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        - speaker_name: Maria Straatmann
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      title: Meditation and Mindfulness
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  title: Meditation and Mindfulness ~ Maria Straatmann
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youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTyiS12RM2Y
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# Meditation and Mindfulness - [Maria Straatmann](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/142)

_This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers._

## [Meditation and Mindfulness](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/26518)

Good evening. What's on my mind tonight has to do with the consideration of what meditation is and why we do it anyway. The practice is sort of built around meditation, but it can be useful to contemplate what we mean by that. What is the instruction? There are many kinds of meditation and many ways of meditating. And for each of you, the reason that you're here tonight is different, and what you expect is different. It's unique to you. Your motivation is unique to you.

Some of us meditate for relaxation. But what if the purpose of the meditation is the end of suffering? Dare we say it, happiness? How does it relate? What does it do for us that helps us to that goal?

It's interesting that the Buddha didn't actually say, "Go meditate." He didn't give instructions for meditation. He actually didn't say that freedom required meditation. But what he did do is give instructions for mindfulness. He said mindfulness is important, and he said this can lead to happiness. This can lead to the end of suffering. In the Noble Eightfold Path[^1], which is the prescription describing the end of suffering, one of the faculties is not meditation. There is wise effort, wise mindfulness, and wise samādhi[^2], and all of these have to do with meditation, but there's no requirement for meditation. So why do we do it, and why does it have such emphasis in our tradition?

We practice toward the end of suffering by being able to see what gives rise to suffering, what causes suffering to go away, and what methods we can use to end suffering. All of that requires a still mind and mindfulness. We need to be able to see our experience very clearly and cultivate the ability to do that. An important part of that is the development of wisdom. And so the question could be asked, what does meditation have to do with wisdom?

I'd like to step through some words that you find in the Pali Canon[^3] that we often describe as meditation. They can be translated as meditation, but that's not what they actually mean.

So let's go through some of them. One word is samādhi. Samādhi is very often translated as concentration. Some people have trouble with that particular description because there can be a tendency to think that it has to do with one-pointedness: "I'm going to be right here, and I'm going to force myself to be right here." Anything that requires force doesn't sound like happiness, and doesn't sound like the end of suffering. If there's such an imperative, "I must do this and I have to be here," just feel the tension of that requirement. All attempts to definitely get concentrated this time just get in the way. Samādhi really has to do with calmness, stillness, and centeredness. It has to do with a gathering in, a stillness, and a focus, but not a one-pointedness, so that the mind is not running all over the place but is contained. But what we want to do is avoid the idea that samādhi forces the mind to be a certain way. That just gets in the way.

Then there's the word bhāvanā[^4]. Bhāvanā means cultivating. The Buddha used this word a lot. He talked about cultivating states of mind, cultivating good habits, and cultivating mettā[^5]. It means causing to come into existence, cultivating wholesome states of mind. This is an aspect of meditation as well: it is a process of training the mind in a particular direction. Training it toward mindfulness, training it toward mettā or loving-kindness. It has to do with what we would like to cultivate in our lives. Not so much about what we don't want or what we do want, but what we should be cultivating to develop wholesomeness.

Another word is jhāna[^6]. You may be familiar with jhāna. It's often associated with the word concentration, and there are different stages of jhāna, and it does in fact mean concentration. It has to do with a meditative state of absorption. So you're sort of removed from what's going on out here and you're really absorbed in something. In fact, the word "Zen" is a derivative of jhāna. It's a specific type of meditation. One of the routes to nirvana has to do with developing the maximal jhānic states. There are eight of them. The first four are in one category and then the last four are called supramundane as opposed to mundane jhānas. When you get to those great deep states of absorption, they can be quite seductive, and people go after them because they're going to develop this technique. It all gets tied up in the technique and "I have to be here," and so it's considered dangerous by some teachers. But there are the jhānas. That has to do with a deep concentration and a deep stillness.

