Sotāpanna: Stream Entry

"Sariputta, 'The stream, the stream': thus it is said. And what, Sariputta, is the stream?" "This very Noble Eightfold Path, venerable one, is the stream: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right unification. Very good, Sariputta! Very good! This very Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right unification is the stream."  

The Buddha & Sariputta SN 55.5. 

A Sotāpanna: Stream Enterer, in MIDL, refers to an insight meditator who has removed the underlying conditions that support the first three fetters of 1) view of a permanent self, 2) doubt, and 3) attachment to rites & rituals, from their mind. This occurs due to the maturing of all eight factors of the Noble Eightfold Path: wisdom (panna), morality (sila) and calm (samadhi), leading to their mind momentarily releasing conditioned reality and glimpsing the unconditioned: Nibbāna (lit: going out of the fire). 

Once their mind has glimpsed the unconditioned: Nibbāna, the MIDL insight meditator experiences a shift in their minds view that realigns their perception with reality. This shift in view to Right View results in their mind perceiving reality as a flow of anicca (impermanence) and anatta (autonomy) within the stream of perceived reality (Dhamma). Thus the term Stream Enterer or one who has entered the Stream of Dhamma reflects this permanent shift in view and perception.

To understand how to develop the conditions for Sotāpanna-Insight when following the insight model offered in MIDL, and to recognise the conditions when they occur in your mind, I will offer a short summary below, which we will elaborate in more depth further on in this article.

There are the four main conditions that support Sotāpanna-Insight.

1. Saddha: As calm and insight develop, hindrances to calm will weaken and you will experience an increased feeling of Saddha: as an uplifting heart connection of faith & confidence, developing within you. 
2. Anicca & Anatta: As samadhi (unification) and insight mature, your mind will gradually perceive all experience and experiencing as anicca (impermanent) and anatta (autonomous). This will be experienced as a very refined arising and passing of all sensory experience with no feeling of attraction or aversion toward any of it.
3. 7 Awakening Factors: As calm the perception of anicca and anatta refines, free from attraction or aversion, the feeling of calm in your heart & mind will mature. At this stage you will be able to observe all 7 Awakening Factors: mindfulness, curiosity, balanced effort, joy, tranquility, unification and equanimity continuously present within your mind with the feeling of equanimity resting in the foreground.
4. Noble Eightfold Path: When the 7 Awakening Factors reach maturity, you will be able to observe the three groups of the Noble Eightfold Path: wisdom (panna), morality (sila) and calm (samadhi) present within your heart & mind at the same time. This has a very distinct experience as an autonomous self-feeding spiral of calm, insight and letting go that will permeates your whole experience during seated meditation and in daily life.

When these four conditions are present and persist over time, Sotāpanna-Insight may occur during seated or walking meditation, or within your daily life. It is important to remain passive and get out of the way. As my teacher said to me "It doesn't need your help".

After Sotāpanna-Insight, these observable changes will occur within your mind.

These fetters will have been removed:

1. The view of a permanent, unchanging self.
2. The hindrance of doubt.
3. Attachment to rites & rituals.

These wholesome & skillfull qualities will have been established:

1. Perception of anicca (impermanence, unreliability) anatta (autonomous nature). 
2. Wholesome quality of saddha (verified faith).
3. Perception of specific conditionality.

The MIDL Insight Meditation Course is designed to create the conditions for Sotāpanna-Insight.  Your aim during this stage of insight meditation is to create large gaps in habitual delusion and weaken the underlying tendency within your mind toward doubt. 

What meditating for Sotāpanna-Insight looks like in MIDL.

Your Main Meditation Practice. 

• Meditation Skills 01-04: Meditate daily to develop your skill in mindfulness of your body and softening to develop the GOSS Formula.
• Meditation Skills 05-09: Practice daily mindfulness of breathing based on a momentum of letting go, and apply the GOSS Formula during meditation and in daily life to weaken any hindrances that arise through insight and stabilise your attention.
• Meditation Skills 10-12: Increase your meditation to 2hr per day to develop your skill in the first six Awakening Factors: mindfulness, curiosity, balanced effort, joy, tranquility & unification to establish access concentration based on piti-sukha.
• Meditation Skills 13-16: Increase your meditation to 2hr+ per day or go on retreats to develop your skill in the Four Pleasure Jhana to establish the seventh Awakening Factor, equanimity.
• From Second Pleasure Jhana onwards begin developing your minds perception of anicca and anatta following the instructions in Meditation: Anatta & Five Aggregates.
• Next, develop you minds perception of specific conditionality in the section Meditation: Specific Conditionality & Vedana.

