SuttaCentral
Indeed, but if one attends to a general phenomenon which covers all others, then one attends indirectly to them all.
That type of equanimity needs a lot of work, as you described, because as you say, if you stop, your mind gets caught up in particulars and that equanimity is gone.
So what is the equanimity which requires no maintenance?
What is the equanimity, once accessed and understood requires no technique for its presence?
Also, the very fact that one has to do something about what is disturbing one, reveals that one is disturbed, and then on the bases of that disturbance one tries to build equanimity. Which means as soon as the disturbance is gone, so will that type of equanimity. That type of equanimity relies on suffering as its base. It relies on non-equanimity and so by doing a technique based on that shows that one is actually rooted in being unequanimous.
Upekkha is something entirely different, it doesnāt need a maintenance technique, because it is the result of understanding the Nature of things i.e the structural principle on which everything is.
By fully having developed the knowledge and understanding of the paticcasamupada principle, one need not resort to any techniques or meditation methods, because whatever has the nature to arise, to āISā, will have to arise on the bases of that principle āwith THIS, _this _ isā.
And that principle reveals what upekkha is because itās nature is that.
Whatever arises, arises on the bases of a completely indifferent structure, seeing/knowing that structure is abiding in it, so to speak.
Whatever arises has the nature to cease, one does not even have to see something cease then, to know its nature, or to be free from it.
Abiding in/from that right point of view means that one abides in upekkha, and so it doesnāt matter what will arise or has arisen because it will have to manifest on the bases of indifference/upekkha, which means no meditation technique is necessary.
Iām really enjoying this thread, but wearing the Moderator hat, I thought it would be useful to just remind everyone of the Guidelines.
This thread has morphed into a more serious practice thread, from the initial āchallengeā, which doesnāt quite fit into any category on this forum. Usually for serious Discussions, EBTās are used as the source of authority, rather than personal opinions. This is to clearly reflect the aims of this forum as opposed to other more general Buddhist forums.
If there is a desire/momentum to keep this thread going, could I suggest we move it into the Discussion category, and continue in that way?
Metta
Hmm. Much of what you wrote actually matches my experience, especially about āwithout conceiving themā.
I have really bad eyesight and see much slower than other people. This means that if you throw a ball at me the ball will hit me in the face before I conceive it as a ball. I sense a rapid approach and can duck, but all the conceiving doesnāt happen quickly. So my experience is a āsuccession of contacts from coarse to fineā over several long seconds:
And that was suffering. By letting go of all the conceiving I just duck now or say ouch.
AN6.61 and DN33 have both helped me suffer less by restraining and letting go of conceiving.
Hey no fair!
Iām still practicing and defusing my delight minefield. Maybe later we can party. 
Yes. I understand this as a concept.
I also understand that there are no shortcuts and that I have to do the practice and do the work. Because if I cannot live the truth it is not the truth. I am too good at fooling myself.
Sure, if moving it is possible.
Ghana sanna also refers to ānot having namarupa paricceda nÄna [commentarial term but EBT in meaning], in which the consolidated experience of the conventional world is separated into rupa (form) and feelings, perception and mental fabrications like intention, etc. This of course leads to dismantling self-view.
Ending of contact happens with Cessation:
Reverends, the Buddha gave this brief summary, then entered his dwelling without explaining the meaning in detail: āSo you should understand that dimension where the eye ceases and perception of sights fades away. You should understand that dimension where the ear ā¦ nose ā¦ tongue ā¦ body ā¦ mind ceases and perception of thoughts fades away.ā And this is how I understand the detailed meaning of this summary. The Buddha was referring to the cessation of the six sense fields when he said: āSo you should understand that dimension where the eye ceases and perception of sights fades away. You should understand that dimension where the ear ā¦ nose ā¦ tongue ā¦ body ā¦ mind ceases and perception of thoughts fades away.ā The Buddha gave this brief summary, then entered his dwelling without explaining the meaning in detail. And this is how I understand the detailed meaning of this summary. If you wish, you may go to the Buddha and ask him about this. SuttaCentral
You should understand that dimension where the ear ā¦ nose ā¦ tongue ā¦ body ā¦ mind ceases and perception of thoughts fades away.ā
Is same as:
There is that sphere, monks, where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air, no sphere of infinite space, no sphere of infinite consciousness, no sphere of nothingness, no sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, no this world, no world beyond, neither Moon nor Sun. There, monks, I say there is surely no coming, no going, no persisting, no passing away, no rebirth It is quite without support, unmoving, without an object,ājust this is the end of suffering.ā SuttaCentral
Which descriptions please? What is an ariyasavaka, compared to a sotapanna, sakadagami, anagami , or arahant?