Another word is kammaṭṭhāna[^7]. This has to do with the object of work. This has to do with what you are meditating on or how you meditate. Whether you're doing a mantra, mindfulness of the breath, or mindfulness of sounds, this has to do with where you are directing your meditation. That's usually set up by a teacher that tells you, you should do it this way. Usually, we put a great deal of emphasis on mindfulness of the breath as the object of meditation.

Another word is samatha[^8]. Samatha is calming. Just calming, wanting to be calm, not agitated. It's actually difficult to be mindful if you're agitated. You can be mindful of agitation, which I am often. But when everything is chaotic, it becomes very difficult to see clearly. One of the objects of mindfulness is to see clearly. So developing this sense of calm, the ability to be still even in the midst of chaos, is an important skill to develop, which is a meditative skill.

The first four jhānas in Buddhism are very useful for coming to this calming state, actually. As you become more and more calm over time, it's possible to develop the characteristics and mind states that come with that. They're quite delicious, really. The first one is rapture and happiness born from seclusion, where you actually realize that meditation can be quite pleasurable just secluded from the world and absorbed in meditation. The second jhāna is marked by joy and inner tranquility. Delight, just delight. Meditate until you're happy. It's quite lovely. The third jhāna emphasizes equanimity and contentment. This is not a regular contentment like, you know, "I had a good meal and I'm feeling really good," or how you feel after sex or a warm bath. It's not that kind of contentment. It's a contentment that is so pervasive you want nothing. You don't want it to change, you don't want it to be different, and you don't want to hold on to it. There's no wanting. It's just the absence of wanting. And the fourth jhāna is neither pleasure nor pain, it's just equanimity. Just mindfulness and equanimity. You're just there.

So these first four jhānic states can be very, very useful for cultivating mindfulness. You're totally aware. You can think of it as a kind of sensitization. You're aware of your body, you're aware of the mind, you're aware of the thoughts, but you're not distracted by them.

So that's samatha, calming. The next one is vipassanā[^9], which is insight. Insight has to do with wisdom. What do you notice? I once was mentoring somebody in an introduction to mindfulness meditation, and he was a Tibetan practitioner. Tibetan practice is very visual, and he was used to getting very, very concentrated, so he found mindfulness meditation disturbing. He said, "You know, I don't get concentrated anymore, why would I do this?" And I said, "Well, what good does it do you to be concentrated if you don't learn anything?" He thought about it for a while and I said, "It's possible to be very concentrated in a jhānic state while sitting in your room, but what happens at the grocery store? What happens when you get out on the freeway?" He happened to be a motorcycle guy. And he said, "Well, yeah, that's different."

So maybe the insights that arise allow us to see how the mind works, where we are leaning. That develops our capacity to see, "Ah, I'm leaning that way. I'm craving. I'm pushing away." That insight becomes much more accessible in meditation because of the stillness that we have. There aren't flashing lights going on, you're not in the middle of Ginza in Tokyo trying to figure out what's going on.

So there's insight, which has to do with developing wisdom, which is part of the Eightfold Path. Seeing clearly. It's not just any kind of seeing. It's not listening to me and saying, "Oh, yeah, that's right, I'm going to do that." It's a direct experience of, "This gives rise to suffering. Oh, this is the absence of suffering." That direct experience can only be experienced. But in order to really see it, you have to be mindful. You have to be present for it. You have to be aware of it. You have to know you're aware in that time. So that's the vipassanā part. It does not require meditative absorption. It can happen anywhere. You have a sudden realization, "Oh my God, that's what that means," where you experience something that rings a bell with you. It doesn't have to be in meditation. Just the skill of seeing is developed in meditation.

And finally, there's the word sati[^10]. That's the seventh word I wanted to talk about, and that is memory, recall, mindfulness. That's what we call mindfulness. I was thinking about this the other day. A dear friend of mine recently died. She was a marvelous artist, and yesterday we went to her studio. They were closing down her studio, and it had been a few years since I'd been in her studio. As I was wandering around, I was very aware of how shaky I felt. Just an unsteadiness. I ran into another of her friends and we just looked at each other, and you could see there was a communication happening there that just had to do with something about Stephanie, but not about us. I could just feel that along with the unsteadiness, and I thought, "Oh, okay. So, there's some grief here." But it isn't about me. It's just grief.

