Mindfulness of defilements - gently accept or vanquish?

[binocular]

Not a glamorous vision of mindfulness.

Well, one should be mindful also when urinating and defecating. So much for glamor.

"Furthermore, when going forward & returning, he makes himself fully alert; when looking toward & looking away... when bending & extending his limbs... when carrying his outer cloak, his upper robe & his bowl... when eating, drinking, chewing, & savoring... when urinating & defecating... when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, & remaining silent, he makes himself fully alert. And as he remains thus heedful, ardent, & resolute, any memories & resolves related to the household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning his mind gathers & settles inwardly, grows unified & centered. This is how a monk develops mindfulness immersed in the body.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

[tiltbillings]

I don't think anyone is doubting the importance and relevance of teeth-gnashing, when one is desperate enough to reach for the last resort.

I doubt the importance and relevance of teeth-clenching/toungue-pressing it to some extent. Personally, I have never found it to be effective. I find breath-observing to be more effective when thoughts are overwhelming. And then, I find it is much more effective to be equanimously aware of whatever arises.

Concentration and mindfulness, as you are indicating here, go hand in hand.

[ToVincent]

When one is touched by a pleasant feeling, if one does not delight in it, welcome it, and remain holding to it, then the underlying tendency to lust does not lie within one.

What this excerpt is saying is that **controlling/restraining** the feeling, does not set the underlying tendency off.
But if you don't control, it will set off.

Which means that, if you don't control the feeling, you'll set the underlying tendency off.
You follow me?

So when you are doing "gentle", **non-controlling** satipaṭṭhāna as some people pretend we should do; then when you get a pleasant feeling, what these persons are saying is that you delight in it, welcome it, and remain holding to it, without intervening. - And the anusaya sets off.

So how can the underlying tendency to lust, not lie within you all the time, then?
You are perpetually welcoming the pleasant, unpleasant or neither/nor pleasant feeling with their ensuing rāgānusaya and paṭighā and avijjanusaya. So you have perpetually an anusaya arising.

So if I follow these people, you would get rid of the hindrances, through some kind of "accomplishment", but not mindful - just to get them back full speed just later on.
That's surely is utterly ludicrous.

Same thing with the pericope:

Here, having seen a form with the eye, a bhikkhu does not grasp its marks and features. Since, if he left the eye faculty unrestrained, bad unwholesome states of longing and dejection might invade him, he practices restraint over it.... (ear,...mind).

Unrestrained (like "no control") => bad unwholesome states. => nīvaraṇāni, anusaya, etc.

Therefore the logic of an uncontrolled satipaṭṭhana is an absolute nonsense.

[mikenz66]

Hi ToVincent,

This aggressive attitude to tackling the defilements doesn't seem to be consistent with the instruction such as:

“On seeing a form with the eye, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the eye faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the eye faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the eye faculty. On hearing a sound with the ear…On smelling an odour with the nose…On tasting a flavour with the tongue…On touching a tangible with the body…On cognizing a mind-object with the mind, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the mind faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the mind faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the mind faculty. Possessing this noble restraint of the faculties, he experiences within himself a bliss that is unsullied.
https://suttacentral.net/en/mn27/25

Bhikkhu Bodhi notes:

Since, if he left the eye faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the eye faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the eye faculty.

• This formula is analysed at Vsm I, 53–59. Briefly, the signs (nimitta) are the most distinctive qualities of the object which, when grasped at unmindfully, can kindle defiled thoughts; the features (anubyañjana) are the details that may subsequently catch the attention when the first perceptual contact has not been followed up by restraint. “States of covetousness and grief” signifies the alternative reactions of desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, towards sense objects.

You seem to be advocating aversion, which I don't believe is helpful...


Mike

[mikenz66]

It might be useful to analyse the pericope in detail:

So cakkhunā rūpaṃ disvā na nimittaggāhī hoti ­nānub­yañ­janag­gāhī. Yat­vādhika­ra­ṇa­menaṃ cakkhundriyaṃ asaṃvutaṃ viharantaṃ abhij­jhā­do­manassā pāpakā akusalā dhammā anvāssaveyyuṃ tassa saṃvarāya paṭipajjati, rakkhati cakkhundriyaṃ, cakkhundriye saṃvaraṃ āpajjati.
https://suttacentral.net/pi/mn27/-1

“On seeing a form with the eye, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the eye faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the eye faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the eye faculty.
https://suttacentral.net/en/mn27/25-25.550

I'll leave it up to someone with some better Pali knowledge to analyse the Pali but the instruction is:

On seeing/hearing/tasting/touching/cognizing ...he does not grasp at its signs and features ...

