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

by Daniel M. Ingram

There is an apparent paradox here relating to effort and surrender. In many ways this paradox is at the heart of the spiritual life. There is much advice available on this point, but in terms of insight meditation practice I would say that if, when meditating, you can perceive the arising and passing of phenomena clearly and consistently, that is enough effort, so allow this to show itself naturally and surrender to it. If not, or if you are lost in stories, then some teachings in subsequent chapters of this book may help. Part of your job is to figure out how gentle you can be while still perceiving things extremely clearly. Th...

One more little carrot: it is rightly said that to deeply understand any two of the characteristics simultaneously is to understand the third, and this understanding is enough to cause immediate first awakening.

As the balance of energy and concentration matures, it may feel, strangely, that there is little energy or much concentration. Things may be perceived clearly and with very little effort. Experience may seem quite spacious and inclusive rather than narrowly focused and concentrated. These surprise many people, and they may cling to a less mature phase of developing concentration, which feels narrow and tight, and the less mature phase of developing energy, which feels effortful. When energy and concentration mature, the feel is spacious and easy, natural and clear, gentle and broad, rich and subtle, all at once. Everything is just showing itself all the way through on its own.

When energy and concentration come online without mindfulness being strong enough, the mind may be prone to getting caught in obsessive thinking fueled by the strong energy and concentration, so watch for this and generally stay grounded in physical objects, such as the feet and the breath, until some more skill is developed. This is particularly common a few days into a retreat.

Mindfulness means being very clear about our human, mammalian reality as it is. It is about being here now. Truth is found in the ordinary sensations that make up our experience. If we are not mindful of them or reject them because we are looking for “progress”, “depth”, or “transcendence”, we will be unable to appreciate what they have to teach, and be unable to do insight practices.

mindfulness can be very useful in sorting out which sensations are mental and which are physical.

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?”

Noting is the exercise that gained for me the most breaks and insights in my early practice, particularly when done on retreats, and because of that my enthusiasm for it is extreme. I still consider it the core foundation of my early to middle practice, the technique that I fell back on when things turned difficult or when I really wanted to push deep into new insight territory. Thus, of all the techniques and emphases I mention in this book, take this one the most seriously and give it the most attention. Its simplicity belies its astonishing power.

Noting should be as consistent and continuous as possible, perhaps one to five times per second (speed and an ability to keep noting no matter what arises are very important).

Anything that derails your noting practice deserves fearless noting the next time it arises.

A meditator who doesn't get this might get all stressed about their mind wandering. 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. You can note them again and again if they tend to linger, and that noting of those qualities is solid insight practice. Yay, noting! In this way, we gradually transform the hindrances from an impediment to practice into a reason to practice, then we transform them into an integral part of the practice itself, and finally we find them as much a basis of wisdom as anything else.

If you are frying yourself on the path of insight, as evidenced by becoming uptight, wound up, reactive, cranky, angry, frustrated, edgy, or nervous, then it is time to ease up, back off, learn concentration practices, do some loving-kindness or similar practices (described later), and cultivate the skillful aspects of the last three factors and perhaps a bit more rapture in the “stop and smell the roses” sense. Many hardcore meditators will ignore this piece of advice to their detriment, assuming it is only by being plugged into 100,000 volts and flipping on the big switch that anything good will ever happen. Numerous points along the way should help elucidate how to find this balance and the markers of progress versus being stuck.

The basic gist of this truth from a relative point of view is that we want things to be other than they are, and this causes pain.

At the most fundamental level, which is the most useful for doing insight practices, at some habitual level, we wish desperately that there was some separate, permanent self, and we spend huge amounts of time doing our best to prop up this illusion.

More than just motivating for spiritual practice, tuning in to suffering is spiritual practice! Many people start meditating and then get frustrated with how much suffering and pain they experience, never knowing that they are starting to understand something important about themselves and reality.

From a relative perspective, we hang on to what is pleasurable and try to avoid or push away what interrupts that pleasure.

Even very accomplished and transformed beings can benefit from mastering the concentration states.