Being able to see that in that moment kept me from breaking down in tears and getting lost in the memory. Being able to say, "Oh, this is grief. Okay, I get it. I'm here for this." I don't have to be sad along with the grieving, if that makes any sense. I don't have to be overwhelmed by the feeling. I can just be aware of the feeling. Feeling it, not pushing it away, not wishing it was otherwise, but not drowning in it either.

In the words of the Buddha, there are several suttas that are relevant to meditation, or particularly to mindfulness. One of them is the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta[^11], which has to do with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. That's one that we usually talk about when we talk about meditation. The Buddha said this is a wonderful way to help living beings realize purification, overcome grief and sorrow directly, end pain and anxiety, travel the right path, and realize nirvana[^12]. This way is the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. This is what the Buddha had to say about meditation. Mindfulness is what we need to cultivate. Mindfulness is the way.

Here I have multiple books. I'm going to take that opening line: "Monks, this is the direct path." What are the four? A monk abides contemplating the body, contemplating sounds. He goes through all of the steps and he says this is what we cultivate. "How does he in regard to the body abide contemplating the body? Here, gone to the forest, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut, he sits down having folded his legs crosswise, set his body erect, and established mindfulness in front of him. Mindful he breathes in, mindful he breathes out."

But he goes on and he talks about all the ways in which one can be mindful. Moving the leg, walking, standing, sitting, whatever you're contemplating, one can be mindful of it. He doesn't say sit under the tree and meditate, he says be mindful. But by the way, a good way to be mindful is to sit under the tree and contemplate your breath. These two things exist together, but they're not the same.

The reason I'm making such a big deal out of that is that sometimes we think of our practice as meditation. What I want to underscore is that the practice is not meditation. Meditation is a training of the mind and a learning how to come to stillness, but the practice is seeing clearly. It's the practice of seeing clearly.

In the Ānāpānasati Sutta[^13], another sutta that has to do with mindfulness, the Buddha instructed monks to go into the forest, sit beneath a tree, observe their breathing, and develop mindfulness. He said the same thing. Mindfulness of breathing is what the Ānāpānasati Sutta talks about, and he said in doing this, one develops the Seven Factors of Awakening[^14]. These are mindfulness, investigation, energy or effort (you have to put effort into this; it doesn't just happen, you don't wait for your experience to come along, you have to put some effort into being aware), joy or rapture, relaxation or tranquility, concentration (samādhi), and equanimity. Seven Factors of Awakening.

So that speaks to meditation being useful. Meditation is a place where this can happen. It's a practice in which to cultivate mindfulness. We meditate to still the mind, to train the mind to be mindful. In this mindfulness, we come to see clearly. Seeing that something causes suffering, we let go of it. This is disenchantment or dispassion. And in becoming dispassionate, we then can find ourselves not caught. We're not caught by whatever the craving was or the aversion. Once we see it, we're no longer enchanted by it, we're not caught by it. This is called cessation. And then we can just let go of it. This is called relinquishment.

Another book I brought is called _The Island_ by Ajahn Amaro[^15]. You can get this online, by the way, from Abhayagiri Monastery. _The Island_ is an anthology of the Buddha's teachings on Nirvana. You can see there are lots of words, but they all kind of come down to the same thing. In here he says, "Bhikkhus, this is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and grief, for the attainment of the true way, for the realization of Nibbāna, namely the Four Foundations of Mindfulness." We've just said that a few times here. "With regard to things that are dear, seen, heard, sensed, and cognized, there is the dispelling of passion and desire, the undying state of Nibbāna." It's not a big secret. "Those knowing this, mindful, fully unbound in the here and now, are forever calmed, have crossed over beyond entanglement in the world."

And this to Moggallāna[^16]: "If a monk has learned that nothing is fit to be clung to, he directly knows everything. By directly knowing everything, he fully understands everything. When he fully understands everything, whatever feeling he experiences, be it pleasant or not pleasant or neither painful nor pleasant, in regard to those same feelings, he dwells contemplating impermanence, contemplating dispassion, contemplating cessation, contemplating relinquishment. In doing so, he is not agitated. Being unagitated, he personally attains Nibbāna."