It's not:

On seeing/hearing/tasting/touching/cognizing ... he immediately gets rid of it, ignores it, stops seeing/hearing/tasting/touching/cognizing it ...

Mike

[ToVincent]

This aggressive attitude to tackling the defilements doesn't seem to be consistent with the instruction

Where is the agressive attitude in that?

(From your MN 27 own excerpts), I can say that:
I guard the mind as Buddha says.
I do not grasp at the signs and features of a form, like Buddha says.
I practice the **restraint** of the faculties, as Buddha says.

I control and restrain.
Since when guarding and restraining are not intervening or controlling?

Now, You say "let it in; don't intervene". And that is triggering the underlying tendency that lies within you, as Buddha says.
You are absolutely free to think that way, and to find peacefulness in the process.
That is your your kamma; not mine.

I see absolutely no aggressiveness in all this.

[mikenz66]

Well, perhaps it's just a matter of terminology. I read these instructions as:
"If you pay attention mindfully then bad stuff will not arise".
Some seem to think that's too "passive", and complain about "lack of right effort". In my view, they are misunderstanding the suttas, the way many teachers teach, and what "effort" is.

Perhaps there is the same problem on the other side, that those of us who take the so-called "passive" view find that the other teachers and practitioners sound "too aggressive". That may be misreading them.


Mike

[Sylvester]

It might be useful to analyse the pericope in detail:

So cakkhunā rūpaṃ disvā na nimittaggāhī hoti ­nānub­yañ­janag­gāhī. Yat­vādhika­ra­ṇa­menaṃ cakkhundriyaṃ asaṃvutaṃ viharantaṃ abhij­jhā­do­manassā pāpakā akusalā dhammā anvāssaveyyuṃ tassa saṃvarāya paṭipajjati, rakkhati cakkhundriyaṃ, cakkhundriye saṃvaraṃ āpajjati.
https://suttacentral.net/pi/mn27/-1

“On seeing a form with the eye, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the eye faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the eye faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the eye faculty.
https://suttacentral.net/en/mn27/25-25.550

I'll leave it up to someone with some better Pali knowledge to analyse the Pali but the instruction is:

On seeing/hearing/tasting/touching/cognizing ...he does not grasp at its signs and features ...

Hee hee, can't help but poke in to say -

na nimittaggāhī ­hoti nānub­yañ­janag­gāhī

is literally "he is not a grasper of [its] signs, not a grasper of [its] features". BB has simply given a more beautiful and readable idiomatic translation.

gāhī = grasper, from the adjective gāhin = grasping.

Odd that the Buddha should describe sense-restraint also vide possessive adjectives, instead of a simple injunction "you should not grasp" (ie don't gaṇheyya). The only place I could find this negative optative of gaṇhāti (grasps) are in descriptions of "letting go", eg -

Idha pana, bhikkhave, bhikkhu aññataraṃ santaṃ cetovimuttiṃ upasampajja viharati. So sakkā­ya­nirodhaṃ manasi karoti. Tassa sakkā­ya­nirodhaṃ manasi karoto sakkāyanirodhe cittaṃ pakkhandati pasīdati santiṭṭhati adhimuccati. Tassa kho evaṃ, bhikkhave, bhikkhuno sakkāyanirodho pāṭikaṅkho. Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, puriso suddhena hatthena sākhaṃ gaṇheyya, tassa so hattho neva sajjeyya na gaṇheyya na bajjheyya; evamevaṃ kho, bhikkhave, bhikkhu aññataraṃ santaṃ cetovimuttiṃ upasampajja viharati. So sakkā­ya­nirodhaṃ manasi karoti. Tassa sakkā­ya­nirodhaṃ manasi karoto sakkāyanirodhe cittaṃ pakkhandati pasīdati santiṭṭhati adhimuccati. Tassa kho evaṃ, bhikkhave, bhikkhuno sakkāyanirodho pāṭikaṅkho.

Now, there is the case where a monk enters & remains in a certain peaceful awareness-release. He attends to the cessation of self-identification, and as he is attending to the cessation of self-identification his mind leaps up, grows confident, steadfast, & firm in the cessation of self-identification. For him the cessation of self-identification is to be expected. Just as if a man were to grasp a branch with a clean hand, his hand would not stick to it, grip it, or adhere to it; in the same way, the monk enters & remains in a certain peaceful awareness-release. He attends to the cessation of self-identification, and as he is attending to the cessation of self-identification his mind leaps up, grows confident, steadfast, & firm in the cessation of self-identification. For him the cessation of self-identification is to be expected.

