..续本文上一页level, who when provoked rises up in anger, the manifest level and then strikes, the expressed level. So you can see that while we use restraint to block the anger and loving-kindness meditation to change the climate of the mind, the latent tendency remains dormant until the mind”s ventilating processes during Vipassana meditation releases the dormant material; and as long as one does not play back into the content of the mind, that is, when there is non-reactive awareness, then this de-conditions and gradually cleanses the mind of the latent tendencies.
Another possibility of accessing the latent tendencies is by intercepting them during the process of perception. But this presupposes that the practitioner can increase the perceptual threshold level. The perceptual thresholds are levels where subtle or fast processes can be observed. Below the threshold the process is not observed, and above the threshold the process is observed.
In a study at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts during a three month”s intensive Vipassana retreat in 1984, the perceptual threshold of meditators increased as much as 100%, 200% or more. This showed that it is possible to substantially increase one”s perceptual threshold, at least in intensive meditation practice.
The latent tendencies lie dormant in the mind, becoming activated during the perceptual process: through contact, or during a sense impression at any of the six sense-doors (i.e. the five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching, or the processes of the mind itself). The process of perception is normally experienced as a conditioned sequence, and functions in this way: with contact via feeling and cognition (a pair) thought arises, which in turn stimulates conceptual proliferation.
The conceptual proliferations (papanca) can in turn give rise to further concoctions and biased cognitions, which lead from the original sense data to all kind of associations. Once the stage of conceptual proliferation is reached though, the course is set. So allowing that the perceptual threshold is above the norm, one could be “clearly knowing” during the stages of cognition and initial conceptual reaction with close attentiveness (sati) and so be free of the conditioned sequence. Insight and therefore reduced suffering are the result of a change in perceptual thresholds that allow access to previously unconscious mental processes. These processes though are beyond the perceptual threshold of the normal person.
The most difficult latent tendency to root out is that of sensual desire. In Buddhist practice, there needs to be at least a degree of renunciation, whether for lay people or monastics, in order to expose the latent tendencies. While this can be challenging and is not for everybody, sensual desire is best worked with within the context of the celibate lifestyle of the monk and nun. This is certainly going against the stream of worldly life, but in order to cut the roots of defilements in the mind one needs to expose the unconscious processes of the mind and make them conscious.
The way to do this is to focus the mind in a profound examination of the present moment processes of the mind (satisampajana), which though not accessible to normal consciousness, thereby become conscious. Unconscious processes become conscious processes. It is like switching a light on in a dark room so that which was unseen becomes seen, which is a simile commonly used in the discourses for Enlightenment. So regardless of which sense object is focused on — sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or processes of the mind itself — the sense object becomes a projection screen for observing the fundamental processes of consciousness, which brings about the stilling of the mind and a deep transformation of consciousness.
《The Vipassana Retreat: 6· The Mind’s Latent Tendencies》全文阅读结束。