This is why we meditate. This is how we meditate in the cultivation of mindfulness. We do that so that we can come to know our experience not through the filter of our stories, but directly. This is what's happening. I can feel agitation, I can feel grief, I can feel joy. Not the story about it, not the discussion of whether I'm to blame for it, not full of the story of criticism, but just "this is what's happening." Because the more clearly we see, the more surely we come to the state of disenchantment, cessation, and relinquishment. We let go. We let go of wanting things to be other than they are.

The freedom of Nibbāna lies in the end of greed, hatred, and delusion. But just saying, "I'm going to be free of greed, hatred, and delusion," isn't the formula. The formula is we have to see when greed arises and say, "Oh, nope. Don't want to do that now." We don't meditate to be calm as an end in itself, but as a means of discernment, a place of developing insight. Don't be too attached to "I'm a good meditator," because the whole purpose of meditation is simply to see how things are. You can't do it wrong. It's just the practice of stilling oneself so that you can see what's happening. We practice so that we can become aware of how things are. We practice so that we can sensitize ourselves to be fully aware. Not to remove ourselves from the world, but to participate completely fully in the world, without being caught by how we'd like to see it differently.

I thought a lot about the fact that even as we talk about it, "one must attain mindfulness," there's this sort of pressure about it, you know, "got to go do this," when it's really much more simple than that. It's really just being aware of how it is. Just that awareness.

I'm going to read you a poem by James Wright called _A Blessing_[^17]. What I want you to notice is the detail of the poem and what is ultimately expressed by this.

> Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
> Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass,
> And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
> Darken with kindness.
> They have come gladly out of the willows
> To welcome my friend and me.
> We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
> Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
> They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
> That we have come.
> They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
> There is no loneliness like theirs.
> At home once more,
> They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
> I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
> For she has walked over to me
> And nuzzled my left hand.
> She is black and white,
> Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
> And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
> That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
> Suddenly I realize
> That if I stepped out of my body I would break
> Into blossom.

Read that again. Just off the highway, all mundane here. Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota. Twilight bounds softly on the grass, and the eyes of those two Indian ponies darken with kindness. They've come gladly out of the willows to welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture where they've been grazing all day alone. They ripple tensely. They can hardly contain their happiness that we've come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There's no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slender one in my arms, for she has walked over to me and nuzzled my left hand. She's black and white. Her mane falls wild on her forehead, and the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear that is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist. Suddenly I realized that if I stepped out of my body, I would break into blossom.

This poem represents to me a moment of such absorption, so finely tuned to the feeling and the sight and the texture of the moment, that he felt that he could step out of his body. If he could step out of his body, he would blossom, which sounds extremely joyful and happy to me. This intense moment of mindfulness, not directed at mindfulness, but directed at just seeing and feeling and touching and being wholly in the moment: "I felt that I could just step out of my body and I would blossom." Such an exuberant feeling.

This is what I wish for you to experience, to know, to embrace. May mindfulness be yours so that you can truly experience the joy of being here now. Thank you.

## Q&A

**Speaker 1:** I don't know if I can articulate this, but contemplation, the idea of contemplation... how do you contemplate something without thinking about it too much or creating a narrative?

**Maria Straatmann:** It's a very good question. I'm going to tell you about an experience I had one time when I was on a sitting retreat, so I was fairly concentrated. This made a difference. I was meeting with a teacher. We had a 15-minute interview, and she said, "Okay, I want you to tell me what you're experiencing now, but don't tell me any concepts. There can be no concept in your reply."

So I began trying to come up with a description of what was happening in the moment. And she'd say, "No concept." And I'd say, "Well, sad." "Concept." I mean, anything that you name, right? Finally, this went on for a few minutes while I was trying to think of how I could describe what was happening without using a concept. Finally, I said, "Vibration."

