Concentration Insight (vs. Dry Insight)
It is true that the absorption jhānas are very intense, and you could get attached to them. They completely push away the hindrances for a short period, and you come out of the jhānic state experiencing great bliss and happiness. But it doesn’t last. Moreover, you don’t learn anything from it. It is like a drug that you take, and later you just come down, and that’s the end of that. It can be a kind of addiction, escaping into a bliss realm and getting away from life for a short period of time.
In another twist on concentration absorption practice you learn absorption jhāna practice, but then you are instructed that when you come out of that concentrated state, you are to observe with what is thought to be this “powerful mindfulness,” after coming out of the absorption, the states that are arising and passing away at that very moment. You shine this powerful light on your arising mental states.
You are told to notice the foundations of mindfulness; notice the three signs inherent in them of impermanence, suffering, and impersonality. Teachers of this method claim that when you see this with the powerful awareness from the absorption jhāna experience, you gain strong insights and ultimately experience Nibbāna. They use the suttas to back up this practice method, but they are misunderstanding the suttas.
The suttas explain the factors that make up the jhānas. They do talk about their impermanent and impersonal nature and how, by observing these factors of mind, you will gain insight — but not by suppressing craving and hindrances with absorption concentration. It is by allowing the hindrances to arise and gently release them or control them and they naturally fade away.
These concentration practices are all based on the Vissudhi Magga. Again, it says that once you attain the jhāna, you exit out of that jhāna and start to observe with the power of the concentration obtained. You use mindfulness to observe the mental processes. In this way, seeing how it works, you understand its nature of impermanence, suffering, and impersonality (anicca, dukkha, anattā). The Vissudhi Magga stresses that this insight is so profound that you attain Nibbāna.
Some claim that this is what the suttas mean when they talk about the meditator observing the factors and characteristics of the jhānas. They use the suttas to back up this technique when actually this isn’t what was meant at all.
In the Anupada Sutta, it says the meditator observes many factors as they go through the jhānas. But they are already in the jhānas seeing these factors and don’t need to come out to observe this. In fact, as soon as the jhāna disappears, so do the jhāna factors. They don’t exist outside the jhāna. You can’t observe them later.
The powerful, happy concentration jhāna state that the mind has just emerged from has suppressed all the craving that was causing the suffering in the first place. What was the craving that was being suppressed? It was the hindrances. What is the goal of meditation? Eliminating the hindrances and purifying the mind. In your practice, if we push the hindrances aside with strong concentration, how can we ever hope to understand them and their root cause?
The Concentration Insight meditator (using the absorption jhānas) will see the aggregates arising and passing away. He may, in fact, see some impermanence, suffering, and impersonality, but he won’t see the links of dependent origination deeply.
Most people, who are reading the suttas, only know about the concentration-absorption practice. They are not aware of a tranquil aware jhāna. When Sāriputta says in the Anupada sutta that one is aware of the factors of the first jhāna as they occur, it is because he is in the first jhāna describing them as they are happening right then.
So far, I have read no claims of anyone who has attained awakening by practicing this method of going into the absorption jhānas and then coming out and reviewing the mental factors. Many have described this practice, but none I have ever read declare that there are meditators who have been successful with it.
In the end, you can gain some understanding by observing mind, but you just can’t get deep enough to see the links of dependent origination, and you certainly can’t attain insight by analyzing or thinking about what you are observing.
Profound insight is beyond thought. There can be no craving left to obscure your vision which concentration meditation still contains. Seeing directly into mind with the absence of craving of the aware jhāna will lead to Nibbāna.
Caution with Absorption Concentration
One final word about concentration meditation: one-pointed concentration can be dangerous. That may be too strong a word, but yes, it is true. Ruth Denison, a famous meditation teacher in California, tried a Zen retreat as her first step toward investigating meditation as a path to enlightenment. Doing the breath meditation in a concentrated way she experienced a mental breakdown, and she ended up in a hospital.[2] After this, she rejected this method and moved to a style of a more balanced awareness integrated with dance and movement that she developed on her own.
There have been many other concentration-caused breakdowns — just search the web for “concentration meditation danger, ” and you will find any number of articles.
It is a little-known fact that after her own negative experience, Ruth worked at her center in Joshua Tree, California (Dhamma Dena Vipassanā Center), with people who had lost touch with reality because of absorption or dry insight practice. The connection of their mind to their body, to various degrees, had been disrupted. She worked with them to get their hands in the dirt, had them build stone monuments, and otherwise tried to bring back the connection to their bodies. These were people who came from traditions using concentration meditation as their practice. I was on several TWIM retreats at her center, and while there I heard Ruth talk about this issue.
On one retreat I was introduced to a person who had been sent there. She looked pretty miserable. She was withdrawn and had low energy and no ability to sit. There was a kind of hopelessness in her voice when she said hello. Ruth had a lot of luck bringing people back to balance, and I certainly hope she was successful with her.
