First, as the Buddha pointed out, a mind that has cultivated some samādhi has more malleability. It is more able to look at things in different ways, finds it much easier to learn and develop novel approaches and practices, and can move between these with more agility.
samādhi involves more than just holding the attention fixed on an object with a minimum of wavering. And it certainly does not necessarily imply a spatially narrowed focus of the mind on a small area. Instead here we will emphasize that what characterizes states of samādhi is some degree of collectedness and unification of mind and body in a sense of well-being. Included in any such state will also be some degree of harmonization of the internal energies of the mind and body. Steadiness of mind, then, is only one part of that.
The possibility of fear occurring at times during these meditations we will address later as the practices develop.4 Sometimes though, this fear arises even when simply hearing about the voidness of the self or of things. It is important then to point out right here that we are not trying to annihilate the self through these teachings or practices. Rather, we are seeking to understand something about the self and all phenomena – their emptiness, their fabricated and illusory nature. And this emptiness is true of the self and of all things anyway, even now, whether I’m aware of it or not. Nothing changes in the actual reality – the ontological status – of the self or of phenomena through practice. We are simply realizing a fact that has been true all along. And this realization frees.
To the degree, depth, and comprehensiveness that we can realize the emptiness, the illusory nature, of phenomena, to that degree, depth, and comprehensiveness is freedom then available to us.
When this profound knowing of the voidness of all things is absorbed, beyond mere intellectual understanding, there is liberating insight into the heart of reality. There is an awakening which fundamentally alters the way in which we perceive the world. This is the realization necessary for enlightenment.
Unquestioningly but mistakenly then, we intuitively sense and believe in this inherent existence of phenomena, in ‘real’ experiences of a ‘real’ self in a world of ‘real’ things. Now, in itself, this may strike some as a rather abstract or irrelevant piece of metaphysical philosophizing. But as alluded to earlier, the complete dissolution of this error in our sense and understanding of things is the primary thrust of the Buddha’s message of liberation. This mistaken seeing is the deepest level of what the Buddha calls the ignorance or fundamental delusion (Skt: avidya; Pali: avijjā) that we share as sentient beings. We cling, and so suffer, because of the way we see. Although it may not be obvious at first, any clinging whatsoever requires this mistaken intuitive sense – of the reality of what we are clinging to, and of the self as something real and so ‘invested in’ through clinging.
Why do we crave? And the answer the Buddha gave and wanted us to understand is that craving is based on a fundamental mistake in the way we see and intuitively sense our selves and the whole world of inner and outer phenomena. We feel and take for granted that selves and things are as real as they seem to be, that they exist, as they appear to, in a substantial way, in and of themselves, ‘from their own side’, as it were. Their reality seems obvious. We assume, in a way that involves no thinking, that our bodies or this book, for instance, exist independently of other things and independently of the mind that knows them. We feel that a thing has an inherent existence – that its existence, its being, inheres in itself alone. Believing then that this real self can really gain or lose real things or experiences which have real qualities, grasping and aversion, and thus dukkha, arise inevitably.
The imagination, too, can be skilfully employed in order to gently encourage this sense of pleasure or well-being in the subtle body. While simultaneously pervading the whole body space with an awareness sensitive to the texture and tone of the energy of that whole field, it is possible, for example, to imagine the subtle body as a body of radiant light; then to open to and explore what that feels like. Any image formed in this way does not necessarily need to appear in precise detail, or even completely distinctly. It is, rather, the energetic sense of pleasure or well-being which it supports that is primary, since this is what primarily supports the samādhi.
And when there is a state of agitation or anxiety, we can play with ways of breathing or practising the mettā, and also ways of sensing the breath or mettā, that feel as if they soothe the subtle body and smooth out its energies. Delicately tuning into the felt experience of these qualities of soothing or smoothing-out will help them to gradually gain strength, and help the agitated energies to slowly subside.
It is also possible to use the breath or the mettā to help elicit and support the pervasion of this sense of well-being. Simply sensitizing to, and enjoying, the way we feel the energetic resonances of the mettā or the breath throughout the whole space of the body – opening to and finding delight in their reverberations there – can gently move the experience in the direction of a more expansive well-being.
This can be done through the way we pay attention to the subtle body, as described above – opening out the awareness to encompass the whole body space, and tuning into the more pleasant frequencies of feeling that are perceivable.
This feeling of the energy of the whole body space can be made the sole focus of attention. • Alternatively, it may be mixed with the awareness of another object such as the breath or mettā – by paying attention to the changing effects of the breath or the mettā on the body’s energy field. • Either way, there will be a tendency for the attention thus deployed to keep shrinking to a smaller area. It will therefore be necessary to keep stretching the field of awareness out, expanding it so that attention pervades and encompasses the whole field of the body. • Oftentimes just remaining lightly, delicately open and sensitive to the whole body in this way begins to reveal a subtle pleasantness to the way the space of the body feels. It can be extremely helpful to learn to ‘tune into’ this, and to enjoy it. • Of course, many times we will find on inspection that there is a mixture of both pleasant and unpleasant ‘frequencies’, or a range of qualities, coexisting in the tone and vibration of the body space. With practice we can learn, if we wish, to tune into whichever of these frequencies we choose. Attuning to and enjoying the more pleasant frequencies in the mix is an immensely helpful skill to learn and very valuable in fostering samādhi.
Alternatively, at other times, it can be more useful to encourage a more ‘receptive’ mode of working, to let the awareness ‘receive’ the breath sensations. Here the breath may be conceived of, and thus perceived, as ‘coming toward’ the awareness, as opposed to the other way around.
Additionally though, since tightness is often an indicator of a degree of over-effort, we need not view its presence only as a difficulty. We can actually use the feeling of tightness when it appears somewhere in the body as a helpful signal to slightly back off the effort in that moment. And this subtle backing off, this delicacy of application of effort, we can learn to play with, much as one might learn to control a manual car with the clutch and accelerator pedals.
Second: Tightness is usually a result of, and indicates, slightly too much effort in the concentration at that time. Similarly, a slight over-efforting can underlie both sinking and drifting. There, however, the situation can be a little more complex, because both sinking and drifting may arise at any time as a result of marginally too much effort and also of too little effort.
Awareness of the whole body is one way this can be effected. Even if you are working with a method of breath meditation, for example, that involves a spatially narrow focus of attention as ‘foreground’, it is often beneficial to lightly maintain, as the ‘background’ to this ‘foreground’, a global awareness permeating fully and ‘filling out’ the whole body in an alive way. Among other advantages, this will automatically introduce more of a sense of space into the meditation, which can help to ease the contraction of tightness when it arises.
First: Tightness is a state of contraction of the mind and body energy. So too, in fact, is any restlessness – gross or subtle (as in drifting) – and any dullness or drowsiness (including sinking).
Although it might feel relatively pleasant, too much calmness without enough energy is a kind of subtly dull state, sometimes referred to as ‘sinking’. The mind and the body can feel slightly heavy when this is the case and the quality of brightness is not so manifest in the mind. On the other hand, too much energy without the calm to balance it can create a subtle form of restlessness, often referred to as ‘drifting’. Here, the body does not feel so settled, the attention may skit off the object more frequently, and there seem to be more thoughts or images being thrown up by the mind.
