The Arc of Practice

Excerpt from the not-yet published book An Engineer on the Buddhist Path

by Shawn Burke, Ph.D.

welos2@icloud.com

© 2024, Shawn Burke, all rights reserved

[I’ll be searching for a publisher in 2025!]

(selections from) Chapter 9: The Arc of Practice 

People romanticize meditation as a means for entering a transcendent space beyond everyday experience, or at least beyond their own suffering.  So what is meditation?  Sitting in a half or full lotus with thumbs and index fingers circled atop our knees?  Following the breath?  Saying nothing, or not thinking?  Sitting and wondering when we can (finally) get up and watch Netflix?  That last question is where many if not most of us start with our practice: a bit confused, and startled by how unruly the mind is.  But what we're doing in meditation is employing something that we all share – the faculties of the mind – to observe and recognize sensations, mental states, mental objects, and their interrelations.  With training our signal-to-noise ration improves, and with a quiet mind we can discern ever more subtle aspects of experience.

The Pali word for meditation is bhavana, which means development or cultivation.  In meditation we develop the factors of concentration and mindfulness so that we can employ them skillfully.  Some practices emphasize one of these more than the other; many help us develop, recognize, and balance the Awakening Factors. 

Formal meditation is a lot like going to the lab.  In a laboratory we design experiments to isolate the phenomena being studied.  Separating the experiment from potentially confounding factors lets us focus on what we want to observe.  We keep it simple.  For meditation a quiet space to sit, lie, stand, or walk is our lab. By removing distractions we can more easily discern how the mind moves.  Over time we develop skills that help us work with distractions, and so can meditate almost anywhere: on a bus, at the airport, in the supermarket, in conversation.

 You bring the same mind into meditation practice that you lug around all day long; that doesn’t change.  What we find on the cushion will be brought into our daily lives, and vice versa.  Whatever worries, attachments, or mind states we experience in the everyday will be sure to stop by and say hello in our formal practice.  That’s the point.  A quiet environment doesn’t mean we’ll stop thinking, or that our worries will magically disappear.  Sitting in quiet and stillness, or performing deliberate and familiar movements, encourages the mind to relax.  When the mind stills and the factors supporting awareness develop we can do the real work of meditation: seeing things as they actually are, warts and all. 

 We use very basic objects for meditation because the mind can be unruly and distracted.  The breath, bodily sensations, or sounds in Nature are fairly neutral.  They don’t require any doing on our part to experience them.  As you sit, right now, take a moment and listen.  How much effort does it take to hear?  Sounds, the breath, and bodily sensations are natural processes that needn’t spin up a lot of associations or stories.  They are always present.  These objects are also simple, far simpler and more concrete than more ephemeral and subtle processes described in the Satipatthana Sutta’s fourth foundation.  Observing basic, uncharged phenomena lets us slow down, pause, and connect with the present moment by doing just one thing, rather than trying to work through a long checklist.  It gives us space to develop mindfulness and concentration.

We connect with and then stay connected with experience through the factor of mindfulness.  With patient effort the mind becomes still, clear, and spacious (but not blank!) when concentration is established.  With diligent effort we gradually progress from periods of calm and flow – what we can think of as states of being – to enduring changes in perspective and behavior best described as altered traits through the process of insight.

We may have started our practice hoping to become a better person, a better partner, a better engineer, a better athlete, or a better parent.  Doing so embraces the standard self-help sales pitch: we’re not good enough, or we’re missing something so we’d better go get it.  This starting point is based in aversion toward ourself.  It also reflects an outcome-focused mindset where we want or need to get something from practice, pronto; where we need to extract something from experience.  In meditation the tension this brings simply adds to our suffering.  It fuels (or can be fueled by) impatience.  How often have we heard someone ask, “What is the shortest amount of time I need to meditate, and do I have to do it every day?”  Note the wanting and aversion underlying those questions.  Just more things to let go.  Eventually, with patience and perseverance, we do. 

The fruits of meditation come in fits and starts.  The mind is not a vending machine.  In our results-focused culture, spending thirty minutes or more on the cushion may appear self-indulgent and self-centered.  So let me offer an analogy.  When we board a commercial airliner we’re instructed, in case of a loss of cabin pressure, to put on our oxygen mask before helping anyone else with their’s.  Similarly, in Buddhism we turn inward in meditation to uproot our unskillful tendencies and views.  This allows us to see things more clearly – to see things as they actually are – so that when we turn our attention outward we are naturally more insightful, skillful, and compassionate.  These are qualities the world needs, right now.  Doesn’t sound very self-indulgent to me.

