Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

by Daniel M. Ingram

Part of your job is to figure out how gentle you can be while still perceiving things extremely clearly. This takes fine-tuning and usually in the beginning requires some overshooting, but remember that this efficiency and delicacy, this subtlety, are part of your goal.

Part of your job is to figure out how gentle you can be while still perceiving things extremely clearly. This takes fine-tuning and usually in the beginning requires some overshooting, but remember that this efficiency and delicacy, this subtlety, are part of your goal.

You can see that an excess of intellect is often a sign of a lack of faith, and an excess of faith is often marked by a lack of wisdom.

You can see that an excess of intellect is often a sign of a lack of faith, and an excess of faith is often marked by a lack of wisdom.

Faith allows us to realize that some truly brilliant, dedicated, and wise people have come before us and left effective methods and maps that we can follow to achieve what they achieved.

Faith allows us to realize that some truly brilliant, dedicated, and wise people have come before us and left effective methods and maps that we can follow to achieve what they achieved.

If you start fixating on the maps presented later, wisdom has become distorted and imbalanced, and you should work on having faith that simple techniques relating to this moment applied again and again will move things along.

If you start fixating on the maps presented later, wisdom has become distorted and imbalanced, and you should work on having faith that simple techniques relating to this moment applied again and again will move things along.

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Mindfulness is in a category all by itself, as it can potentially balance and perfect the remaining four spiritual faculties. This does not mean that we shouldn't be informed by the other two pairs, but that mindfulness is extremely important. Mindfulness means knowing what is as it is right now. It is the quality of mind that knows things as they are. Really, it is the quality of sensations manifesting as they are, where they are, and on their own. However, initially it appears to be something we create and cultivate, and that is okay for the time being.4 If you are trying to perceive the sensations that make up your experience clearly and to know what they are, you are balancing energy and concentration, and faith and wisdom. Due to energy, the mind is alert and attentive. Due to concentration, it is stable. Faith here may also mean acceptance, and wisdom here is clear comprehension.

Mindfulness is in a category all by itself, as it can potentially balance and perfect the remaining four spiritual faculties. This does not mean that we shouldn't be informed by the other two pairs, but that mindfulness is extremely important. Mindfulness means knowing what is as it is right now. It is the quality of mind that knows things as they are. Really, it is the quality of sensations manifesting as they are, where they are, and on their own. However, initially it appears to be something we create and cultivate, and that is okay for the time being.4 If you are trying to perceive the sensations that make up your experience clearly and to know what they are, you are balancing energy and concentration, and faith and wisdom. Due to energy, the mind is alert and attentive. Due to concentration, it is stable. Faith here may also mean acceptance, and wisdom here is clear comprehension.

We have faith that training in morality is a good idea and that we can do it, so we exert energy to live up to a standard of clear and skillful living. We realize that we must pay attention to our thoughts, words, and deeds in order to do this, so we try to be mindful of them. We realize that we often fail to pay attention, so we try to increase our ability to concentrate on how we live our life. In this way, through experience, we become wiser in a relative sense, learning how to live a good and useful life. Seeing our skill improve and the benefits it has for our life, we generate more faith, and so on. With respect to training in concentration, we may have faith that we might be able to attain high states of consciousness, so we sit down on a cushion and energetically try to stabilize our attention and tune in to skillful qualities. We realize that we cannot stabilize our attention without mindfulness of our object and of the qualities of the state we wish attain. We develop strong concentration by consistently stabilizing our attention. We attain high states of concentration and thus gain a direct understanding of how to navigate in that territory and the meaning and purpose of doing so. Our success creates more faith, and so we apply energy to further develop our concentration abilities. With the faith borne of the experience yielded by strong concentration, we begin to think it might be possible to awaken, so we energetically explore all the sensations that make up o...

We have faith that training in morality is a good idea and that we can do it, so we exert energy to live up to a standard of clear and skillful living. We realize that we must pay attention to our thoughts, words, and deeds in order to do this, so we try to be mindful of them. We realize that we often fail to pay attention, so we try to increase our ability to concentrate on how we live our life. In this way, through experience, we become wiser in a relative sense, learning how to live a good and useful life. Seeing our skill improve and the benefits it has for our life, we generate more faith, and so on. With respect to training in concentration, we may have faith that we might be able to attain high states of consciousness, so we sit down on a cushion and energetically try to stabilize our attention and tune in to skillful qualities. We realize that we cannot stabilize our attention without mindfulness of our object and of the qualities of the state we wish attain. We develop strong concentration by consistently stabilizing our attention. We attain high states of concentration and thus gain a direct understanding of how to navigate in that territory and the meaning and purpose of doing so. Our success creates more faith, and so we apply energy to further develop our concentration abilities. With the faith borne of the experience yielded by strong concentration, we begin to think it might be possible to awaken, so we energetically explore all the sensations that make up o...