“Bhikkhus, there are these ten fetters. What ten?" "The five lower fetters and the five higher fetters. And what are the five lower fetters?" "View of a permanent self, doubt, attachment to rites & rituals, attraction, and aversion. These are the five lower fetters. And what are the five higher fetters?" "Desire for form, desire for the formless, conceit, restlessness, and ignorance. These are the five higher fetters. These, bhikkhus, are the ten fetters.” The Buddha AN10.13.

The Buddha provided a map of the akusala (unwholesome/unskillful) qualities uprooted from the insight meditators mind at each of the four stages of Awakening (Sotāpanna, Sakadagami, Anagami, Arahant).

The Ten Fetters Map.

1. View of a permanent self.* 
2. Doubt.*
3. Attachment to rites & rituals.*
4. Attraction.**
5. Aversion.**
6. Desire for form.***
7. Desire for the formless.***
8. Conceit.***
9. Restlessness.***
10. Ignorance.***

*Sotāpanna*, Sakadagami**, Anagami**, Arahant***.

Sotāpanna-Insight Affect on the first Three Fetters.

At Sotāpanna-Insight, two fetters are removed & one hindrance is uprooted from the meditators mind.  It is important to note that Fetters 1 & 3 in the above Ten Fetter Map are fetters. Number 2 (Doubt) is the fifth of the Buddha's Five Hindrances. With the removal of specific underlying tendencies the Sotāpanna has only seven fetters left within their mind.

These fetters will have been removed:

1. The view of a permanent, unchanging self.
2. The hindrance of doubt.
3. Attachment to rites & rituals.

1. View of a Permanent Self: 

With Sotāpanna-Insight, any view you have of an unchanging, permanent self, including identification with the watcher, will cease due to the maturing of your mind's perception of anatta. After Sotāpanna-Insight, you will find that you take nothing personally anymore, except when your mind slips back into old habitual patterns of delusion. It is important to note that meditators who reached Sotāpanna can still slip into habitual delusion and act in ways that are contrary to their insight due to habitual patterns that arise in the delusive state.

2. Doubt: 

With Sotāpanna-Insight, any tendency to doubt the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha's Awakening, the Dhamma or the Sangha will cease and be replaced by saddha (verified faith). By experiencing for yourself that the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path lead to Nibbana, doubt in the meditative path, the Buddha, Dhamma and the Sangha are uprooted. What is also interesting is that doubt no longer arises in daily life due to the understanding of Specific Conditionality, bringing the tendency toward fear of making choices to an end.

The Sotāpanna only has the tendency for four of the core 5 Hindrances left within their mind.

1. Attraction.
2. Aversion.
3. Restlessness.
4. Dullness.

3. Attachment to Rites & Rituals: 

With Sotāpanna-Insight, any view you may have that praying, ceremonies, rites & rituals will lead to Awakening will cease due to your experiential understanding of Specific Conditionality and kamma. Because of the deep insight into specific conditionality, performing rites and rituals is a beneficial way to cultivate the heart and bond with a community, but nothing more than that. You will understand that only insight into the Three Characteristics and maturing of the Noble Eightfold Path will lead to Awakening.

..........................

Sotāpanna-Insight Affect on the Wholesome & Skillful.

At Sotāpanna-Insight, the perception of two skillful characteristics are developed in the meditators mind, and the wholesome quality of saddha: verified faith is established.

These wholesome & skillfull qualities will have been established:

1. The perception of anicca (impermanence) and anatta (autonomy). 
2. The wholesome quality of saddha (verified faith).
3. The perception of idappaccayatā (specific conditionality).