At first meditation involves a lot of doing while we learn its techniques: noting, counting, body scanning, etc.  These are all covered wonderfully elsewhere[⁠1a] and need not be repeated here.  We eventually ‘get inside the technique’, where all that is happening is the breath, or body sensations, or sounds.  At that point we have developed enough familiarity and trust in the practice to leave the method behind, or at least not place the method front and center at all times.  In essence we give ourselves permission to do nothing extra, to add nothing to experience and expect nothing from it.  It takes time to get to that point because we have decades of practice doing something!

It’s also helpful to understand what meditation isn’t.  Our lives can turn on a dime.  We are passed over for a promotion for completely arbitrary reasons, or even worse lose our job; personal relationships fall into disarray; a bad investment might wipe out financial security; someone dear to us falls ill.  Does meditation prevent things like that from happening?  Or are we just seeking a comfortable blanket to climb under and console ourselves?  If the goal of practice is to find and live in a perpetual state of calm that shields us against difficulties, well, good luck with that.  Like all mind states calmness is impermanent and subject to change.  When it ceases you’re back where you started.  The goal of the Buddha’s teaching is not perpetual calm. Instead, he urged us to investigate the nature of suffering and its cessation through a systematic training of the mind so that we can be with all experience.  Calm is a vital support for insight, and a wonderful byproduct of meditation.  But it’s not the goal.

… Formal meditation starts with observing the body and the breath.  These practices, undertaken sincerely, diligently, and patiently, lay the foundation by developing the factors of connection and clarity.  Connection means being able to stay with whatever is in awareness so we can investigate its nature and how we relate to it. This is mindfulness and clear comprehension in action.  Clarity means letting go of distractions, all the things that stand between us and direct experience, so we may see things as they are.  This is concentrationin action.  As these factors develop and strengthen in a balanced way we open a peaceful, still space for the present moment.  This lets us investigate the… elements of experience… and their causal interconnections. Or we can connect with the beautiful states of deep concentration called the jhanas, or the Brahmaviharas…

With further practice we develop equanimity and dispassion.  Equanimity provides an unshakeable foundation so we can observe, in concert with the factors of mindfulness and concentration, whatever is present.  Equanimity keeps us from being pulled one way or another by likes or dislikes, good or bad, wanting or not wanting, and makes us less prone to judging and preference.  It supports us as we initially admit and then embrace life – all of it.  We see that everything is in constant flux; there’s nothing lasting to hold on to.  This fundamental uncertainty that’s baked into life can spark both wonder and fear.  When we deeply understand impermanence, and know without a doubt that it is an inescapable facet of life that actually makes freedom possible, we further commit to practice.  We don’t become disenchanted with life’s continuous flux, but with the continued fueling of processes and habits that we now know lead to suffering in ourselves, in others, and in both.  The dispassion that results from this insight helps us let things go.  After a certain point the practice is less about doing, and becomes much more about letting go. Changes in our mind states are first experienced in short bursts.  But openings and long-term shifts in traits – in how we relate to the world – come from the cumulative effect of calm and insight, of concentration and mindfulness.

Sounds great, right?  So how do we get there?  Well, when developing a meditation practice, don’t be like me.  If presented with four steps to get from A to B, I usually jumped to step four right away.  I lacked patience...

What further limited me early in my formal practice career was not having a framework of theory to understand these experiences.  I also lacked a clear understandings of how various meditation practices fit together and support each other, how they can be productively sequenced, or even why I should do any one of them in the first place.  I hope this book, and what follows in the balance of this chapter, will help you benefit from my mistakes…

Concentration

“True knowledge of the ending of defilements is for those with concentration, not for those without concentration.  And so, monks, concentration is the path. No concentration is the wrong path.”

                  [Sihanada Sutta ‘The Lion’s Roar’ AN 6:64]

Preliminaries

The final factor in the Eightfold Path is Wise Concentration.  When we are concentrated we leave the Hindrances – unskillful desire, aversion, restless and worry, mental lethargy, and doubt – behind.  The mind becomes still, spacious, and clear; nothing sticks.  There is nothing stirring up the mind, and no distraction comes between us and experience.  Much like we boil the sap from maple trees to produce syrup, and along the way leave behind the non-essential bits, in our practice concentration means bringing together only the essential qualities of mind that align with out intentions, and letting the rest be.  Concentration is sometimes equated with collectedness of mind.

