• suttas
• audio
  • evening talks
  • short morning talks
  • lectures
  • guided meditations
  • talk collections
    • all
    • basics
    • five strengths
    • seven factors for awakening
    • refuge from death
    • noble eightfold path
    • with each & every breath
    • other themes
  • chants
• books
• 
  • ไทย
    • อบรมภาวนา ตอนเย็น
    • เทศน์ตอนเช้า
    • หนังสือ
  • français
    • livres
    • enseignements audio
  • español
  • Deutsch
  • português
  • русский
• search

Frames of Reference

An explanation of the four frames of reference, which are—for those who put them into practice—a means for freedom from defilement:

In order to use these four frames of reference as a means for centering the mind, you must first familiarize yourself with the following three qualities. Otherwise, you can’t say that you’re standing firm on your frame of reference. The truth of the matter is that the translations given above are too narrow—for in dealing with the frames of reference, mere mindfulness isn’t enough. When it’s not enough, and yet you keep being mindful of the body, you will give rise only to feelings of pleasure and displeasure, because the duty of mindfulness is simply to keep remembering or referring to an object. So in developing the frames of reference, you have to know your tools for remembering—

This can be illustrated as follows: The body is like a sawmill. The mind is like a drive shaft. Alertness is the pulley that spins around the drive shaft in one spot. Mindfulness is the belt that ties the mind to its object, not letting it slip away to other objects. Ardency—focused investigation—is the saw blade that keeps cutting the logs into pieces so that they can be of use. These three qualities must always be present for your practice of centering the mind to succeed.

Now we will discuss the work to be done, the objects for which focused investigation, alertness, and mindfulness are responsible, each its separate way. The objects are four—

These are the four things for which you must be responsible.

I. The Body

The term ‘body’ here refers to conglomerations of the four properties, both those that have consciousness directing them and those that no longer do, but that still appear to the eye. Both sorts are termed physical bodies (rūpa-kāya). Bodies can be considered under three aspects—

The body, whether inner or outer, is simply a matter of the four properties. Now that you know your duties, you have to perform them properly. Sampajañña: Keep your alertness in place, right at the mind within. You don’t have to direct it anywhere else. Sati: Your mindfulness has to be all-round. In other words, refer inwardly to the mind and then out to the object—in this case, the physical body—and then watch after the mind and its object to make sure that they don’t slip away from each other. Ātappa: Focus ardently on investigating the physical body, analyzing it into its various aspects. This can be done in any of five ways:

1. Investigate the 32 parts of the body, beginning with the hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin, etc. Make a thorough survey and evaluation. If this method doesn’t calm the mind, go on to—

2. Investigate the various repugnant aspects of the body, beginning with the fact that the body is a conglomeration of all sorts of things. In other words, it’s a burial ground, a national cemetery, filled with the corpses of cattle, pigs, ducks, chickens, sour, sweet, greasy, salty, gathered and aged in the stomach, filtered and distilled into blood, pus, decomposing and putrid, oozing throughout the body and coming out its various openings: this body, which all of us in the human race care for without ceasing—bathing it, scrubbing it, masking its smell—and even then its filth keeps displaying itself as ear wax, eye secretions, nasal drip, tooth tartar, skin-scruff, and sweat, always oozing out, filthy in every way. What it comes from is filthy, where it stays is filthy (i.e., in a cemetery of fresh corpses, or even worse—we’ve probably buried hundreds of different kinds of corpses within ourselves). If you look at the human body, you’ll see that its characteristics are ill-matched and incongruous. Its smell is something really offensive. If looking at the body in this way doesn’t give rise to a sense of dismay and detachment, go on to—

3. Investigate the in-and-out breath. When the breath comes in long, be aware of the fact. When it goes out long, be aware of it. When you first begin dealing with the breath, start out by sending your attention out with the out-breath and in with the in-breath. Do this two or three times, and then let your attention settle in the middle—without letting it follow the breath in or out—until the mind becomes still, paying attention only to the in-and-out breath. Make the mind open, relaxed and at ease. You can settle your awareness at the tip of the nose, at the palate—if you can keep it centered in the middle of the chest, so much the better. Keep the mind still, and it will feel at ease. Discernment will arise; an inner light will appear, reducing distractive thought. Now observe the behavior of the breath as it swells and contracts—in long and out long, in short and out short, in short and out long, in long and out short, in heavy and out light, in light and out heavy, in light and out light. Focus on making a thorough investigation into these different modes of breathing, without letting the mind move along with the breath. Do this until it gives rise to a sense of mental calm. If, however, this method doesn’t make you calm, go on to—

