What is papañca? And how to get rid of it?

[elaine]

Hi all,

Thank you for the links to the articles. It'll take a while to read all of them.

MN 10 - Satipatthana Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

... but especially section D on mental qualities.

How often can a person be mindful in a day? Is mindfulness a discrete yes or no thing? Or is there a "degree of mindfulness" i.e. more mindful/less mindful? Is mindfulness supposed to be continuous or is it almost always "choppy"?

I think my mindfulness is broken. Satipatthana is Not working for me. How to improve mindfulness?

[zavk]

Hi Elaine,

I don't know if you have a regular meditation practice. But meditation practice will help you cultivate mindfulness.

Texts like the Satipatthana Sutta and Mindfulness in Plan English can help you develop a practice--indeed they are invaluable resources. However, at the end of the day (and you may have already heard an analogy like this) they are just the 'maps' for the path. You will have to eventually tread the path yourself.

If you don't already have a practice, you could look up a dhamma centre near you. Check out this directory: http://www.buddhanet.info/wbd/

There are also meditation guides online.

Also, it might be worth taking a step back here to note that insofar as papañca is 'the proliferation of discriminatory conceptual thought', the mounting confusion you have about mindfulness, the proliferation of questions you have about mindfulness ('whether it is this or that, etc, etc), is itself a kind of mental proliferation. This, then, raises the questions, 'To what extent can conceptual thought undercut papañca, if conceptual thought itself is borne of papañca? Is there a way of allowing the mind to catch itself thinking?' I suspect the answer lies in the cultivation of mindfulness. I cannot stress the word 'cultivation' enough because it suggests that mindfulness is best understood not as a thing or state but as a process, and a rather dynamic one at that.

EDIT: I'd also like to add that if mindfulness is something to be cultivated, then one should be patient for it takes time and practice. All the best.

Metta,
zavk

[Element]

Clarity and awareness free from mental activity then? Would you also call this experiential understanding of emptiness?
I'm not sure if this kind of terminology is used in Theravada, so forgive me if I'm a little dim!

Dazzlebling

I would not call this emptiness or mindfulness. Emptiness is indeed used in Theravada given it was a term used by the Buddha. The Buddha's teachings are found in Theravada.

Emptiness was used by the Buddha specifically to mean empty of self and empty of ignorance (MN 121).

For example, if the mind is free from mental activity but is also empty of wisdom, in that it does not understand a situation, that is not really the Buddha's emptiness because that mind remains not empty of ignorance.

In Theravada Buddhism, the term mindfulness is always co-joined with the term sampajanna, which means clear comprehension or active wisdom.

If there is clarity and awareness but no wisdom, that state of mind is predominantly concentration (even if it feels selfless).

Kind regards

Element

[Aloka]

Lovely, thanks very much for clarifying, Element.

Kind wishes ,

Dazzle

[elaine]

Thank you all for the helpful replies.

I'd also like to add that if mindfulness is something to be cultivated, then one should be patient for it takes time and practice. All the best.

I'll try my best to cultivate mindfulness. I've read an article which says that, "when mindfulness is present, there is no greed, hatred and delusion". It is really wonderful to be mindful even for a few seconds or a few minutes a day. Oh, what bliss!

Thank you all again.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings Elaine,

On that, the following is definitely worth reading...

The Power of Mindfulness
Nyanaponika Thera
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el121.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Metta,
Retro.