We can know where sensations are in relation to each other. We can know exactly when they occur and how they change during their very brief stay. We can and should sort these out as best we can. Be patient and precise. Become fluent in all the sensations and patterns that make up your reality. Increasing our direct sensate clarity through repeated attention to doing so is the point of mindfulness in this context. We are wiring the machine of our brain to be able to be more present to exactly what is going on in our experience. These two paragraphs contain formal insight practice instructions, so perhaps go back and read them a few times.

We can know where sensations are in relation to each other. We can know exactly when they occur and how they change during their very brief stay. We can and should sort these out as best we can. Be patient and precise. Become fluent in all the sensations and patterns that make up your reality. Increasing our direct sensate clarity through repeated attention to doing so is the point of mindfulness in this context. We are wiring the machine of our brain to be able to be more present to exactly what is going on in our experience. These two paragraphs contain formal insight practice instructions, so perhaps go back and read them a few times.

While I have tried to avoid advocating one specific insight tradition or technique over any other, there is an exercise that you might find helpful when trying to develop strong mindfulness. It is commonly called “noting”, and has its origins in Sutta 111 of the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (or Majjhima Nikaya [MN], very worthwhile reading), usually referred to as MN 111, called “One by One as They Occurred”, and in MN 10, Satipatthana Sutta (variously translated as “Four Foundations of Mindfulness”, or “Frames of Reference”, etc.), as well as Sutta 22, Mahasatipatthana Sutta (“Greater Discourse on Mindfulness”) of the Long Discourses of the Buddha (or Digha Nikaya [DN]), usually referred to as DN 22. Noting is used primarily in the Mahasi Sayadaw insight tradition from Burma, though related exercises can be found in various Zen traditions, notably Soto Zen and Korean Chan, such as repeatedly asking, “What is this?”

While I have tried to avoid advocating one specific insight tradition or technique over any other, there is an exercise that you might find helpful when trying to develop strong mindfulness. It is commonly called “noting”, and has its origins in Sutta 111 of the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (or Majjhima Nikaya [MN], very worthwhile reading), usually referred to as MN 111, called “One by One as They Occurred”, and in MN 10, Satipatthana Sutta (variously translated as “Four Foundations of Mindfulness”, or “Frames of Reference”, etc.), as well as Sutta 22, Mahasatipatthana Sutta (“Greater Discourse on Mindfulness”) of the Long Discourses of the Buddha (or Digha Nikaya [DN]), usually referred to as DN 22. Noting is used primarily in the Mahasi Sayadaw insight tradition from Burma, though related exercises can be found in various Zen traditions, notably Soto Zen and Korean Chan, such as repeatedly asking, “What is this?”

There is an important shift that happens when we go from caring so much about what is going on, such as judgment, boredom, restlessness, or whatever, and switch to caring about whether we knew the sensations of what was going on.

There is an important shift that happens when we go from caring so much about what is going on, such as judgment, boredom, restlessness, or whatever, and switch to caring about whether we knew the sensations of what was going on.

A more seasoned insight meditator is excited when they can note, “wandering” and perceive the wandering as sensations. See the difference? The same goes for all the other “hindrances”, since, if you note them, they aren't hindrances. “Doubt”, “fear”, “irritation”, “dullness”, and the like are all great notes to make whenever those arise.

A more seasoned insight meditator is excited when they can note, “wandering” and perceive the wandering as sensations. See the difference? The same goes for all the other “hindrances”, since, if you note them, they aren't hindrances. “Doubt”, “fear”, “irritation”, “dullness”, and the like are all great notes to make whenever those arise.

However, if you simply investigate the truth of the three characteristics of the sensations that seem to be solid, you will come to the wondrous realization that reality is continually “letting go” of itself. Thus, “Let it go” means, “Don't artificially solidify a bunch of transient sensations.”

