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Venerable Ajahn Sucitto -
Samadhi Is Pure Enjoyment
A talk given by Ajahn Sucitto on March 10, 1999 at
Insight Meditation Society, Barre, Massachusetts
Let’s look at the idea of
concentration, or samadhi. When you hear those four little syllables
con-cen-tra-tion, what do they imply to you? You probably can't
articulate it, but you might feel a particular set of energies start to
take over. Maybe you get a sense of doing something, working hard at it
to get it right. That's the normal take. We say to ourselves, "Samadhi.
This is a really big thing. It's not going to be a cake walk." We really
clench up, get tight, and go for it. It's intensive practice, a
"concentration" camp. No slacking allowed! With this kind of thinking,
we set up a domination tactic whereby we control the mind. We rev up the
controlling systems, the duty systems, the work systems, the
get-it-right systems. This is real Gestapo stuff when it comes right
down to it.
These tactics may work for a while, but in a few days we will start to
tire out. Something in us tightens up, hardens up. And at the same time,
something else in us is probably saying, "Ah, the hell with this." Every
now and again that voice leaks out. We want to get some enjoyment, so we
look for legitimate ways to avoid "the practice." After all, how many
people would actually like to practice all the time? Of course, the
idealistic mind says, "Yes, I'd like to commit myself to Dhamma all the
time." A little voice chirps up, "Yes sir, that's me!" But underneath
it's saying, "An evening off every now and then would be nice." So it's
important to question our perception of concentration. This Gestapo view
is not going to bring around samadhi, unification, or wholeness. If we
examine this "getting it" attitude, we can feel how destructive it is,
how it causes us to lose heart. There's no appreciation in it. We can
feel how it makes us feel stressed and critical.
I've found this myself trying to develop samadhi like this in the
monastery. I get very critical of everybody-somebody's got terrible
posture, somebody opens the door too loudly; somebody's wearing his
robes the wrong way. We get so picky and critical because our ideas
about concentration heighten our critical faculties. But this
discriminative faculty is that which separates. It leads to segregation.
Segregation then leads to unrest and rebellion. Whatever has been exiled
and rejected starts to lash back. So an experience that's intended to
result in clarity in reality causes all these hindrances to well up.
Concentration dissolves because one hasn't cultivated it in the right
way.
Instead, let's consider the way the Buddha described it. Concentration
is enjoyment. It's an enjoyment experience. He said, "For one whose body
is balanced and at ease, there's no need to set up the wish 'May I feel
happy, may I feel relaxed in myself.'" In other words, we don't need to
make any effort. If the body is in harmony and its energy is balanced,
then we will feel at ease. There is no need to set up the intention "may
I concentrate." Someone who is at ease will be naturally concentrated.
That is samadhi.
Now that doesn't seem very precise, does it? That's because it's not
precise in terms of object definition, which is where we feel most
secure. We think, "When I can feel so many breaths occurring in my
nostrils, then I'm concentrated. That's samadhi." Try looking at it in
another way. Instead of basing samadhi on an object, turn it around.
Forget about the breath for a moment. Look more at subjective qualities.
How are you feeling now? Just being here-sitting, walking, living-how
does it feel? How do changes happen for you? When do you feel happy?
When do you feel sad? When do you feel busy? When do you feel calm and
easeful? When do you feel life is just this? What's the energy like
then?
When there's something in the future that we've got to get to, there's
tension. Things start to solidify; flexibility begins to dwindle. When
there's a strong sense of self-consciousness-"I am this, I'm not that; I
wasn't that, I will be this"-then there's a tightening of one's
energies. When we defend ourselves from people, events, memories, and
feelings, when we shut things out there's tightening and stress. When we
try to perform and make ourselves into something, there's tightening and
stress. When we compare and compete, there's tightening and stress.
So we begin to contemplate these unwholesome patterns and relinquish
them. We can see how our lives work in terms of compartments. We may
compartmentalize a retreat. We set up a series of little
pockets-sitting, walking, free time, then more sitting, walking, free
time. We might say to ourselves, "I didn't get my hours of sitting in
today." Do you see what happens? Our thoughts set up zones: "This will
be like this and that will be like that. I want to know what everything
will be like so that I can be prepared for it. I'll have my cushion set
up straight and my own special walking path that nobody better take
over!" We create zones in which anything unwanted or unusual has been
weeded out. This in turn creates a very rigid feeling. When something
gets slightly out of pattern, we feel confused or upset. This is no way
to live. It's a sterile experience, like living in a laboratory.