With deepening concentration the mind becomes unified.  Unification is like an agreement among consciousness processes to focus on a single object.[1b]  If we consider the theater model of consciousness posited in Global Workspace Theory (GWT),⁠[2] unification occurs when GWT’s director prioritizes information from processes attending to the object, and de-prioritizes information which doesn’t.  We move from a scattered mind to one that is single-pointed toward any object.  In concert with mindfulness this lets us direct attention to an object and sustain it there, or move attention from object to object with agility, sticking the landing every time.

While this may sound like mental regimentation, a concentrated mind is actually happy and peaceful.  The resulting tranquility is of course one of the Awakening Factors.  Surprisingly, the proximate cause for mental unification is happiness.[⁠3]  Happiness begins to arise when the Hindrances fade, and builds as we become more concentrated, enacting a virtuous feedback loop.  A happy mind is a concentrated mind.

Concentration deepens until we realize access concentration.  At that point we have a choice.  We can employ the concentrated mind to enter even deeper states called the jhanas since we are now prepared to access them.  Or we can employ the mind to access the Insight Knowledges, which we’ll consider in Chapter 10.

How do we get to access concentration?  By countering the Hindrances, as described in Chapter 6.  In access concentration the mind is aware of other sense percepts aside from the primary meditation object, but is completely undistracted by them.  We can compare and contrast what is in the mind at the beginning and end of our meditations.  If we noted any of the hindrances at the start, and that they are completely absent at the end, we have been in the neighborhood of access concentration.  It’s also helpful to notice any byproducts of concentration as we practice.  This includes happiness, as noted above.  Your posture may improve, the body relaxes and signs of tension drain away, you may spontaneously smile, and you may notice particular body sensations that only crop up then.[⁠4] 

I first developed a dedicated concentration practice using calm abiding meditation, also referred to as samatha.  It became my sole method of mind training for nearly a year.  The practice is from Mahayana Buddhism.  Its goal is to develop a unified, single-pointed mind that can be sustained for long periods of time – even for hours – without wandering.  We achieve this by training the mind to pacify distractions and mind wandering so that it naturally inclines toward the meditation object. 

Calm abiding meditation is developed in stages.[⁠5]  While the brief summary that follows depicts a linear progression, we sometimes fall back to an earlier stage, while at other times jump briefly ahead.  Initially we place attention on the breath, and watch it slide off into distractions and mind wandering.  By noticing mind wandering and gently bringing the mind back to the primary object we experience fewer interruptions.  We are strengthening sampajana – clear comprehension – in concert with mindfulness to safeguard the mind.  As our practice deepens we eventually encounter dullness, where it feels like the volume has been turned down on the meditation object and other sense percepts.  Dullness feels cozy and comfortable, but it’s a dead end.  We work to overcome this gross form of dullness, as well as more subtle forms and distractions, using a variety of techniques as described in Chapter 6.  Thereafter, there is a transition where we can attend to the meditation object for longer intervals of time with comparative ease; we start to experience the benefits of a unified mind.  Beyond this we begin to let go of sense percepts not pertaining to the main object and develop single-pointed awareness centered on the primary meditation object.  We may experience happiness leading to joy, an uplifting energy which is both a sign of progress and a potential impediment; joy is also a form of restlessness.  As we balance the energy of joy by not actively seeking it, the mind and body become tranquil and we can experience the arising of contentment, and of equanimity.⁠[6]  Through diligent effort we gain access concentration.

As you may have noticed this progression develops many of the Awakening Factors.  Most importantly for me it established stability.  Not in the way that mindfulness reflects a stability of attention, but rather a reservoir of calm that I could rely on and call upon when needed.  For some time I had been afraid of meditation, and had to repeat the word “safe” at the start of every session.  That was no longer the case.  Starting to directly see the mind’s nature, with calm and clarity, fostered trust in the process and trust in my own mind.

We can also develop concentration to a remarkable degree using a very simple breath meditation.  The sole instruction is: center attention on the sensation of the breath, either at a small, fixed location in the nose or over a small subset of the diaphragm.  We’re not looking for exclusive attention, but instead to not ‘lose’ the breath sensation when distractions arise.  Initially, when mindfulness isn’t fully developed there may be some significant and frequent excursions toward thoughts, sounds, other body sensations and the like.  We simply maintain contact with the sensation of the breath.  With patience mindfulness will grow and the excursions become less frequent, and less distant from the object.  We gently direct attention toward the breath, and redirect it, and redirect it until attention is sustained there.  As attention is sustained other sensations fade into the background and the mind becomes unified around the breath. 

