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, July 7, 2024
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna
RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects
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 the energy-awakening factor is internally present, one is
aware: “Energy is present for me.” When energy is not present, one is
aware: “Energy is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen
energy occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and
fulfillment of the arisen energy-awakening factor occurs, one is aware
of that . . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is a mental
object.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)
Reflection
Energy is a
mental factor, like so many others, that arises and passes away in the
mind from one moment to another. We all know what it feels like to have
too little energy and to give it a boost to accomplish a task, and what
it feels like to have too much energy and to try to calm down using
relaxation exercises. One way of practicing mindfulness of mental
objects is to learn to look at and develop this awakening factor.
Daily Practice
See if you can
gain an intuitive understanding of what the energy factor feels like in
your own direct experience. Do this by noticing when it is present and
when it is absent. Like isolating a muscle in the body for strengthening
exercises, see if you can identify and strengthen the means of
deliberately increasing or decreasing mental energy. This is an
awakening factor because it is a crucial tool for developing the mind
toward awakening.
RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna)
With the abandoning of pleasure
and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one
enters upon and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has
neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.
The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of
imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to
imperturbability. (MN 4)
One practices: “I shall breathe in tranquilizing mental formations;”
one practices: “I shall breathe out tranquilizing mental formations.”
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 Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna
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