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Dharmette: Sensitivity Grows (5 of 5) Where is the Disturbance?

So, I've been talking about this growing sensitivity this week, the sensitivity that leads to the ability to make fine distinctions. I think our meditative discernment can eventually become so fine that in meditation we're able to see the most minute obstacles to peace in the mind and heart.

That fineness, that depth of discernment, usually just happens on long retreat during intensive practice, when the mind has become so still and empty that the slightest little disturbance to our peace shows itself. But even when the mind is not so quiet and still, subtle movements, subtle inclinations in one of those two directions—toward obstruction blocking wisdom, or toward openness towards freedom—they can be seen, they can be known.

On Wednesday, I talked about the way early in our practice the insights that we tend to have tend to be about our psychology, about our conditioning. We start seeing our habitual ways of interacting with the world, both wholesome and unwholesome, skillful and unskillful. We start to see the way they came to be. We come to know what was behind them: the lifelong conditioning.

Unskillful patterns of thinking or behavior usually arise out of an effort to protect ourselves in some way physically or emotionally. And skillful or wholesome ways of thinking or acting usually arise out of a sense of safety, being cared for, being respected—out of the wholesome early in our lives.

As we continue to practice, we begin to have insights into the deeper truths of the path. As we recognize this fluid nature of our lives, the way things just don't stay still for very long, the truth of impermanence will often dawn on us. Almost always, this happens intellectually mentally at first. We understand it; I mean, it's pretty obvious really if we're paying attention. But at some point, suddenly something can strike us directly, viscerally—an understanding that goes much deeper than our intellectual understanding.

There's a sutta in the Samyutta Nikaya^[4] (the Connected Discourses) called the Anattalakkhana Sutta^[5]. It's the sutta on the not-self aspect. The Buddha gives this teaching describing our inability to have control, to compel our body to do particular things, our inability to control the feeling tones, the perceptions, the mental processes, and consciousness itself. These five processes, that we often call the aggregates^[6], are what we cling to in order to make up, to create this house of cards that we call the self.

We can't compel them to be a particular way. So the Buddha asks his listeners, who are the five other monastics who he had been practicing with before his final awakening. He asked them, since all these things are impermanent and not under our control, how can they possibly constitute a real, solid self? And they agree these things are not permanent. And because they're impermanent, uncontrollable, each of them is unfit to be thought of as a self.

Then, the Buddha offers a pithy teaching in relation to each of these five, which you've probably heard before: "This is not mine. I am not this. This is not myself."

The Buddha goes on to explain that when someone sees this, they will become disillusioned by these five aggregates. Being disillusioned, craving fades away, and when craving fades away, they are freed.

When the Buddha speaks of "seeing" in this sutta, he doesn't just mean agreeing. "Oh yeah, this makes sense," checking that box: "Okay, not-self. Got that one." What's implied is insight, a direct, clear seeing into the truth of not-self. The Buddha isn't referring to seeing something from the outside in an intellectual way, but of seeing it from the inside, inhabiting it, knowing it really viscerally: "This is not mine. I am not this. This is not myself."

It's our deepening practice of awareness, of sati^[7], with this growing sensitivity I've been talking about, this growing subtlety of vision, that allows us to see these deep truths from the inside. To have the implications of the truths fill us so that they become part of us, part of our view of life, our orientation to life. This gradual inclination of the mind that I've been talking about in the direction of kusala, the wholesome, really prepares the mind to be ready to see in this deep way.

Insight is what frees us. Seeing so clearly that what I took to be a permanent self is actually this flow of processes conditioned by our whole prior history—going all the way back to our birth, as well as everything that's impacting us in this moment. It's changing all the time. It's unable to be a reliable source of happiness, of well-being. When we see that, we become disenchanted, disillusioned. That is, we're no longer enchanted. We're no longer under an illusion. And then, when we've truly given up the illusion of a controllable self here, a solid self that belongs to me, craving will fade away gradually, and we can be free.

My first insight into inconstancy, anicca^[8], happened when I was doing walking meditation on a retreat and seeing a particular patch of bright green grass that was shining in the sun. Each time I came to the end of my walking path before I turned around, I would see this patch of beautiful grass. At some point, as my eyes met the patch of grass, the realization arose that it would never be the same twice. Even thirty seconds later, it would be a little bit different.

Intellectually, that's a very simple recognition. It doesn't seem particularly profound, but what it pointed to—the ceaseless flow of experience in life—just hit me right in the chest. There's an expression in English that we use: "It hit me with the force of insight," and that definitely hit me with the force of insight. The depth of understanding of anicca that arose had no relation to the simplicity of the observation. Something universal was suddenly seen in that very, very simple visual contact.

It was freeing. It wasn't a liberating insight. I mean, I didn't suddenly become free of greed, hatred, and delusion, but it was freeing of a belief, a subtle belief in this ability to kind of nail things down. It was hugely impactful, and it gave me the confidence that liberation actually is possible.

When we have insight into these deep truths—impermanence, dukkha, not-self—the inclination in the mind towards the wholesome gets a really big boost. An insight arises in a mind that is free from unskillful attitudes or views, a mind that has been purified at least temporarily. Remember the verse from the Dhammapada^[9]: "Doing no evil, engaging in what's skillful, and purifying the mind. This is the teaching of the Buddhas."

Thanissaro Bhikkhu^[10] (Ajaan Geoff), as he's known, is an American Theravadan monk, a prolific translator and teacher. He sometimes gives an instruction that has been really useful to me. At times when the mind is very settled, there's no hindrances present, thoughts are not arising or just in the background, he suggests introducing a question: "Where is the disturbance?"

"Where is the disturbance?" Good question.

I was on a long retreat once some years ago, and I asked myself that question while I was making my bed. I habitually make my bed and tidy my room as soon as I wake up in the morning, both at home and on retreat. I think it's a good habit. A tidy room feels more peaceful, more spacious. If I come back later, there's a peaceful room there. But on this retreat one morning, as I was straightening up the bed with my mind very settled and peaceful, I had this little disturbance. I just felt a disturbance and I dropped a variation of this question into my mind: "What is this disturbance? What is this disturbance?"

And as I was quietly mindful of the disturbance, what I saw was a sense that I was trying to maintain control. Getting the corners of the bed completely straight, getting the sheets in a kind of military order, having the blanket even all around the edges. That would be a kind of bulwark against impermanence.

That's something I found in my life: virtually all my dukkha arises from attempts to disprove anicca^[11], to manufacture stability. Even after we see it clearly, we still sometimes don't really like it.

In meditation, when the mind is in that very peaceful, very settled kind of state, it can be tempting to just enjoy it. Just abide in it, not to be curious about what might be there. It feels wholesome. There's no need for interference, and often that really is the most skillful response to that kind of a mind. But on occasion, especially if there's a sense that there's something here besides peace, besides openness and awareness... there's something here.

Dropping Ajaan Geoff's question into a quiet mind can reveal what might otherwise just be overlooked. There might be an almost unnoticeable sense of expectation in the mind that's getting in the way of letting go into more peace. There might be a sense of complacency that dulls our mindfulness. Or it's possible there might be something present that wasn't noticed that actually isn't a disturbance. There might be metta^[12]. There might be serenity, equanimity, contentment. And sometimes, there might be nothing at all aside from awareness itself. A mind empty of defilements, empty of constructs, peaceful, at ease. It's possible.

So that's what I have for you this morning. I just want to leave you with a sense of my confidence that it is possible. The Buddha said if liberation wasn't possible, he wouldn't teach it. So I trust that, and I hope you do too.

It's been a great week. Have a lovely day. Share your peace.