Guided Meditation: Recognizing Recognition (Sanna); The Five Aggregates (3/5) Dependently-Arising Pattern Recognition (Sanna)

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Med'n: Recognizing Recognition; 5 Aggregates (3/5) Dependently-Arising Pattern Recognition (Sanna). It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 27, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Recognizing Recognition (Sanna)

Good day, friends. I hope you are well in whatever time zone and whatever location on this planet of ours you are. I am delighted to be joining you in this moment in time to continue to explore the Five Aggregates^[1] this week together.

Today we continue exploring the third of the Five Aggregates, often translated as perception or recognition. What an important constituent of our experience to really become aware of, and turn towards, and really see. I'll say more about it when we turn to the Dharma talk^[2], but for now, let's practice together.

I invite you to^[3] find a posture that is comfortable for you, whether you are sitting, lying down, or standing in this moment in time—a posture that is both comfortable and has a sense of integrity. Allow the muscles to be as relaxed as possible. If you are sitting, allow the uprightness of the spine to really come from your sit bones, from a supported base that is relaxed and well-rooted. Allow yourself to be held up as if by an invisible force, as if there was a gentle magnet pulling up the top of your head ever so gently.

You can let go and relax any effort. Relax any effort and be in the flow of feeling present, engaged in the posture of your body. Let the posture of your mind also be engaged with this practice—not with thinking, planning, past, or future, but wholeheartedly engaged. Relaxedly, easily engaged. Let this relaxed engagement receive the breath in the abdomen.

Are you perceiving or knowing any tightness in the body or in the mind? Any entanglement that needs to be softened, released?

As we receive the breath with a relaxed and engaged mind and heart, let yourself know that you are perceiving the breath. Recognizing. How are you recognizing? How is the in-breath being recognized? This investigation doesn't have to be effortful. Just drop this question into the body, leaning into the recognition. The question isn't so much that you start investigating how it is being done, but just knowing, "Oh yeah, the in-breath is being recognized as an in-breath. The out-breath is being recognized as an out-breath."

There have been many in-breaths and out-breaths, and we recognize them. Maybe there's also a slight quality about this in-breath or this out-breath in this moment in time, where it's recognized as being long, or short, or deep, or shallow. Easily lean into this recognition, this perception, saññā^[4], that keeps happening automatically, bringing it to the forefront of experience.

Such a fun sandbox this mind is! It's fun to be a scientist of it. What happens if you lean into recognition, as if you're highlighting it? In-breath. Out-breath. This is an in-breath^[5]. This is an out-breath. Perhaps even more refinement: this is the pause between the in-breath and the out-breath. Just the pause between the out-breath^[6] and the in-breath.

Recognizing the in-breath and the out-breath. Or rather, recognizing the recognition of the in-breath and the out-breath. And as we stay embodied and open this sphere of recognition and awareness further, let the relaxed mind and heart recognize the mind recognizing different aspects of experience.

Maybe a sensation arises and takes center stage—a sensation of the body—and you recognize, "Oh yes, this is the sensation of my..." fill in the blank. "...my thigh. This is that. This is that." "Oh yeah, this is the sensation of my hands touching my lap. This is that. I recognize this."

A thought arises, and you are recognizing, "This is a thought." And recognizing that you're recognizing, you're knowing what it is. You're not a Martian on this earth having these experiences and not knowing what they are. You recognize, "This is that. I know what this is. This is that."

You have a reserve of many recognitions. Pattern recognition is what's happening all the time. Become attuned to it in the mind. Turn into and become aware of this pattern recognition happening all the time in our minds—recognizing, matching, "this is that." It happens fast, usually unconsciously, based on so many previous experiences, and also through the lens of the mind state in this particular moment. Fascinating.

Let your body and mind be relaxed as the stream of recognition flows through. If your mind gets tight, if your body gets tight, let it go. Just be with the breath. Keep it simple.

Sometimes you might even notice that there's perhaps some separation, a timeline, between the recognition of what an object is and the vedanā^[7][8]—the feeling tone of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Sometimes one comes before the other; the vedanā comes before.

For the last minute or two of this practice period, let's do an experiment. What if you wear a smile? Intentionally wear a smile. We know that physiologically makes shifts in your body and mind. See if having a smile on your face, with this physiological shift, changes how something is perceived at this moment. See how shifting the state of your body and mind shifts your perception. See for yourself.

As we bring this practice period to a close, let there be a recognition of goodness, the wholeheartedness that you brought yourself to do this practice. This is good. Planting seeds of awareness, awakening, compassion, and kindness towards ourselves and others. May our practice be of benefit to all beings everywhere, including ourselves.

Thank you all for your practice. Take a moment to switch over the recording.

The Five Aggregates (3/5) Dependently-Arising Pattern Recognition (Sanna)

Greetings everyone. It is lovely to be with you in this moment in time, and I'm delighted to be continuing to explore together the Five Aggregates. This is an important teaching by the Buddha. The five khandhas^[9], the five heaps, are the five constituents of our experience. The way we perceive, the way we feel the world, the way we are in the world, the way we know ourselves as being human, and our experience of reality is really made up of these five constituents—nothing else. It's quite profound.

By bringing awareness to these aspects, we become more awakened as to how this gestalt of our experience is made. This often happens unconsciously. The first day we discussed rūpa^[10] (body), and the second day we explored vedanā (feeling tone—pleasant, unpleasant, neutral). Today we're going to spend more time with recognition or perception: saññā.

Addressing Questions on Vedanā

Before we move to saññā, there was a question in the chat regarding vedanā that came up yesterday. This actually comes up for a lot of practitioners, so I appreciate the question. Sometimes it feels like the feeling tone—usually the pleasant and unpleasant—seems very strong and intense, and sometimes they feel mild. Is that different? What's up with that? How does the teaching extend to that?