In Vipassanā, especially, many people now talk about the “Dark Night of the Soul” stage in the meditation. This is a pretty new term for me, but it is simply talking about the higher stages of the meditation where the knowledge of fear arises, among other states.
These are standard levels of knowledge, and I went through them and was told just to ride it out. It never had a name like this, but I do know what it is. It is the fear of dying because you see that there is no Self there, however you have no balance, and the craving mind arises and comes in the form of great fear because you are taking all this personally.
There is nothing unpleasant like this that ever happens in TWIM meditation, if there is then you 6R or release and relax into it as just another hindrance. TWIM is the letting go of the craving mind and thus gaining more and more balance and happy states.
Mental breakdowns don’t happen often, but it can happen when the meditator pushes too hard, striving to crush their hindrances with mental power rather than relaxing into them and letting them be. Meditation teachers who are using concentration jhānas point to the suttas for the verification that what they are doing is correct, but again they forget that the Buddha rejected those concentration methods.
In one popular practice of concentration jhānas, the author of a book on the concentration jhānas and their development states that “three out of a thousand students will experience the joy or pīti being turned on and then unable to be turned off… This is when the pīti gets stuck on and never seems to go away. This can last for weeks, months, even up to a year. Thankfully, this is quite rare since there aren’t any really effective solutions other than waiting the thing out. What does seem to help is getting grounded — exercise, manual labor, and eating heavy foods, like meat…”[viii] He describes when pīti is left on it is like a high-energy, buzzing, unpleasant feeling that continues whether you are sitting or not. Sometimes it just only creates insomnia.
Another problem, tha
t is also reported in the book, is sometimes students want to bypass the first jhāna intentionally because “…the intense pīti brings up painful memories.”[ix]And there are issues with the second and third jhāna states where one is advised to bypass or do something to avoid a certain problem.
The suttas do not support the concentration-absorption jhānas or the dry insight method at all. They don’t support the arising of painful states in a practice that is gradually eliminating craving step by step. Proponents say it’s faster. So, are we saying the Buddha gave us the slow way?? The Buddha’s supreme knowledge would have seen the best and fastest way. I think we can assume this.
Suttas Support TWIM
When the relax step is used, there are no negative states that arise. The suttas say you continue with your meditation, through the jhānas, and after the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, you keep meditating to what some call a ninth jhāna. This is the cessation of mind’s movement completely.
Gradually the mental movement gets slower and slower starting at the 1st jhāna going to the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. There are eight steps or levels, and there is the point where mind finally just stops.
If you think about this, you are not going higher and higher in the meditation; you are going “lower and slower” until everything just stops.
There is no stopping progress in the meditation; it naturally moves along, and insights arise as they will until mind stops and enters cessation.
The basis and meditation object for Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation is Mettā and the four Brahmavihāras right from the suttas. There are some added methods used in TWIM like “breaking down the barriers” and sending mettā to a Spiritual Friend, which are very helpful in the beginning stages of the meditation. When your TWIM meditation has developed to a certain level, it then switches to and follows the suttas precisely, using the pervading to the six directions as taught in the Brahmavihāra method.
One thing that isn’t used with this mettā practice and TWIM, which is used by the majority of other teachers, is repeating the same four statements over and over. This is a traditional way of developing Mettā meditation. With the TWIM method, you bring up the sincere feeling of the wish for loving-kindness and put that feeling in your heart. You surround your spiritual friend (your meditation object) with that feeling and suffuse him or her with that feeling.
The way most people are teaching mettā is an intellectual exercise instead of a feeling meditation by saying the same statements over and over again, which turns it into a mantra or a one-pointed concentration. Instead of making the wish over and over to be happy, in TWIM you use the wish to remind yourself to bring up the feeling of loving-kindness. Later, as your practice goes deeper, you will drop the phrases completely. The result of doing this is not a dry intellectual experience, but rather, a feeling exercise which uplifts mind and helps you to become happy.
Constantly repeating the same statements allows no room for the feeling to develop — you must develop a sincere feeling and wish for your spiritual friend to be happy so the Mettā or loving-kindness can take hold. Rather than repeating the wishes, Bhante advises bringing up a smile to remind yourself of the feeling — a smile in your heart, in your mind and also on your lips.
Secular Buddhism
Finally, a new variation on Buddhism has taken hold called secular Buddhism. It teaches only the parts of Buddhism that we can see for ourselves and do not need to believe in. For example, past lives are not considered part of the Buddha’s teaching in secular Buddhism because we don’t see them and recall them for ourselves here and now. (However, there are indeed some students who recall past lives, and an entire industry of Past-Life Regression Hypnotherapy has sprung up to address past lives and psychological problems coming from them that have seeped into the present.)
