Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

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42 through touch, which include contact of three-dimensional physical things. All this can be found in full detail in the present author’s book ‘Of Matter and Mind’ (1983). The mental objectives of the mind-base (manāyatana), which are called the mind-objects (dhammāyatana), are a collective term for all consciousness, i.e., for the functions of the process of cognition (viññāṇa-kicca). These functions include the movement of thought from the moment of rebirth, which is called the re-linking consciousness (paṭisandhi-viññāṇa), as it links up and is conditioned by the last thought of the immediately preceding existence. Then follow the flow of the unconscious (bhavaṅga-sota), its being disturbed (cālana) by contact in other senses, till the impression is strong enough to call up an advertence (āvajjana) of contact without further discrimination. When discrimination sets in, there is reception (sampaṭicchana), investigation (santīraṇa), determining (votthāpana), seven moments of impulse (javana), completed by registration (tad-ārammaṇa), after which the thought-process is immersed (cūti) in the stream of the unconscious. This mind-conscious process (mano-viññāṇa) can take place without the participation of the five physical senses, in which case the object presenting itself at the mind-door and calling for advertence (manodvārāvajjana), is a thought or idea or concept of a previous experience which is memory. Awareness, which is without interference with this process, merely watches the evolution, of a thought as a phenomenon of reaction to conditioning factors. The application of awareness, or contemplation of the functioning of this thought-process, views the mental contents as its object and is free from it, free from the conventional terminology, necessary to put ideas into words, free from belief in an abiding personality which supports and maintains this process, free from analysis and synthesis which treat the object as
43 an entity, free from the opposition of a ‘self’-subject against the sense-object, and free from conflict caused by such opposition. But theoretical knowledge of these conditions is hardly a beginning of the process of emancipation. Even the wish for understanding and deliverance is a binding factor, which too must become an object of awareness to be freed from it. The ten Fetters The ten fetters (saṁyojana) which prevent progress on the path are therefore also mentioned as mental objects for awareness (dhammānupassanā). The study of these ten fetters in full can be found in the present author’s monograph ‘Fetters’ (1946) under his religious name, Bhikkhu Dhammapāla. The ten fetters are grouped according to the four stages of sainthood, and the release from those fetters accords with the gradual realisation of arahantship. The first group according to the four stages of sainthood, and the release from those fetters, the overcoming of which marks the entrance on to the path of holiness (sotāpanna), consists of three fetters: misconception of individuality (sakkāya-diṭṭhi), sceptical doubt (vicikicchā) and attachment to rules and rites (sīlabbataparamāsa). There are twenty kinds of misconception of individuality (sakkāya-diṭṭhi). They are the beliefs that there is a permanent entity which is identical with any of the five groups (pañcakkhandha) of the body-mind combine, namely the physical body (rūpa), sensations (vedanā), perceptions (saññā), ideations (saṅkhāra) or consciousness (viññāṇa); or the five kinds of belief that the individual as an entity is contained in any of those five groups of matter and mind; or the five kinds of belief that the individual as an entity is independent of those five groups; or the five kinds of belief that the individual entity is the owner on those five groups. How does consciousness become ‘self’ delusion (sakkāya-diṭṭhi)? For, it is not
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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 and 52: Applications of Awareness Awareness
Page 53 and 54: 37 Here is a sensation which is con
Page 55 and 56: 39 as a soul to carry and to carry-
Page 57: 41 (saññā) ideations or mental f
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
Page 103 and 104: 87 happens to a watcher who is foun
Page 105 and 106: 89 now projected into the future as
Page 107 and 108: 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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