Here are five short excerpts of some questions I asked Thena Sarabhikkhu on the August 11th,
2021 Zoom event with Mid-America Buddhist Association.
These questions deal with the potential paradox with the Caitanasutta,
Advice for preserving and or unifying various Buddhist schools and lineages,
Strategies for fear of annihilation,
On effort involved with vatakka and the relationship with vichara,
And if there's right jhana and the Buddha's instructions for jhana.
I was always confused a little bit by kind of the seeming paradox between that approach almost seems like there's will involved,
But then the passage of such and such,
No need for an act of will,
And then it progresses and so there's no need for an act of will.
I guess,
How do we,
Is that a paradox?
If it is,
How do,
Does it need to be resolved?
Or is it,
Was he just teaching,
Giving that teaching to someone who needed to hear that more than the other teacher,
You know?
I think in that particular case he was dealing with people who were,
You know,
Who were afraid of putting too much effort,
He says,
Well okay you can do this and then it will naturally lead to the next and it will naturally lead to the next.
But I'd say the best way to resolve that is to actually exert an act of will.
And then see to which,
To an extent,
Your act of will is actually getting in the way in which I think the extent to which is helpful.
John,
How about some pros and cons to all the different lineages and schools within Buddhism,
And then maybe some pros and cons for finding commonalities and unity and concord between them?
Okay,
My main concern is,
Okay,
Which one do I feel that I'm going to get the most out of?
Let me focus on that and let everybody else do what they want.
Lovely,
Yes.
That way you don't have to disagree.
Talking about the death part,
What about either during death or otherwise,
There's this generalized fear of annihilation or wiping out of existence,
Even though intellectually knowing that's an extreme.
Are there any suggestions or advice for that?
This is why the Buddha said it's good to develop conviction ahead of time.
The Buddha wouldn't lie to you and say,
You're not going to be wiped out.
But there is that fear,
Okay,
If I can't stay in my body,
Where am I going to stay?
Where am I going to go?
And that's why it's good to have had some experience dealing with some of the formless states in meditation,
Where you're just with a sense of space or just with a sense of knowing.
Okay,
I can focus on this as my foundation.
My teacher had a student one time,
She was an older woman,
And she was sitting and meditating one night and this voice came into her head and said,
You're going to die tonight.
And she thought to herself,
Well,
If I'm going to die,
I might as well die meditating.
So she continued meditating.
And she said it was like her house was like,
Or excuse me,
Her body was like a house on fire that no matter where she went in the body,
She couldn't figure out,
Find a space that would be comfortable.
And then she remembered she could think of space.
So she thought of space,
Space permeating the body,
Space around the body.
And she just took space as her object.
And she stayed there for quite a while,
Then she came back and everything back in the body had settled back down in normal.
So it turns out that that voice was wrong.
But she learned an important lesson.
You can learn how not to identify with this need to have a body and it can still be the space and not feel that you're going to be annihilated.
So it's good to develop that skill.
What is effort for vitaka,
Vichara,
And then your definitions for that?
How does effort for vitaka,
Like how does it come about?
And then how does it relate to vichara,
Like sustained activity?
When the Buddha is talking about this,
We talk about vichara,
He says,
That's what I was talking about in terms of verbal fabrication.
And this is something we're doing all the time.
We're always talking to ourselves.
It's like when you're going to do jhana,
You suddenly engage in vitaka vichara.
You're already doing it anyhow.
The question is,
How can you take these activities of the mind and devote them to your meditation topic?
And so in this particular case,
The vitaka,
Or directed thought,
Was I'm going to try to keep the breath in mind and I'm not going to focus on any other topic.
If I do wander away,
I'm going to bring it back.
Wandering,
Bring it back.
That's vitaka.
And then we try to evaluate how does the breath feel?
Does long breathing feel good?
Does short breathing feel good?
Deep shama,
Heavy light.
Once you've got breathing,
It feels good.
How do you maintain it?
Again,
You're talking to yourself.
Once you're maintaining it,
How do I let it spread?
So I can get the most out of it.
I get a sense of full body awareness.
It feels really good.
And then I get,
How can I maintain that?
And once you get so that you're there,
Then you can drop it and just be with that sensation,
Full body,
Breath.
With just simply the perception of breath-fuling you make.
Another thing about jhana.
Did the Buddha ever say,
You know,
There's right samadhi,
But was there right jhana too?
And if not,
Is there reasons or maybe guesses for that?
And also,
How did he teach,
Did he teach jhana specifically or was it just because a lot of passages is mentioned,
You know,
Enter into first jhana,
Enter into second jhana.
So if he did,
How did he teach it specifically?
Okay,
In response to your first question,
There's nothing where the Buddhist talks about wrong jhana,
But there's a passage right under talks about it.
He says you can have a jhana focused on greed,
You can have an ajana focused on sexual desire,
You can have a jhana focused on anger.
And these are all wrong.
In other words,
You can really be absorbed in that kind of thinking.
You know,
It's wrong because the definition of right jhana is,
You know,
Secluded from sensuality,
Secluded from unskillful mental qualities.
So yeah,
There's such a thing as right and wrong.
In terms of how the Buddha taught it,
I would say two things.
One is his instructions on breath meditation,
Or how you get the mind into jhana.
And secondly,
His instructions on right mindfulness.
You know,
Staying focused on the body in and of itself,
Hard and alert and mindful,
Putting aside greed and distress in the reference of the world.
That's how you do it.
And then he goes on and said that when you when you'd like go up unskillful qualities,
There should be a sense of pleasure in the mind.
Then he says this is when you let it spread.
Now he doesn't say how you let that spread.
I think this is where John Lee is very helpful.
He talks about thinking of breath energies in the body and opening up the channels through which the sense of ease can go through the body.
But yeah,
There are instructions in the Canon about these are the top as you can focus on you can get jhana based on the breath,
You can get jhana based on metta.
The Buddha doesn't go into that in nearly the detail that he does with the breath.
But it can be done.