AN 4.178

As such, I question ToVincent's assertion here -

Same thing with the pericope:

Here, having seen a form with the eye, a bhikkhu does not grasp its marks and features. Since, if he left the eye faculty unrestrained, bad unwholesome states of longing and dejection might invade him, he practices restraint over it.... (ear,...mind).

Unrestrained (like "no control") => bad unwholesome states. => nīvaraṇāni, anusaya, etc.

http://www.dhammawheel.com/posting.php? ... 6#pr395387

Aside from the red-herring that this is a sense-restraint pericope and is not a satipaṭṭhāna state, it is also easy to see that the non-grasping here is simply "letting go". Where is the control in "letting go"? One can no more turn on "letting go" like a tap on demand than to demand eternal life; according to the Cessation series, craving has to disappear before clinging can go.

[pegembara]

Mindfulness of defilements.

Don't welcome them but accept that they are there like unwanted guests. Some guests make more trouble when you try to chase them away. Leave them be and they will eventually leave for that is not their home.

"Luminous, monks, is the mind.[1] And it is defiled by incoming defilements." {I,v,9}

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements." {I,v,10}

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements. The uninstructed run-of-the-mill person doesn't discern that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person — there is no development of the mind." {I,vi,1}

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements. The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones discerns that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — there is development of the mind." {I,vi,2}

Pabhassara Sutta: Luminous

[L.N.]

... some people pretend ...

Can you describe what you mean when you say that people are pretending in this discussion?

So when you are doing "gentle", **non-controlling** satipaṭṭhāna as some people pretend we should do; then when you get a pleasant feeling, what these persons are saying is that you delight in it, welcome it, and remain holding to it, without intervening. - And the anusaya sets off.

This is not my experience. Rather, when a pleasant feeling arises, it has the same characteristic of arising and passing away. The subsequent action of "delighting in it" or "welcoming it" or some other reaction would be a further phenomenon beyond the physical sensation, perpetuating the habitual reactivity. Wanted, unwanted, or neither wanted nor unwanted, all of these feelings have the same characteristic. This is worth knowing and experiencing.

I am still trying to untangle what you meant in your initial answer to the question regarding why "gently accept" is incompatible with "vanquish." As you will recall, you wrote:

There are indeed two reasons why there is an incompatibility between the two:
- Firstly, the order in which things have come to be.
- Secondly, the escape (nissaraṇa).

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the following may be your elaboration on the "firstly" answer:

I guard the mind as Buddha says.
I do not grasp at the signs and features of a form, like Buddha says.
I practice the **restraint** of the faculties, as Buddha says.

I control and restrain.

This is what you do "firstly," correct? And then, in practice, something else is next? Or is there never a time for "gentle," as you understand the term? Metta

[cjmacie]

Could you explain your points pls? I can't follow.

That post doesn’t specify to what it's referring, but was posted, with no intervening posts, 45 minutes after this post by myself:

Re: Mindfulness of defilements - gently accept or vanquish? (#p395330)
Postby cjmacie » Fri Sep 09, 2016 4:46 am
(concerning "dwelling" and two uses of "cause")

More detailed explanation:

1) re "dwelling"

There is control of the hindrances at the beginning, so as to be able to plunge later on, in the four dwellings (viharati) of the body, feeling, mind & dhamma; within the best conditions possible.
This is shown in the following sutta: "Here some foolish, incompetent, unskilful bhikkhu dwells contemplating…
… Pure contemplation being the act of dwelling and observing…

How in the world does the verb viharati (dwells) become the substantive noun "dwellings" (vihāra)? Must you clutch at such desperate measures? The only dwellings in satipaṭṭhāna are sati + upaṭṭhāna.

It seems quite clear that "four dwellings (viharati)" means not "dwelling" in the sense of the noun for a place of residence (i.e. vihāra); but rather the participial noun meaning, as more explicitly later, "the act of dwelling".

2a) Use of "cause"

As far as SN 48.50 is concerned,... vossaggārammaṇaṃ
The "object" being a bit vague, let's however consider it

Well, actually there's nothing vague about ārammaṇa. To the Abhidhammika, it
means the 6 external bases. To a suttantika, it means "cause".

(ārammaṇa -- nt. a sense-object. (A.P. Buddhadatta Mahathera's "Concise" dictionary))

More intuitive seems, IMO, "ārammaṇa" as "support", or "basis", as, for instance, V. Thanissaro has used it. Hence, and in particular, the "object" that "supports" a meditation.