Of course, weeds still pop up, don't they? Weeds can live just about
anywhere. They come up through cement. Weeds are the real lords of the
planet. We should want to be more like a weed, really-to accentuate the
resilience, robustness, spontaneity, "anywhereness" of the weed rather
than the precariousness of a precious orchid that can survive only in a
hothouse with sprays and special foods. After all, a weed is really just
a flower. We've simply learned to say "weed," deciding that it is
unrefined. Our perception labels it as negative just like our minds have
been trained to accept only the clinical and unreal, the sterile and
unalive, the prepackaged and filtered. Just like the cultivated orchid,
unable to survive in the wild, our immune system is weak. We can't
handle the raw stuff anymore.
But awareness can. Our training is one whereby awareness allows and
takes on conditions. When awareness hold the body, there's
embodiment-somatic presence. When awareness forms concepts, there's
applied thought. When awareness inclines towards feeling and perception,
there's resonance. When it's intention is bare reference, we call it
mindfulness, or referring to things as they are. When reference is fully
established, the settling of awareness into enjoyment is samadhi.
Awareness itself is none of these experiences; it's within all of them.
Practice is to keep introducing awareness to body, thought and mood in a
mindful way. This requires a clear commitment of intention: like being
here, like being with the body, the feeling, etc. So to encourage that
commitment, make the practice a welcoming one. Then the thinking mind
will follow along. The real trick is to find balance whereby we can
think when we want to and, when it's not time for thinking, we can rest
in an awareness of enjoyment.
This type of enjoyment is a receptive and grounded experience. When we
learn to dance or to play a piano, for example, there are different
stages. The first stage is "not conscious and incompetent"-not knowing
what to do and not being able to do it. Next is "conscious and
incompetent"-knowing what to do but still not being able to do it. At
this stage, we practice in a wooden manner, clomping around to figure
out the keys, beginner's meditation. Third is "conscious and
competent"-knowing what to do and being able to do it. We think, "I've
got it together now; I'm doing really well." Most people think this is
the pinnacle. The real pinnacle, though, is "unconscious and
competent"-that it's just happening. We don't know how we're doing it,
but it's happening anyway. We are part of a flow. In this type of
consciousness-which we can experience in certain arts, crafts, sports,
and so on-we feel what's happening. We trust it. We flow with it. We are
aware and attuned. There's no cognitive pattern saying, "Do this, do
that." It's just flowing.
This is what samadhi is like. It is competent and unconscious, or
better, beyond self-conscious effort. "Consciousness" in this context is
the discriminative activity. Eye consciousness discriminates in terms of
distance, light, and shade. It breaks things up into a description of
experience: "This tree is a foot away; that one is ten feet away."
Really, though, it's all just there. Mind consciousness discriminates
between subject and object: "That's you, and this is me. You're out
there, and I'm in here." The mind discriminates all the time. This
doesn't apply simply to what we call normal external realities. Even
when we watch the mind, there's the notion: "I'm in here, watching my
mind out there." When battling with defilements: "I'm in here, and the
defilements are out there." There's a kind of dividing line between the
two. That's consciousness. Although awareness is the core "stuff" of
consciousness, the activity of consciousness sets up that line.
As long as the line exists, there will be position-taking, nervousness,
winning, losing, etc. Since experiences are transitory, there will
always be a slight sense either of holding on to or getting rid of the
state one has attained, trying to increase it or decrease it. Samadhi
occurs when we move over that line. There's complete participation in
and enjoyment of experience. Samadhi is the release from all the
tension, the grasping, the boundary creation.
In the beginning stages of samadhi, we work within the boundaries of
experience to sift out the kamma, the patterns and habit tendencies of
past actions. We start within the boundary of the body to clean out all
its inner boundaries-the unawareness of the body, the inability to flow
with the energies of the body, the congestions in the body as an
experience-so that it is no longer cramped, tight, knotted, twisted, or
unbalanced. Once there's fullness of body, we don't have to do anything
in bodily terms, the body is at rest. Just being a body is enjoyable.