Mental sensations tend to trap us in content and stories, as anyone who has ever tried to meditate knows all too well. The more mental sensations we include in our practice, the more we will encounter our emotional and psychological stuff. This can be a mixed blessing. If our practice is very strong, we can enter mental and emotional territory and yet still see the true nature of all the sensations that make it up. Doing so can truly be transformative in good ways. If our practice is not very strong, we will be swept away, lost in the habitual patterns of thinking associated with our “stuff”.

The advantage of a broad field of attention is that less effort is required for staying focused and we can thus be more present to whatever arises naturally.

We may pick practices that feel good to us precisely because they don't strike too close to home, don't allow us to clearly investigate the unsettling truths of impermanence, suffering, and no-self, and don't strike at our sense of solid identity in a way that really cuts to the bone.

The best time to meditate is any time you can. The best place to meditate is wherever you can, and the best duration is for as long as possible or necessary for you to get what you wish out of it.

If you have two hours each day for meditation, great. If you have two jobs, six kids, and just can't find more than five minutes each day for meditation, make good use of what you've got. There have been times in my life when I was very grateful that I had twenty hours a day to practice. On the other hand, when I have only had ten minutes a day for formal practice, I have been grateful for the sense of how precious those ten minutes were. Skillful urgency and well-developed gratitude for a chance to practice at all can allow us to really use limited stretches of time to their fullest.

The same basic conversational pattern could be repeated just as easily for the other two trainings. For instance, you could ask a meditation teacher, “I wish to learn how to get into the early concentration states. Do you know how to do this?” You could also ask, “I wish to attain to the first stage of enlightenment. Do you know how to do this?” If they say, “Yes,” the next question would be, “Would you be willing to guide me in those steps, please?”

I know of no obvious benefits from slow practice that fails to gain some footholds in the territory of concentration or insight.

If you have a question, the answer is in the three characteristics.

three fundamental trainings of morality, concentration, and wisdom,

three characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and no-self,

If we would just go into finely discerned sensate reality and try to see the three characteristics of each sensation that makes up experience, we might begin to understand reality at a level that makes the difference.

After some days of consistent and diligent practice using correct technique, I began to directly penetrate the three illusions of permanence, satisfactoriness, and self, and my world began to be broken down into the mind-moments and vibrations that I always thought were just talk. By paying careful attention to bare phenomena arising and passing moment after quick moment, I progressively moved through the stages of insight and got my first taste of awakening. Thus, if you spin in content and don't realize the three characteristics, you are wasting your time and mine. This is just the way it is. If you develop strong concentration on the primary object and investigate the three characteristics consistently, this will almost certainly produce insight. This is just the way it is. Any questions?”

Another quick digression here: a dangerous notion that pervades many spiritual circles is that it is bad to want to awaken, and that no discipline, effort, or application of a technique could produce awakening.

There are only three doors, that's how. I don't care what tradition you subscribe to, what practice you do, or who you are, there are only three basic ways to enter the attainment of fruition, nirvana, nibbana, or whatever you want to call it. These doors relate directly to profound and direct realization of the three characteristics of impermanence, dissatisfactoriness, and no-self, and you must understand the heck out of these to join the ranks of the awakened ones.

For instance, we could wish to become awakened. This is a purely future-oriented goal. We could also wish to understand the true nature of the sensations that make up our world so clearly that we become awakened. This adds a present component and makes the whole enterprise much more reasonable and workable. We could simply wish to understand deeply the true nature of the sensations that make up our world as they naturally arise and vanish in that practice session or throughout that day. This is a very immediate and present-oriented goal, and a very fine one indeed.

Stay present-oriented whenever possible, and always avoid purely future-oriented or results-oriented goals!

It is also worth keeping in the front of your mind the three characteristics, the most profound and important of which is no-self, meaning that all phenomena occur interdependently, causally, naturally, and lawfully.

Return to this paragraph when you feel you are frying yourself and read it a bunch of times to help it sink in as, strangely, this very easy and natural message can be a hard one to really integrate.

Those familiar with cognitive restructuring will notice great similarities between this approximately 2,500-year-old approach and more contemporary techniques. These can help develop morality and attenuate the hindrances that cause distraction and poor concentration, as well as begin to create better mental and personal habits. However, this can have its problems if not understood in a realistic and clear way.

