7 Treasures of Awakening: The Benefits of Mindfulness

by Joseph Goldstein

good friendship, association with the wise, and careful attention are the forerunners and precursors of the arising of the factors of enlightenment.

This is where we start: hearing the teachings and paying attention.

The first application of mindfulness is the quality of not forgetting, not losing what is before the mind in the present moment.

The second aspect of mindfulness is its quality of standing near the mind, which manifests as being face-to-face with whatever is arising, rather than giving it only sidelong glances.

mindfulness calls to mind, or remembers, what is skillful and what is not, what is inferior and what is refined, what is beneficial and what is harmful.

“moral shame” and “fear of wrongdoing,” or sometimes as “self-respect” and “conscience.”

Moral shame is the feeling of repugnance at bodily and verbal misconduct.

Fear of wrongdoing is a wise fear with respect to future consequences and to the opprobrium of the wise. They both manifest as a pulling back from the unwholesome.

The last aspect of mindfulness is its close association with wisdom. This comes about through bare attention and clear comprehension.

“clear comprehension.”

seeing something precisely, thoroughly, from all sides.

four aspects of clear comprehension: knowing the purpose or motivation of an action, knowing the suitability of the action, knowing the proper domain for mindfulness, and understanding nondelusion.

“awareness alone is not enough.” For mindfulness to function as a factor of awakening, it has to be the springboard for investigation.

dhammavicaya, which is the wisdom factor of mind.

“discrimination of states,” “investigation of truth,” or “discerning the Dhamma.”

that which discerns and illuminates the truth by means of dis...

Although the other six factors of awakening are needed to unsheathe and wield the sword of wisdom, it is this factor of discrimination of states that cuts through ignorance and delusion and liberates the mind.

unwholesome actions of body, speech, and mind are all rooted in greed, hatred, or delusion, and that all wholesome states are rooted in their opposites.

Conceit is that factor of “I was this, I am this, I will be this,” and then, at times, compares this sense of self with others—better than, worse than, equal to.

Clarity of discernment through investigation of dhammas can bring acceptance because we are aligning ourselves accurately with the present-moment experience.

letting go by letting be.

The value of such a personality template is that by recognizing our own patterns and those of others, we begin to understand them all as being impersonal, simply as the playing out of habitual tendencies, rather than as the expression of some reified sense of self.

as we become more mindful of thought as an object of awareness, we begin to notice what we’re thinking, and then, on a deeper level, wisdom sees the very ephemeral, impermanent nature of thought itself.

what we call “self” is simply the pairwise progression of knowing and object.

Energy (viriya, in Pali) is the root of all accomplishment, and in this way, it is in direct opposition to sloth and torpor.

In the Abhidhamma, energy is called a “variable mental factor,” which means that it can be associated with either wholesome or unwholesome states.

even when there is a wholesome purpose, we need to investigate whether we are applying this factor of energy in a skillful or unskillful way.

It has been translated variously as “energy,” “effort,” “strength,” “courage,” “vigor,” “perseverance,” and “persistence.”

its most basic meaning of “energy,” viriya is the capacity for activity, the power to do something.

One function of energy is to shore things up, like reinforcing a levee in times of flood.

channeling of energy for the development of wholesome states of mind.

Another aspect of viriya, one that we might not immediately associate with energy and strength, is that of courage.

Effort is an expenditure of energy to accomplish some objective.

Effort can become unskillful when there is a forcing of mind—what I call “efforting”—rather than a relaxation of mind.

Effort becomes unskillful when there’s some idea of gain and a mind full of expectations, rather than an openness and receptivity

The proximate cause for the arising of viriya as a factor of enlightenment is the feeling of spiritual urgency.

Wise reflection on the uncertainty of conditions heightens the appreciation of our present circumstances and thus becomes the cause for the arousal of energy.

Reflecting on death is another powerful reminder to use the time of our lives in a way that benefits ourselves and others.

We can also reflect that the end of all accumulation is dispersion and look to see what we spend so much time accumulating.

This understanding leads to the powerful recollection that the only abiding possession is the fruit of our karma.

We can further inspire viriya by reflecting on the defects of saṃsāra.

We arouse the energy to be mindful of the flow of changing phenomena, rather than being lost in and carried away by it. We step out of our conditioned patterns to cut through, to see through, the fundamental knot of self.

THE FOURTH OF THE SEVEN factors of awakening is called, in Pali, pīti. This word has been translated in many ways, including “rapture,” “happiness,” “joy,” “delight,” and “pleasurable or rapt interest.”

Pīti has the function of refreshing and delighting the mind and body, like a cool breeze on a hot day. Because rapture directly opposes ill will and is incompatible with it, when the mind is filled with pīti, there’s no room for anger or ill will to arise.

In order to clarify our understanding of this factor of awakening, it’s helpful to distinguish pīti from a state often associated with it—a state that, in Pali, is called sukha. Sukha is also often translated as “joy” or “happiness,” which can be confusing. As our practice deepens, the distinctions between these two states of mind become clearer, but for now, I’ll mention just a couple of features of each. On the conceptual level, sukha belongs to the second aggregate of feelings—namely, pleasant ones—while pīti belongs to the fourth aggregate of mental formations. Rapture usually has an intense energetic quality of arousal and excited anticipation. It’s the anticipation that arises when we’re crossing a hot desert and suddenly see a cool and refres...

and more refined experience of comfort ...

there is a distinction between rapture associated with sense pleasures and unworldly rapture born from seclusion and renunciation.

rapture is born from tireless energy, energy comes from investigation

and inquiry, and this discerning wisdom arises from continuous mindfulness.

The Buddha spoke of five grades or levels of rapture. The first is called “minor rapture.”