A metaphor for this practice is sawing a log.  The breath is full of details and variations, like the teeth of the saw.  The log merely experiences the sawing.  We focus on the sensations of the breath at one point (like the log) rather than on the diversity of the breath’s sensations and their qualities (like the saw’s teeth and its movement). We need not discern short versus long breaths, rough versus smooth, deep versus shallow, left nostril versus right, or anything else.  We direct and sustain attention on the breath but don’t try to discern its detailed qualities.  In other words, be the log.

This practice can be extended to walking meditation by only attending to the sensation of pressure on the soles of the feet.  By keeping it simple we work toward unifying the mind rather than dispersing it in looking for details….

…

The Brahmaviharas

Once on retreat, on the afternoon of day six, we were led in a meditation practice that contemplated four heart-based qualities like kindness and joy.  Together these are called the Brahmaviharas.  The teacher led us through each contemplation in turn.  As we attained and dwelled in the fourth reflection I felt a sudden sense of recognition: … the presence of equanimity, which I was familiar with from another concentration practice.

The Brahamaviharas are known by other names.  Its literal translation is “the abodes of Brahma.”  Brahma is the name of the Hindu creator god.  When instructing two Brahmanic priests the Buddha suggested that by practicing these four reflections one would be free of the Hindrances, and so be “in the company of Brahma” here and now.[⁠16]  The name stuck and became enmeshed in Buddhist cosmology. 

I’m drawn to another name for these reflections, the four immeasurables, which aptly describes one’s state of mind when deeply practicing them.  They are sometimes referred to as boundless states.  They are also called the four illimitables because they are to be offered to all living beings without limitation.[⁠17]

Many meditators will be familiar with the first Brahmavihara practice, metta, or ‘loving-kindness’ meditation.[⁠18]  After establishing mindfulness and concentration using, say, the breath or body sensations the meditator is asked to visualize themself.  We can think of our appearance, or some felt sense of being us such as our posture, or both.  Once this is firmly established we extend kindness to ourselves, silently and gently repeating phrases like “May I be happy,” or offering in sequence (and pausing between each phrase) “May I be happy; may I be safe; may I be fit; may I live with ease.”  “Safe” means to be safe from both outer and inner harm, where inner harm includes our tendencies toward excessive self-criticism and rumination. “Ease” connotes living without undue difficulty, sometimes expressed as ease of wellbeing. The meditator is encouraged to find phrasings that lands for them.  They should not ask us to do anything, just receive these wishes.  Once we settle on wordings we should stick with them.  It’s also helpful to settle into a rhythm when reciting the phrases.

We are further encouraged to notice the affective qualities of kindness as they arise and become firmly established.  This may entail a warm and gentle energy surrounding our heart or elsewhere in the chest.  The meditator them visualizes, in sequence, a friend, a mentor, a neutral person, and a difficult person, offering the same messages of kindness to each of them individually.  With the reflections we may notice some resistance toward the difficult person, or even toward ourselves.[⁠19]  These are both personal and universal insights into the nature of our experience.  Over time we develop sufficient equanimity that we can offer these universal wishes to difficult people (and ourself) without resistance. 

The next reflection, compassion (karuna), is sometimes done using a twist on the wording of metta practice.  Each offering of the phrases above is prefaced with “Just like me,” as in, “Just like me, this person wishes to be happy.”  The sequence of phrases and people follows as for metta practice.  This wording fosters empathy, an important onramp to compassion.[⁠20]  Empathy gives us a chance to walk in someone else’s shoes and chip away at the myth of separateness. 

Alternatively, when we visualize the same sequence of people for this practice we can call to mind a way that each of them suffers.  Once this is established we can employ a different phrase, “I acknowledge your suffering.⁠[21]  May you be happy and free from suffering.”  We recognize that compassion is active, what a fellow practitioner calls “empathy in action.”  It becomes especially powerful when, though the lens of Wise View, we can simultaneously hold another’s shared humanity alongside our understanding that delusion – the failure to see things as they are – causes their suffering.  In this way compassion is an expression of wisdom.

