Meditation: A Way of Awakening - Chapter Eleven

Ajahn Sucitto

Page 1 of 7

Ajahn Sucitto, an elder western disciple of Ajahn Chah and abbot of Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery in England, has written a new book entitled Meditation: A Way of Awakening. This book is still in its production phase, and is yet to be printed. However, Abhayagiri Monastery is glad to be able to make this new text available via our website. We will be posting one chapter at a time, each Monday and Friday for six weeks.

The other chapters of this book that have already been published, are available at http://www.abhayagiri.org/index.php/main/teacher_other/C24
Theory: The Sublime States

This is how you should train yourself: ‘Kindness…compassion…empathic joy…equanimity
as my release of awareness, will be developed, pursued, made into a vehicle, given a grounding, steadied, consolidated, and well-undertaken.' [Ang Eights, 63]

There are four mind-states that sustain the practice of Buddhism in relationship both to others and to ourselves. These four – kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), empathic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha) – are called ‘sublime states’ (brahmavihara). They are ways of directing awareness with an intent that is amply endowed, uplifted, without boundaries, free from hatred and ill-will – to others as to oneself.

Lofty as they may sound, these sublime states are based on our ability to relate to other beings and ourselves in a healthy way in the changing circumstances that make up our world. If we don't develop these basic attitudes, we can't meet the world in an adequate way. The way that we relate becomes marked with mistrust and frustrated needs – syndromes that hinder the true potential of the heart. In the worst instances, we eventually close the heart and assume it's impossible to meet the world at all.

We may recognize that we have limitations in this respect: ‘I'm fine with you on a good day in a low-pressure situation’; ‘I respect myself when I'm doing well and getting some positive attention.’ So there are limitations, and these form boundaries within which I feel alive and receptive, and outside of which I start to go numb, or seek to escape. I Page 2 of 7

escape from the hurt of feeling left out or of failing by shutting down sensitivity and turning my attention elsewhere....These sublime states are therefore not just about being nice to other people; they are about freeing ourselves from deadening reactions. Ill-will is a kind of sickness.

If we can extend goodwill more constantly, independent of circumstance, our ability to be free from underlying states of guilt, anxiety, bitterness, cynicism and depression increases. All such states are products of ill-will. Other more prominent aspects of ill-will are hatred, spite and abuse; even when it is the act of belittling another being in one's own mind. Such thinking may have serious consequences: the prejudice that justifies violence is based on the bias that other beings don't count for much. And thinking in such abusive ways also undermines the well-being of the thinker.

Correct cultivation of the sublime states can go deeply into any ‘life-statement’ we may have and bring around a shift: we can come out of being the victim (who has to put up with feeling abused and second-rate) the renegade (who has to fight against their world) or the survivor (who endures the mess they experience their world as being). All this semi-anaesthetised ill-will stems from being unable to release fear or grief or anger. If we don't use benevolence and compassion to acknowledge a hurt state and heal it, we are forced to manage it by shrugging it off, blaming others, or assuming that somehow we shouldn't expect anything better.

The truth of the heart is that these ‘sublime’ states are innate; they get sealed off by curtailing the very process whereby painful feelings heal themselves. That is, if the heart is open, it can be fully with the hurt, and give it the energy that allows it to heal. Just as the body does to its wounds. The sense of feeling hurt is a natural effect, like a bruise, that redresses itself when we stay with it in an open and clear way. But when the heart is not able or willing to be with Page 3 of 7

its hurts, the process is cut short. Shortcuts include lashing out at whatever has triggered that pain, or criticising the sense of hurt as weak or foolish, or not acknowledging the painful feeling. We may even dismiss sensitivity altogether. Then instead of a temporary retraction, we get a long-term contraction. We give up on love and compassion as natural states and get tough or indifferent instead. The heart contracts out of openness to avoid getting hurt – but a contracted awareness can't experience joy and trust. So we become anxious, and feel that we have to be something, or have something, or be approved of in order to feel OK. Living with this kind of management is a dismal actuality for many of us – for some or all of the time: our life can feel intrinsically flawed, despite our best efforts.

The practices of kindness, compassion etc. don’t rest upon manufacturing emotional states. They are based upon ways of adjusting our impressions to allow a natural relational health to come forth. We practise the sublime states not just for someone else's sake, but for releasing our own awareness from the cramp of cynicism or bitterness. So the cultivation of metta isn't about imposing an ideal of liking or loving everyone all the time, but a specific practice of meeting the mood of the moment without aversion: ‘I can be with, not add to, and let go of the jealousy or resentment that has just arisen.’ This non-aversion frees up the intent of the mind and allows a return to the natural state of kindness and compassion.

If we can prevent disappointment and conflict from cramping into ill-will, we don't have to dump our ill-will onto others to find some relief. We can stop complaining about the way other people are. If we can stop complaining about others, we may also release ourselves from complaining about how we ourselves are. So the two aspects of the practice – towards ourselves and towards others – support each other. We may still feel the pang of losing contact with something pleasant, Page 4 of 7

or of being touched by something unpleasant, and yet be able to curtail the contraction into bitterness or depression. We can support ourselves in feeling the feeling and letting it flow through. We may still feel some hurt, but we don't get damaged by it. As always, mindfulness is the key.