However, if you simply investigate the truth of the three characteristics of the sensations that seem to be solid, you will come to the wondrous realization that reality is continually “letting go” of itself. Thus, “Let it go” means, “Don't artificially solidify a bunch of transient sensations.”

We find ourselves making compromises to get to the good parts while giving away things we value, such as healthy boundaries, reasonable autonomy, self-respect, and our own empowerment to be competent practitioners capable of standing on our own two feet.

Remember well: we don't have to become a replica of a teacher to apply to ourselves what they teach or to learn about how to investigate reality and become great meditators and great people. We can take what is good, leave what is bad, and take responsibility for our own actions and way of being in the world.

The best meditation teachers give away their power, knowledge, and position to us as best they can. They try to transmit the dharma as powerfully as they can so that we learn what they know. They even encourage us to exceed them in knowledge. The flip side of this is that bad teachers try to retain their power and teach in a way that produces no peers or rivals to their authority and position. Even worse are the teachers that engage in spiritual bullying and who may even encourage those around them to do likewise. Oddly enough, some teachers who may be entirely qualified can paradoxically impede our progress and promote our disempowerment and dependency.

In a similar vein, those in teaching roles may personally be doing very different practices from the ones they are teaching you, and coming from a perspective that has been transformed into something very different from the one you are coming to the practice with. Sometimes people can be in places and doing practices that are very different from the one they started with or are known for (such as in a book or in a talk from their past). For example, the last time I did formal noting was probably sometime in 2001 or so, and that would have been only briefly, and the last time I practiced noting a lot was in 1996 or so. If a teacher has a profoundly transformed perception of reality and has been this way long enough, it can be difficult to relate to those who are facing the problems and issues that arise in an earlier phase of practice.

In fact, it seems to be relatively common for people far along the path to start teaching a way of practicing that makes sense if you are as far along the path as they are, but might not be anything like the practices they did to get to the point where that way of teaching and those practices and perspectives make sense or can be well integrated.

There is also a subtle (or perhaps overt) form of what I will loosely term arrogance on the part of some teachers who now teach from some impressively high perspective just to highlight what they have attained and even though the perspective they are currently teaching from wasn't one that would have remotely helped them when they were coming up in their practice. However, as this new way of perceiving reality is now at the forefront of their experiencing, it is very compelling and fascinating. Never underestimate the mind's ability to grip tightly the fruits of practice and cause serious trouble with them.

For those who teach a lot, a certain amount of burnout can set in, and this can cause them to forget to keep presenting things in a logical, straightforward, complete way, and to do this for meditator after meditator, dharma talk after dharma talk, retreat after retreat, year after year. Imagine making a professor of high-level calculus go back and teach kindergarteners to count—some can do this well, but plenty can't. This is normal human behavior, however disappointing.

For example, if I say something like, “Make tons of effort in meditation,” and you are already overpowering your practice, then you need to be able to figure out if my advice is targeted at you specifically, and, if not, take it in context and move on to other points. In other words, reach for balance and recognize that this book was written in a specific cultural context with specific assumptions that might not apply to you at all.

We all want to be special but, I beg you, find a way to be special that honors others as equally, if not more, special.

Both insight and concentration practices, done well, develop all the other six factors of mindfulness, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity.

As stated in Part One, insight practices are designed to penetrate the three illusions of permanence, satisfactoriness, and separate self, that is, to realize the truths of impermanence, dissatisfactoriness, and non-self to attain the various irreversible perceptual transformations that are in this tradition referred to as “awakening”. Insight practices (various types of vipassana, Dzogchen, zazen, etc.) lead to the progressive stages of insight, though various emphases may color how these present in relative terms. Insight practices tend to be difficult, disconcerting, and at times destabilizing, as they are designed to deconstruct our deluded and dearly held views of the world and ourselves, though they can sometimes be outrageously blissful for frustratingly short periods.

Concentration states are generally some permutation of great fun, extremely fascinating, seductive, spacious, blissful, peaceful, spectacular, addictive, etc. There is no limit to how interesting concentration practices can be. Insight stages and revelations can also be very interesting, but are not potentially addictive the way concentration states and side effects can be. Insight practices tend to be hard work most of the time even if that work is just surrendering to and perceiving sensations as they are (a fact that highlights one of the oddest tensions in the world of insight).

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