When we have lots of concentration but not as much insight, things are more smooth and enjoyable and/or peaceful. When we have more insight without as much concentration, things are vibrational and analytical but often less pleasant. When both are present strongly, our practice may be both enjoyable and analytical and vibrational. When we have neither much concentration nor much insight, our minds are as they typically are.

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 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.

All the concentration states strengthen, stabilize, steady, and calm the mind, and this has four primary benefits. First, just as a video camera that is shaking wildly cannot produce a clearly visible video, so a mind that can't remain settled on an object will not clearly perceive its ultimate truth.

Second, as concentration states cultivate deep clarity and stability on content, albeit very refined content, they are very useful for promoting deep healing and psychological insights. In other words, if you want to become aware of your stuff, do concentration practices, particularly with a focus on mental objects such as mantras rather than physical ones such as the breath, not that breath-based meditations can't also bring up our psychological issues.

For example, one person might feel a bit of bliss and rapture arise in their abdomen for a few minutes and correctly identify those as being second jhanic elements, and thus say, “I was in the second jhana.” Another practitioner might feel massive amounts of rapture and bliss pervading their body, see a strong white light beaming towards them, and sit in that state effortlessly for two hours, which is also second jhana, but clearly a very different level of that same jhana.

The first shamatha jhana arises after the practitioner has gained the ability to steady the mind on some object, that is, after a state called “access concentration”, meaning the level of concentration needed to access the first jhana or insight stage.

When you can do this, try for ten minutes. When you can do this, try for an hour. For instance, if you were using the breath as an object, try to be aware of every single breath at least in part for a full ten minutes, and then for an hour. This is possible, and a reasonable goal. Try not to pay too much attention to the individual sensations themselves, but conceptualize the breath as a coherent and continuous entity, with many different types of sensations all being thought of as being the breath. It is important to know that really getting into a sense of the breath as a continuous entity for ten seconds will do you more good than being with the breath on and off for an hour.

Merely concentrating is not necessarily sufficient to get us into jhana, though it helps and may cause it to arise naturally; but for some it takes inclination in the direction of jhana, intending to go that way, so knowing the general qualities you are looking for helps with that inclination.

Harbor no guilt, anxiety, or fear related to the depths of pleasure, ease, and well-being. The spiritual life need not be a relentless, austere grind, particularly when doing concentration practices.

From the first jhana there are basically three things a meditator can do: 1) get stuck there (I know someone who spent some twenty years cultivating the first jhana in daily practice, thinking that was insight practice); 2) progress to the second jhana; or 3) investigate the three characteristics of the first jhana and thus progress in insight. They can direct their attention to breaking the illusion of the solidity of that state into its component individual sensations so as to gain insight into their actual mode of momentary presentation.

Mind-generated objects, such as visualizations, that in a well-developed visual-based first jhana are relatively stable, may now begin to move (spin, pulse, resonate, shimmer, subtly flux, or something similar) in the second jhana in ways that correlate with the phase of the breath, moving slowly towards the top and bottom of the breath and more quickly in the middle. This fine movement may be subtle to some and very obvious to others. Mantras may suddenly seem to be repeating themselves. The breath suddenly is noticeably breathing itself and there is something that feels great about that. This more insight-related aspect of change (impermanence) will not be noticed by everyone, but if you do notice it, that is very second jhana. Objects can also seem very steady, very stable, and yet still have that welling-up, on-their-own quality.

It is no wonder that people can easily mistake these jhanic states for enlightenment, as they can seem to fit some imprecise descriptions of what enlightenment might be like. Remember that enlightenment is not a mind state, nor is it dependent on any condition of reality. It does not come and go as these states do.

Let's say you used a visualization of a deity to get there: in the fourth jhana the image of the deity can become fully three-dimensional, have an astounding degree of detail, and take on a life of its own, becoming living, luminous, and translucent, with a level of vividness that can be astounding, like the best computer graphics found in high-budget movies and TV shows. The space in which the entities arise generally gets much larger, more boundless, wide open, and panoramic. If you used the quality of space itself to get to this jhana or take the spacious element as object while in the jhana, the vast boundlessness of this state may be the predominant quality regardless of what forms remain in that space.