tonight i'll continue in the series of talks on the satipatthana suta and tonight begin a discussion of the fourth and the last of the foundations of mindfulness that is contemplation of the dhammas as you know the word dhamma or dharma in sanskrit has a wide range of meanings depending on the context so one of the meanings of the word dhamma is truth or law or the teachings of the buddha or the general principles of the teachings of the buddha or the particular elements of the mind and body each specific element is called a dhamma now
in the sati patana suta in this fourth foundation mindfulness of dharma it's often translated as mental objects or objects of mind but this translation can be somewhat confusing because objects of mind have already been included in the first three foundations so the question is what is the buddha singling out in this fourth mindful abiding in his book sati patana the direct path to realization which we've been using a lot in these talks the venerable analyo has a very lucid and incisive analysis of what precisely is meant by this contemplation of dhamma of how this term
is being used and that is dharma as categories of phenomena which highlight how the different elements of the mind are working how they're functioning so in this fourth foundation we're really looking at the categories of phenomena and so what's included in the text in this fourth foundation is mindfulness of the hindrances mindfulness of the aggregates of the sense fears of the elements of the factors of awakening of the four noble truth so all of these are the basic organizing principles the buddha used in his 45 years of teaching he organized his understanding in these general
principles there's a man named michael carrithers who wrote about the forest monks of sri lanka and he had a very good way of expressing the essence of what we do in this fourth mindful contemplation he talked of how in this contemplation of the dom is how propositions of doctrine the teachings are transmuted into direct perception when i read that i thought that really captured the essence of our practice as we contemplate these dharmas we're taking the general principles of the teachings we're taking the doctrine and transmute it transmuting it into the direct perception of our
experience so instead of it being a philosophical analysis or a philosophical discussion the buddha is showing us here very directly how to investigate these truths these guiding or general principles of phenomena the categories of phenomena of how we can investigate for ourselves so we experience the truth of them for ourselves when i was in college i was studying philosophy we studied a lot of both mostly western philosophy but also a little bit of eastern philosophy but what was so ultimately frustrating for me and i think it was the frustration that i was experiencing that pushed
me first into the peace corps and then into my interest in buddhism was that there was no exploration at all of how the philosophies we were discussing and analyzing how they applied to life how we could actually experience them in our lives so it all stayed very abstract very theoretical coming to the teachings teachings of the buddha it was so vitalizing to find here was a teaching that is meant to be applied the whole point of it is to be applied and in the sati patana sutra the buddha is giving us quite explicit instructions about
how to do it so this is from the first lines of this section of the suta and how bhikkhus that's all of us does one in regard to damas abide contemplating dhammas so he asks the question how do we abide in dhamma's contemplating the dhammas and he says here in regard to damas one abides contemplating dhammas in terms of the five hindrances so why does he begin with the hindrances of all the principles you know in all the categories all the many lists in the teachings why is it that it begins this foundation with the
contemplation on the hindrances because when we're not mindful of the hindrances they as we know envelope the mind they obstruct and block it from developing concentration from developing wise discernment they hinder the arising of the awakening factors they prevent the opening to the four noble truths so in order to proceed with any of the other contemplations in this foundation of mindfulness we need to first address and learn to work with the different hindrances as they arise in the mind the buddha uses two quite well-known similes to describe how these hindrances impact the mind you're probably
familiar with both of them the first of the similes describes how in different ways the hindrances obscure our perception of experience so the example is given of a bowl filled with clear water which is used for the purpose of reflecting one's image so this bowl of clear water is being used as a mirror and it said that sense desire is like pouring colored dye into the water so it colors one's perception it's like looking at the world through colored glasses everything becomes tinted by the color of the glasses and we're not seeing things accurately aversion
is like when that water is brought to a boil likewise we can't see clearly when we're heated up with anger or aversion the mind is in a state of turbulence and that turbulence obscures clarity of vision sloth and torpor is said to be that bowl of water that's overgrown with algae so it's a state of stagnation of mind restlessness and worry is like the water being windswept this is the mind restlessness and worry when it's tossed about when it's filled with agitation at that time also it obscures our clear seeing and doubt is like when
the water is muddy and everything is obscured you can see how these hindrances as they operate in the mind alter and condition our perception of what it is that's arising the second simile the buddha uses suggests the underlying emotional tone both of being caught up in the hindrance those times when we're enveloped by them and also those times when we're free of them and as we'll see later on [Music] in this discussion it's equally important to understand the mind when it's filled with the hindrances and to understand the mind when it's free of them so