Mahasi Sayadaw elaborates on this ("Treatise on Vipassana", p, 120):
"With regard to the grammatical expression of ''Vosagga" in the word 'Vosaggā-rammanato' its meaning can be taken in both ways as pariccāga and pakkhandana, just as the phrase which runs as "vosagga-pariṇāmiṃ". In the two meanings just stated, if the intention conveyed has reference to pariccāgattha (the meaning as pariccāga), it is to be spoken as 'ārammaṇānaṃ vosaggo pariccāgo.' Also according to Arammaṇa, it should be taken as an external sense object…
In this regard, the only difference in respect of both the two shades of meaning lies in the grammatical sense. However, they convey the same meaning. The similarity may be explained thus. It would fully imbibe the meaning of "abandoning the external objects", and that means “if there is no arising of reflective thoughts, imagination and planning without contemplating and noting, it rushes into the internal objects (Gocarajjhatta), i.e. contemplating and noting is being done continually without any interval on the objects which ought to be contemplated and noted. Moreover, if it is stated as " rushing into Ajjhatta or internal objects, nay, if contemplation
and noting is made continuously, it would embrace the meaning of "abandoning the bahiddha or external objects, nay, an absence of reflective thoughts, imagination and planning without contemplating and noting. " Hence, the meaning conveys the same sense."

(A.P. Buddhadatta Mahathera's "Concise" dictionary:
pariccāga -- m. giving up; abandonment; bestowal; renunciation. (m.) donation; charity.
pakkhandana -- nt. leaping; springing; chasing.)

2b) Another use of "cause"

... MN 44 -

cattāro satipaṭṭhānā samādhinimittā

The 4 establishments of mindfulness are the nimitta of concentration.

Here, I follow the interpretation that nimitta means "cause".

Read with SN 48.50, about vossagga being the "basis" for concentration.

Nimitta as cause (as well as ārammaṇa as cause) might seem rather problematic, For the reasons:

i) Though "cause" is often used in translations, in Dhamma it's widely considered that the meaning, e.g. in Paticcasamuppāda, is more along the lines of "when this, then that; not this then not that" – i.e. more a sense of "association".

As in the scientific sense where research findings are s/t taken as "x causes y", where in fact, at best can be asserted "y associates with x". Particularly medical research, where it's asserted that this or that microbe ("germ") is the "cause" of this or that medical condition. More realistically, the presence of the microbe IN A PARTICULAR HOST ENVIRONMENT results in the medical condition. This or that "plague" that kills, e.g. "20%" of those exposed to it – why aren't the other 80% affected? In the 20% the microbe "causes" it, but in the 80%, their more robust immune systems "causes" not contracting the disease?

ii) A penetrating analysis of use (and abuse) of the word and idea of "causation" in the modern mind found the "Epilogue: The Art and Science of Cause and Effect " to J. Pearl's Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference (2009). The use of "cause" in translation and discussion of the Pali Canon is clearly under the influence of this "modern" notion (and with its problems).

3) Btw. re (above under (2b)) "Read with SN 48.50, about vossagga being the "basis" for concentration", examining that sutta, I find, in B. Bodhi's translation as well as the Pali, no reference to either "vossagga" or concentration, other than perhaps in:
‘‘Idha, bhante, khīṇāsavo bhikkhu saddhindriyaṃ bhāveti upasamagāmiṃ sambodhagāmiṃ, vīriyindriyaṃ bhāveti…pe… satindriyaṃ bhāveti…pe… samādhindriyaṃ bhāveti…pe… paññindriyaṃ bhāveti upasamagāmiṃ sambodhagāmiṃ.
(Here, venerable sir, a bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed develops the faculty of faith … of energy … of mindfulness … of concentration …")

[Sylvester]

1. I have to confess i still don't get the dwellings bit. May i trouble you to dwell on it and elaborate? Are you saying that viharati is a verbal noun? That is unlikely, as a form is available in Pali to convey this.

2a See the CPD entry

2b You'll have to read the entire Timeless Model of PS thread for my arguments on grammatical grounds and textual grounds as to the meaning of the existential locative absolute used in This-That Conditionality. That reading circumvents all of the "association" limitations imposed by Hume's Fork on "cause" and "effect". I notice you mentioned "conditioning" in your earlier post. Would it be informed by those passages that eg say "Conditioned by feeling, craving arises.". Would it surprise you that this actually cannot be found in the Pali?

3 -

Saddhassa hi, sāriputta, ariyasāvakassa ārad­dha­vīriyassa upaṭṭhi­tas­satino etaṃ pāṭikaṅkhaṃ yaṃ vos­saggā­rammaṇaṃ karitvā labhissati samādhiṃ, labhissati cittassa ekaggataṃ

Hope this helps.