1. Anicca & Anatta: 

With Sotāpanna-Insight, your mind will perceive the characteristics of anicca as unreliability and anatta as the autonomous nature in everything you experience. These characteristics will be your primary perception, and the perception of what something is, will be secondary. Establishing this way of perceiving within your mind cultivates disenchantment and cuts through attachment to the deluded view of an eternal, never-changing self. Instead, seeing self as a bunch of flowing changing conditions, just like the weather, that has no permanent 'something' to rest on or cling to.

2. Saddha (verified faith, trust): 

With Sotāpanna-Insight, your mind will be filled with saddha (verified faith). This type of faith is not developed through belief but by developing intimacy with your own experience and insight into the Specifically Conditioned nature of everything. The saddha of a Sotāpanna is bubbly, light, uplifting, and joyful. It is easily stimulated through Dhamma talks, sharing Dhamma, or inclining their mind toward the kusala (wholesomeness & skillfulness). As such, this unshakable confidence in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha arises with the maturity of insight that removes the hindrance of doubt. 

3. Idappaccayatā: (specific conditionality): 

With Sotāpanna-Insight, your mind will see everything through the eyes of Specific Conditionality. 

1. You will understand that everything that arises now, arose due to conditions outside of itself.
2. You will also understand that it creates conditions for something else to arise once it has arisen.
3. You will also understand that when the conditions for its arising cease, it will cease.

This insight into the specifically conditioned nature of everything allows you to see the unfolding of specifically conditioned karma and cuts through the deluded view that ceremonies, rites and can somehow change or influence the anatta unfolding of Specific Conditionality and karma. This understanding will increase the sensitivity of your mind & heart to morality (sila), and your mind will incline toward harmony rather than disharmony in thought, speech and action.

How Insight Unfolds when meditating for Sotāpanna-Insight in MIDL.

Sotāpanna-Insight requires very specific conditions for it to occur, one of the main ones that thread through everything is an enjoyment of relinquishing, releasing, letting go. It is important therefore not to focus on your goal but rather to find enjoyment in creating the perfect conditions for it to arise. The chemistry of the heart and mind is very precise and repeatable. When the conditions are right, this will arise. With a slight variation in the conditions, you will get something else. I will share some of these conditions in the order they are experienced so that you may recognise and cultivate them.

Prerequisites for Sotāpanna-Insight.

• Deepening perception of anicca & anatta.
• Observable weakening of 12 Meditative Hindrances.
• Samadhi: minimum Second Pleasure Jhana. **
• Samadhi: Optimum: Fourth Pleasure Jhana. **
• Observance of sila (morality) in daily life

** Skill in Second Pleasure Jhana and Fourth Pleasure Jhana can be developed using either upacara samadhi (founded on fixed attention) or khanika samadhi (founded on momentary attention). Regardless of how you initially cultivate equanimity all meditators need to switch to cultivated jhanic unification to the level of Fourth Jhana using khanika samadhi for Sotāpanna-Insight.

The Eight Progressive Conditions below outline the development of conditions that lead to Sotāpanna-Insight when following the MIDL Insight Meditation framework.

CONDITION 1: Seven Awakening Factors + joyful saddha.

All 7 Awakening Factors must be present and stable within your attention. This is the main purpose of training in mindfulness of breathing and jhana. In MIDL, the first 12 Meditation Skills and skill in jhana are designed to train your mind in a way that matures the Noble Eightfold Path and the 7 Awakening Factors. 

When Condition 1 is mature, you will experience strong, joyful faith/confidence in the path, method, teacher and the Buddha (saddha). Saddha (verified faith) is developed through insight, not book knowledge, and a by-product of right practice. I observe saddha in students as a calming of personality extremes, calming of all reactivity and a joyful glowing faith in the path.

CONDITION 2: Khanika samadhi + equanimity + refined perception of anicca & anatta.

As Condition 2 is met, you will experience kanika samadhi (momentary unification) autonomously and effortlessly, observing the subtle arising and passing of sensory experience (anicca) within the six sense fields. This will mature up to the fourth vipassana-jhana and create the conditions for equanimity toward all conditioned experience and experiencing. 