this is the simile he uses and it's very graphic in describing these states this is also from asuta from the middle end sayings the buddha says suppose someone were to take a loan and undertake business and the business were to succeed so that they could repay all the money of the old loan and they would remain enough extra to maintain a spouse then on considering this they would be glad and full of joy well suppose someone was afflicted suffering and gravely ill and their food would not agree with them and their body had no strength
but later they would recover from the affliction and their food would agree with them and their body would regrain strength then on considering this they would be glad and full of joy or suppose someone were imprisoned but later they would be released from prison safe and secure on considering this they would be glad and full of joy or suppose someone were a slave not independent but dependent on others unable to go where they want but later on they would be released from slavery independent of others a freed person able to go where they want then
on considering this they would be glad and full of joy or suppose someone with wealth and property were to enter a perilous road across a desert but later on they would cross over the desert safe and secure with no loss to their property then on considering this they would be glad and full of joy so too bickers when these five hindrances are unabandoned in oneself a bicker sees them respectively as a debt a disease a prison slavery and a dangerous road across a desert but when these five hindrances have been abandoned in oneself one sees
that as freedom from debt good health release from prison freedom from slavery and a land of safety i think it's helpful to reflect on these similes not as literary images but as quite vivid pointers to how our minds actually are affected by the presence or absence of these states so pay particular attention in times of transition and noticing those moments when we have been caught up in one of the hindrances in sensual desire or aversion or sloth or restlessness or doubt pay attention to those moments when we go from being lost in them to being
free of them and notice the difference be very mindful of the difference in the quality of your mind i think right in that moment we will begin to appreciate the meaning of these similes that the buddha used often though these hindrances have become such a familiar part of our inner landscape that we overlook or don't realize the impact they're having in our lives they're like old friends and because of this we might lack a certain sense of urgency or ardency about working with them so in this fourth foundation of mindfulness and right at the beginning
of it the buddha is reminding us that abandoning the hindrances are a necessary step on the path to awakening the path to realization the question is how can we practice working to abandon the hindrances without suppression and without aversion and without self-judgment so in the suture the buddha outlines five basic steps in working with the hindrances in finding the middle way between indulging in them and suppression of them so he charts the course for us we'll begin to look at each of the five steps the buddha mentions with regard to each of the hindrances and
tonight particularly with regard to sense desire and how we can apply this in our practice so again this is reading from the suta and how does one in regard to dhammas abide in contemplating dharmas in terms of the five hindrances the first step if sensual desire is present one knows there is sensual desire in me so this is the simple recognition of desire when it arises when it's present in the mind the first step is recognizing it and as you know we can experience sensual desire in a wide range of ways rarely but powerfully we
can experience sensual desire in terms of an obsessive passion you know in so much of the great literature both eastern and western describes this state you know starting with the iliad you know what was launched because of an obsessive passion and all the way through to modern times you know in the stories of anna karenina and madame bovary in remembrance of things past and so much of the great literature is about precisely this mind state caught up in an obsessive passion for something or someone there's the wanting and desire of addictive cravings you know both
the big ones and the small ones just all the little addictions of our minds so be helpful and and essential to notice this when they arise we experience sensual desire in our recurring fantasies might be sexual fantasy it might be food fantasies it might be whatever could be any kind you know the mind has great great range in this it could just be passing whims of the moment you know just going along and then all of a sudden there's just a sudden desire or wanting of something wanting to see or wanting a cup of tea
could be the desire we have when we're indulging all our internal dramas and stories have you spent any time just lost in your own internal reveries and enjoying it you know where this is a desire an enjoyment of that which keeps them going desire comes in the form of expectation desire for something to happen the in order to mind i'm with this moment in order for something else to arise that leaning forward obsessive passion recurring fantasies addictive cravings small wins expectations all of these are manifestations of the wanting mind and when we don't recognize when
these desires are present we're simply lost in its distracting energy in its distorting energy and yet when we are aware when we're applying this first step of the instruction when sensual desire is present one knows sensual desire is present in me as soon as we become aware we apply this step we are transmuting that desire into an element of our path to awakening this is the first step recognizing when it's present the second step the second instruction in the suta is to know when it's absent if sensual desire is not present one knows there is
no sensual desire in me so this is the conscious act of recognizing the absence of the hindrances and here in particular desire this is recognizing what the buddha called the luminous mind that luminosity being the mind free of desire free of craving which he said is the basis for delight for joy for tranquility for happiness for concentration for insight it's worth noticing when sensual desire is absent because we're we're recognizing a particular quality of our minds at that time and it's important not to gloss over this instruction you know with a simple pro-forma recognition oh
the hindrances seem to be absent because the buddha put this in as obviously with all the teachings for a very specific reason it's actually to contemplate to be mindful of the experience of the mind when it's free of these states we want to recognize when we're free of it and to understand and to deeply realize deeply experience what the mind is like when it's free of desire when in the words of the simile you know we're out of debt in good health out of prison free from slavery abiding in a safe place that's what the
mind is like so if we don't gloss over those times but recognize this is the mind free of sensual desire we start to strengthen and develop a much greater sense of confidence and faith in the practice because it's based on our experience of the mind our direct experience rather than some belief or some hope of how it might be so the first step in working with the hindrances knowing when sensual desire is present knowing when it's absent the next three steps in the instruction emphasize one of the most important themes of the buddhist teachings and
that is emphasizing the understanding of conditionality so here the buddha says one knows how unarisen sensual desire can arise how a risen sensual desire can be removed and how a future arising of sensual desire can be avoided so here we're mindful not only of the presence or absence of desire or the other hindrances but also what conditions underlie the presence or absence what are the conditioning factors there are several ways of understanding what leads to the arising of sensual desire most obviously and we work with this a lot in our practice it arises when we're
not being mindful of the arising sense object or the pleasant feeling associated with it so when we're not mindful whether seeing hearing smelling tasting feeling in the body certain mind objects when we're not mindful and not mindful of the pleasant feeling then the habitual conditioning of desire and craving easily gets activated a good place to watch this is in the dining room at meal time you know even as you're kind of walking in very mindfully but just notice what happens in the mind as you get closer to the food table you know and just is
there any kind of popping out of the eyes you know the the awareness leaking out through the eye door getting involved one way or another in one's likes and dislikes regarding food now often there's some movement of the mind there we can see the working of desire there when we're not mindful and yet as soon as we might note seeing seeing seeing the eyes recede back into the head we settle back into ourselves the mind stays receptive and in that moment we're free of desire well notice what happens if you know somebody appears at the
forest refuge that you feel very attracted to now when you're not mindful you see this person and it can trigger quite a run of the vipassana romance tapes it's very easy to spend time to spend moments or hours or days just whiling away you know in these in these thoughts and fantasies and all of that came simply from not being mindful of seeing the buddha pointed out another way that conditions the arising of sensual desire and it's a very significant instruction here he says bhikkhus whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon that will become the
inclination of the mind if one frequently thinks and ponders upon thoughts of sensual desire one has abandoned the thought of renunciation to cultivate the thought of sensual desire and then the mind inclines to thoughts of sensual desire whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon that will become the inclination of the mind so in this regard we see the importance of knowing what kinds of thoughts are actually arising and what kind of thought process are we practicing knowingly or unknowingly so we begin to notice and become conscious of the particular habit patterns of thought that even
though they may have been long established they often go unnoticed here's the buddha before his enlightenment he said bhikkhus before my enlightenment while i was still only an unenlightened bodhisattva it occurred to me suppose i divide my thoughts into two classes then i set on one side thoughts of sensual desire thoughts of ill will and thoughts of cruelty and i said on the other side thoughts of renunciation thoughts of non-ill will thoughts of non-cruelty of love and compassion it's helpful to pay attention to the patterns of our thought so that we begin to see which
are skillful thoughts which are unskillful thoughts because the more frequently we ponder them the more frequently we think them that's where the mind inclines you know there's a theory in modern biology and was expressed very well by the biologist rupert sheldrake called morphic resonance and it has many implications but but one of the principles of this is that once something arises in nature even if it is the first time it's arisen once a certain phenomena happens it's much easier for that same phenomenon to happen again and so he expressed it and these were his words
he said habits now talking about habits of mind habits are subject to natural selection the more often they're repeated the more probable they become so we have to see that we are reconditioning our minds with the repetition of particular kinds of thoughts the particular kinds of actions the more often they're repeated the more probable they become so this is the second way of understanding how thoughts of sensual desire arise and it contains within it a certain implication of how we can practice there's a third cause for the arising of sensual desire and that is that
we have a basic misperception of what brings us happiness there's the basic misperception that sensual pleasures will in the end finally make us happy so i came across this few lines from the book anna karenina now if those of you have read it you'll know that anna karenina was this beautiful woman married to you know a russian aristocrat and then she fell in love with i forget his title his name was vronsky and he was sort of an officer in the army very handsome very dashing and the book is about her abandoning you know her
