Q & A

Q: Could you please explain or elaborate on when and how it is beneficial to use a narrower focus of attention on a part of the body versus a more expansive one? When going narrow, is there any benefit to going very small? For example, the tip of the nose?

A: When you’re very tired and don’t have the energy to do a survey of the whole body, just focus on one spot and put as much energy into that one spot as you can. Tell yourself, “I’m going to stay right here, I’m not going to move for a while.” That can give you more energy.

Another time for a narrow focus is when there’s a specific blockage in one part of the body and it takes an extra bit of energy to get the blockage opened up.

Q: Since you spoke about modifying the length of the breathing, I noticed that when my respirations are really short, this helps to be concentrated. But is it better to also have long respirations?

A: It’s good to be able to learn how to concentrate with different lengths of breathing, because the body will have different needs at different times. If you know that you find short breathing easiest to focus on, start with that. Then, once you’ve settled down, you can try other lengths of breathing while keeping the mind quiet, to see what effect it has.

Q: Ajaan, I find it quite possible to make different parts of the body somewhat pleasant, but it seems much trickier to get one spot really pleasant and spread that everywhere. Do you have any advice or tips on how to proceed?

A: Try to take the parts that you can already make comfortable and think of them connecting. Then, as they connect, they’ll get a stronger sense of well-being as they reinforce one another.

Years back, there was a book called, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. In it, the author pointed out that if you ordinarily draw a picture of a face—drawing the eyes and the nose and the mouth—it tends not to look very realistic. But if you draw the spaces between the eyes and the nose, or between the nose and the mouth—spaces that you don’t ordinarily pay attention to—you end up with a picture that’s much more realistic. It’s the same with connecting the comfortable parts of the body. Normally, we tend to connect the painful parts. So you’re switching the emphasis, focusing on how to connect the good parts instead. And as I said, they’ll reinforce one another and get stronger. Then you can go to the whole body from there.

Q: How do you bring pleasant sensations to the different parts of the body. And also, for the breath, how to make it pleasant, even though it’s repetitive, it’s always the same?

A: It doesn’t always have to be the same. Every time you breathe, ask a question of the body, “What do you want now? Where would you like the breath to flow? Which direction? Do you want to go down the spine or up the spine?” Ask that question with every part of the body. In that way, it becomes less repetitive.

Q: Regarding meditations that require visualization, my ability to visualize is fickle. I can bring up mental images, but then they come and go. It’s as if my mind is on an eccentric orbit around the thing I’m visualizing. It gets close, takes a snapshot, and then moves away. The next time it comes, it’s from a different angle. Worse, still, the thing it orbits is changing. So it’s more as if I create a psychedelic slideshow than a still image. I find this okay, for example, as quick asubha against lust, but it seems impossible to do deep body/death asubha contemplations like this. How do I perceive, forget this, or how to improve this?

A: In some cases you can use a slideshow in order to contemplate death or other parts of the body. A lot of these contemplations will work when a sudden insight comes or a sudden vision comes and it snaps something open. So it’s not necessarily the case that you have to hold one image steadily in mind in order to contemplate it. Other times, instead of visualizing things, you can talk to yourself. In other words, some people find it easier to stick with language than with visual images. If that’s the sort of mind you have, then make use of talking to yourself.

Q: In the practice of ānāpānasati, at what moment should we investigate the body? Before we reach samādhi or after?

A: You can do either. Sometimes investigating the body helps you to settle down. Then, when you’re in concentration and you go back to investigating the body, the investigation can be more precise.

Q: This notion of pure consciousness, unlimited and objectless: Does it have a place in Theravada Buddhism? If yes, would it have a role on the path to awakening?

A: Yes and yes. There is a state called the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness. It’s one of the formless states of concentration based on the fourth jhāna. It’s also one of the states of concentration that you can analyze even while you’re in it, which means that it can be used for gaining awakening. It’s not really objectless, though. In that state, consciousness itself is the object of consciousness. The problem is when you first get there, it feels as if it has no object. But then as you get to know it better, you begin to realize that there is a perception that holds you there.

