Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

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36 covered by the term ‘physical sensation’ (kāya-vedanā). Apart from physical sensation there is still its mental counterpart, when the mind as the sixth sense experiences the mental sensation of thought in its many forms of perception, ideation, consciousness, which will be dealt with hereafter. Thus we shall adhere to the term ‘sensation’, being the function of all the senses, whereas ‘feeling’ is taken as the experience of touch only. Even contact is of as many kinds as there are senses and sensations. In fact, there must be contact (phassa) before a sensation (vedanā) can become a perception (saññā), an idea (saṅkhāra) and a conscious thought (viññāṇa). About these latter ones, again later, for here we are dealing with awareness of sensation (vedanānupassanā). A sensation (vedanā) then arises in the senses, when there is a contact of the outer world with the inner senses. Such contact (phassa) is of the nature of the sense-organ; and thus physical contact need not be only that of touch. Sight, for instance, is not a physical of a distant mountain with the eye-ball; but a reflection is formed on the retina at the back of the eye-ball. It is then the light penetrating the lens of the eye, and projecting a picture of the object. This picture is received as in a photographic camera, inverted while the light rays pass through the lens. This picture is now received by the organ and passed on by the optical nerve to that particular section of the brain, where it is perceived as a visible object. Then the brain takes over and proceeds to construct an image (now upside up) as a concept thereof. Reception, perception and conception are then the stages through which the sensation passes to become a thought, recognition, memory, with all the nuances of attraction, repulsion, storing, rejecting, appropriation, opposition, which from the structure and function of the ‘I’-concept. Now, the awareness of this process of reception in the senses becoming a sensation can take place only in ‘bare attention’, seeing sensation ‘only as sensation’. What does that mean?
37 Here is a sensation which is conditioned and influenced by, and originating from contact which is partially physical in its action and mental in its reaction. There is nothing right and there is nothing wrong in such reaction, as long as it is only seen as a reaction. A bell swings and a sound is heard. The same bell may be announcing a wedding or a funeral. Bare attention will not go beyond the sound and its immediate cause. These are wedding-bells, this is a deathknell; one is matrimonial announcement, the other is an obituary notice. And what do they signify? The beginning of a new life and the ending of a life-span. Is that anything new or special? Life is beginning always, life is ever-new, life is always ending, there is no life which is static. Thus it is not the sound of the bell I now bear, but I listen to the announcement of either life or death. And that is not ‘bare attention’; that is not seeing sensation as sensation, hearing sound as sound; that is interpretation. Now I can proceed once I recognize interpretation as such, but that is not awareness of sensation. It is awareness of a reaction, which will be dealt with further on, when speaking of awareness of the mind’s reaction to contact and senseactivity (dhammānupassanā). In bare attention to sense-reaction to contact, there is no further thought of: for whom the bell tolls; for that involves the mind in deeper relationship, affinity, opposition, love and hate. In awareness of sensation there is no involvement, and hence no self-connection. Here is sound or sight, or smell, or taste, or touch, but it is not ‘my’ sound. The thought of ‘self’ does not arise even if there is the qualification of pleasant or disagreeable, for that too does not belong to ‘me’. Thus, imperceptibly we have passed on from reception (vedanā) to perception (saññā) when awareness of sensation (vedanānupassanā) develops into awareness of thought about sensation, which is perception.
Page 3: Copyright Notice This work is licen
Page 6 and 7: 4 Awareness of Perceptions . . . .
Page 9: From the publisher Henry Van Zeyst,
Page 12 and 13: 10 the ‘ego’, for the maintenan
Page 14 and 15: 12 insubstantiality (anatta). The l
Page 17 and 18: Awareness, the Beginning of Enlight
Page 19 and 20: 3 more important than the understan
Page 21 and 22: 5 continuance in impermanence, conf
Page 23 and 24: 7 Awareness is not Consciousness Aw
Page 25 and 26: 9 When there is no Awareness We are
Page 27 and 28: 11 not come through exertion, does
Page 29 and 30: Mindfulness as Recollection However
Page 31 and 32: 15 the Buddha is seen as the perfec
Page 33 and 34: 17 with good conduct, for they are
Page 35 and 36: 19 understanding of the degree of d
Page 37 and 38: 21 as change in evolution. And to s
Page 39 and 40: 23 our craving for continuity, this
Page 41 and 42: 25 observation leads to a feeling o
Page 43 and 44: 27 of the eye, the flexibility of t
Page 45 and 46: 29 awareness. When consciousness ce
Page 47 and 48: 31 thing to be talked about as an a
Page 49 and 50: 33 an escape is only more conflict.
Page 51: Applications of Awareness Awareness
Page 55 and 56: 39 as a soul to carry and to carry-
Page 57 and 58: 41 (saññā) ideations or mental f
Page 59 and 60: 43 an entity, free from the opposit
Page 61 and 62: 45 Attachment to rules and rites (s
Page 63 and 64: 47 is thus made an object for striv
Page 65 and 66: 49 mind, such as the five hindrance
Page 67 and 68: 51 cur, a revelation not through di
Page 69 and 70: 53 of achieving, but just melts awa
Page 71 and 72: 55 which prevent the mind to be at
Page 73 and 74: 57 bare attention, not with the int
Page 75 and 76: 59 of a search for happiness contai
Page 77 and 78: 61 ery experience is fresh, in whic
Page 79: that craves for continuance, of all
Page 82 and 83: 66 Originally, in the early suttas,
Page 84 and 85: 68 the conflict, and conflict is mi
Page 86 and 87: 70 mind again. ‘What is felt is p
Page 88 and 89: 72 counter-balance to delusion (moh
Page 90 and 91: 74 be able to get rid of the deprav
Page 93 and 94: Awareness in Reaction Methods How c
Page 95 and 96: 79 of, will be there. But that is n
Page 97 and 98: 81 past. Clinging to the past has f
Page 99 and 100: 83 denial or to a spiritual ideal,
Page 101 and 102: 85 When the mind is totally open an
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87 happens to a watcher who is foun
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89 now projected into the future as
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91 property, who set fire to my hou
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93 experience. When no answer is so
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95 there is freedom to see, to unde
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97 what it is, and not where it com
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Awareness in Meditation Stillness o
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101 future, based on a dead memory.
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103 neither the ‘self’, nor the
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105 truth; becoming as ‘self’,
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107 to become perfect. Awareness do
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110 is the wide vista for all to se
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112 truth in spheres where sense-pl
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114 has no entity, no conflict can
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116 all know what is right; and yet
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118 true relationship, as all conta
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120 is in loving, the thought of lo
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122 loving; and that moment is alwa
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124 Compassion is frequently seen a
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126 should not be a barrier of dist
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128 is the food on which the ‘I
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130 Sympathy Sympathetic joy (mudit
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132 no preoccupation, no pettiness,
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134 not ‘mine’, but which is al
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136 through mind-control or substit
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138 am that projection, that ideal,
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About the Author Henri van Zeyst wa
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Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

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