The first two Brahmaviharas are relational.  We are offering wishes of loving-kindness and compassion to others; they are the objects of our practice.  Some teachers guide these practices so that they conclude with our offering loving-kindness and compassion to groups of people, and finally to all beings.  With that last offering the objects become more diffuse.  In the next two reflections, sympathetic or resonant joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekha), we are first asked to establish these qualities in ourselves.  For joy we foster an internal feeling of joy in response to the happiness and joy of others.  For equanimity we reflect that we are the heirs of our actions. Consequently these are subjectivepractices.  Once established we share these qualities with the same sequence of people.

Mudita practice can tap into any scarcity mentality that we harbor.  We may see others experiencing success and happiness and so become jealous.  This is seeing joy as a pie with a finite number of slices.⁠[22]  In this case we may be able to connect with mudita via its immediate neighbor, gratitude.  Both gratitude practice and mudita have a similarly energetic feel.  As we become more grateful for what we have we are less prone to jealousy; we become content.  Over time we see that the ‘pie of joy’ has an infinite number of slices available to all. 

Finally, equanimity provides balance to the meditator, and vital support for the other abodes.  It prevents metta from devolving into sentimentality, compassion from fostering frustration and sadness due to the seeming intractability of suffering, and keeps joy’s energy in check. It encourages non-discrimination and non-preference.

When we offer kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity to others in meditation, one of the primary benefits is that, over time, we instill these qualities in ourselves.  Meditators report increases in positive emotions, a sense of purpose, and increased life satisfaction from these practices.⁠[23]  Compassion meditation also increases the connectivity of neural circuits involved in empathy with as little as seven hours practice over two weeks.  These results were observable outside the formal meditation itself.⁠[24]  There’s much to be gained by incorporating the Brahmaviharas into the arc of practice beyond mere variety, or as a ‘break’ from following the diversity of objects in vipassana meditation. They can become our default way of being in the world.

What may surprise most meditators is that metta and the other Brahmaviharas are concentration practices.⁠[25]. With metta or joy firmly established there is no room in awareness for the Hindrances.  Then, when practiced in a particular way they lead to a depth of concentration rivaling the jhanas.  As Bhikkhu Analayo notes,

“[T]he divine abodes at times stand in place of the four [jhanic] absorptions... The cultivation of the brahmaviharas up to absorption level can then fulfill the training in mental tranquillity [samatha] that in early Buddhist thought forms an integral part of the path to liberation.”⁠[26]

This was a revelation for me since I could share these meditations with others without difficulty.  Concentration practices like the jhanas are more easily done on retreat.

In the commentarial literature the practices described above, where each reflection is offered to a sequence of individuals, are referred to as the Brahmaviharas’ initial development.⁠[27]  They were formalized by the Sri Lankan scholar-monk Buddhagosa around 500 CE, building on on the work of the Indian scholar-monk Upatissa from around 100-200 CE⁠[28].  Interestingly, they do not appear in the canonical suttas dating from circa 500 BCE in this form.  The Brahamavihara practices described in the early discourses only loosely resemble the later practices.  For example, in the Metta Sutta [Snp 1.8],

Even as a mother would protect with her life her child, her only child, so too for all creatures unfold a boundless heart.

With kindness for the whole world, unfold a boundless heart: above, below, all round, unconstricted, without enemy or foe.

 Further,

That noble disciple is rid of desire, rid of ill will, unconfused, aware, and mindful. They meditate spreading a heart full of kindness to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, they spread a heart full of kindness to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will…

They meditate spreading a heart full of compassion … They meditate spreading a heart full of joy … They meditate spreading a heart full of equanimity to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, they spread a heart full of equanimity to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will.

They understand: ‘Formerly my mind was limited and undeveloped. Now it’s limitless and well developed. Whatever limited deeds I’ve done don’t remain or persist there.’⁠[29]

                  [Karajakaya Sutta AN 10.219, No. 21 – ‘The Body Born of Deeds’]

 These discourses (and others) describe a form of practice called the radiating Brahmaviharas.  The meditator first establishes the felt sense of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, or equanimity learned during the initial development phase.  Or, we perform one of the initial development practices.  Once this has built to a sufficient degree we’ll notice the corresponding affective qualities begin to pervade the body.  These become the primary meditation objects, supplemented as needed by the breath as a secondary object in the (increasingly unlikely) event of mind wandering.  As the felt sense of each Brahmavihara becomes firmly established in the body and mind it’s especially helpful at this stage to simply rest in the beautiful qualities of these mediations.  They are some of meditation’s more wonderful goodies.

