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  The Thorny Mind

  Kodha makes the mind hard and rigid as a thorn. Under its influence, a yogi is said to be pricked by the mind, like a traveler thrashing through a bramble thicket, suffering at every step. Since kodha is a great impediment in many yogis’ meditation practice, I will deal with it in some detail in hopes that readers can learn to overcome it. In general, it results from two kinds of mental states: firstly from doubt, and secondly from what are known as “the mental fetters.”

  There are five kinds of doubt that lead to the thorny mind. A yogi is pricked by doubt regarding the Buddha, the great master who showed the path to enlightenment. One doubts the Dhamma, the path that leads to liberation, and the Sangha, the noble ones who have uprooted some or all of the kilesas. Next come doubts of oneself, of one’s own morality and method of practice. Last is doubt of fellow yogis, including one’s teacher. When so many doubts are present, the yogi is filled with anger and resistance: his or her mind becomes thorny indeed. He or she will probably feel quite unwilling actually to practice this meditation, seeing it as dubious and unreliable.

  All is not lost, however. Wisdom and knowledge are medicine for this state of vicikicchā. One form of knowledge is reasoning. Often persuasive words can coax a doubting yogi from the brambles: a teacher’s reasoning, or an inspiring and well-constructed discourse. Returning to the clear path of direct observation, such yogis breathe great sighs of relief and gratitude. Now they have the chance to gain personal insight into the true nature of reality. If they do attain insight, then a higher level of wisdom becomes their medicine for the thorny mind.

  Failure to return to the path, however, may allow doubt to reach its incurable stage.

  The Five Mental Fetters

  The thorny mind arises not only from doubt, but also from another set of causes known as the five mental fetters. When these mental fetters are present, the mind suffers from hard and prickling states of aversion, frustration, and resistance. But these fetters can be overcome. Vipassanā meditation clears them automatically from the mind. If they do manage to intrude upon one’s practice, identifying them is the first step toward recovering a broad and flexible mental state.

  The first mental fetter is to be chained to the various objects of the senses. Desiring only pleasant objects, one will be dissatisfied with what is really occurring in the present moment. The primary object, the rising and falling of the abdomen, may seem inadequate and uninteresting in comparison with one’s fantasies. If this dissatisfaction occurs, one’s meditative development will be undermined.

  The second fetter is overattachment to one’s own body, sometimes spoken of as excessive self-love. A variation is the projection of attachment and possessiveness onto another person and his or her body. This is the third fetter, and it is such a common situation that I hardly need elaborate.

  Excessive self-love can be a significant hindrance in the course of practice. When one sits for extended periods, unpleasant sensations invariably arise, some of them rather intense. You may begin to wonder about your poor legs. Will you ever walk again? You may decide to open your eyes and stretch. At this point, continuity of attention usually breaks apart; momentum is lost. Tender consideration for one’s own body can sometimes supplant the courage we need to probe into the actual nature of pain.

  Personal appearance is another area where this second fetter can arise. Some human beings depend on stylish clothes and makeup to feel happy. If ever they lose access to these external supports (perhaps on a retreat where makeup and flamboyant fashions are inappropriate distractions), these people feel as if something is missing, and worry can interfere with their progress. The fourth fetter of mind is to be chained to food. Some people like to eat large amounts; others have many whims and preferences. People whose first concern is the satisfaction of their bellies tend to find greater bliss in snoozing than in practicing mindfulness. A few yogis have the opposite problem, worrying constantly about gaining weight. They, too, are chained to what they eat.

  The fifth fetter of mind is to practice with the goal of gaining rebirth in a deva world. Besides effectively basing one’s practice on craving for sensual pleasures, this is also to set one’s sights much too low. For information on the disadvantages of deva life, see the last chapter of this book, “Chariot to Nibbāna.”

  By diligent practice one overcomes these five fetters. By the same means, one overcomes doubt and the anger that follows it. Relieved from thorny discomfort, the mind becomes crystal clear and bright. This bright mind is happy to make the preliminary effort that sets your feet on the path of practice, the steady effort that moves you along into deeper meditation, and the culminating effort that brings liberation at the higher stages of practice. This threefold effort—actually directed toward keeping the mind alert and observant—is the best and most natural defense strategy against Māra’s Seventh Army of doubt. Only when the mind slips from the object, as it will in times of slackening effort, do the conjectures and equivocations of doubt have a chance to set in.

  Faith Clarifies the Mind

  The quality of faith, or saddhā, also has the power to clarify the mind and clear away clouds of doubt or aversion. Imagine a pail of murky river water, full of sediment. Some chemical substances, such as alum, have the power to make suspended particles settle quickly, leaving clear water behind. Faith works just like this. It settles impurities, and brings a sparkling clarity to the mind.

  A yogi ignorant of the virtues of the Triple Gem—the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha—will doubt its value as well as that of the meditation practice, and will be overcome by the Seventh Army of Māra. Such a yogi’s mind is like a bucket of murky river water. But informed of these virtues through reading, discussions, and Dhamma talks, a yogi can gradually settle doubts and begin to arouse faith.

