Here are a couple of questions regarding the AN 7.48. These are:
Are these seven perceptions meant for lay practicioners?
How can you actually develop those perceptions in our daily lifes?
Isn’t the perception of “dissatisfaction with the whole world” a form of aversion?, and if so, didn’t the Buddha advice us not to develop aversion for the world in Right Mindfulness?
That’s it; these are my questions. Sorry if they’re too many, but I don’t want to lose the chance of asking those questions, as I’m a little bit confused…
Can, but if you’re married, asubha perception would likely destroy your marriage.
Individual practise of many of them should be found elsewhere in the canon.
Pāli says more of non-delight. It’s definitely not aversion cultivation. It can be more like. Oh this is impermanent. No point delighting in it. It will be gone.
Or the ring that has the phrase “this too shall pass”. When happy, see this too shall pass. When sad, also see this too shall pass. So one doesn’t delight in happiness or sadness or even neutral feeling. There is no point in delighting to anything as they are impermanent. It carries the seed of dukkha in them. Whatever is dukkha is not self. Whatever is not self, no point cherishing them. Let go.
It is a tricky topic to navigate and to understand, especially in a language like English or in translation in general.
As I practice it - You will have to find a frequency to operate in the world where you seek no sense of external comfort or satisfaction from the world, but you also don’t hate or develop aversion for the world or for others for seeking comfort.
The practice comes from being mindful of your perceptions and their underlying views and working to overcome the wrong kind and encourage and development the right kind.
This is in line with Right Mindfulness and even supported by Right Intention (of renunciation & good will)
Thank you for this, it’s a very nuanced point, much appreciated. It’s easy enough to misunderstand the difference between aversion and dissatisfaction. I think aversion is more of an active sense of ‘pushing something away’ whereas dissatisfaction can be more of a feeling of ‘hollowness’ maybe.
And you have to be careful because that hollowness could potentially turn into aversion at a later point. So you need to acknowledge the hollowness for what it is, and the wisdom faculty will hopefully not seek refuge in it.
I differ on the use of the word “hollowness”. You have pointed the drawback of it as it can potentially turn into aversion (wrong intention) or a sense of deep nihilism (wrong view) too.
I see this perception as being part of a broader Buddhist practice at heart of which is Right Samadhi. When one is practicing towards Jhana, tranquility, peace and equanimity that is based on turning away from the world - they have a source of well being that’s not depended on external sense pleasures.
With a well developed practice of samadhi and decent mastery of the mind one tends to peace and calm. I believe that it is with this practice one can sustainably cultivate a perception of dissatisfaction with the world.
You replace your dependence on the sense pleasures of the world, with finer and more sublime states of well being.
This prevents both “aversion” & “hollowness” - and rather one tends to look at the external world or its representations with “disinterest” and “dispassion”. In other words, you look at the world less. I think that this is a safer way to practice than looking at the world with “hollowness”
Possibly. It depends on which individual perception we’re referring to and how much understanding/practice the layperson has developed.
As Venerable Paññādhammika pointed out, there are instructions in the suttas for many of them. The Visuddhimagga and contemporary Dhamma talks are also good sources. A lot of it comes down to reflection, contemplation, introspection, discovery, inquiry, examination, etc. Finding what works for oneself is a process of ongoing refinement.
When I mentioned hollowness, I didn’t meannihilism. I’m not sure I’ll be able to fully explain, what I meant.
I guess it’s a sense of deflation or perhaps disappointment or even a sense of ‘why did I even think that, that was a good idea to do or pursue’. Or even ‘that was a total waste of time’.
I guess I used the word ‘hollowness’ because there was another thread here recently, where I participated and we spoke of the ‘hollowness’ of worldly things/pursuits, as in the famous Lump of foam sutta. So more of a sense of emptiness (hollowness), rather than ‘nihilism’.
Are these seven perceptions meant for lay practicioners?
Yes. This is part of how one begins to break down our ignorance and the ways we misunderstand “the world” (our fathom long bodies).
How can you actually develop those perceptions in our daily lifes?
One way is to understand that we’ve been operating our entire lives with wrong assumptions. For example, we’ve been clinging to the five aggregates and our consciousness is mistaken in that in each of those is associated with a self: I, me, mine.
Isn’t the perception of “dissatisfaction with the whole world” a form of aversion?, and if so, didn’t the Buddha advise us not to develop aversion for the world in Right Mindfulness?
As it dawns on us that our minds have been operating on entirely wrong assumptions, we begin to train our minds to operate in Right View. We start to understand that clinging to the aggregates brings us dukkha so we learn to think via our burgeoning wisdom to let go. We don’t have aversion to the world as in hatred, it’s more that we are disenchanted, we see the downside and danger of living that way so we drop it like a red hot iron rod. Right Mindfulness is crucial, yet only part of the path.
Yes, every discourse (dhamma pariyāya) of the Buddha is knowledge path to Nibbana. Therefore, the practice (i.e. developing the Noble Eight Fold Path) is both for a lay person as well as for someone who has gone forth. However, as a lay person, you will come to realize the obstacles and the limitations of being able to stay within the Noble Eight Fold Path. (for example, not having Right Livelihood - touching money, not sustaining life only on what is offered, etc.) and therefore the inability to destroy cankers (and become an arahat). But a lay person can develop the path even to a level of a Non-Returner.