Over time the perceived bounds of the body may become less distinct as we let go of our focus on the physical senses.  Or it may feel as if the body is covered by a light, thin cloth.  At this juncture the meditator imagines that they are gently glowing with the feeling of the corresponding abode.  They then imaginatively project the feeling of kindness, or compassion, or joy, or equanimity, in the forward direction to all beings.  Some may find it helpful to imagine spreading loving-kindness across the room, then into the neighborhood, then over the town or city, etc., until the radiation feels ‘boundless’ in the forward direction.  They then visualize spreading the felt sense to the right, then behind, then to the left, forming a disk of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, or equanimity pervading all cardinal directions.  Finally, the meditator imagines they are also radiating the felt sense upwards, then downwards.  At this point the meditator visualizes themself spreading loving-kindness, etc., in all directions, like a glowing sphere. 

Sometimes it feels like we’re radiating the gentle glow of an ember, other times it’s like an omnidirectional klieg light.  The degree to which the qualities are aroused, radiated, and sustained depends upon experience with the initial training, time and practice, time spent patiently developing the felt sense of the Brahmavihara, and causes and conditions leading up to that moment, all of which contribute to the degree of absorption.  The breath may become indistinct or fade altogether, along with the sense of having a body.  We may notice some sounds but don’t attend to them.  The mind unifies around the radiated quality and lets most everything else go.⁠[30]

Why would we want to do this?  While it does sound a bit strange, performing the Brahmaviharas in this way offers some advantages as we progress along the Path.  First, we move away from establishing others as separate objects.  The initial training is still based in the concept of self and other; now we drop that distinction.  By imaginatively radiating these qualities in all directions after establishing them in ourselves we recognize no preference.  It’s less “I am offering sympathetic joy to you” and more “There is joy everywhere.”  By resting in these states when they are fully developed we can become deeply concentrated.⁠[31]  The only object in the heart and mind is the corresponding affective quality; these meditations are not based on any concrete object.  Their radiation reflects the mind’s boundlessness, and provide insight into the nature of phenomenal experience.⁠[32]  They are a jumping off point for awareness practices that I have only begun to explore.

Finally, when we practice the entire sequence (or at least the last two) we develop the Awakening Factors:

“[M]indfulness (1) functions as the foundation through the presence of awareness during the actual arousing of the divine abode. The establishing of the divine abode in the mind will then be monitored with investigation (2), which stands for an attitude of interested observation. Such investigation needs to be sufficiently energized (3) so as to be continuous, able to alert one to any loss of the boundless radiation immediately. This energetic investigation then should be gentle so that it leads to joy (4), instead of resulting in mental tension. The wholesome joy arisen in this way should not become too exhilarating, but should remain a soothing type of joy that leads to tranquillity (5). Tranquillity of body and mind naturally lead onwards to a concentrated state of mind (6). The establishing of the awakening factors then culminates in mental equipoise (7).”[⁠33]

With practice it’s possible to rouse these qualities fairly quickly – but of course, not always.  For metta I reflect on instances where people have been kind to me, and I in turn have been kind.  More to the point, I may reflect, “All beings embody kindness.”  Once established we let go of these ‘kindle-ings’ and gently repeat “kindness” or “metta” as needed.  For compassion I reflect on one individual’s suffering (not mine!) and offer, “I acknowledge your suffering.  May you be happy and free from suffering.”  Sometimes I don’t need to visualize a being and merely recite the phrase, directed toward all beings.  I may repeat “karuna,” the Pali word for compassion, as needed to sustain the meditation.  For joy I think of one of our cats, one of the most joyful beings I’ve ever met.  I may repeat “joy” or its Pali equivalent, “mudita,” as needed. 

 The meditation on joy can produce an astounding amount of energy.  Just by noticing it the energy eases a bit – we let the mind do the work of balancing for us.  Alternatively, the next abode, equanimity, will lower the energy and bring more balance to the Awakening Factors.  I’ve found the easiest way to arouse equanimity is to simply note, “I am the heir to my actions,” “I am the owner of my actions,” or, “I am the heir to my kamma.”⁠[34]  Where previously joy produced a lot of energy centered around my neck and head, equanimity moves down the body into the hips and legs.  The transition can be rapid.  The mind becomes still, but remains bright and connected. 

––

While on retreat I found a particularly delightful way of practicing radiating metta.  During walking mediation, which itself does a wonderful job of establishing mindfulness and concentration, I roused the felt sense of kindness and offered it in all directions as described above.  It was like taking kindness for a walk. 