life for this great love which ends quite disastrously so this is a few lines from the book said vransky this is the dashing military officer vronsky meanwhile in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired namely his affair with anna was not perfectly happy he soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected it showed him the mistake men make in picture picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires this is the basic
misperception that most of the world acts on we think the realization of our desires will bring us happiness and so we keep feeding them and inclining our minds toward them and gratifying them and of course it never does and obviously we've all had this realization to a fairly substantial extent because it what brings us to practice but actualizing this understanding in our lives particularly for us as lay people is quite challenging now here on retreats we're living quite simple lives we're living more like monastics but in our lives there is a constant bombardment of images
and sounds and input urging us encouraging us to seek delight in the vast array of sense pleasures now i've seen so many ads in newspapers and magazines and on the internet and the the headline of the ad will be increase your desire you know as if somehow that's a skillful thing to do oh your desire is flagging well take this and increase it now the preponderance of this social conditioning which is all around us you know it's it's the miguel in which we live makes it all the more important to practice our deepening understanding of
this step of the satipat that is to really deeply understand the conditions which give rise to sensual desire in the mind what causes these unarisen desires to to arise so that we can at least to some extent balance the social conditioning the prevailing social conditioning with some deeper wisdom the buddha before his enlightenment he faced exactly the same situation this is not new to us so i want to read this also was from one of the suitors in the middle and sayings he was talking to an indian brahmana named bhagandiya so he said so too
magandir formally when i lived the home life i enjoyed myself provided and endowed with the five cords of sensual pleasures that are wished for desired agreeable and likable connected with sensual desire and provocative of lust i had three palaces one for the rainy season one for the winter and one for the summer i lived in the rain's palace for the four months of the rainy season enjoying myself with musicians who were all female and i did not go down to the lower palace at all on a later occasion having understood as they actually are the
origin the disappearance the gratification the danger and the escape in the case of sensual pleasures i abandoned craving for these pleasures i removed fever for central pleasures and i abide without thirst with a mind inwardly at peace i see other beings who are not free from lust for sensual pleasures being devoured by craving for them burning with fever for them indulging in sensual pleasures and i do not envy them nor do i delight therein why is that because there is margandia a delight apart from sensual pleasures apart from unwholesome stage states which surpasses divine bliss
since i take the light in that i do not envy what is inferior nor do i delight therein it's a powerful reminder that the possibilities of experience for us are vast and mostly we're living in a very confined world of understanding what brings happiness the buddha is reminding us through his own life experience and what we can experience for ourselves that in terms of happiness and even in terms of pleasure there are much more refined states to enjoy so the next instruction in the suta says one knows how a risen sensual desire can be removed
it was not only knowing the cause of desires to arise once they have arisen the question is what do we do how can they be removed once they have risen there are many texts where mara appears either to monks or nuns or to the buddha himself you know he appears and it's often in the guise or in the disguise of a hindrance but then mara loses all his power in the moment of being recognized you know and often read in the text mara i see you and then mara disappears vanishes in the moment of being
mindful that sensual desire has arisen in the mind in that moment of mindfulness we are no longer lost in it we are no longer identified with it we're no longer feeding it in that moment of mindfulness we begin to see it's impermanent it's impersonal it's insubstantial nature so it's important not to underestimate the power of mindfulness and it's easy to do because in english mindfulness is a very prosaic word you know it's not lofty sounding like wisdom now we hear the word wisdom and we just the mind expands and it's not doesn't have that heartful
openness of words like love or compassion you know when we hear those words it's like direct connection to our hearts we hear the word mindfulness and as a word in english it's just not terribly inspiring what's your meditation practice or i practice mindfulness there's a bit of a letdown but when we look past the word to the quality itself we see the enormous power of this mind state the word really doesn't do it justice the state of mindfulness the state of awareness is the root of everything that is wholesome there's a wonderful it's like an
ode to mindfulness by the zochen master in yoshil ken rinpoche and it points to the fact that this quality is valued in all of the traditions this is what he wrote he said mindfulness is the root of dharma mindfulness is the body of practice mindfulness is the fortress of the mind mindfulness is the aid to the wisdom of innate wakefulness lack of mindfulness will allow the negative forces to overcome you without mindfulness you will be swept away by laziness lack of mindfulness is the creator of evil deeds without mindfulness and presence of mind nothing can
be accomplished without mindfulness you are a heartless zombie a walking corpse dear dharma friends please be mindful by the aspiration of the and bodhisattvas may all dharma friends attain stable mindfulness and ascend the throne of perfect awakening so how do we deal with sense desire sensual desire once it has already arisen through the great power of mindfulness mara i see you and in that very moment the power of that hindrance has dissolved sometimes though mindfulness may not be that strong in a particular moment you know and it feels like we're being overcome by the hindrance
overcome by desire so a further way of working with it when it's already arisen is to employ some wise reflection although we don't emphasize it very much in the basic sequence of meditation instructions the buddha encouraged this quality of wise attention or mindful reflection as an important part of the practice and i sometimes call it the the inner dharma coach you know when we're caught up in something and the mindfulness is a little weak we need to have this inner coach reminding us of what's possible it helps us reflect on the buddha's teachings in the
very moment that they're applicable so we're not thinking about some thing in the past right in the moment when we need them we actually reflect okay sensual desire has arisen what is a wise reflection about it now and so right from the buddhist text the buddha's words he gives us the wise reflection this is from the same suta when he was talking about his practice before his enlightenment so as i abided thus diligent ardent and resolute a thought of sensual desire arose in me i understood thus this thought of sensual desire has arisen in me
it leads to my own affliction to others affliction and to the affliction of both it obstructs wisdom causes difficulties and leads away from the ibana when i considered this leads to my own affliction it subsided when i considered this leads to others affliction it subsided when i considered this leads to the affliction of both it subsided when i considered this obstructs wisdom causes difficulties and leads away from the ibana it subsided in me whenever a thought of sensual desire enrolls in me i abandoned it removed it did away with it a very active engagement with
this particular habit of mind knowing that whatever we repeatedly think of that's where the mind inclines so we don't need to be passive we don't need to be victimized by our minds we need to recognize when it's present if the power of mindfulness is strong enough in that very moment it dissolves for the power of that mindfulness if not we call in this reflection this reminder to ourselves so the last of the instructions first it's knowing when sensual desire is present knowing when it's absent knowing how it arises knowing what to do if it has
already arisen and the last of the instructions is knowing how a future arising of sensual desire can be avoided of course by knowing how they arise already we can employ that same preventative measures it's like taking care of our physical health you know knowing what causes certain diseases so we avoid those causes and we try to stay healthy can we take care of our mental health in just the same way you're familiar with many of the suggestions the buddha had in terms of preventing the inclination towards sense desire the proliferation of sense desire one suggestion
was the reflection on the unattractive aspects of the body you know which is a very un-american thing to do it just flies in the face of all our cultural conditioning you know we focus so much on beauty and obsess on beauty and on youth and anything that might indicate at all that we're aging you know the body the fact that the body will get sick or that the body will die you know as a society as a culture we just try to keep that out we don't open to it we don't reflect on it there's
a book in the library here which at some point you might want to look at it's called body worlds and it's pictures of a very extraordinary exhibit and just through a through a new technique of preservation the exhibit was of all the systems of the body the skeletal system the organs the system of veins and arteries or the whole the all the systems of the body are the actual the actual elements and organs and they're preserved and stabilized in such a way so so that you can see them you know in various postures all the
musculature so it's as if we're seeing the body just having taken off the nice little covering of skin and these pictures and the exhibit must have been quite extraordinary in person i mean these were actual preserved bodies but open open to view but the pictures are very vivid the pictures of the exhibit and it's both fascinating and this to see the incredible complexity of what this body is and even in a certain kind of way we could see you know there might be a certain beauty to it but it is certainly not provocative of lust
if any of you feel lustful when you're looking at these pictures i would like to know and so it's a powerful reflection it's like we get so caught up in the surface appearance it's a powerful counterbalance to see well what is this body what is it actually you know and so i would i would recommend that you look at this it's a good counterbalance to all the other messages we get in our lives you know and then in other ways the buddha spoke of guarding the scent stores moderation and food association with wise friends all
as way all as ways of avoiding the arising of the mind inclining to sense pleasures so the beauty of this teaching in this fourth foundation of mindfulness mindfulness of the dharmas starting with the hindrances and starting with sense desire as the first of the hindrances that like any good physician the buddha leads us from the diagnosis okay what's the cause of it arising to the cure what do we do with it once it has arisen to the prevention and as it repeats in the frame in the refrain after each set of instructions from practicing in
this way one abides independent not clinging to anything in the world this is the taste of freedom that comes from our practice from this contemplation of the dharma let's sit for just a few minutes now let us chant the verses of sharing an aspiration [Music] my spiritual teachers and guides are great for true my the sun and the moon [Music] of the [Music] may all beings receive the blessings of my life [Music] made all desires and attachments and the harmful states of mind until [Music] [Music] [Music] solitary [Music] supreme support through the supreme [Music] may
power [Music] [Laughter] this talk was given by joseph goldstein at forest refuge on april 7 2005. it is an offering of the dharmaseed
