A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna
RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling
A person goes to the forest
or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having
crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence
of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: “Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I
am content.” (SN 47.10)
When feeling a mental painful feeling, one is aware: “Feeling a
mental painful feeling”. . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is
feeling.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)
Reflection
Just as
physical pleasure and pain are inevitable, so too are mental pleasure
and pain. There is no use in trying to avoid mental pain, since it is an
integral part of our experience, but it need not inevitably lead to
suffering. Just as you might be aware of the pain of a stubbed toe and
yet retain your mental and emotional balance, you can also turn toward
and experience mental pain and hold it with healthy equanimity.
Daily Practice
Mental pain
includes such things as sorrow and unhappiness. When we think about the
loss of someone we care about, it hurts. When we open to the suffering
of others, it hurts. Such pain is an intrinsic part of the human
condition and is not to be avoided. Allow yourself to feel sorrow or
even unhappiness and notice that it need not evoke unhealthy emotions
such as despair or anguish. This too can just be held in awareness.
RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)
With the stilling of applied and
sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of
absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without
applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of
concentration. (MN 4)
One practices: “I shall breathe in experiencing pleasure"; one
practices: “I shall breathe out experiencing pleasure.” This is how
concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated so
that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (SN 54.8)
Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna
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