On the Cushion

As we enter the Autumn season, we contemplate landscapes that remind us that we, as part of nature are shedding the Summer season to make room for Winter, inevitably giving way to renewal and light. We reflect together on what can empower the mind in its journey toward illumination, “enlightenment.” One group of factors given prominence in the Buddha’s discourses on the thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment is the Five Spiritual Faculties: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom.

This waking life is like a dream. If we know we’re dreaming, will we hold on to the people in the dream? get upset about how we feel or that we lost something in that dream? Son to Mom: “Pretend you are surrounded by monsters and they are all coming at you. You’re really frightened. You think they’re going to attack you. What would you do?” Mom: “I don’t know—What would you do?” Son: “Stop pretending!”

The Buddha said “In whatever way [we] conceive, the truth is ever other than that.” Does that shake you up? Remember that more often than not, we’re in a state of delusion. We don’t see things as they truly are, but through the lens of habits acquired over a lifetime. In response to painful reaction, we form views of ourselves and others as a way to steady ourselves through uncontrollable change.

We have been reflecting on the teaching of not-self, exploring personal experience through the five aggregates—Form, Feeling, Perception, Mental Formations and Consciousness.

In the same way that consciousness and sense impressions are two aspects of one experience, consciousness receives stimulus, from which arises what the Buddha named as the second of the five aggregates—feeling (not emotions, but in the meditative context, the quality or tone of pleasantness, unpleasantness, or neutrality arising in every moment of experience).

Doubt is the fifth hindrance or difficult energy that we encounter in practice and life. We know when it arrives as a hindrance: the mind says, "What am I doing here? Does this mindfulness stuff really work?” “I can’t do this—others are sitting still like Buddhas, not me; maybe belly dancing would be better.” With fear and resistance, the mind flickers, is indecisive. What makes doubt particularly insidious is that it saps our energy—we stop looking and the light seemingly goes out of practice.

Continuing our conversation from last week, the notion of the insubstantiality of what we call self is unique to the Buddha’s teaching. Under investigation, the components of what we call “self” are distinct and constantly changing. It is impossible to point to a solid unchanging entity. It’s not to believe that you don’t exist—rather, to understand the constant flux of existence. It is this possibility of change that we entertain every time we meditate.

Importantly, development of the Wisdom aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path is grounded in seeing the ephemeral nature of what we call “self.” The Enlightenment Factor of Investigation helps us in this endeavor. When we actually investigate the components of self, what we find instead are 5 Aggregates—(“aggregate” is translated from an everyday term in Pali—kandha. The closest literal translation for kandha is “heap” or “bundle)—5 “heaps” or components of being—form, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness.

A common misapprehension about meditation is that its aim is to attain a peaceful uninterrupted state of bliss and luminosity. When we meditate, especially in initial stages of practice, what we often experience are emotions that may feel unbearable, or even wrong. Instead of bliss and light, we may encounter restlessness, aversion, low energy and difficult emotions. These may arise with physical manifestations—tightened throat or heart, burning sensations, shallow breathing.... It may feel natural to want to constrain, suppress, stop these all too familiar marks of our fear, anxiety, yes, imperfection.

The gift of mindfulness practice is that in any moment of anxiety or fear, we are called to open our hearts, to know we have the courage to be with even our deepest, darkest fears. An old Hasidic story says that the teachings are placed on, not in, our hearts, so that when the heart breaks, the teachings fall in. We hear, reflect on and put into practice, the teachings, so that in the turmoil of anxiety and fear loving awareness, into which we train our hearts, is our response—trusting that loving, compassionate, peaceful presence is what is most healing in the experience of the broken, anxious or fearful heart.