It's actually the same vedanā. If the mind is really concentrated—and this is possible to see and practice with when the mind is really calm and settled—one can see that when a stimulus arises in the sphere of experience and awareness makes contact with it (phassa^[11]), the vedanā in the first mind moment after contact is pretty mild. It can be very soft. Then, in the next mind moments, it keeps getting stronger and stronger. So it's the same vedanā^[12], just different intensities.

You can liken it to trying to fall asleep at a friend's house, and they have a big clock that goes "tick-tock." At first, the "tick-tock" might bring up an unpleasant feeling that is very subtle and soft. But as it keeps going on and on, it becomes more and more unpleasant: "I don't like this, make it go away." It's a snowball effect.

This is how we can use this teaching. If you bring your knowing to the feeling tone at the beginning, if you know that, "Oh, this is just unpleasant," you actually get to see it before it gets out of hand and puts into action the "I don't like it, make it go away, I hate it," and all the stuff that happens in an unsteady mind. If you notice at the very beginning that there's a subtle unpleasant vedanā, a lot more freedom becomes available.

This is why the teaching of vedanā is so powerful. In the teaching of the 12 Links of Dependent Origination^[13]—the sublime teaching of the Buddha that really has to do with freedom—it is said that the link between vedanā (feeling tone) and taṇhā^[14] (clinging or pushing away) is the easiest place for us to cut the wheel that keeps going on and on in saṃsāra^[15] and suffering. Becoming aware of taṇhā is incredibly powerful for our freedom and ease as human beings as we go through life.

Exploring Saññā

Now turning towards saññā, which is an amazing topic. Each of these could be an hour-long talk. Saññā is often translated as perception or recognition. It's a little different from perception in Western psychology, which has a lot more to it. For psychologists out there, this is much simpler. As I mentioned during the guided meditation, it is pattern recognition. It is recognizing whatever comes into the sphere of our experience as "this is that." If you see a multi-colored string on the road: "Oh, this is a snake. Oh no, this is just a thread." It's that aspect of recognition: "this is X, Y, or Z."

To share a personal history: when I first received the teachings on the Five Aggregates, I was a little confused by saññā. The Buddha chose these five very carefully. Why is saññā so important that it deserves to be among these five? I didn't quite get it years ago. The more I have practiced, the more I've actually seen that this perception or recognition is so fundamental in our human experience, and to our freedom or lack of freedom. It is a linchpin.

And there are so many teachings. Our recognition is conditioned by so many factors, causes, and conditions. Dependent origination is the sublime teaching of the Buddha. Saññā^[16] dependently arises from so many different aspects of our previous experiences, as well as our state of mind and body right now. Because it is dependently arising, it is actually empty (śūnyatā^[17]). It's not fixed; it is so malleable, and our perception really depends on our perspective.

Pattern Recognition

In the guided meditation, I invited you to tune into it. It can be so fun to tune into, "Oh yes, this recognition is the recognition of this is that. Oh, this is an in-breath. This is an out-breath. This is the sound of the neighbor's dog. This is a sensation in the body." It's happening all the time. We are pattern recognition machines.

Being an AI scientist, I have to bring this in. The AI systems that we have nowadays are simply pattern recognition machines. The algorithms are tuned to take a lot of data, recognize patterns, and generate new patterns based on the data that has been seen. In many ways, this is what we do as human beings. But we don't examine our pattern recognition. We just go through life doing the same pattern recognition we always did. "Oh, a sound. I don't like it. I'll make it go away." Or a thought of self-judgment arises, and we just follow the pattern. "Yeah, that means..." blah blah^[18]. These patterns keep coming, and we recognize them automatically, without any discernment, without wisdom, without compassion.

It is important to become tuned to how saññā is happening all the time, and how dependent it is on the state of our mind, body, and previous experiences. At the very end of the meditation, I asked you to wear a smile. I know you might feel foolish doing that, but just do it. It's an experiment. This whole body-mind is fascinating. We know that physiologically, there are shifts when we wear a smile. By doing that, you might see how your perception, your saññā, shifts a little bit. It does for me; I noticed a lightness in the way the present moment was being perceived.

Another thing I invited you to tune into was how sometimes recognition can happen before feeling tone, and sometimes feeling tone can arise before recognition. It's fascinating to notice the impact of that in our everyday experience. You might be sitting in meditation and hear a bark: "Oh yes, recognition. This is a dog bark. Oh yes, this is the dog of my neighbor—a neighbor whom I've had challenges with." This dog bark is unpleasant. So after the saññā, after pattern recognition, an unpleasant feeling tone arises in the mind, and maybe the mind gets grumpy.

Sometimes it can be the other way around. A feeling tone arises: "Oh, something unpleasant is happening in my leg." Then recognition follows: "Oh, my leg has fallen asleep. This is that. I know what this is, this is familiar." If you were a newborn and your leg fell asleep, you'd be like, "What is this?" and you would cry because you don't know what it is. But you have recognition; you have saññā. You know what these patterns are.

I'm speaking fast because there's so much I want to share with you! But maybe that's enough for this morning. For the rest of the day, I'd like to invite you to tune into this pattern recognition. See how it is dependent, how it's malleable. We recognize things willy-nilly in an automatic way, but it doesn't always have to be automatic if it doesn't lead to freedom, ease, care, and kindness for ourselves and others.

Become more aware. Recognize your recognition. Thank you all for your practice. I look forward to continuing the series with you tomorrow. Be well, recognize goodness.