It does seem like the purest secular Buddhist practice attempts to remove the Buddha from Buddhism. It offers a distorted view of Mindfulness as only a tool to use as a therapeutic approach to healing the individual of mundane stress and depression. What happened to Nibbāna? What happened to profound insight into Impermanence and Impersonality?
Secular Buddhism removes Buddhist concepts because they are seen as arcane and unnecessary to solving one’s problems. There is even a magazine about Mindfulness, with that very title, which has not a single reference to the Buddha in it. All Pāli terms are left out. There is no mention of higher understanding or enlightenment. Mindfulness is just another tool that has been added to the psychotherapeutic toolkit. This is the watering down of Buddhism.
Another blend of Buddhism is a new age meditation style called Advaita and is based on thousands year old Vedanta practices. It is a Hindu-based “non-dual” or a “philosophy of oneness” practice. Famous proponents of this are Ramana Maharshi, Eckart Tolle, and Adyashanti. The practice focuses on observing whatever arises in the present moment and not trying to control or analyze. Just allowing what is there and letting mind tranquilize and go deeper and follow it down to a level of “oneness.” Tibetan Dzogchen practice is similar to in that it observes this open field of awareness without controlling.
This practice can be quite useful to a point. It certainly turns your practice to observing, rather than “trying” too hard to achieve a certain state or experience. You simply allow what is there, even to the point of inquiring “who is meditating” and “what are you trying to achieve?” This is the first step of letting go of the “controller.” Adyashanti describes that instead of controlling the meditation you “let go of the meditator!”
As one gets deeper and mind’s activity slows, it is explained that you will eventually see the underlying “essence” or “spirit” referred to by Tolle as “the sacred, ” or you will come to a state of “oneness,” unchanging and blissful.
Since the relax step, the foundation of TWIM is not employed here, you won’t understand how to relax the mental tightness and go even deeper. With that, you go past the level where one might think a permanent type of spirit resides, down to an even deeper level and ultimately the very nethermost or beginning of mentality itself.
And you can go there if you know how. Once you do, you will find nothing there except even more subtle phenomena. Even these are eventually left behind for total cessation of mind. This is a variation of the belief in a soul or Higher Self. When your mind is just barely moving, and you are able to observe with powerful mindfulness, you won’t be able to find such a thing — only moments of consciousness arising and passing away in a never-ending impersonal stream.
Chapter Five: Progress in the Aware (TWIM) Jhānas
Beginning TWIM
Now let us see how the TWIM meditation practice takes us through the four tranquil aware jhānas including the four bases contained in the fourth jhāna with the subsequent attainment of Nibbāna. If you follow what the suttas say without any added interpretation, then this is what will happen. This is the progress of Tranquil Aware Insight Meditation or TWIM.
The jhānas described from here are the tranquil aware jhānas. In this type of jhāna, you are aware of both mind and body. The Buddha said we cannot ever understand ourselves unless we look at the totality of who we are and see the impersonal nature of everything that arises. We can't control anything by pushing it away or trying to stop what comes up. Only through acceptance of what is in the present, not fighting or controlling it, seeing it clearly without mental noise or craving, can we achieve release.
A word here about morality. The Buddha’s system is built on a moral view of the world. If you do unwholesome actions, then painful results and mental states like hindrances follow. Do wholesome and wholesome follows. Meditation is completely wholesome. If you wish to be successful in your meditation, you should be following the five precepts as a minimum to achieve the best progress.
What are they? Not killing, not stealing, not lying or cursing, not being involved in sexual misconduct like adultery and not taking intoxicants or alcohol. It is
n’t hard, and it said that following these simple guidelines brings you a prosperous and happy existence in this life and the next.
Following these five precepts, prescribed by the Buddha as your moral baseline, will help your meditation to go very deep. By not committing any further harmful acts you will become free of guilt and remorse, and your mind will be peaceful and tranquil. For retreats, there are an additional three precepts to help you fine tune, including not eating after noon, not engaging in entertainment and not using perfumes or makeup.
The 6Rs and the Instructions
—Meditation Instruction:
The beginning meditator will spend a few days or weeks cultivating loving-kindness toward themselves and a “Spiritual Friend” by using phrases to help bring up the feeling of loving-kindness: “May I be happy,” “May I be peaceful," “As I am happy I wish you to be happy.”
A Spiritual Friend is someone who is alive, the same sex and someone you admire and like. It might be a teacher, a neighbor or a friend. It is best to avoid family members because that can be overly complicated. It must be someone who can generate a smile when you think about them.
You remember a time when you were happy; you bring that feeling up and radiate it to yourselves first. Ten minutes out of a thirty-minute sitting, you will send it to yourself and the rest of the session, at least twenty minutes, you’ll send loving and kind thoughts to a spiritual friend (See full instructions in “A Guide to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation” — which is included at the back of this book.)
You now take your spiritual friend and put them in your heart and surround and radiate to them that feeling and stay with that feeling as long as you can.
The Path to Nibbana Page 7