Learning the essence of the practice within the body makes use of a
safe, manageable boundary. The body is easy because it's tangible and
gross. Enjoy embodied presence-sitting, walking, standing. The body then
trains the mind to stop creating all these injunctions, controls, and
nervousness. It trains the mind to stop the ignoring and forgetfulness
and wrong seeing, to stop the conceit and shame and violence. This leads
to paÒÒa, or wisdom-that is, an understanding of the process-which in
turn brings release. Release from fear, from worry, from tension, from
ignorance.
Release is itself a graduated process. We get the mind to change its
behavior. This is something we can do only with the body because the
mind can't change itself. It needs a reference. So we focus the mind
onto something and ask, "Hmm. What is this like? Why is my breath like
this?" The breath is a good place to start in developing concentration.
Of course, we often think, "I need to adjust the breath to get it right.
There's something wrong." So we tinker with it and refine it. Fine, if
this leads to ease. But if we make elaborate concoctions or formulations
around breathing it gets to the point where we don't even want to hear
the word "breathing" anymore. Concentrating on our breathing is too
painful because it sets up too many refined conceptual criteria. We
intensify discrimination onto the object rather than suffuse it with
awareness.
We need to unravel stress. Simply notice you are breathing. Just start
to touch that. It's very simple. Watch how you receive, very consciously
connecting with the word "receive," because it's the least intense
"doing" that can occur. Bring up the reflection of just receiving your
breath. At first, perhaps your receptivity will not be very clear or
sharp or bright. Enhance the receiving; stay with it. Then ask, "What
can I receive?" Focus in terms of patterns, like knowing the difference
between the sounds and the silences when you listen to a voice. Feel the
modulations, the ins and outs and the pauses; you can pick that up quite
quickly. When you're breathing, simply receive the patterns of sensation
and allow yourself to enjoy it, to rest in it, to flow with it. "For one
who is at ease with the body there is no need to wish, 'May I be relaxed
and enjoy myself.' It is a natural thing. For one who is relaxed and at
ease, there is no need to wish, 'May my mind become concentrated.' It is
a natural thing." These are the words of the Buddha.
Flow is not a discrete object. You can't substantiate flow. It takes
getting out of the habit of substantiating things, of putting boundaries
around things that is an important relief in meditation. Things are
dynamic, things are flowing. So our response has to be dynamic and
flowing. We tend to try to find a rigid object that we can hold on to,
and we call that concentration. One might feel a certain glee from
achieving this, but it lasts for only a little while. Then it's goodbye
flow, goodbye energy, goodbye joy.
When we're contemplating the breath, we're really looking at a metaphor
for the mind. We have to look at this metaphor in the same way we'd
appreciate a poem or a painting. Look at what it signifies. Don't go up
to the canvas and hook your nose on it. Keep it at a distance where your
eye rests comfortably. That's going to be different for different
people. Your eye may rest comfortably on an object ten inches away, a
foot away, two feet away. It depends. Put it where you feel comfortable.
The idea of focusing is to settle, so focus in a way in which you feel
settled and easy, not confused or sleepy. That's the only point where
you'll actually experience a steady breath sign. This point is really in
your own mental, psychological, awareness process. It's not a physical
point.
Where do feel your energies come together? Get there. Let the breath
pass through that, time and time again. You'll find yourself neither
snagging on it nor moving away from it. You'll find yourself settling
in. Then you'll begin to experience some kind of continuing tone, which
is another metaphor. Listen in to that if it's something you experience
more as a listening. If it's tactile, feel it. If it's got an emotional
base, resonate with it. If it's visual, open to it. There is the "sign"
of meditation. The quality of that experience is beautiful. Notice the
beauty. What is this beauty? It's where the mind feels delighted,
charmed, moved. This is joy.
But we can't hold beauty. A relationship to beauty is something akin to
devotion. We don't hold it; we're aware of it in a way that's both
loving and respectful. Give yourself to it. Of course, this is something
we're not used to, so it must be done with care. This is not a reckless
experience; it's something that requires trust. Trust your body first of
all. The body is something that can be trusted much more than the mind.
And as one learns to trust, one receives the blessings of that: what is
good, what is conducive to the heart's welfare, what gives joy.
Receiving joy is another way to say enjoyment, and samadhi is the art of
refined enjoyment. It is the careful collecting of oneself to the joy of
the present moment. Joyfulness means there's no fear, no tension, no
ought to. There isn't anything we have to do about it. It's just this.
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