[cjmacie]

1. I have to confess i still don't get the dwellings bit. May i trouble you to dwell on it and elaborate? Are you saying that viharati is a verbal noun? That is unlikely, as a form is available in Pali to convey this.

It looked like "dwelling" was being used to mean a participial action -- nominalization of period of abiding, in this case a pondering / contemplating on a Sati=patthana, I guess -- and hence the reference to the verb vihati. Your critique seemed to take "dwelling" as the noun for a place of residing, a house, monastery, or whatnot (i.e. as you put it, vihara).

Edit/addition: Perhaps an oddity that the English "dwell-ing" comes to connote not only a temporal episode of to-dwell (as in "my dwelling in this house for the last years"), but also the spatial locus where one dwells. Then again, German does that too: "wohnen" to reside, and "eine Wohnung" a place to reside (though participial form).

2a See the CPD entry

What's "CPD"? so I can look at it.

2b You'll have to read the entire Timeless Model of PS thread for my arguments on grammatical grounds and textual grounds as to the meaning of the existential locative absolute used in This-That Conditionality. That reading circumvents all of the "association" limitations imposed by Hume's Fork on "cause" and "effect".

If I read that (where it is?) will you read the J. Pearl essay?

3 -

Saddhassa hi, sāriputta, ariyasāvakassa ārad­dha­vīriyassa upaṭṭhi­tas­satino etaṃ pāṭikaṅkhaṃ yaṃ vos­saggā­rammaṇaṃ karitvā labhissati samādhiṃ, labhissati cittassa ekaggataṃ

I'll try to take that apart. Where's it from? I couldn't find it in the Pali (at SN 48.50) -- was the identification before correct (SN 48.50, and not SN 46.56 that was mentioned just prior)?

[ToVincent]

Hi everyone!

I am at a party right now. Nice people, good food.

Oh!, look at this wonderful little cake, the waitress is offering me. Am I going to grasp it?
Nah! I have already eaten wisely.
I have to be moderated with food, anyway. I have to control myself.
I'll let it go, mindfully.
__

I am still trying to untangle what you meant in your initial answer to the question regarding why "gently accept" is incompatible with "vanquish."

"gently accept" = being the grasper of the form's signs, and not "being the guardian of the eye faculty, and the undertaker of the restraint of the eye faculty".
"Vanquish" = "not being the grasper of the form's signs, being the guardian of the eye faculty, and the undertaker of the restraint of the eye faculty".
So:
"gently accept" => nīvaraṇāni, anusaya, etc.
"Vanquish" = > no nīvaraṇāni, anusaya, etc.


P.S.
I hope this is clearly stated; because English is not my native language; nor do I live in an English speaking country.

[ToVincent]

...

Hi!,

Sorry I didn't understand your post was also intended indirectly at me.

If I were to see the vossaga of an arammaṇa, this is what I would see:

An arammaṇa, for me, is a footing (a basis) for something, as in:
Bhikkhus, what one intends, and what one plans, and whatever one has a tendency towards: this becomes a basis (footing) for the maintenance (continuing of state: stay) of consciousness.
Yañca, bhikkhave, ceteti yañca pakappeti yañca anuseti, ārammaṇametaṃ hoti viññāṇassa ṭhitiyā.
SN 12.39
[size]

So sure, the abidhammic interpretation of arammaṇa as the external bases (bāhirāni āyatanāni) is right; as the support of the different sense-consciousnesses. But it is not the only occurence, as we see above.
And the suttantika are right as well, as being a cause of something. But maybe more of a support, than just a cause.

So, in satipaṭṭhāna, you vossaga (relinquish) the support (nutriment-"object/support"-arammaṇa) of ignorance; which are the hindrances. (AN 10.61(MA 52) & SN 46.51).
https://suttacentral.net/an10.61
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn46.51/16.4-
And that sends you to the next dwelling (viharati=to dwell) in the enlightment factors & the willful process of nurturing and developing these enlightenment factors (and still get rid of hindrances).
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn46.51/8.3-
And that takes you, at the end, to concentration. Etc.

But this all process, as we see, is a willful process. Yonisso manasikara is not a "letting go" process.
Guarding and restraining the internal faculties; and denourishing the hindrances and nurturing the enlightenment factors, are not what I would call passive attitudes.
And that is just a sample of what is willfull in satipaṭṭhāna and the other meditations. We could talk about removing/dispelling (vinodanā) an arisen *thought* of sensuality (kāmavitakka); etc, etc.