It was like the world opened up for me. It just changed everything for me in that moment. And what I contemplated was impermanence. It was an experience that had to do with getting out of the way of my mind and trying to get at just this. Vibration to me really expressed the only thing I could name that wasn't nameable.

Then having had that experience, I contemplated, "Wow, I get it." As I meditated, I would think, "What is impermanence? What is this experience? What is vibration if it's not a concept? What is this experience of direct awareness?" It was an investigation as contemplation, not an analysis. So there were "what if" questions, or "what" questions, and not "how" questions or "why" questions. That's one way of doing that.

Another thing that would address that is when I was talking about being in my friend's studio and I realized that I was shaky and unstable. I was able to say, "unsteady, unsteady," without telling myself stories about, "Well, I'm never going to see her again, and she's never going to be in the studio again." I could just stay with the unsteadiness and contemplate the feeling of unsteadiness and how death makes that possible. How death makes that a reality for me. And as I looked more deeply into it, I could see grief without it being the story of what happens next. You contemplate what is happening without trying to tie it into a memory or a story. It's a bringing back to the moment. It's a recalling of the mindfulness of the moment in that contemplation. It's more investigative than analytic.

Reflection is a really important part of practice. It's how we develop wisdom. We kind of have to test an idea, test a feeling, test an impression for whether it is a biased opinion about what's happening. That bias has to do with what we believe about ourselves and what we believe about others. Even in the act of saying that, I can say that I contemplate bias also. "How am I seeing this? What's the lens I'm looking at this experience through?"

It was interesting because her studio is over in Berkeley, and it's been over 35 years since I lived in Berkeley. [Laughter] And I contemplated how different I was from the young woman who lived there 35 plus years ago. I would see a familiar sight and I would feel a memory come up and say, "Ah yes, that was then, and this is now." The practice is not to ignore memories, but rather not to let them take over so that it becomes a fantasy.

A good part of memory has to do with how we want to remember something, and we kind of put a cast on it. Whereas if you just recall, "Oh yes, I had lunch with Stephanie at that restaurant over there," I can feel the pleasure of that memory without reliving the memory and bemoaning that that's not going to happen anymore and all the things attached to it that might happen. I could just settle into what's happening now around that memory. What does that memory conjure up for me now, so that the moment arises, happens, and passes away without me clinging to it or pushing it away? Some of the most wonderful experiences I had happened when I lived in Berkeley, and some of the most horrible, sad things happened when I lived in Berkeley. And all of those were present, but not present. They were just blinking lights.

Yes, pass the microphone.

**Speaker 2:** I realize when I drive down El Camino Real what's there now and what it was like then, and I know that I'm thinking about the past too much. "Gee, you know, that store that used to be there, I really liked it."

**Maria Straatmann:** It's gone.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, it's gone.

**Maria Straatmann:** And I have to let go. That's going to be some other stupid story that I don't care about at all. [Laughter]

**Speaker 2:** I know. But sometimes it just feels like an insult that things are not the way they used to be.

**Maria Straatmann:** Yes. [Laughter] And so we notice that. "Oh, look at you being insulted."

**Speaker 2:** Yes.

**Maria Straatmann:** Go ahead. We'll pass it over.

**Speaker 3:** I was confused by something when you talked about the end of pain and suffering, because I thought that it's inevitable that we experience at least pain, and that it's not about trying to get rid of pain. It's about having equanimity about the experience of pain.

**Maria Straatmann:** Yeah. Stephen Batchelor[^18] once said, "This business about getting rid of suffering is just baloney. My mother suffered when she was dying." And he said, "But what is true is that I don't have to add the suffering of how I react to that suffering," right? And that's the part that we have some control over. We don't have a great deal of control over it, but we have the way that we react to our experience. That reactivity gives rise to suffering, and that we can relinquish. We can let go of that.

For example, I can't sit cross-legged on the floor anymore because I've had a knee replacement. They just won't let me do that. And I liked sitting cross-legged on the floor when I meditated. It felt right. The dynamics were right. So, am I going to not meditate because I can't do that anymore? No. I can develop the same sense of, "This feels right, this feels energetically conducive to my meditative state," unless I hold on to, "That was the best way and I can't do it anymore."