  With faith comes the desire to meditate, the willingness to exert energy in order to reach the goal. Strong faith is the foundation of sincerity and commitment. Sincerity of practice and commitment to the Dhamma will of course lead to the development of effort, mindfulness, and concentration. Then wisdom will unfold in the form of the various stages of vipassanā insight.

  When circumstances and conditions are right in meditation, wisdom unfolds quite naturally of itself. Wisdom, or insight, occurs when one sees the specific and common characteristics of mental and physical phenomena. Individual characteristics mean the specific traits of mind and matter as experienced directly within you. These are color, shape, taste, smell, loudness, hardness or softness, temperature, movement, and different states of mind. Common characteristics are general to all the manifestations of mind and matter. Objects may differ greatly from one another in terms of individual essence or individual characteristics, yet all are united by the universal traits of impermanence, suffering, and absence of an abiding self or essence.

  Both these types of characteristics, specific and common, will be understood clearly and unquestionably through the insight that arises naturally out of bare awareness. One attribute of this wisdom or insight is the quality of brightness. It lightens one’s field of awareness. Wisdom is like a floodlight breaking into pitch darkness, revealing what was invisible up to now—the specific and common qualities of all objects and mental states. By wisdom’s light, you will see these aspects of any activity you are involved in, be it seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, feeling through the body, or thinking.

  The behavioral aspect of wisdom is nonconfusion. When insight is present, the mind is no longer confused by mistaken concepts about, or delusive perceptions of, mind and matter.

  Seeing clearly, bright and unconfused, the mind begins to fill with a new kind of faith, known as verified faith. Verified faith is neither blind nor unfounded. It comes directly from personal experience of reality. One might compare it to the faith that raindrops will get us wet. The scriptures formally characterize this kind of faith as a decision based on direct personal experience. Thus, we see a very close association between faith and wisdom.

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nbsp; Verified faith does not arise because you hear statements you find plausible. No comparative study, scholastic research, nor abstract reasoning can bring it. Nor is it shoved down your throat by some sayadaw, roshi, rinpoche, or spiritual group. Your own direct, personal, intuitive experience brings about this firm and durable kind of faith.

  The most important way to develop and realize verified faith is practice in conformity with instructions from the scriptures. The satipahāna method of meditation is sometimes viewed as narrow and oversimplified. It may appear so from the outside, but when wisdom begins to unfold during deep practice, personal experience shatters this myth of narrowness. Vipassanā brings a wisdom that is far from narrow. It is panoramic and expansive.

  In the presence of faith one can spontaneously notice that the mind has become crystal clear and is free from disturbances and pollution. At this time, too, the mind fills with peace and clarity. The function of verified faith is to bring together the five controlling faculties discussed in the last chapter—faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom—and to clarify them. They become alert and effective, and their active properties will be more efficiently deployed to bring about a calm, powerful, incisive meditative state—one that is bound to be successful in overcoming not only the Seventh, but all the other nine armies of Māra as well.

  Four Powers That Motivate Successful Practice

  In practice as much as in worldly endeavors, a vigorous and strong-minded person is quite sure of accomplishing whatever she or he desires. Vigor and strength of mind are only two of the four powers that motivate a successful practice. Chanda is willingness, the first power. Viriya is energy, or vigor, the second. Strength of mind is third, and wisdom or knowledge is the fourth. If these four factors provide the driving force for practice, one’s meditation will unfold whether one has any desire to gain results from it or not. One can even reach nibbāna in this way.

  The Buddha gave a rather homely example that illustrates just how the results of meditation are attained. If mother hen lays an egg with a sincere wish for it to hatch, but then runs off and leaves the egg exposed to nature’s elements, the egg will soon rot. If, on the other hand, mother hen is conscientious in her duties toward the egg, sitting on it for long periods every day, the warmth of her body will keep the egg from rotting and will also permit the chick within to grow. Sitting on the egg is mother hen’s most important duty. She must do this in the proper way, with her wings slightly spread out to protect the nest from rain. She must also take care not to sit heavily and crack her egg. If she sits in proper style and for sufficient time, the egg will naturally receive the warmth it needs to hatch. Inside the shell, an embryo develops a beak and claws. Day by day the shell grows thinner. During mother hen’s brief excursions from the nest, the chick inside may see a light that slowly brightens. After three weeks or so, a healthy yellow chick pecks its way out of its claustrophobic space. This result happens regardless of whether the hen foresaw the outcome. All she did was sit on the egg with sufficient regularity.

  Mother hens are very dedicated and committed to their task. At times they would rather be hungry and thirsty than get up from the egg. If they do have to get up, they go about their errands as efficiently as possible and then return to their sitting practice.

  I am not recommending that you skip meals, or stop drinking liquids, or cease going to the bathroom. I would simply like you to be inspired by the hen’s patience and persistence. Imagine if she became fickle and restless, sitting for a few minutes and then going out to do something else for a few minutes. Her egg would quickly rot, and the chick would lose its chance for life.