In MIDL you will experience periods of this in your daily life when following the first 12 Meditation Skills. This perception will increase significantly when your skill in accessing second samatha pleasure jhana increases and with the help of the investigations included in this section into anatta. Through these investigations, supported by the maturity of your samadhi, you will notice the perception of anatta (the autonomous nature) becoming increasingly dominant. It is important to note that this condition requires a shift of attention structure from unified on one object to momentary unification on sensory experience within the six sense fields.

CONDITION 3: Absence of hindrances, joyful lightness, calm, tranquility, clarity, effortlessness.

As Condition 3 is met, you will experience an absence of all meditative hindrances and a joyful lightness in your body, calmness of heart, plus tranquility, and clarity of your mind. There will also be a complete absence of dukkha, replaced by an extremely refined experience of dukkha in all activities on and off the cushion: calmed, effortless, and refined. In MIDL, this correlates with your ability to access and dwell in the third samatha pleasure jhana after seated meditation and in daily life when the previous condition matures.

CONDITION 4: Deepening maturity of equanimity + an all-embracing acceptance.

As Condition 4 is met, there will be a deepening maturity of equanimity regarding all that is experienced within the six sense fields. There will be no likes or dislikes, just a complete embracing acceptance. In MIDL, this correlates with your ability to access and dwell in the fourth samatha pleasure jhana and with the help of the investigations in this section into Specific Conditionality.

CONDITION 5: Effortless attention, perception of anicca as 'no solid ground', absence of dukkha, clarity of perception of anatta.

As Condition 5 is met, your meditative attention will become effortless and happen by itself, on and off the cushion. This attention will have an increasingly refined perception of anicca (impermanence) as 'unreliability/no solid ground' regarding all that is experienced. Within this, because of the maturity of insight and equanimity, there will be a complete absence of dukkha (suffering), and an increasing in clarity of the perception of anatta (not-self) regarding all sensed experience.

CONDITION 6: Deepening disenchantment towards experiencing, sensory experience subtle yet clear.

As Condition 6 is met, the perception of anicca and anatta will develop, and there is a deepening disenchantment (nibbida) within your mind toward all that is experienced within the six sense fields. As disenchantment grows, any sensory experience will fade yet be extremely subtle and crystal clear.

PASSIVE CONDITIONS: 

These below conditions occur autonomously when the previous conditions are met.

CONDITION 7: Autonomous increase in rapid noticing, abruptly cut off, sensory experience & experiencing ceases.

As Condition 7 is met and all the previous conditions reach maturity, you will experience a sudden autonomous increase in rapid noticing of sensory objects before it is abruptly cut off. All sensory experience and experiencing will suddenly cease, and for a split second, the mind will take Nibbana as an object.

CONDITION 8: Noticing rearises at slower pace, awareness at grosser level yet crystal clear.

As Condition 8 is met, due to the cessation in Condition 7, noticing of the six sense fields will rearise a short time later at a much slower pace. Awareness and attention will operate at a much grosser level, and the extremely subtle yet crystal-clear sensory experience will no longer be present. On reflection, you will be able to recall very clearly each part of the experience of this whole process. There is no lack of clarity or questioning regarding what just happened.

IMPORTANT NOTES

These conditions are necessary to define whether this was really a cessation or a slipping of awareness into habitual delusion, which is based on the collapse of mindfulness, not the maturing of wisdom. If you think you have experienced this, it is important to discuss it with a trusted teacher for clarification and further instructions. 

If you are unable to access a teacher, you are best off reflecting on this process's anicca & anatta nature (Sotāpanna-Insight is also anicca & anatta, it has either done its job or not). Keep cultivating the Noble Eightfold Path as before by practicing mindfulness of breathing for longer periods up to the Fourth Pleasure Jhana and refining your sila (morality) in daily life. 

If this was a cessation and the conditions for Sotāpanna-Insight arose, continuing to refine the Noble Eightfold Path is the right direction. If it was not Sotāpanna-Insight because the conditions were not yet right, then refining the Noble Eightfold Path is the right direction.

These three experiences can be observed and mature after Sotāpanna-Insight and used to map the Wisdom shift in the meditator's mind. It is important to note that life will test whether this shift is real. It is important to honestly observe your mind and its relationship towards experiences and experiencing in daily life. It is better to underestimate your progress in insight rather than to overestimate it. Always aim to rest in "I don't know".

