legolas wrote:tiltbillings wrote:legolas wrote:
Dukkha is not synonyomous with pain.
And that is one of the direct insights - not just an intellectual construct - that one can see as pain is an object of mindfulness.
I think you miss my point. Pain can truly be an object of mindfulness, however pain is not a necessity and seeing the arising of dukkha does not HAVE to entail the arising of pain.
I did not miss your point at all. The issue in what I was saying is that pain, which is inevitable in one's meditation practice, can be a very potent way of seeing the how dukkha and anicca functions.
The whole point of jhana is to be able to see the pointless grasping at constructs that arise and fall of their own accord. The tranquility of body and mind is the perfect place from which to watch this seemingly endless display. To watch this display with a body that is agitated according to the Buddha was not conducive.....................
When there is sufficient mindfulness and concentration the pain and agitation can be clearly attended to. Something I posted earlier in a very different context:
During a three month vipassana retreat I was suffering from muscle spasms in my back. Very, very painful, and having struggled with it greatly, I went to one of the teachers there, Joseph Goldstein, who said that I should use the pain as the object of awareness. Damn, the obvious is stated, but sometimes being told the obvious is all that needed.
My next chance to sit was during the evening Dharma talk. As usual the pain started as I assumed my sitting posture. I had all I could do to keep from bolting out of the room to get away from the pain of the posture. With no small effort I was able to bring attention to the pain. As the pain became the object of my attention, everything else was blocked out.
Intense, deep concentration. I heard nothing, was aware of nothing going on around me. There was just pain. Once I was able to establish awareness on – in – the pain, I was able to relax into it. The mindfulness became clear and very precise.
The pain which had been a solid rock like thing became a play of sensation changing at an incredible rate, and the closer I attended to the change the clearer it became. There was no thinking about this, just attending to what was happening. As the muscles spasmed, sending out a paroxysm of pain, there was contracting from the pain – it was not as I wanted it to be - I was suffering.
As the attention become more precise, the pain and suffering were seen as separate but inter-related things, the "I" was an add-on to the pain giving it the sense of suffering and the contracting from that – I do not want this pain.
In the simple act of attending to the pain, this whole dynamic concatenation became clear and obvious, and with that insight the next spasm was not painful. It was, rather, a play of very, very rapidly changing sensations that was empty of a sense of "I". It was even empty of the sense of the concept of pain. The sense of "I" that arose was changing in response the changing conditions, and it, in its arising and changing, was seen as empty of any solidity.
With that there was no resistance, no more contraction. There came a remarkable relaxation of my body, and my attention became very broad and open, attentive to the rise and fall of whatever came into its purview.
The limitations of my body became transparent, there being no inside, no outside. It was all very ordinary: there was the Dharma talk that was happening, the coughing, shuffling of the other students, and the stuff happening "inside" of me. All just stuff happening with incredible rapidity and incredible clarity. It just was, empty, clear rising and falling. Suchness. Openness.
Also, keep in mind that vipassana practice is hardly as "dry" as some try to portray it.