  So, too, for the yogi. If during sitting meditation, you are prone to giving in to all those whims to scratch, to shift, to squirm, then the heat of energy will not be continuous enough to keep the mind fresh and free from attacks by the rotting influence of mental obscurations and difficulties such as the five mental fetters mentioned above: sense desire, attachment to our own bodies and to the bodies of others, gluttony, and craving for future sensual pleasures as a result of meditation practice.

  A yogi who tries to be mindful in each moment generates a persistent stream of energy, like the persistent heat of mother hen’s body. This heat aspect of energy prevents the mind from rotting from its exposure to kilesa attacks, and it also permits insight to grow and mature through its developmental stages.

  All five of the mental fetters arise in the absence of attention. If one is not careful when there is contact with a pleasurable sense object, the mind will be filled with craving and clinging—the first mental fetter. With mindfulness, however, sense desire is overcome. Similarly, if one can penetrate the true nature of the body, attachment to it disappears. Our infatuation with the bodies of others diminishes in turn. Thus the second and third mental fetters are broken. Close attention to the whole process of eating cuts through gluttony, the fourth mental fetter. If one carries out this whole practice with the aim of realizing nibbāna, hankering after mundane pleasures one might obtain in the afterlife will also disappear—wishing for rebirth in subtle realms is the fifth fetter of mind. Thus, continuous mindfulness and energy overcome all five fetters. When these fetters are broken, we are no longer bound in a dark, constricted mental state. Our minds are freed to emerge into the light.

  With continued effort, mindfulness, and concentration, the mind slowly fills with the warmth of the Dhamma that keeps it fresh and scorches the kilesas. The Dhamma’s fragrance penetrates throughout, and the shell of ignorance grows thinner and more translucent. Yogis begin to understand mind and matter and the conditionality of all things. Faith based on direct experience arises. They understand directly how mind and matter are interrelated by a process of cause and effect, rather than being moved by the actions and decisions of an independent self. By inference, they realize that this same causal process existed in the past and will continue into the future. As practice deepens, one gains deep confidence, no longer doubting oneself and one’s practice, other yogis, or teachers. The mind is filled with gratitude for the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha.

  Then one begins to see the appearing and disappearing of things, and realizes their impermanent nature, their suffering, and lack of a permanent self. Upon the occurrence of such insights, ignorance of these aspects disappears.

  Like the chick about to hatch, at this point you will see a lot of light coming through the shell. Awareness of objects moves ahead at a faster and faster pace; you will be filled with a sort of energy you have never experienced before, and great faith will arise.

  If you continue to incubate your wisdom, you will be led forward to the experience of nibbāna—magga phala, path and fruition consciousnesses. You will emerge from the shell of darkness. Just like the chick who, filled with enthusiasm to find itself in the great world, runs about the sunny farmyard with its mother, so too will you be filled with happiness and bliss. Yogis who have experienced nibbāna feel a unique, newfound happiness and bliss. Their faith, energy, mindfulness, and concentration become particularly strong.

  I hope you will take this analogy of mother hen into deep consideration. Just as she hatches her chicks without hopes or desire, merely carrying out her duties in a conscientious way, so may you well incubate and hatch your practice.

  May you not become a rotten egg.

  Captain of My Own Ship

  I have spent a lot of time here on doubt and related problems because I know they are quite serious, and I want to help you avoid them. I know personally how much suffering doubt can cause. When I was twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old I began to meditate under the Venerable Mahāsī Sayadaw, my predecessor and the head of the lineage of Mahāsī Sāsana Yeiktha, the meditation center in Rangoon. After about a week at the meditation center, I began to feel quite critical of my fellow meditators. Some monks who were supposed to be meditating were not perfect in their morality; they did not seem scrupulous or meticulous to me. The lay meditators, too, seemed to communicate a
nd move about in an uncivilized, impolite manner. Doubt began to fill my mind. Even my teacher, one of Mahāsī Sayadaw’s assistants, came under the fire of my critical mind. This man never smiled and was sometimes abrupt and harsh. I felt that a meditation teacher should be filled with softness and solicitude.

  A competent meditation teacher can make quite an educated guess about a yogi’s situation, based on experience with many yogis as well as on scriptural study. The master who was teaching me was no exception. He saw my practice begin to regress. Guessing that a doubt attack was responsible, he gave me a very gentle and skillful scolding. Afterward I went back to my room and did some soul-searching. I asked myself, “Why did I come here? To criticize others and test the teacher? No.”

  I realized that I had come to the center to get rid of as many as I could of the kilesas I had accumulated through my journey in samsāra. I hoped to accomplish this goal by practicing the Dhamma of the Buddha in the meditative tradition of the center where I was. This reflection proved to be a great clarification for me.

  A simile popped into my mind. It was as if I had been on a sailboat. Out at sea I had been caught in a raging storm. Huge waves rose up and crashed down again on every side. Blown from left to right, up and down, I rocked helplessly in the mighty ocean. Around me other boats were in the same predicament. Instead of managing my own boat, I had been barking orders at the other captains: “Better put up the sails! Hey, you! Better take them down.” If I had remained a busybody, I might well have found myself at the bottom of the ocean.