1) You will experience unshakable Saddha. 

When your mind has experienced Sotāpanna-Insight you will feel an unshakable, joyful saddha (verified faith & confidence) in the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha, Dhamma (conditioned reality) and Sangha (insight meditation community). This saddha is based on your own experiential insights into anicca (impermanence), dukkha (suffering), anatta (autonomous nature) and is an initial understanding of idappaccayatā: specific conditionality. It is the verified faith of saddha that creates the conditions for the uprooting of the tendency toward doubt from your mind during this first Nibbanic insight.

2) Your mind will always perceive anicca & anatta in everything. 

Just as when your mind was trained in a language, and it learnt to perceive words as primary over the sound of another person's voice, after your mind has reached Sotāpanna you will perceive the characteristics of anicca (impermanence --> unreliability) and anatta (the autonomous, not-self nature) as a primary characteristic of all that you experience and experiencing itself. Because of this trained perception, your mind will incline toward letting go in daily life, seeing everything as conditioned and not as personal. 

It is important to note that with Sotāpanna-Insight your mind has only uprooted the tendency toward doubt. You have only just entered the Dhamma-Stream. The tendency to feel desire & aversion, to experience restlessness & dullness, and also delusion is still present within your mind. If the conditions are right, these can still arise. 

When the glow of the initial insight fades and you enter back into life, you will begin to notice that when your mindfulness lapses, your mind will slip into habitual delusion, and whatever tendencies are habituated within your mind can play out. Even though doubt has been uprooted you can still get upset, frustrated, angry, anxious, crave, attached etc., while your mind is in a deluded state. 

The difference between your mind after Sotāpanna-Insight and someone who has not experienced it is that when your mindfulness returns, your mind will automatically switch perception and see what happened within the world and your mind and body reactions as not-personal, conditioned processes and drop it right there and then. You will clearly be able to observe this within yourself for years to come, and this tendency will continue to mature. 

If you are true to yourself and observe this shift in perception as you are tested by life, you will verify if what you experienced is actually Sotāpanna-Insight or if it was a samadhi-state. An unawakened mind, however, will continue to take experiences as personal and carry them and memories of them for an hour, a day, a year, a lifetime. This is the power of training the perception of anicca & anatta.

3) You will see everything through Specific Conditionality & Kamma.

Observing the characteristics of anicca and anatta in all experiences and experiencing leads to the deep understanding that everything arises due to conditions outside of itself, and everything ceases due to conditions outside of itself. What this means is that you deeply understand that nothing independently arises or ceases. 

The perception of conditionality is developed by intentionally directing your attention towards the conditioned nature of things. This is done by precisely observing the specific conditions for experiences to arise, and the specific conditions for experiences to cease. To truly experience idappaccayatā (specific conditionality) requires not only that experiences arise and cease due to specific conditions, but also that they arise and cease due to conditions, outside of themselves. It is the 'outside of themselves' aspect that matures the perception of anatta and reveals the law of kamma.

After Sotāpanna-Insight your mind will perceive, as a main characteristic of all experiences and experiencing, their specifically conditioned nature. The Buddha framed this way of perceiving when a meditator's mind has experienced Sotāpanna-Insight as seeing in this way:

"When this is, that is.

When this is not, that is not.

With the arising of this, comes the arising of that.

With the ceasing of this, comes the ceasing of that."

The Buddha  AN 10.92

Understanding the universal law of Specific Conditionality naturally leads the Sotāpanna to understanding the significance of kamma. When your mind has experienced Sotāpanna-Insight you will become very sensitive to conditionality, understanding that:

1. All thought, speech and action arise due to previous conditions.
2. All thought, speech and action persist due to present conditions.
3. All thought, speech and action cease due to present conditions

This understanding will make you increasingly sensitive to what is:

1. Kusala: Wholesome, skillful.
2. Akusala: Unwholesome, unskillful.

Due to the Wisdom developed into Specific Conditionality that created the conditions to access Sotāpanna-Insight, your mind will incline toward that which is Kusala: wholesome & skillful, and incline ways from that which is Akusala: unwholesome, unskillful. Inclining toward the kusala  with a heart full of joy, your mind will cherish sila and understand its relationship to kamma. You will understand that for insight to be considered Wisdom it must naturally be expressed as sila in thought, speech and action in daily life.

The Five Precepts: Morality Lines.

1. I undertake the training of harmlessness and to abide pervading kindness to all beings.   
2. I undertake the training of not taking what isn’t offered and to abide with generosity to all beings.
3. I undertake the training to refrain from the intoxication of sensuality and to abide cherishing: relinquishing and letting go. 
4. I undertake the training to refrain from untruthfulness in thought, speech and action and to abide with a heart open to reality.   
5.  I undertake the training refraining from anything that lowers my awareness and to abide in mindful presence. 

It is your task at this stage to develop insight into anicca (impermanence, unreliability) and anatta (not-self, autonomous) nature of these aggregates until nibidda (disenchantment) arises.

Anatta is:

• The observable characteristic within the six sense fields of the autonomous, not-self nature of all experience and experiencing. This means observing how experiences of your body, feeling tone and mind all happen by them self, without your help.

To develop the conditions for Sotāpanna-Insight you apply the investigation of anatta to the below Five Aggregates that the Buddha said are associated with clinging.

The Five Aggregates are:

1. Form = all the views and judgements in regard to your body.
2. Feeling Tone = pleasantness & unpleasantness, or neither (worldly & meditative).
3. Perception = identification and dividing of the experienced world into individual things.
4. Formations = the process of conditioning joining experiences as a causal chain.
5. Awareness = the passive knowing of an experience in which the previous four take place.

Note: These five aggregates are what we tend to habitually cling-to as self. The aggregates themselves are not a problem, the problem is that they are habitually 'clung to'. It is the habitual clinging to these aggregates that gives rise to dukkha because, by their very nature, they are anicca and anatta, therefore, cannot be relied upon.

After sitting in meditation, follow these three steps:

Step 1: First observe anicca (impermanence).

• The perception of anatta is developed by first intentionally directing your attention towards the characteristic of anicca in any of the Five Aggregates: form, feeling tone, perception, formations & awareness. This is done by precisely observing the moment an experience arises, and more importantly the moment it ceases. 
• In particular it is the increased clarity of the ceasing points, like observing the moment a sound ends, that deepens the perception of anicca as 'no solid ground'. 

Step 2: Develop the perception of 'no-solid-ground'.

• As your attention becomes more accurate in perceiving the ending of each experience, a feeling of no-solid-ground will start to clarify. 
• This occurs because as awareness tries to rest on the end of experiences, they fall away creating a sense of free-falling. This is similar to the experience of walking down a flight of stairs and missing a step and free-falling to the next. It is through the growing perception of no-solid-ground, that the characteristic of anicca as unreliability and dukkha as suffering may be experienced. 

Step 3: Develop the perception of anatta (not-self).

• It is as this point that you should develop the perception of anatta in the experience of any of the Five Aggregates: form, feeling, perception, formations & awareness. The perception of anatta is developed by making one slight shift in how you perceive experiences: you need to shift from noticing that experiences 'arise and cease', to noticing that experiences 'arise and cease; by themselves'. 
• It is the development of the perception of the anatta, autonomous nature of experience and experiencing, that develops the perception of anatta within the mind, leading to nibidda (disenchantment), and freedom from dukkha (suffering). This process is accelerated by applying the GOSS Formula and accessing the joy of letting go to reward the mind for disenchantment.

"Bhikkhus, awareness is not-self."  The Buddha SN 22.59.

In this meditation, you develop sensitivity to the subtle flickering of your attention as your mind reengages with the six sense fields after emerging from jhana. It is natural for attention to flicker towards sensory experience during the day, but when accompanied by meditative samadhi the very experience of flickering itself can be separated from sensory experience.

The ability to do this is dependent on you allowing your attention to reengage with sensory experience and softening of the desire to control these habitual movements within your mind.

The key is to not take interest in where your attention wanders to, or the movements of attention but rather stay with awareness and the experience of attention flickering away from it. Though this sounds like a paradox it is not. 