With loving-kindness for the whole world, unfold a boundless heart: above, below, all round, unconstricted, without enemy or foe.

When standing, walking, sitting, or lying down while yet unweary, keep this ever in mind; for this, they say, is a divine meditation in this life.

                  [Metta Sutta Snp 1.8] (emphasis added)

 I noticed that the mind became expansive as I walked.  Then, toward the end of the practice I (very) briefly reflected on some minor but unfinished matters I had left behind in the ‘real world’.  The mind contracted in the time it took to snap my fingers.  I had let in the Hindrance of restlessness and worry, as well as an aspect of the self since I identified these as ‘my’ problems.  The mind contracted. From this and similar experiences I’ve learned to use the mind’s spaciousness as a barometer for how much I’m ‘selfing’.

 … The radiating Brahmaviharas lend themselves to insight practice using contrastive phenomenology when we reflect on our practice. 

“A mendicant meditates spreading a heart full of kindness to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, they spread a heart full of loving-kindness to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will … They meditate spreading a heart full of compassion …They meditate spreading a heart full of joy … They meditate spreading a heart full of equanimity… Then they reflect: ‘Even this heart’s release by [kindness, compassion, joy, or] equanimity is produced by choices and intentions.’ They understand: ‘But whatever is produced by choices and intentions is impermanent and liable to cessation.’ Abiding in that they attain the ending of defilements.”

                  [Aṭṭhakanagara Sutta AN 11.16] [emphasis added]

Upon exit, if we reflect that the radiation was able to ‘run itself’ and became self-sustaining, we may ask, Who exactly was running the show during this meditation?  If the mind was completely filled with metta or joy, where was our suffering?  Further, we can emerge from radiating Brahmavihara practice to undertake conventional vipassana meditation since the Awakening Factors have been roused… 

In my own arc I’ve incorporated the radiating Brahmaviharas as an alternative way for attaining deeper concentration.  Over two years of daily practice has also yielded a noticeable shift in traits.  This isn’t surprising since concentration erodes the Hindrances, and the Brahmavihara practices instill their qualities in us. 

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1a See, for example,  Bhante Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English, Wisdom Publications (2011); S.N. Goenka, The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation, HarperOne (2009); Sharon Salzberg, Loving Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, Shambala (2020); Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, Sounds True (2016).

1b Buddhaghosa, Visuddhimagga: The Path of Purification, translated by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, Kindle Edition, Pariyatti Publishing, Sri Lanka, Loc. 4387 footnote 2 (2020).

2 See Chapter 2.

3 Bhikkhu Bodhi, editor, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Pariyatti Publishing, p. 150 (2012)

4 I’m being deliberately vague since the particulars will be highly individualized.  We may also observe a ‘counterpart sign’ of the meditation object that is mind-created.  But the form of the counterpart sign depends both on the chosen meditation object and the proclivities of the meditator.  For more on this the interested practitioner can refer to Ajahn Brahm’s wonderfully accessible book Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator’s Handbook, Wisdom Publications, Somerville MA, pp. 20-23 (2006).

5 “What is samatha? It is the [narrow linking] of the mind, its establishment, placing, dwelling, remaining, control, calm, appeasement, unification, composition in itself.” Asanga, The Compendium of the Higher Teaching (Abhidharmasamuccaya), S. Boin-Webb (translator), Jain Publishing Company, p. 170 (2001).

6 See J. Yates, M. Immergut, and J. Graves, The Mind Illuminated [Simon & Schuster, New York (2015)], which is an excellent step-by-step manual for undertaking this practice.

7 Yeah, I had to look that up too.  It’s the location atop the skull at the junction of the coronal and sagittal sutures.  This would correspond to the fontanelle in an infant’s skull.

8 M. Hagerty, J. Isaacs, L. Brasington, L. Shupe, E. Fetz, and S. Cramer, “Case Study of Ecstatic Meditation: fMRI and EEG Evidence of Self-Stimulating a Reward System,” Neural Plasticity, Volume 2013, Article ID 653572; W. Yang, A. Chowdhury, M. Bianciardi, R. van Lutterveld, T. Sparby, M. Sacchet, “Intensive whole-brain 7T MRI case study of volitional control of brain activity in deep absorptive meditation states,” Cerebral Cortex, pp. 1–16 (2023).

9 See, for example, L. Brasington, Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas, Shambala, Boulder CO (2015); Shaila Catherine, Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity, Wisdom, Publications, Somerville MA (2008).