**Speaker 3:** So that's the idea of being with what is now.

**Maria Straatmann:** Yeah.

**Speaker 4:** If I could share a bit about my meditation today. I've probably been going through some emotional stuff in the past couple weeks, and a lot of that came to the experience in the meditation pretty much the entire time. And I had some success with trying to view the sensations and the perceptions of where it is in the body, what does it feel like in different parts of the body. It wasn't perfect. I mean, a lot of times I got wrapped up in the stories, but it was not a pleasant meditation, but it was good to know that even when the worst is happening in terms of a meditation, it can still be somewhat productive and you can get through it.

**Maria Straatmann:** Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that.

**Speaker 5:** I had a quick question. Well, thank you for everything you talked about. I'm just curious, you mentioned the four jhānas and the different qualities of each one. I'm wondering if you know anything about why it is that it happens in the order that it does, where the first is this kind of more dramatic, physical thing and then it tapers off in some ways. Is it just like that's how it is in the body?

**Maria Straatmann:** Well, it may seem like the four jhānas are actually just increasingly deeper states of absorption. And what is described is just, "It's kind of like this, it's kind of like this, it's kind of like this." If you think about it, first you feel joy and then you feel happiness and tranquility. So there's the excitement of the joy, you know, the "Oh wow!" and then you say, "Okay, okay," and you kind of move through that stage and settle into this tranquil way which leads to the contentment, which leads to equanimity. They lead to one another. They're sort of on a continuum. It's not like there's a hard barrier between them and this shows up now and this shows up then. It's a progression that happens not because they're different, but because one is just a deeper expression than the one that preceded it. Is that helping?

Anything else? Well, thank you. I don't have anything on my agenda to teach again, [Laughter] and I'm going traveling. So, thank you for sharing this night with me.

---

[^1]: **Noble Eightfold Path:** The Buddha's early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara, consisting of eight elements including Right View, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

[^2]: **Samādhi:** A state of deep, calm, and concentrated meditation or absorption. Often translated as concentration or unification of mind.

[^3]: **Pali Canon:** The standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, preserved in the Pali language.

[^4]: **Bhāvanā:** A Pali word meaning "development" or "cultivating." Often used in conjunction with other words to mean mental cultivation or meditation.

[^5]: **Mettā:** Loving-kindness or goodwill; a benevolent and friendly disposition toward all beings.

[^6]: **Jhāna:** Deep states of meditative absorption characterized by profound stillness and concentration.

[^7]: **Kammaṭṭhāna:** Literally "place of work"; refers to the subject or object of meditation in Buddhist practice.

[^8]: **Samatha:** Calmness, tranquility, or serenity of mind; one of the two main types of Buddhist meditation, the other being Vipassanā.

[^9]: **Vipassanā:** Insight into the true nature of reality; insight meditation.

[^10]: **Sati:** Mindfulness, memory, or recollection. A core faculty in Buddhist practice.

[^11]: **Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta:** The foundational discourse in the Pali Canon outlining the practice of mindfulness through the Four Foundations: body, feelings, mind, and dhammas (phenomena).

[^12]: **Nirvana (Nibbāna in Pali):** The ultimate goal of Buddhist practice; the extinguishing of greed, hatred, and delusion, leading to the end of suffering.

[^13]: **Ānāpānasati Sutta:** A primary discourse by the Buddha detailing the practice of mindfulness of breathing.

[^14]: **Seven Factors of Awakening:** Key qualities to be cultivated on the path to enlightenment: mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity.

[^15]: **Ajahn Amaro:** A prominent Theravada Buddhist monk and teacher in the Thai Forest Tradition.

[^16]: **Moggallāna:** One of the Buddha's two chief disciples, renowned for his psychic powers and meditative mastery.

[^17]: **A Blessing:** A famous 1961 poem by American poet James Wright.

[^18]: **Stephen Batchelor:** A contemporary Buddhist author and teacher known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism.