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Guided Meditation: Arising & Passing

Hello friends, hello. Greetings, whatever time zone you're in. It's lovely to be with you in this moment in time.

Today we continue with our practice, with our exploration of the refrain of the Satipatthana, which turns out to be very important. Very important. As we explored yesterday, the spatial expansion, internal and external, today we explore the next part of the phrase of the refrain, which is expanding the temporal aspect. This is the arising and passing away, and arising and passing away.

During the guided meditation, I will bring some invitations after we've settled with our body and with the breath. I'll bring some invitations for us to explore this temporal aspect of arising, passing, and arising and passing away, as the refrain invites.

And there's a lot more I'd love to share with you during the brief dharmette afterwards, because this part, if you thought yesterday the internal/external dimension was important, yeah, the temporal aspect is even more important for reasons I will explain. It is of the highest importance in our practice for the purpose of awakening and for the purpose of insight.

So let us begin. Let us begin our practice together. Let us land. Let us land in our bodies.

Landing in this moment.

Arriving, arriving, arriving in this moment in time.

And releasing, relinquishing everything that has come before.

Relinquishing the past.

Relinquishing thoughts of the past, as well as the future.

Planned thinking, not that there's anything wrong with planning or thinking in our daily life, but in this moment in time, in this moment in time, we relinquish what's not needed.

We give up. Joyfully we give up.

Ah, we release entanglements in order to arrive here.

In this precious, important, ever-fleeting moment of aliveness. Taking refuge.

Taking refuge in our hearts.

In the goodness of our practice and the goodness of coming together, of our intention in this moment.

Ah, and relaxing the body.

Releasing entanglements.

Relaxing the body. All the nooks and crannies that are tight, maybe the forehead.

The jaw. Ah, neck and shoulders.

The arms, our hands.

Our chest, the abdomen. Releasing, releasing into the sit bones.

The entire weight of the upper body released onto the cushion or the chair. Your sit bones.

Releasing the legs.

Upper legs, lower legs, and feet.

Releasing, relaxing. Taking refuge.

Allowing the sensations, the sensations throughout the body to be prominent.

The sensations of hardness, softness.

The contact points between the cushion and our bottom.

Sensations of coolness, warmth. Softness, hardness.

At our hands, where our hands touch each other or our lap.

Feeling of warmth and coolness in our face.

Maybe at the nostrils where the air rushes in and out.

Perhaps sensations of tingling anywhere in the body.

With a feeling of expansion of the breath, the flow and pressure, internally pushing, supporting this body. This body, a dance, a dance of sensations. A dance of sensations.

A dance of sensations.

Anywhere awareness (sati^[1]), mindfulness turns to, it tends to, clearly knows.

Clearly knows, clear comprehension, sampajañña^[2].

A dance of sensations.

Hardness, softness, tingling, flow, pushing, heat, coolness, movement at the touch points. Contact points of the body with the cushion, the chair, the hands, the lips, the breath.

Or just simply anywhere in the body, these sensations, so many of them. Let awareness be wide.

Let awareness be wide to notice, to contain this dance.

And notice how sensations arise.

Let yourself be curious about sensations arising.

See them, witness them, know them arising, coming into being, being known.

And sensations passing.

The knowing passing. Maybe for something that was prominent minutes ago or moments ago, no longer sensed.

You can also open to sounds if you wish, of the sphere of awareness, sphere of the senses.

Sounds arising. Sounds passing.

Sensations, sounds arising and passing.

River of experience, constant flow. Not constant.

A waterfall of experience. So many molecules of water moving, moving, moving.

Giving the impression of the waterfall as a fixed thing, but it's always moving, shifting.

Sensations, sounds.

Pleasant, unpleasant, neutral feeling tone (vedanā^[3]).

They're arising and passing. Arising, staying for a little bit perhaps, and then passing.

Choosing one of the spheres I named, sensations or sounds, or feeling tone. For some people, sounds are easiest. For some others, know your own proclivity to be aware of arising and passing of this phenomenon, the aspect of the phenomenon.

Choose one sphere, let's say sounds, and stay with it. Not switching back and forth in the soundscape. Notice the soundscape. Sounds arising and passing.

Arising and passing of a phenomenon.

Arising and passing of thoughts.

A river of experience.

And as we bring this sitting period together to a close, letting there be appreciation for ourselves for having shown up as best as we've been able to. Letting go of any judgment.