Q: You said yesterday that it was not a good idea to have your attention both on the feet and coordinate the breathing at the same time. That is, however, what I did, because, with practice, being aware of each step or in- and out-breath becomes easier. As a result, the effort of paying attention diminishes and thoughts come back. They are there, at the same time that the awareness of each step and breath, which means that the simple awareness of each step or breath is not enough to develop concentration. So what more is needed now?

A: You can coordinate the breath and the steps at the beginning of the practice. There should come a time, though, when you find that it’s enough to stay with one or the other. One intermediate stage, though, would be to focus on breathing in two spots of the body at once, for example, in the middle of the head and the base of the spine. There are some people who find it easier to concentrate if you give them two things to do at once, rather than just one. If that’s the way you are, that’s what you’ve got to do.

I first visited Wat Asokaram, Ajaan Lee’s monastery, when I was a lay man. I got to know some lay women who were practicing there. There was one woman who said that at the beginning of her meditation, once in a while, when her mind settled down, she liked to check out the mind states of everybody else in the room. She noticed that there was one other woman who was faster at getting her mind established. So I went to ask the other woman, “How do you get your mind settled down so fast?” She smiled and then said, “I focus in the middle of my head and the base of my spine, and then think of a line connecting the two.” She said it was like using an electric wire to connect a light to two poles of a battery, and the light lit up right away. Within seconds.

Q: Could you provide a few pointers about meditating with vedanā, feelings?

A: When you’re focusing on the breath, there are going to be feelings right there together with the breath. Instead of simply watching feelings coming and going on their own, you’re actually trying to give rise to feelings of pleasure and to maintain them. That’s one of the steps in breath meditation: breathing in and out sensitive to pleasure. Then you can try to notice the effect that those feelings of pleasure have on the mind. Of course, in doing this, you gain insight into the fact that feelings can be fabricated. You’re not just receiving feelings from past kamma, but you’re actually creating feelings out of the raw material you get from past kamma. This is an important insight.

Q: Getting into a meditation state is rather fluid for me, but I have to undergo an MRI pretty soon, and I am claustrophobic, and I do not like the medical world. What makes me even more apprehensive is the agitation around: people I don’t know and the pressure in time. How can I prepare for this here, so that in that situation I can find some calm and security inside me?

A: In a case like this, it’s best to focus on space: the space inside your body, the space that goes across the border between what’s in your body and what’s outside your body—the space right here at the surface—the space in the MRI machine, between all the atoms, the atoms of the people who are agitated around you. Then try to maintain that perception of space as you go in. As for anything else that would get in the way of that sensation of space, just let it go, let it go, let it go.

Breathe in the space. And think of your breath energy, again, permeating the MRI machine. I can sympathize because I’m claustrophobic, too. I dread the day when I will have to go into an MRI machine, so I prepare myself with this perception of space.

Q: My understanding is that jhāna requires the unobstructed flow of breath energy throughout the whole body. Does this mean that if one has a chronic pain due to a medical condition, one cannot obtain jhāna?

A: No, having the breath energy going through the body facilitates jhāna, but it’s not a requirement. The quality of jhāna is basically that your awareness fills the body, and you can think of that awareness penetrating through the pain but not being blocked by the pain. In that way, you can attain jhāna in spite of the fact that there will be pains in the body. It helps if you remember that the breath energy actually circulates even in spite of the pain.

There’s a strange perception we sometimes have that if there’s pain someplace in the body, the breath cannot go through it. In other words, we feel that the pain is there first, and then we’re trying to force the breath through the pain that’s already there. You have to switch the perception. Remind yourself the breath came first, the pain came later, so the pain doesn’t have to obstruct the breath at all, or your awareness.

Q: This is my fifth retreat here, and, as with every time, about the same time, halfway through the retreat, these movements in my upper body, swaying back and forth, start to appear. In the first retreats, those movements were wide. Now they’ve become vibrations, barely noticeable from outside. This feels like a heart beating, and it’s pleasant and even comforting when I follow this pleasure. Then when I try to come back to the breath, I feel a painful point, like a sting that is persistent in the heart, accompanied by a flow of heat, hot flashes. The only solution that I’ve found, for now, is to get out of the meditation and open my eyes. Is there another solution?