10 J. Michaelson, “Jhana: The Spice Your Meditation Has Been Missing,” Tricycle: The Buddhist Review (Jan 21, 2022).

11 Bhikkhu Bodhi, editor, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Buddhist Publication Society, Sri Lanka, p. 117 (2007).

12 Vitaka directs the mind toward and connects it with the object, while vicara “has the characteristic of continued pressure on (occupation with) the object. Its function is to keep conascent [mental] states [occupied] with that. It is manifested as keeping consciousness anchored [on that object].”  Vicara is sometimes described as ‘rubbing’ the object in order to reveal its qualities, much like one would polish an object with a cloth.  [Vismpp. 306-307]

13 It’s also curious that equanimity and happiness can co-exist here.  Which is why I find it easier to think of this jhana as embodying contentment rather than trying to parse the influences of these two characteristic factors.

14 Anupada Sutta MN 111

15 Contrastive phenomenology strikes again!

16 Tevijja Sutta [DN 13.4].  The Buddha may have made this observation as satire.  See R. Gombrich, What the Buddha Thought, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, pp. 80-82 (2018).

17 Bhikkhu Bodhi, editor, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Buddhist Publication Society, Sri Lanka, p. 505 (2007).

18 While I sometimes shorten the translation to simply ‘kindness’, metta shares more with the Greek words agape, which means highest love or charity, and philia, which means friendship or brotherly love.  This is another example were the Pali word serves us best.

19 I found, for example, that when I offered myself joy there was a lot of resistance.  Investigating this uncovered forgotten memories from childhood where I was repeatedly told not to be ‘foolish’, when what I was feeling was unbridled happiness, e.g., joy.  I changed the phrasing to “May I be foolish.”  It worked, and over time I was able to let go of that strange memory.

20 That said, empathy has its limits since it can cause us to mirror another’s anxiety and suffering.  We vacuum up their emotions and reactions and make them our own.  This can be a real problem for caregivers; I watched it nearly burn out someone very dear to me.  See T. Singer and O.M. Klimecki, “Empathy and Compassion,” Current Biology 24(18), pp. 875-878 (22 September 2014).  As pointed out in the Visuddhimaga Ch. IX.94 , “[Compassion’s] function resides in not bearing others’ suffering.”  In other words we are prompted to act on suffering rather than absorb it.

21 Visuddhimagga Ch. IX.94, “[Compassion’s] proximate cause is to see helplessness in those overwhelmed by suffering.” (Emphasis added)

22 If instead we see another as not deserving joy from us we may have to back up and work on forgiveness, metta, or compassion practice with them to let go of this judging mindset.  What is in itself a subjective practice turns into a relational one.  In all of these practices we try to connect with our shared humanity.

23 B. Fredrickson, K.A. Coffey, J. Pek, M.A. Cohn, and S.M. Finkel, “Open Hearts Build Lives: Positive Emotions, Induced Through Loving-Kindness Meditation, Build Consequential Personal Resources,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), pp. 1045-1062 (November 2008).

24 D. Goleman and R.J. Davidson, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body, Penguin Random House, p. 158 (2017).

25 The Brahmaviharas are described in detail in Part II of the Visuddhimagga, which is an encompassing section on concentration practices.  See Chapter IX in particular.

26 Bhikkhu Analayo, Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation, Windhorse Publications, Cambridge UK, p. 59 (2015).

27 Visuddhimagga Chapter IX sections 1.8, 1.11, and 1.40.

28 N.R.M. Ehara, S. Thera, and K. Thera (translators), The Path of Freedom – Vimuttimagga, by Upatissa, published by Dr. D. Roland D. Weerasuria, Balcombe House, Ceylon, pp. 184-185 (1961).

29 “Limited deeds” here refers to unskillful intentional actions performed in the past.  To the extent that these were not egregious                this passage suggests that the radiating Brahmaviharas erode these as well.

30 And some days, not so much.  Remember, causes and conditions.

31 See Ibid at p. 187.  Also see Visuddhimaga Chapter IX sections 1.9 and 1.10.

32 Bhikkhu Analayo, “Early Buddhist Meditation, Part 2: Nondual Mindfulness,” Mindfulness, 15, pp. 521 (2024).

33 Bhikkhu Analayo, Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation, Windhorse Publications, Cambridge UK, p. 161 (2015).

34 Per the Visuddhimagga at page 610: “[Equanimity’s] proximate cause is seeing ownership of deeds (kamma) thus: ‘Beings are owners of their deeds.’”