4. Investigate the four properties: earth, water, wind and fire. The parts of the body that feel hard are the earth property. The parts that feel liquid are the water property. The energy that flows through the body is the wind property; and the warmth in the body, the fire property. Imagine that you can take the earth property out and pile it in a heap in front of you, that you can take the water property out and pile it behind you, that you can pile the wind property in a heap to your left, and the fire property in a heap to your right. Place yourself in the middle and take a good look at the body, until you see that, when taken apart in this way, it vanishes into nothing, into ashes—what they call ‘death’—and you will come to feel a sense of dismay and detachment. If, however, you don’t see any results appearing, go on to—

5. Consider the fact that the body, once it’s born, leaves you exposed on all sides to the steady onslaughts of old age, illness, and death. Ultimately, you are sure to be torn away from everything in the world. The body is always displaying its nature—

When you consider things in this way, you’ll come to feel a sense of dismay and detachment that will make the mind steady, still, and firmly centered in concentration.

These five activities are the duties of your focused investigation, fighting to see the true nature of the physical body. As for mindfulness, it has to follow its own duties, referring to the object under investigation, at the same time referring to the mind within. Don’t make reference to anything else. Keep check on whether or not you have your mind on what you’re doing: This is alertness. Keep track of your mind, observing it at all times to see in what ways it might be acting or reacting on you. Keep your alertness always in place, right at the heart.

All the activities mentioned here are aspects of taking the body as a frame of reference. Whether you are dealing with the inner body, with outer bodies, or with the body in and of itself, you have to use the three qualities mentioned above. Only when you have them fully developed can you say that you are developing the great frame of reference (mahā-satipaṭṭhāna).

Normally, mindfulness is a quality we all have, but when it lacks alertness, it falls into wrong ways, becoming Wrong Mindfulness. But when you can follow the methods outlined above, you are sure to develop a disinterested steadiness of mind. You will come to feel a sense of dismay and detachment that will make the mind quiet, calm, and unperturbed. This is the ladder of liberating insight (vipassanā-ñāṇa), leading to nibbāna, which people of wisdom and experience have guaranteed:

This ends the discussion of keeping the body in mind as a frame of reference.

II. Feelings

The word ‘feeling’ refers to the experiencing of sensations that arise from one’s own actions, or kamma. There are three sorts of feelings: inner feelings or moods, outer feelings, and feelings in and of themselves.

A. Inner feelings, in terms of how they feel, are of three kinds —

B. Outer feelings are also of three kinds —

These feelings are called outer feelings because they are connected with the external sense media.

C. Feelings in and of themselves: This refers to the act of focusing on any single aspect of the above-mentioned feelings. In other words, you don’t have to be particular. Whenever pleasure arises, for example, set your mind on investigating it. Keep it firmly in mind. Watch after it to see that it stays within you, and that you stay within it. Don’t let your frame of reference slip away and change—and don’t let any hopes or wants arise in that mental moment at all. Then use your powers of focused investigation to look into the truth of the feeling; and alertness to watch after the mind, to make sure that your awareness stays in place. Don’t allow the mental current that causes stress to arise.

The cause of stress first arises when alertness is weak and the mind vacillates. The vacillation is called craving for not-becoming (vibhava-taṇhā). As the movement becomes stronger, a mental current arises and goes straying out. The current that strays out is craving for becoming (bhava-taṇhā). When it comes across a thought or sensory object and grabs hold, that’s called craving for sensuality (kāma-taṇhā). For this reason, you should watch after the mind to make sure that it stays with its one object, its feeling of pleasure. Don’t let any other preoccupations get involved. Keep your mindfulness and alertness firmly in place, and then make a focused investigation of the truth of that feeling. Only when you do this can you say that you are making use of feelings in and of themselves as a frame of reference.

By and large, whenever a mood or feeling arises, we tend to give rise to various hopes or desires. For instance, when a good mood arises, we want that sense of wellbeing to stay as it is or to increase. This desire gives rise to stress, and so we receive results contrary to what we had hoped for. Sometimes a bad mood arises and we don’t want it, so we struggle to find happiness, and this simply piles on more suffering. Sometimes the heart is neutral—neither happy nor sad, neither pleased nor displeased—and we want to stay that way constantly, or else we start to think that staying neutral is stupid or inane. This gives rise to more desires, and we start to struggle for something better than what we already are.

When this happens, we can’t say that we’re firmly based on our frame of reference—for even though we may be mindful of the fact that a good or a bad or a neutral feeling has arisen, we’re not beyond it. This shows that we lack the three qualities that can nurture and support mindfulness in becoming a factor of the Path. In other words, start out with alertness firmly established, and then use mindfulness to connect the mind with its object. Don’t let the mind slip away from the object, and don’t let the object slip away from the mind. Keep mindfulness firmly in reference to the object, and watch the mind to make sure that it stays fixed on its one object. As for the object, it’s the responsibility of your focused investigation to keep track of whatever aspect of feeling may appear: inner or outer; happy, sad, or neutral.

1. For instance, when pain arises, what does it come from? Investigate it until you know its truth. What does pleasure come from? It’s the duty of your focused investigation to find out. In what mental moment does neutrality occur? It’s the duty of your focused investigation to keep watch until you really know. Whatever feelings may arise, inner or outer, are the responsibility of your focused investigation. You have to use your powers of analysis to burn into whatever spot a feeling may arise. This is the first round in your investigation.

2. The second round: Watch the arising of feelings in the present. You don’t have to follow them anywhere else. Tell yourself that whatever may be causing these feelings, you’re going to focus exclusively on what is present.

3. Focus on the fading of feelings in the present.

4. Focus on the passing away of feelings in the present.

5. Stay with the realization that feelings do nothing but arise and fall away—simply flowing away and vanishing in various ways—with nothing of any substance or worth. When you can do this, you can say that your frame of reference is firmly established in feelings in and of themselves—and at that point, the Path comes together.

If we were to express this in terms of the factors of the Path, we’d have to do so as follows: The alertness that constantly watches after the mind, keeping it at normalcy, making sure that it doesn’t fall into unskillful ways, is virtue. The mindfulness that keeps the mind connected with its object so that it doesn’t slip away to other objects, is concentration. The focused investigation that penetrates into each object as it arises so as to know its true nature clearly—knowing both arising and disbanding, as well as non-arising and non-disbanding—is discernment. These three qualities have to arise together in a single mental moment for the Path to come together (magga-samaṅgī), and then the Path will function on its own, in line with its duties, enabling you to see clearly and know truly without having to let go of this or work at that, work at this or let go of that, let go of the outside or work at the inside, work at the outside or let go of the inside or whatever.

When all three of these qualities are gathered together, you can deal with any feeling at all—past, present, or future; pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—because when these three qualities are fully developed, they all connect. This is why I made the comparison at the beginning: The mind is like a drive shaft. Alertness is like a pulley spinning in place around the drive shaft. Mindfulness is like the belt that keeps the mind and its objects from slipping away from each other. Focused investigation is like the saw blade that works back and forth, cutting each object to pieces—which is what is meant by ‘bhagavant.’

Only a person who has the discernment to see in line with the truth in this way can be said to have fully mastered the use of feelings as a frame of reference.

III. The Mind

In using the mind as a frame of reference, there are three aspects to deal with:

‘The mind inside’ refers to a state exclusively in the heart unrelated to any outer preoccupations. ‘The mind outside’ refers to its interaction with such outer preoccupations as sights, sounds, etc. ‘The mind in and of itself’ refers to the act of singling out any aspect of the mind as it appears, whether inside or out.

As for the modes of the mind inside, there are three—

The mind outside is divided into the same three aspects—states of passion, irritation and delusion—but these are said to be ‘outside’ because once any of these aspects arises, it tends to go out and latch onto an outer preoccupation that simply serves to further aggravate the original state of passion, irritation, or delusion. The mind then doesn’t clearly or truly understand its objects. Its knowledge goes off in various directions, away from the truth: seeing beauty, for instance, in things that aren’t beautiful, constancy in things that are inconstant, pleasure in things that are painful, and self in things that are not-self.

All of these things are aspects of the mind outside.

‘The mind in and of itself’ refers to the act of singling out any one of these aspects of the mind. For example, sometimes passion arises, sometimes irritation, sometimes delusion: Whichever aspect may be arising in the present, single it out. With your alertness firmly in place, be steadily mindful of that aspect of the mind, without making reference to any other objects—and without letting any hopes or wants arise in that particular mental moment at all. Then focus unwaveringly on investigating that state of mind until you know its truth. The truth of these states is that sometimes, once they’ve arisen, they flare up and spread; sometimes they die away. Their nature is to arise for a moment and then dissolve away with nothing of any substance or worth. When you are intent on examining things in this way—with your mindfulness, alertness, and powers of focused investigation firmly in place—then none of these defilements, even though they may be appearing, will have the chance to grow or spread. This is like the baskets or jars used to cover new lettuce plants: If no one removes the baskets, the plants will never have a chance to grow, and will simply wither away and die. Thus you have to keep your alertness right with each mental state as it arises. Keep mindfulness constantly referring to its object, and use your powers of focused investigation to burn into those defilements so as to keep them away from the heart at all times.

To put this another way, all of the mental states mentioned above are like lettuce or green-gram seeds. Mindfulness is like a basket. Alertness is the person who scatters the seeds, while the power of focused investigation is the heat of the sun that burns them up.

So far, we have mentioned only bad mental states. Their opposites are good mental states: virāga-citta—the mind free from the grip of passion; adosa-citta—the mind free from the irritation or anger that can lead to loss and ruin; amoha-citta—the mind free from delusion, intoxication, and misunderstandings. These are skillful states of mind (kusala-citta), which form the root of all that is good. When they arise, maintain them and observe them so that you can come to know the level of your mind.

There are four levels of good mental states—

1. The level of sensuality: A mental state arises and connects with a skillful object—any sight, sound, smell, taste, tactile sensation, or idea that can form the basis for skillful mental states. When it meets with its object, it becomes happy, joyful, and glad. (Here we are referring only to those sensory objects that are good for the mind.) If you were to refer to the Heavens of Sensual Bliss as they appear within each of us, the list would run as follows: Sights that can form the basis for skillful mental states are one level, sounds are another, and same with smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas. Together they form the six levels of heaven on the sensual level.

2. The level of form: A mental state arises from thinking about (vitakka) a physical object that serves as the theme of one’s meditation; and then analyzing (vicāra) the object into its various aspects, at the same time making sure that the mind doesn’t slip away from the object (ekaggatārammaṇa). When the mind and its object are one in this way, the object becomes light. The mind is unburdened and can let go of its worries. Rapture (pīti) and pleasure (sukha) arise as a result. When these five factors appear in the mind, it has entered the first jhāna—the beginning stage in the level of form.

3. The level of formlessness: The mind lets go of its physical object on the level of form, but is still attached to a very subtle mental notion—the jhāna of infinite space, for instance, in which you are focused on a sense of emptiness and awareness with no physical object or image passing into your field of attention, so that you are unable to know its full range. What has actually happened is that you have curled up and are hiding inside. This isn’t the kind of ‘going in to know’ that comes from finishing your work. It’s the ‘going in to know’ that comes from wanting to run away. You’ve seen the faults of what arises outside you, but haven’t seen that they really lie buried within you—so you’ve hidden inside by limiting the field of your attention.

Some people, when they reach this point, believe that they have done away with defilement, because they mistake the emptiness for nibbāna. Actually, it’s only the first stage in the level of formlessness, and so is still on the mundane level.

If you seriously want to know whether your mind is on the mundane or the transcendent level, then observe it when you turn your awareness inward and make it still—when you feel a sense of peace and ease that seems to have no defilements adulterating it at all. Let go of that mental state, to see how it behaves on its own. If defilements can reappear, you’re still on the mundane level. Sometimes that mental state remains unchanged through the power of your own efforts, but after a while you become unsure of your knowledge. Your mind has to keep fondling, i.e., making a running commentary on it. When this is the case, don’t go believing that your knowledge is in any way true.

There are many, many kinds of knowledge: The intellect knows, the heart knows, the mind knows, consciousness knows, discernment knows, alertness knows, awareness knows, unawareness knows. All these modes are based on knowledge; they differ simply in how they know. If you aren’t able to distinguish clearly among the different modes of knowing, knowing can become confused—and so you might take wrong knowing to be right knowing, or unawareness to be awareness, or knowledge attached to suppositions (sammuti) to be freedom from suppositions (vimutti). Thus you should experiment and examine things carefully from all angles so that you can come to see for yourself which kind of knowledge is genuine, and which is counterfeit. Counterfeit knowledge merely knows but can’t let go. Genuine knowledge, when it goes about knowing anything, is bound to let go.

All three levels of the mind discussed so far are on the mundane level.

4. The transcendent level: This begins with the path and fruition of entry into the stream to nibbāna. Those who reach this level have begun by following the threefold training of virtue, concentration, and discernment on the mundane level, but then have gone on to gain their first true insight into the four Noble Truths, enabling them to free themselves from the first three Fetters (saṁyojana). Their minds are thus released into the stream to nibbāna. The three Fetters are —

a. Self-identification (sakkāya-diṭṭhi): the view that leads us to believe that the conscious body is our own.

b. Doubt (vicikicchā): the uncertainty that leads us to be unsure of the good we believe in—i.e., of how much truth there is to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha.

c. Attachment to precepts and practices (sīlabbata-parāmāsa): fondling the good that we practice; being attached to those forms of goodness that are merely external activities—for instance, observing precepts or practices by clinging simply to the level of bodily action or speech. Examples of this attitude include such things as developing virtue by adhering simply to the precepts; practicing concentration by simply sitting like a post; not being able to free yourself from these activities, always holding onto the goodness that comes from them, happy when you have the chance to perform them in a particular way, upset when you don’t; thinking, for instance, that virtue is something you get from monks when they give you the precepts; that the eight precepts are to be observed only on certain days and nights, months and years; that you gain or lose merit simply as a result of external activities associated with your accustomed beliefs. None of these attitudes reaches the essence of virtue. They go no further than simply clinging to beliefs, customs, and conventions; clutching onto these forms of goodness, always fondling them, unable to let them go. Thus this is called ‘attachment to precepts and practices.’

Such attitudes are an obstacle to what is truly good. Take, for example, the long-held belief that goodness means to practice generosity, virtue, and meditation on the uposatha days: Stream-winners have completely let go of such beliefs. Their hearts are no longer caught up in beliefs and customs. Their virtues no longer have precepts. In other words, they have reached the essence of virtue. Their virtue is free from the limits of time.

In this they differ from ordinary, run-of-the-mill people. Ordinary people have to hand goodness over to external criteria—believing, for instance, that virtue lies on this day or that, during the Rains Retreat, during this or that month or year—and then holding fast to that belief, maintaining that anyone who doesn’t follow the custom can’t be virtuous. In the end, such people have a hard time finding the opportunity really to do good. Thus we can say that they don’t know the true criteria for goodness. As for Stream-winners, all the qualities of virtue have come in and filled their hearts. They are able to unshackle themselves from the conventional values of the world that say that this or that is good. What is truly good they have seen appear in their hearts. Good lies right here. Evil lies right here. Neither depends on external activities. This is in line with the Buddha’s saying,

Stream-winners are like people who have rowed their boats into the main current of the Chao Phraya River, and so are destined to float down to the river’s mouth and into the sea of amata—deathless—nibbāna. There are three ways they can reach the sea:

This—reaching the stream to nibbāna—is the beginning stage of the transcendent level. If you were to simplify the three Fetters, you could do so as follows: To be attached to the conscious body as being one’s own is self-identification. To be attached to the activities of the body is attachment to precepts and practices. Not knowing how to separate the mind from the body or from one’s activities makes one unable to see clearly and know truly: This leads to uncertainty and doubt.

These are simply my opinions on the matter, so you who read this should consider things carefully on your own.

This ends the discussion of the transcendent and mundane skillful states of mind.

When you know the characteristics of the various mental states, you should use the three qualities mentioned above as your tools: Keep your mindfulness, alertness, and powers of focused investigation firmly in place at the mind. To be able to gain knowledge, you have to use the power of focused investigation, which is an aspect of discernment, to know how mental states arise and fall: pulling out, taking a stance, and then returning into stillness. You must keep your attention fixed on investigating these things constantly in order to be able to know the arising and falling away of mental states—and you will come to know the nature of the mind that doesn’t arise and doesn’t fall away.

To know the arising and falling away of mental states of the past is one level of cognitive skill (vijjā), and deserves to be called ‘knowledge of previous births.’ To know the states of the mind as they change in the present deserves to be called ‘knowledge of death and rebirth.’ To know how to separate mental states from their objects, knowing the primal nature of the mind, knowing the current or force of the mind that flows to its objects; separating the objects, the current of mind that flows, and the primal nature of the mind: To be able to know in this way deserves to be called ‘knowledge of the ending of mental effluents.’ The objects or preoccupations of the mind are the effluent of sensuality. The current that flows is the effluent of a state of becoming. Not knowing the nature of the mind is the effluent of unawareness.

If we were to express this in terms of the four Noble Truths, we would have to do so as follows: The objects or preoccupations of the mind are the truth of stress (dukkha-sacca). The current of the mind that flows into and falls for its objects is the truth of the cause of stress (samudaya-sacca). The mental state that penetrates in to see clearly the truth of all objects, the current of the mind, and the primal nature of the mind, is called the mental moment that forms the Path (magga-citta). To let go of the objects, the mental current, and the nature of the mind, without any sense of attachment, is the truth of the disbanding of stress (nirodha-sacca).

When the three qualities that assist the mind—alertness, mindfulness, and focused investigation—are vigorous and strong, strong alertness becomes the awareness of release (vijjā-vimutti), strong mindfulness becomes intuitive understanding (ñāṇa), and strong focused investigation becomes liberating insight (vipassanā-ñāṇa), the discernment that can stay fixed on knowing the truth of stress without permitting any sense of pleasure or displeasure for its object to arise. Intuitive understanding fathoms the cause of stress, and the awareness of release knows the heart clearly all the way through. When you can know in this way, you can say that you know rightly.

Here I would like to back up and discuss the question of the mind in a little more detail. The word ‘mind’ covers three aspects:

All of these aspects, taken together, make up the mind. If you don’t know the mind in this way, you can’t say that you really know it. All you can do is say that the mind arises and falls away, the mind doesn’t rise or fall away; the mind is good, the mind is evil; the mind becomes annihilated, the mind doesn’t become annihilated; the mind is a dhamma, the mind isn’t a dhamma; the mind gains release, the mind doesn’t gain release; the mind is nibbāna, the mind isn’t nibbāna; the mind is sensory consciousness, the mind isn’t sensory consciousness; the mind is the heart, the mind isn’t the heart...

As the Buddha taught, there are only two paths to practice—the body, speech, and heart; and the body, speech, and mind—and in the end both paths reach the same point: Their true goal is release. So if you want to know the truth concerning any of the above issues, you have to follow the path and reach the truth on your own. Otherwise, you’ll have to argue endlessly. These issues—for people who haven’t practiced all the way to clear insight—have been termed by people of wisdom as sedamocana-kathā: issues that can only make you break out in a sweat.

So I would like to make a short explanation: The primal nature of the mind is a nature that simply knows. The current that thinks and streams out from knowing to various objects is a mental state. When this current connects with its objects and falls for them, it becomes a defilement, darkening the mind: This is a mental state in interaction. Mental states, by themselves and in interaction, whether good or evil, have to arise, have to disband, have to dissolve away by their very nature. The source of both these sorts of mental states is the primal nature of the mind, which neither arises nor disbands. It is a fixed phenomenon (ṭhiti-dhamma), always in place. By the primal nature of the mind—which is termed ‘pabhassara,’ or radiant—I mean the ordinary, elementary state of knowing in the present. But whoever isn’t able to penetrate in to know it can’t gain any good from it, like the proverbial monkey with the diamond.

Thus the name given by the Buddha for this state of affairs is really fitting: avijjā—dark knowledge, counterfeit knowledge. This is in line with the terms ‘pubbante aññāṇam’—not knowing the beginning, i.e., the primal nature of the mind; ‘parante aññāṇam’—not knowing the end, i.e., mental states in interaction with their objects; ‘majjhantika aññāṇam’—not knowing the middle, i.e., the current that streams from the primal nature of knowing. When this is the case, the mind becomes a saṅkhāra: a fabricator, a magician, concocting prolifically in its myriad ways.

This ends the discussion of the mind as a frame of reference.

IV. Mental Qualities

Mental qualities as a frame of reference can be divided into three sorts: inner mental qualities, outer mental qualities, and mental qualities in and of themselves.

A. Inner mental qualities can be either good or bad, but here we will deal only with the five Hindrances (nīvaraṇa), which are bad—

These five Hindrances can be either inner or outer phenomena. For example:

If these five Hindrances are still weak and haven’t yet streamed out to become involved with any external objects, they are called ‘inner mental qualities.’

B. Outer mental qualities simply come from the inside:

These are thus called outer mental qualities. When any mental quality first arises in the mind, it’s called an inner quality. When it flares up, grows stronger and streams out to an outer object, it’s called an outer quality.

C. Mental qualities in and of themselves: This means to focus on any one of these Hindrances—because not all five Hindrances can appear in the same mental moment. You can thus pick out any Hindrance at all to focus on and examine. For example, suppose that sensual desire has appeared: Keep your alertness firmly in place at the heart, and use your mindfulness to keep the mind on the phenomenon. Don’t waver, and don’t let any hopes or wishes arise. Keep your mind firmly in one place. Don’t go dragging any other objects in to interfere. Focus your powers of ardent investigation down on nothing but the quality appearing in the present. As long as you haven’t gained clear, true insight into it, don’t let up on your efforts. When you can do this, you are developing mental qualities in and of themselves as a frame of reference.

The qualities mentioned above are all unskillful qualities (akusala dhamma). They act as obstacles to such things as jhāna, liberating insight, and the transcendent. Thus, if you want to gain release from them, you must first center the mind firmly in concentration. To be able to center the mind firmly, you have to develop the following three qualities within yourself —

(1) Sampajañña: alertness. Always have this firmly in place.

(2) Sati: mindfulness. Keep the mind in firm reference to whatever quality has arisen within it. Watch after the quality to keep it with the mind; watch after the mind to make sure that it doesn’t lose aim and go slipping off to other objects. Once you see that the mind and its object have become compatible with each other, use—

(3) Ātappa—the power of focused investigation—to get to the facts of the quality. If you haven’t yet gained clear and true insight, don’t relax your efforts. Keep focusing and investigating until the power of your discernment is concentrated and strong, and you will come to know that mental qualities—whether inner, outer, or in and of themselves—simply arise, fade and disband. There’s nothing of any lasting worth to them, because they are all saṅkhata dhamma—fabricated phenomena; and whatever is fabricated falls under the truths of aniccatā—inconstancy; dukkhatā—stress, i.e., it’s hard to bear; and anattatā: It’s not you, yours, or anyone else’s. It simply changes in line with natural conditions. No one with any real discernment holds onto these qualities as self or as anything of lasting worth, because such people have seen that these things are like wheels or gears: Whoever holds onto them will have to be trampled or mashed.

Thus if you hope for the genuine happiness offered by the Buddha’s teachings, you should take the three qualities mentioned above and make them permanent features of your heart—and you will come to see clearly the quality free from fabrication, called the unfabricated (asaṅkhata dhamma), the genuine Dhamma. Uncreated, uncaused, it simply is, by its very nature. It doesn’t circle about, arising and passing away. The unfabricated is a perfectly ordinary part of nature, yet no one in the world can know it aside from those who have developed virtue, concentration, and discernment. So if you sincerely want to go beyond suffering and stress, you should work to give rise to clear and true insight through your own efforts. When you can keep your alertness constantly in place, you will be able to know the nature of the mind. Your powers of reference and focused investigation will have to be constantly in place within for you not to be misled by the objects and preoccupations of the mind.

Most of us, ordinarily, have no clear sense of our own nature, and so we can’t clearly see the thoughts and urges that arise within us. As a result, we go out to fasten onto their objects, giving rise to the wheel of wandering-on (vaṭṭa-saṁsāra), circling around and around without end.

Here I will refer to the wheel within: Not knowing the primal nature of the mind is the cycle of defilement (kilesa vaṭṭa), or unawareness, which is the beginning of the cycle. This gives rise to fabrication, which is the cycle of intention and action (kamma vaṭṭa). This in turn leads us to experience mental objects and preoccupations, which is the cycle of retribution (vipāka vaṭṭa). Thus there are three parts to the cycle.

The three parts of the cycle can be illustrated as follows: Unawareness is the hub of the wheel. Fabrications are the spokes; and mental preoccupations, the rim. The sensory organs form the yoke and harness, sensory objects are the oxen, and the driver is birth, aging, illness, and death. Now pile on your belongings—your defilements—and with a lash of the whip, you’re off: The oxen drag you away, leading you up the mountains and down, until in the end you crash and are smashed to smithereens, i.e., death.

For this reason, we must make our awareness penetrate into the nature of the mind at the center of the axle, which doesn’t turn with the wheel and which is said to be ‘uncycling’ (vivaṭṭa). Whoever can do this will find that the path is sudden and short, not slow. For example, in ancient times, monks and lay disciples were able to reach Awakening even while sitting and listening to a sermon, while going for alms, or while gazing at a corpse. From this we can gather that, after imbuing themselves with the qualities mentioned above, they focused their investigation on that particular point and gained clear and true insight right then and there, without having to pull in or out, back or forth. They were able to let go naturally, with no ‘in’ or ‘out,’ no ‘coming’ or ‘going.’

Those who investigate will see the truth. Some people believe that they will have to abandon all mental preoccupations before they can train the mind, but the truth of the matter is that the mind is usually deluded right there—at its preoccupations—and the spot where you are deluded is the spot you have to investigate. If you don’t solve the problem right where you’re deluded, don’t believe that you can let go by hiding out or running away. Even if you do run away and hide, you’ll end up coming back and falling for the same old preoccupations once more.

People of discernment, though, whether they deal with what is inside or out, can give rise to virtue, concentration, discernment, and release in every context. They have no sense that the inside is right and the outside wrong; that the inside is wrong and the outside right; or that the inside is refined and the outside base. Such opinions never occur to people of discernment. Discernment has to be all-around knowing or knowing all around before it can be called full-fledged discernment. Knowing all around means to know the inside first and then the outside. All-around knowing means to know the outside first, and then to bring that awareness all the way in. This is why they are called people of discernment: They can bring the outside in; what is base they can make refined; past and future they can bring into the present, because they have brought the parts of the Path together in equal measure—mindfulness, alertness, and focused investigation—each performing its duties, forming the way that leads beyond all suffering and stress.

Those who can do this will be able to reach the truth in any posture. All that will appear to them will be the condition of stress (sabhāva-dukkha) and the condition of things in themselves (sabhāva-dhamma). To see things this way is called ‘yathābhūta-ñāṇa’—seeing things for what they really are.

Summary

The four frames of reference can be reduced to two: physical and mental phenomena, or—another way of putting it—body and mind. Even though they are divided into four, it is simply the current of the mind that is divided. When you come to the essence of the practice, it all boils down to the body and mind. If you want really to simplify the practice, you should focus on investigating the body and then focus on investigating the mind.

1. To focus on investigating the body: Be aware of any one aspect of the body, such as the breath, and then when you can keep focused on it accurately, spread your awareness to observe other aspects of the body, examining them from various angles. While making your investigation, though, don’t let go of your original focus—the breath. Keep examining things until you’ve gained clear and true insight into the aspects of the body, and the mind becomes more quiet, still and subtle than before. If anything arises while you are investigating, don’t fasten onto it in any way.

2. To focus on investigating the mind: Set your awareness at one spot or another, and keep that awareness perfectly still. After your mind has been still long enough, examine the ways it then changes and moves, until you can see that its movements, whether good or bad, are simply a form of fabrication (saṅkhāra). Don’t let yourself become preoccupied with anything you may come to know, think, or see while examining. Keep your awareness in the present. When you can do this, your mind is headed toward peace and clear insight.

This way of practice falls in line with all four of the frames of reference. When you can do this, you will give rise to the mental moment that forms the Path—and the moment the Path arises in full power is the moment you can let go.

Letting go has two forms: (1) Being able to let go of mental objects but not of one’s own mind. (2) Being able to let go both of the objects of the mind and of one’s self.

To be able to let go both of one’s objects and of one’s self is genuine knowing. To be able to let go of one’s objects but not of one’s self is counterfeit knowing. Genuine knowing lets go of both ends: It lets the object follow its own nature as an object, and lets the mind follow the nature of the mind. In other words, it lets nature look after itself. ‘Object’ here refers to the body; ‘self’ refers to the heart. You have to let go of both.

When your knowledge can reach this level, you don’t have to worry much about virtue, concentration, or discernment. Virtue, concentration, and discernment aren’t the nature of the mind; nor is the nature of the mind virtue, concentration, and discernment. Virtue, concentration, and discernment are simply fabricated phenomena, tools for extinguishing defilement. When defilement is extinguished, then virtue, concentration, and discernment disband as well. Virtue, concentration, and discernment are like water. Defilement is like a fire. The mind is like the person using the water to put out the fire. When the water has put out the flames, the water itself has vanished—but the person putting out the fire hasn’t disappeared. The fire isn’t the water, the water isn’t the fire. The person isn’t the water, the water isn’t the person. The person isn’t the fire, the fire isn’t the person. The genuine nature of the mind isn’t defilement, nor is it virtue, concentration, and discernment. It simply is, in line with its own nature.

Those who don’t know the nature of the truth maintain that death is annihilation or that nibbāna is annihilation of one sort or another. This is simply their own misunderstanding. Even those who have gone no higher than the level of Stream-entry are able to know that the true nature of the mind isn’t in any way annihilated, which is why they are people of strong, unwavering conviction, believing in the paths and their fruitions. Even though their hearts aren’t yet entirely free from the admixture of defilements, those defilements can’t efface the true nature of their hearts—just as an ingot of gold, when it falls into the dirt, may be covered with soot, but the soot can’t turn it into anything other than gold.

This is unlike ordinary, run-of-the-mill people. An ordinary person’s mind may be pure from time to time, but it doesn’t stay that way. It can’t escape from being defiled again—just as a sharpened knife will stay in shape only if it is kept bathed in oil. If you put the knife to use or forget to keep it bathed, the steel of the blade might turn into something other than steel.

Thus each of us should enthusiastically make the effort to reach at least the Stream, for although all the qualities I have mentioned—whether fabricated (saṅkhata dhamma) or unfabricated (asaṅkhata dhamma)—lie mixed within every one of us, none of them are as exalted as virāga dhamma: the act of dispassion that extracts the unfabricated from the fabricated as gold is extracted from crude ore.

The Buddha’s teachings are subtle and deep. Whoever isn’t set on truly putting them into practice won’t know their taste—like a cowherd hired to watch over cattle without ever knowing the taste of their milk.

Thus we are taught: