..续本文上一页g. Vicara is like this. There is vitakka, then vicara, interacting with mental sensations. We can take these sensations as our object of meditation, calming the mind by noting those sensations.
If we know the nature of the mind like this then we let go, just like letting the water flow by. Vicara becomes more and more subtle. Perhaps the mind inclines to contemplating the body, or death for instance, or some other theme of Dhamma. When the theme of contemplation is right there will arise a feeling of well-being. What is that well-being
It is piti (rapture). Piti, well-being, arises. It may manifest as goose-pimples, coolness or lightness. The mind is enrapt. This is called piti. There are also pleasures, sukha, the coming and going of various sensations; and the state of ekaggatarammana, or one-pointedness.
Now if we talk in terms of the first stage of concentration it must be like this: vitakka, vicara, piti, sukha, ekaggata. So what is the second stage like
As the mind becomes progressively more subtle, vitakka and vicara become comparatively coarser, so that they are discarded, leaving only piti, sukha, and ekaggata. This is something that the mind does of itself, we don”t have to conjecture about it, just to know things as they are.
As the mind becomes more refined, piti is eventually thrown off, leaving only sukha and ekaggata, and so we take note of that. Where does piti go to
It doesn”t go anywhere, it”s just that the mind becomes increasingly more subtle so that it throws off those qualities that are too coarse for it. Whatever”s too coarse it throws out, and it keeps throwing off like this until it reaches the peak of subtlety, known in the books as the Fourth Jhana, the highest level of absorption. Here the mind has progressively discarded whatever becomes too coarse for it, until there remain only ekaggata and upekkha, equanimity. There”s nothing further, this is the limit.
When the mind is developing the stages of samadhi it must proceed in this way, but please let us understand the basics of practice. We want to make the mind still but it won”t be still. This is practicing out of desire, but we don”t realize it. We have the desire for calm. The mind is already disturbed and then we further disturb things by wanting to make it calm. This very wanting is the cause. We don”t see that this wanting to calm the mind is tanha (craving). It”s just like increasing the burden. The more we desire calm the more disturbed the mind becomes, until we just give up. We end up fighting all the time, sitting and struggling with ourselves.
Why is this
Because we don”t reflect back on how we have set up the mind. Know that the conditions of mind are simply the way they are. Whatever arises, just observe it. It is simply the nature of the mind, it isn”t harmful unless we don”t understand its nature. It”s not dangerous if we see its activity for what it is. So we practice with vitakka and vicara until the mind begins to settle down and become less forceful. When sensations arise we contemplate them, we mingle with them and come to know them.
However, usually we tend to start fighting with them, because right from the beginning we”re determined to calm the mind. As soon as we sit the thoughts come to bother us. As soon as we set up our meditation object our attention wanders, the mind wanders off after all the thoughts, thinking that those thoughts have come to disturb us, but actually the problem arises right here, from the very wanting.
If we see that the mind is simply behaving according to its nature, that it naturally comes and goes like this, and if we don”t get over-interested in it, we can understand its ways as much the same as a child. Children don”t know any better, they may say all kinds of things. If we underst…
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