Even if there was one moment of clear comprehension seeing arising and passing, that's enough. It's planting a seed. Appreciating that you showed up.

One moment is infinitely more than zero moments.

And appreciating there is goodness in our intention in our practice, in the seeds that we sow individually and collectively.

Trusting, trusting that inner goodness.

And offering, offering our practice, offering our efforts, our intentions, our actions aligned with our intentions today. This period of practice to the benefit of all beings everywhere.

May all beings everywhere, especially those, especially those who are unsafe, afraid, feeling threatened, with a lot of suffering in war zones around this world of ours. Offering, offering our practice, our hearts to them specially. Not turning away.

Human beings just like us.

May all beings everywhere, all things everywhere, including ourselves, be safe, be happy, have good health, and have ease in their lives.

May all beings everywhere, including ourselves, be free.

Thank you. Thank you for your practice, everyone.

Dharmette: Satipatthana Refrain (3/5) The Importance of Insight into Impermanence

So hello again. Hello again, everyone.

So for today's practice, we're continuing with exploring the significance of the instructions in the refrain of the Satipatthana.

Invitations to practice with arising and passing away of different phenomena.

The refrain, actually, just as a reminder, I will put up again the structure. The structure of the Satipatthana.

There are four sections just as a reminder. And from the bottom, there is body, feelings or feeling tone (which you've already studied with Gil^[4] the past few weeks), there is mind, and there's dhammas^[5].

And the refrain shows up between or after every teaching, after every teaching as an emphasis.

And as I discussed yesterday and on Monday, the significance of the refrain—and you can listen to that again if you wish. By the way, this drawing, this is from Bhikkhu Analayo's^[6] book, and I have this uploaded into Audiodharma if you want to look at it. It's associated with the talks from these mornings.

And also the refrain itself. The paragraph of the refrain, I have it included in the text of the YouTube. If you go back to YouTube, you'll see the text of the refrain.

So today we have come to this part of the refrain, which is: one abides contemplating the nature of arising in the body, or one abides contemplating the nature of passing away in the body, or one abides contemplating the nature of both arising and passing away in the body. And again, the word "body" here repeats. After the six sections having to do with the body, the word is "feelings" for the section after the feeling section. And of course, mind and dhammas. So it's not always the body; it changes.

So one contemplates the nature of arising and passing away of all phenomena, all phenomena. And in the guided meditation, I was inviting you to explore arising and passing of sensations in the body, and also sounds. Sounds are part of the experience of the body too, it's in that sphere, it's in the sense spheres, the first satipatthana. I also invited you to explore feeling tone, which you've already explored with Gil. Feeling tone: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. Oh yes, it arises and passes away. Maybe we didn't focus on that; I just brought it in. And even thoughts, you can see, gosh, they just arise and pass away. It's this stream. It's a stream of experience, like a waterfall of experience. Waterfall of experience.

Oh, so I'd like to speak a few minutes about the importance of this instruction. Even perhaps, maybe I would venture to say, even more important than the one we discussed yesterday, which already seemed, "Wow, this is important," the internal/external aspect, instead of just being internal.

So here we go. According to the discourses, not seeing the arising and passing away of phenomena is simply ignorance, while regarding all phenomena as impermanent is knowledge. And understanding is wisdom.

So the one definition of wisdom is seeing arising and passing away. Seeing arising and passing away as well as seeing arising and passing away, which is impermanent (anicca)^[7].

Which also seeing anicca leads to seeing dukkha^[8], unsatisfactoriness, and also seeing the nature of the selfless nature, impersonal nature of all things. They're all connected.

And in fact, in the suttas, there is a central importance placed on the direct experience of seeing the impermanence of all phenomena, all phenomena.

It is so important, it's of central importance. And as some of you might be new, for you, some of you know the teachings, have heard of the teachings on the three characteristics: anicca, dukkha, anatta^[9]. Impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self or selflessness or ungovernability. So many ways to translate that. It's not "no self," by the way. It doesn't mean that there is no self. Yes, there is a self, it's not-self, it's not personal.

So coming back to the refrain. Studying, observing, knowing, contemplating. One abides contemplating the nature of arising. One abides contemplating the nature of passing. One abides contemplating the nature of both arising and passing.

This contemplation, one gets to see, experience impermanence. Ah, it's a river of experience. It's just passing. It's passing.

And what is impermanent cannot be satisfactory, because it just changes all the time. You can't hang your hat on it. It's satisfactory one moment, it's pleasant one moment, it's not pleasant another moment, it keeps changing. So it's unsatisfactory, it just doesn't give me lasting satisfaction.

And whatever does not give lasting satisfaction, what is unsatisfactory, also appreciate the selfless nature, it's not personal. It's not personal.

So impermanence really is the foundation for realizing dukkha, for the other two marks of existence. The three are called the three marks of existence.

And the insight into arising and passing away is the key aspect of insight, insight knowledges that opens up the four stages of awakening. Again, some of you might have heard about the four stages of awakening. The four stages of Nibbana. The unfolding of those four stages, the progress of insight, what's called progressing through those stages of awakening. What unleashes this progress or what is significant, what is really significant, is insight into impermanence that unleashes all the other key insights.

And in fact, in the Vibhanga Sutta in the Samyutta Nikaya, insight into arising and passing away of phenomena is highlighted as the distinction between a mere establishment of satipatthana and its complete and full development.

Let me say that again. That this point is so important that I want to say it again. So in the Vibhanga Sutta of Samyutta Nikaya, they make a distinction between just establishing satipatthana and its complete and full development.

Okay, so the difference is: establishing the four foundations of mindfulness, four foundations of awareness. The establishing is becoming aware of the phenomena itself. The feeling tones, the sensations, the breath, just knowing them, right?

But what leads to the full development, complete and full development which is bhāvanā^[10], is this insight into arising and passing away of phenomena. So it's not just phenomena itself, studying the phenomena itself, but studying that it rises and passes away. That leads to the full development, that leads to awakening. That piece is needed.

So this highlights even further the importance of the refrain, that the teachings of the Satipatthana Sutta may not suffice on their own. Might not suffice on their own for the task of developing penetrative insight, but actually developing a comprehensive and equanimous vision of impermanence is needed. And quoting also from Bhikkhu Analayo here. But for us to really appreciate, seeing arising and passing away is so important. It's so important.

So a couple more words and then wrapping up.

It is said that when the Buddha gave the first sermon to the five monks who became fully enlightened, in the Anattalakkhana Sutta^[11], he took them through the same door through the five aggregates. Which you'll actually study in a few weeks and it's in the fourth satipatthana, the five aggregates of existence, which really cover all aspects, all aspects of existence.

So the Buddha invited them to see the arising and passing away of all aspects of the five aggregates of experience. Five aggregates of experience.

After they saw impermanence, then they saw that, "Oh, what's impermanent cannot yield lasting satisfaction and therefore does not qualify as I, me, or myself." And they became fully enlightened through this doorway.

And this seeing the impermanence of the five aggregates is so important that, by the way, when you get again in a few weeks when you get to the aggregates in the satipatthana as Gil covers it, you'll notice that the arising and passing away, to see the arising and passing away isn't just in the refrain, but it's also in the text of the Satipatthana Sutta itself. It shows up in both places, it's pretty cool. So watch out for that when that comes. Fascinating.

So just the last word to say that through this insight into impermanence, we lose this assumption of stability. Temporal stability of both the perceiver, which is us, and the perceived objects, internal/external. There's no permanence. It's always shifting and moving.

And in this way, all notions of stability, fixedness, like "I'm this way, I'm always this way," like, "Oh, the world is always," it just, they vanish. And one experiences a radical paradigm shift when you see it in every aspect of phenomena. No leaf left unturned, no stone left unturned.

And a distinctive feature of stream entry, which is the first stage of enlightenment, is this comprehensive realization of impermanence. Let me say that one more time. Distinctive feature of stream entry is this comprehensive realization of impermanence. So cannot highlight the importance of this part of the refrain strongly enough.

These teachings are so sublime, so beautiful, and so freeing, and they can completely change our frame of reference. Completely change our frame of reference and lead to freedom. It's not just stories that are told, reserved for some special beings. This can happen to us in this very life. It can happen to us. So trust, trust in your practice.

Thank you, dear Sangha. Thank you for your practice, and thank you for your kind, kind attention. I look forward to being with you tomorrow to continue this exploration with satipatthana.

Oh, one invitation! I always like to give you invitations for the day: notice arising and passing. Notice arising and passing internally, externally. Notice arising and passing of all phenomena. Thoughts, preoccupations, sensations, sounds. Just notice arising and passing internally, and you'll see this perceiver and the perceived is this sea of experience. Thank you so much.