topic for the next session of the retreat, and the next topic for YouTube tomorrow morning. Hopefully, this little technology issue today wasn't too much of an interruption and it all worked well enough for everyone. Thank you very much, and we will continue.