Iām sure this is an impediment to practice, another manifestation of concern with I, me and mine.
I am feeling an unpleasant feeling. There is tingling in my arms and legs, especially in my arms. In my arms it is so intense that it is moving into tension and this tension is spreading across my chest and up into my neck. In my neck this unpleasant feeling of tension is changing from tension to physical pain. One of the tendons is so tight and painful that it is amplifying the pulse above it on the left back of my skull. The level of unpleasantness has increased a lot. My thinking minds springs into action and asks, āWhy?ā My reflecting mind answers, āIām anxiousā. More/new unpleasant feeling. āIām anxious about moving home.ā More/new unpleasant feeling now. My judging mind jumps in and says, āYou shouldnāt be anxious; anxiety is bad.ā More unpleasant feelings arise. I realise that the steady increase in unpleasant feeling isnāt a single feeling and it isnāt a series of feelingS (English grammar isnāt equipped to help out here); itās a sort of shifting of intensity, a sort of flux. I realise that the questions and answers that came up in my mind are just mind objects, that one prompted the next, that they are all prompted by that unpleasant feeling.
That was a useful exercise. I didnāt need to consciously avoid sutta references, but I did consciously avoid inserting terms like anicca, formation/volition and anatta. I think this avoidance stopped me shutting down on the experience in order to interpret it and kept me open to the present.
Doing this exercise reminded me of (and was probably in part conditioned by) this that I read yesterday:
Iāve only read the first half dozen replies so far; I look forward to reading the rest of this thread soon/later.
Ariyasavaka is the general term for a noble disciple, or one who practises right meditation etc
More specifically its either sotapanna, sakadagami, anagami, or arahant.
Great to read your description.
The benefits of having a written down description or a recorded one is that you can go back and see just what you are thinking i.e are your thoughts actually in line with the Buddhaās, so to speak? Are there any contradictions? Could you be even more accurate in your description? Does your description lead you onwards āopanayikaā? What have you understood and does it make a difference?
Itās useful in so far as it shows you the state of your wrong views, for by seeing what is wrong, then what is right can be developed. Of course, this will only work for an authentic person i.e somehow who admits that they are subject to suffering and so not do not have the right view.
One who knows he is a fool, to that extent is wise.
If you think you are right when you are not, there will be no progress for you. Itās best to look carefully and if you notice that you still have the āpossibility of sufferingā then you need to go deeper and work harderā¦you cannot lose with that approach, even if you think that you already have right view.
Having read your entire description, I am left with wondering if you are aware of the difference between feeling and perceiving?
I canāt quite tell.
I certainly canāt tell: so there are two of us in the dark on this matter! I am very much aware that I am emeshed in suffering.
If you asked me what I think the difference is between feelings and perceptions, I would say that perceptions are what we make of what we become aware of (or how the mind interprets these sensory events) through the six sense doors (and thus may be physical, emotional, and/or cognitive in contemporary parlance), and that feeling is the affective tone (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) that accompanies these perceptions. The English languagedoesnāt, as far as I can see, allow us to express this tone without objectifying it to some degree; doing that allows for the production of new perceptions. Possibly, in your terms, moving from the background to the foreground.
May I ask you in return what your purpose in suggesting this challenge (I prefer not to think of it as a competition) has been?
Do you know of any particular sutta texts that expound on the observation of vedanÄ?
MN10
āvedanÄsu vedanÄnupassÄ« viharati ÄtÄpÄ« sampajÄno satimÄ, vineyya loke abhijjhÄdomanassaį¹ā
āHere, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu dwells as an observer of feeling within feeling, ardent aware, mindful, having removed covetousness-&-grief in regards to the world.ā
The observing of feeling is the thought about feeling, " I feel unpleasant etc";
āWithin feelingā is the knowledge of the background where feeling is.
In other words, because one thinks āI feel unpleasantā, one can know that that is what ones ābackground/situation as a wholeā is.