A: One question is, when you open your eyes, does that sense of pain go away? If it does, then open your eyes for a while, and then go back into concentration. The important thing is, when those sways in the body happen, that you don’t try to stop them. Let them die on their own. And while the swaying is going on, stay right within the breath at the same time the swaying is happening. It’s possible that the pain in the heart comes from the fact that you’re trying to stop the swaying.

This kind of physical sensation is usually regarded as a manifestation of rapture. The basic rule about rapture is that you don’t try to stop it, but you don’t encourage it, either. Stay rooted in the breath and allow the manifestation to do what it’s going to do, and then it’ll calm down on its own as your focus gets more refined and your concentration gets stronger.

Q: Sometimes I see the painful effects of a desire and I manage to drop it, which brings me relief. But then it comes back as soon as something rouses it again, and then the cycle starts over. Does this mean that the appeal of this desire is still hidden in me? Could you help me see clearly where it is located and how to abandon it?

A: You can see the appeal at the very moment when you decide, “I’m going to go with that desire again.” It can be in your mind right at that time. It might be a brief visual image, a word, or a sentence. Try to see if you can detect it. That will give an idea of what the allure is.

It’s also possible that that your vision of the bad effects of the desire hasn’t gone straight to the heart yet. You tell yourself, “I’ll drop it for now, but I may come back.” You have to get to the point where you can say, “I’m never going to come back to this one.” So it’s about seeing both the allure more clearly and the drawbacks more effectively.

Q: If I have an unskillful desire, but I manage to hold myself in check before the fabrications start or while they are in the process, does that mean that an intention formed enough that it will register in my kamma?

A: There is no kamma registry. However, the fact that these desires appear in your mind is an effect of old kamma. Your new kamma is what you do with it. If you decide, “I can resist that,” that’s your new good kamma. That’s what counts.

Q: Is desire underlying all the obstacles or just some obstacles such as rites, views about oneself, views about the world?

A: Desire underlies everything. So, yes, there will be desire that underlies your obstacles. These obstacles come from desire, and then they become objects of desire, which is what keeps the process going. What we’re trying to do is to develop alternative desires that can cut through this cycle.

Q: This is in reference to MN 117: I haven’t fully understood the difference between right resolve with and without fermentations.

A: The description in the text is that right resolve with fermentations, or āsavas, is your basic definition of right resolve, which is making up your mind that you’re going to avoid thoughts of sensuality, thoughts of ill will, thoughts of harmfulness. Basically, resolve is a type of verbal fabrication, in other words, the way you’re talking to yourself. This is said to be “with fermentations” in that it leads to a good rebirth.

The higher level or transcendent level of right resolve is basically to get the mind into the first jhāna. You’re talking to yourself about getting the mind centered on its one object. This is said to be “without fermentations” in that it’s part of the path to the end of rebirth, based on an intention to go beyond rebirth. That’s the difference.

Q: In Mahāyāna Buddhism, they criticize the Hīnayāna because there’s an attachment that forms to these pleasant states, such as concentration or nibbāna, that they represent a trap. What do you think?

A: I don’t see them as a trap. Nibbāna is released from all traps. The main difference between Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna is that in Hīnayāna, we see that suffering is caused by each person’s lack of skill, and you can’t make another person skillful. Each person has to become skillful of his or her own accord. The best you can do for someone else is to teach how to develop more skill, but the ability to become more skillful to the point of actual liberation is something that each person has to do for him or herself. From the Hīnayāna point of view, the idea that you can actually liberate somebody else is the trap. You’re going to hang around and help everybody else out, but you don’t end up helping anybody. Excuse me for saying this, but my vision of Mahāyāna is that you’re in a movie theater that’s on fire. Everybody’s rushing to the exit, but there are two bodhisattvas at the exit. One of them says, “You first.” The other said, “No, you first.” “No, you.” Everybody dies.