We enter the practice by first establishing a mind-state that is not at this time affected by ill-will. Then we reflect and linger on that state. The very fact of bringing attention onto a state of well-being, or basic OK-ness, amplifies it. Further practice entails extending that awareness over our whole state of being. Often we are divided: there are aspects that we can acknowledge, are comfortable with, or accept and aspects that we are half-aware of, feel ill at ease with, or dread. The divisions form inner boundaries. These boundaries are often marked by being ashamed of or trying to control the unacceptable mood that we sense beyond them. We may for example, feel intimidated or irritated by other people’s behaviour, and not know how to handle that feeling. So we close that uncomfortable feeling off behind a boundary. Another boundary may separate what I am to myself from how I appear to others: I dread others seeing, even sympathetically, some of my emotions and moods. These boundaries then inform how I sense others. For example, how I sense others may be characterised as ‘that which I cannot relax or feel trust with; those whom I'm inferior to.’ But you can’t really be good-hearted to people if you see them through the fence of mistrust. The priority therefore is to first unlock the relational process by clearing the internal ill-will when one is alone, and then when one is with others. This is the case whether the state is kindness, compassion, empathic joy or equanimity.

The four states differ in their character and also in terms of the illness that they are applied to. Kindness has a nourishing quality; it has the intent to touch into the good and then to extend it. Compassion is the protective Page 5 of 7

intent: to sense the afflicted, shield it from further damage and heal it. Empathic joy senses and participates in others’ goodness and good fortune; equanimity serenely stays with the good and the bad, understanding them both to be kamma – processes rather than personal belongings.

These practices are to be extended to others. We may feel ourselves unwilling to be in someone's presence or give them much attention; even when we think of them, there is a retraction of heart with irritation or fear. So this would call for kindness: an inclination that senses the lovability of another person and moves towards providing welfare and nourishment. When we are aware of the limitations or disabilities of others, compassion is the response that counteracts the intention to abuse, belittle or dismiss them: we acknowledge their vulnerability and pain, their need for shelter and protection, and empathize with that. Empathic joy counteracts jealousy and apathy towards others: wanting them to enjoy their good fortune means that we share in that happiness. Equanimity counteracts the tendency to get excited or depressed over events in the world or in the lives of other people. How we actually proceed from these states into action depends on what a situation allows: the general advice is to relax, stay present, and act naturally....

As mentioned above, the sublime states help us to cross over the boundaries that create divisions. So we need first of all to find the boundary that is present by investigating the particular source of the division – whether it's because at this time and place ‘I don't regard you as acceptable to me’ or ‘I don't regard myself as acceptable to you’ or even ‘I'm not acceptable to myself.’ Maybe in some situations you intimidate me, and I feel out-of-empathy with you. There is a boundary within which the awareness contracts and starts piling up states of fear, shame and irritation like sandbags. The first part of the practice is to curtail that piling up. So we separate the state from what has evoked it: here is my sense of being intimidated Page 6 of 7

by you; can I be with that emotion and leave ‘you’ and ‘me’ out of it? I put aside blaming you and despising myself. Then we can keep handling the state until we are no longer caught in it: it's a conditioned thing, it's not somebody's fault. After this, we can extend awareness in that same vein: I can imagine you outside of this particular relationship,
as in the same predicament as myself – subject to birth, infirmity and death, not wanting pain, wanting happiness, needing to eat and sleep, and feel safe. Recollecting our shared and obvious needs can restore the empathy that is the basis of a healthy relationship.

Now when I don't react to or affirm a negative mood: isn't there a possibility to feel the sadness of this habit; and doesn't that arouse some wish for my own welfare? And what comes up when I imagine you as also subject to moods and conditioning? These are the positions that allow our brahmavihara potential to unfold naturally.

If we have a positive mood that arises with the perception of a person, or ourselves, the practice has the same approach: acknowledge the mood as distinct from the perception, and allow it to settle. The result is that the positive mood gathers mindfulness and full awareness. Then, rather than swapping the changing reality of agreeable feeling or impression for some gratifying image, we can relate clearly to the feeling and the impression without hanging on to it and making it into a person who has to be that way all the time. (And will probably not be like that all the time…and thus the disappointment begins…) The fulfilment of kindness is also the end of romance. This is not a misty process. We have to be able to let each other be changeable. Otherwise, adulation causes attachment and disappointment.

So the practice of the brahmavihara is very direct. Eventually it’s not even about me and you, but more about how we relate. It refers to the activation that occurs in the mind when it contacts a Page 7 of 7

thought an impression or a feeling. Right here, before self and other begin, is the place to bring up the intent: ‘may there be no blame, no fear, no regret, no wavering.’ Then in fact one of the major sources of suffering and agitation, and of the positions that self-view gets founded on, has no room to grow. It is for this reason that the Buddha highlighted the brahmavihara as a deliverance of the heart to be fully cultivated. Their relevance and benefits are available to us all.