The thought is not the feeling, and there would be no thought about feeling if the feeling was not there already arisen.
āThe thought about feeling is, the feeling isā
One can think about feeling while being aware of feeling simultaneously;
And if one can do this type of mindfulness, one doesnāt even have to be to specific in regards to what type of feeling there isā¦
_ "Or else there is the presence of mindfulness that āThere is feelingā to the extent necessary for the purpose of reflexive knowledge and he dwells independent and does not assume anything in the world. In this way, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu dwells contemplating feeling within feeling_ ".
My purpose, I suppose is to highlight the difference between abstract thinking and āconcreteā thinking( thinking which is connected to the presently arisen thing that you are thinking about). That concrete thinking is vitakkavicara which can reveal what yoniso manasikara means.
I donāt really like the word āconcreteā but itās in this case, synonymous with vitakkavicÄra, as opposed to abstract thinking- vicikicchati which is a hindrance.
I think that a good way to reveal this essential difference, here, is to get others to write first-person descriptions and
By getting others to participate in the thread the difference could be highlighted, also my other intention was to exercise my own seeing of the differenceā¦which was essentially the primary motivating factor.
My purpose then was to exercise my own understanding by way of getting others to describe theirs.
Hi Venerable, I am trying to get my head around the above. Can you say some more or give some examples please?
I thought the background was synonymous with general, and foreground with particular. Doesnāt the āgeneralā become āparticularā when it is in the āforegroundā or being āattendedā to?
Maybe an explanation of the four terms would help.
I could either attend(foreground) to a low level phenomenon or a high level phenomenon,eg this cup of tea, this body, perception, feeling,perception and feeling, mind, infinite consciousness, cessation of perception and feeling, me-walking OR me-walking-on-this-road OR me-walking-on-this-road-in-srilanka-on-this-planet-in-this-universeā¦etc
I can attend(foreground) to either a more particular phenomenon or more general phenomenon, but either way that which I attend will have a background because of which that attention is possible.
Thus the content of foreground or background can change, but the structure remains the same I.e the background is more primordial, āmore higherā, whereas the foreground is secondary.
I can only perceive this or that because this or that is already there to be perceived.
I can only attend various things if those various things are already there in the background etc
I really found Ajahn Sumedhoās teaching on Awareness very helpful, regarding the ability to observe different things background/foreground, expand and constrict view and awareness, depending on what one is working upon
This is one example. The writings are also excellent.
MN10 is the classic go-to for reference tho the second foundation of mindfulness and your quote is from the introduction. Later in the sutta The Buddha expands this in terms of pleasant/unpleasant/neutral feelings that are material or spiritual (= 6 possibilities as tabulated by AnÄlayo in The Direct Path), and then wraps up the section with
33.2 They meditate observing feelings as liable to originate, as liable to vanish, and as liable to both originate and vanish.
samudayadhammÄnupassÄ« vÄ vedanÄsu viharati, vayadhammÄnupassÄ« vÄvedanÄsu viharati, samudayavayadhammÄnupassÄ« vÄ vedanÄsu viharati.
33.3 Or mindfulness is established that feelings exist,
āAtthi vedanÄāti vÄ panassa sati paccupaį¹į¹hitÄ hoti.
33.4 to the extent necessary for knowledge and mindfulness. They meditate independent, not grasping at anything in the world.
YÄvadeva ƱÄį¹amattÄya paį¹issatimattÄya anissito ca viharati, na ca kiƱciloke upÄdiyati.
33.5 Thatās how a mendicant meditates by observing an aspect of feelings.
Your final paragraph is Iād like to ask how this relates to the awareness of foreground and background? I think it is your interpretation of 33.3-33.4?
The foreground-background awareness a really interest distinction; does it come up anywhere else in the suttas? In more detail?
One knows that Feeling is there, regardless of what you think, do or perceive. It is there without your assistance, you are not needed for it; you can only know it because it is already there to be known, it is independent of you and you can never have it even if you wanted to.
You can think(foreground) I feel pleasure, because pleasurable feeling is there (background).