The best way for a lay person to develop the Noble Eight Fold Path is during the meditation time. Perception of death helps a lot here. When you sit to meditate, you are not anyone but only a person meditating. And using perception of death, come to agreement that in the next moment I could die (it’s a possibility, right?). That I might not live to get up from this meditation. So all the labels we have such as I’m a famer, I’m a doctor, engineer, etc. do not matter if I’m dying. (i.e. if I give up farming I don’t need to be born for that). So while staying in the present moment only, contemplate on each perception in the order that the Buddha gave.
Best way to develop asubhasaññā is to contemplate on the 32 parts of the body and contemplate on the wrong perception we have. For example, take head hair (kesā) - how we treat it comb it and care of it or take as beauty seeing on a person. That same hair when it is on my dinner plate how it disgusts me. So then which perception is correct? If’s disgusting when it was on the dinner plate why do I think of it as beauty when it’s on a person. Like this, go through all 32 parts of the body the same way. This way you are removing the perversion (vipallāsa) that there is beauty in what is foul. When your mind is concentrated thus, you need to contemplate on the arising and passing away phenomena. This is the most important part of a Buddhist meditation. (samudayadhammānupassī vā kāyasmiṁ viharati, vayadhammānupassī vā kāyasmiṁ viharati - Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasutta). The best way to practice this is per SN 22.5 Concentration sutta. Contemplate on that dhamma and ask your self, do I seek delight in such form? Welcome it? Remain holding to it? (you should see that you did/do.) The delight in form is clinging. With clinging as a condition, existence. With existence as a condition, birth. With birth as a condition, aging sickness, death, the whole mass of suffering come to arise. (i.e. this is how you came into this birth). Then contemplate on the passing away phenomena - if one were to not seek delight in such form, does not welcome it, does not remain holding to it, ask yourself would there be delight in it? With the cessation of delight come cessation of clinging.. etc. all the way to the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.
When contemplating on perception of death, in addition to above mentioned point about death, a good effective way is to contemplate on birth, aging, sickness and death. See the suffering nature in birth - where ever that birth may be (hell all the way to the brahma worlds - contemplate that even the one person in the 8th jhana dies and that 84-thousand great eons are like a split second compared to how long we have roamed in this samsara). Look at your own life as an example both up to now and a single day in life. Go slowly expanding moments we ignore. See the nature of suffering. Then go to ageing. (here you need to see the ageing of you yourself not just an old person). Sickness and finally Death (i.e. we do all this to get to this end). Imagine you are dead and compare the body to a dead body and let it sit there for a few days. Contemplate on the disgusting nature of that body as it decays. Then when your mind is concentrated, again contemplate on the arising and passing away phenomena per above. (we have been seeking delight in such a form - it’s like we have been searching for death in this samsara)
You can contemplate on āhāre paṭikūlasaññā (repulsiveness of food) by thinking about what happens to the food we eat. A lucky moment to investigate this is vomit. See if you are willing to contact vomit using the five senses. (i.e. ask yourself, do I like to see vomit? hear? smell? taste? touch?) When all five senses reject it, so does the mind. But where is this disgusting thing now? Inside our bodies. When this mind is concentrated, again apply the arising and passing away meditation. Note: You’ll also see these meditations recursively help one another. When you do the Asubhasaññā meditation the next time, you will be able to think about the 32 body parts made up of what was absorbed (nutrition) from this vomit.
To contemplate on sabbaloke anabhiratasaññā (dissatisfaction in the whole world) you need to contemplate like in the Girimananda Sutta (ye loke upādānā cetaso adhiṭṭhānābhinivesānusayā, te pajahanto viharati anupādiyanto) where you have to contemplate on the four clingings (upadana), mental standpoints (adhiṭṭhāna - contemplate on four floods for this), adherences (abhinivesa), and underlying tendencies (anusaya). There is a Haliddakani Sutta based lecture to learn how to meditation on adherences.
Rest of the perceptions get even deeper building on knowledge from previous. Perception of impermanence can be done again per the SN 22.5 Concentration sutta by investigating the arising and passing away phenomena of the five aggregates.
When doing any Buddhist meditation, by contemplating on the dhamma, investigating dhamma, the dependent-origination nature (arising, passing away), and if you are doing it the way the Buddha said, you will only develop the 37 Factors of Enlightenment.
For a lay person, by looking at this dhamma and meditating this way, by seeing the truth that the Buddha expounded through your own life examples, your “view” gets straightened and the Right View develops. When the Right View develops, it helps during the other times of the day in day-to-day life when you are not meditating. The mindfulness stands reminding you if you take anything outside of Nibbana, the result is Suffering. That mindfulness helps, allowing you to still do what you need to do as a lay person but prevent as much as you can that is against the path.
This is just per my own experience after learning and contemplating on the Buddha’s teaching thanks to my dhamma teacher. If you find you are progressing by meditating this way (See AN7.49), you can find a lot of meditations here.