Itās the description of Dependent origination principal/paticcasamupada, āwith this, this isā ( when the background is, it determines the foreground or when the foreground is, it determines the background), and this principle is pretty much everywhere. The detailed paticcasamupada formulation is just the different ways one can understand the principleā¦
I.e. ,
Avijjapaccaya, bhikkhave, saį¹
khÄrÄ;saį¹
khÄrapaccayÄ( determines ) viƱƱÄį¹aį¹; viƱƱÄį¹apaccayÄnÄmarÅ«paį¹; nÄmarÅ«papaccayÄ saįø·Äyatanaį¹;saįø·ÄyatanapaccayÄ phasso; phassapaccayÄ vedanÄ;vedanÄpaccayÄ taį¹hÄ; taį¹hÄpaccayÄ upÄdÄnaį¹;upÄdÄnapaccayÄ bhavo; bhavapaccayÄ jÄti;jÄtipaccayÄ jarÄmaraį¹aį¹sokaparidevadukkhadomanassupÄyÄsÄ sambhavanti.Evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassasamudayo hoti. Ayaį¹ vuccati, bhikkhave,paį¹iccasamuppÄdoSn12.1
Then, bhikkhus, for the Bodhisattva VipassÄ«, who had gone to his dwelling, gone into solitude, in seclusion, this reflection arose in his mind: āIndeed, the world has entered into misery: one is born, ages, dies, passes away and is reborn. And yet one does not understand the escape from this suffering. Oh, when will the escape from this suffering be seen?ā Then, bhikkhus, for the Bodhisattva VipassÄ« there was this: āWhen there is what is there ageing-&-death, with the support of what, ageing-&-death?ā Then, bhikkhus, for the Bodhisattva VipassÄ«, because of attention from the origin, (yoniso manasikara) there was a breakthrough in understanding: āWhen there is birth ( foreground ) there is ageing-&-death ( background), with the support of birth, ageing-&-death.ā Then, bhikkhus, for the Bodhisattva VipassÄ« there was this: āWhen there is what is there birthā¦beingā¦ assumingā¦cravingā¦feelingā¦contactā¦ the six domainsā¦name-&-matteerā¦consciousness, with the support of what is there consciousness?ā Then, bhikkhus, for the Bodhisattva VipassÄ«, because of attention from the origin, there was a breakthrough in understanding: āWhen there is name-&-matter there is consciousness, with the support of name-&-matter, consciousness.ā Then, bhikkhus, for the Bodhisattva VipassÄ« there was this: āThis consciousness keeps coming back because of name-&-matter, it goes no further. In this way one can be born, one can age, one can die, one can pass away or one can be reborn, that is: with the support of name-&-matter, consciousness. With the support of consciousness, name-&-matterā¦" DN10
A demonstration of the simplified principal is in the buddhas questions ā¦in MN38
I recently recorded a dhamma talk, which might help clarify the principle. The speaker is Ajahn Nyanamoli, and itās called āDirectly Visibleā
How does this square with the idea that only one thing can be experienced at a time?
It does and it doesnt.
I can pay attention to one thing WHILE I know that I am paying attention. These are two things which are simultaneously present.
I am paying attention to the specifics of my walking WHILE at the same time I am aware that i am walking.
I am thinking about what I should do today WHILE I am aware that I am walking and thinking about what I shall do today. This is none other than yoniso manasikara, which is not a normal way of attending things. Most people are not aware of the āyonisoā of their manasikara.
There is the idea that there is only one thing present at a time in front of you, but that idea is for one who is not aware of the background context of his experience. In other words, he is not mindful.
Mindfulness is the overarching awareness of what is happening WHILE the particular thing is happening. He knows that he is doing something while he is doing something.
There is what you are looking at, the centre of experience, and while that is there ,there is that which is not the centre or the peripheral. You cannot look at the peripheral in the same way you look at the centre.
I feel pleasure and there is the thought āI am feeling pleasureā, these are two things are present at the same time.
That present thought āI feel pleasureā is determined by presently arisen feeling of pleasure which is arisen on its own.
āWith this, this isā.
Are you familiar with the torch-beam analogy? Awareness/attention is like a torch beam which one points in a particular direction. The beam is focused on one point, but scattered light also illuminates a wider area - this represents peripheral awareness.
I like this analogy because it matches my personal experience quite closely.
I donāt want to wander off topic too far, but is that idea actually supported by the EBTs? Or is it just something in the commentaries?
I could write more about āforeground/backgroundā, but instead, you might like to read an essay which makes what I am trying to describe, clearā¦maybe?
Peripheral Awareness.pdf (246.0 KB)