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and observe your attention flicker away from it to your six senses, observing this movement to develop insight into the anatta nature of awareness. 

Preparation: This can be practiced from third or fourth jhana.

Purpose:  To observe the autonomous nature of the habitual going out of attention anytime anything contacts the six sense fields. This will allow you to see the anatta (not-self) nature of the mind as a sense organ, sensitive to the six sense fields. 

1) Emerge from jhana and ground your awareness.

• As you emerge from third or fourth jhana, observe the anatta nature of the fading of the jhana factors and the rearising of your mind with the six sense fields. Mentally feel your whole body as it sits: warmth, coolness, heaviness. Your whole body as one, softening/relaxing awareness into it with slow gentle breaths and allowing awareness to rest on the touch of your hands.

2) Relax the mental grip of your samadhi.

• Soften/relax your mental grip on the touch of your hands and allow your attention to habitually wander if it wants to. For this to happen you need to gently soften the grip of samadhi so that your mind can reengage in its natural state and habitually begin to wander. This means relaxing all effort at this point, even the effort to meditate. 

Tip: To develop insight is different to developing samatha, your effort is not towards stopping your attention from wandering, but rather towards noticing when it has wandered. This is a crucial difference to understand if you want to observe anatta: your mind is allowed to wander. This needs to be done if you wish to develop deep understanding of the habitual, autonomous (anatta) nature of your attention and its preferred objects.

3) Take Interest in any Flickering of Attention.

• All your attention should be towards observing the arising of energy within the mind as it flickers out to engage sensory input. These are observed as flickering, like flares leaving the sun, of flickering of a candle flame in a breeze. 

Tip: Each micro flickering has the possibility of sensory engagement and production of sankhara (formations). Treat this like a game, clarifying the precise moment momentum in attention arises. Observe its autonomous nature and how it is happening without your help.

When to progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 02: The Four Elements when:

• You understand the autonomous, anatta nature of the fading of the jhana factors and the flickering nature of the rearising of the sensory world and awareness of it.

Guided meditation & video instruction.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.
• You Tube: Video Instructions.

"The meditator divides experience within their body, regardless of posture or activity, in terms of these four elemental qualities:  Within the experience of this body: ‘This is earth element, this is water element, this is fire element, & this is wind element’." The Buddha MN 10.

Elemental qualities are the building blocks of experience and how the mind perceives the world before perception and concept. All experiences that arise within your body (kaya) and mind (citta) can be broken up into the below elemental qualities and it is these areas that you should focus toward to develop insight.

Earth Element

A range of solidity:

• Hardness
• Softness
• Pressure
• Heaviness
• Lightness

Most easily experienced at points of contact of the body with the world, or attention with the six sense fields, or mental qualities present.

Fire Element

A range of temperate:

• Hotness
• Warmth
• Coolness

Most easily experienced within the body or mental qualities present. 

Wind Element

A range of movement:

• Movement
• Vibration
• Contraction
• Expansion

Most easily experienced associated with breathing, physical pain, attention moving out to the six sense fields, or within the focus of awareness.

Water Element

A range of cohesion:

• Wetness
• Dryness
• Stickiness
• Trickling

Most easily experienced within the saliva, the mouth and around the lips, or within the stickiness of mental qualities present.

 ...............................................

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Slowly move your awareness through your body, gently rubbing your awareness within the elemental qualities experienced, observing their autonomous nature and their role in constructing experiencing for insight into anatta. 

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, ground awareness within your body and intentionally bring awareness to each of the above Elemental Qualities above and gently rub it against it. If any of these elemental qualities are not currently present, that is ok. Just experience what is present.  

Purpose: To observe the true function of the body as a sense organ, by observing its elemental quality and anatta (not-self) nature to observe the contact of the world as elemental qualities, before the overlaying of perception. 

You can apply these investigations in three ways:

*List of elements found above.

1. Systematically as a group.
2. Individually.
3. By creating a grounding point such as your body or awareness and loosening your attention so that it habitually wanders and breaking up any experience that arises within the six sense fields in terms of its elemental qualities.

1) During your investigation observe how these element qualities present them self in the body and mind dependent on specific conditions.

2) Observe closely the borders between these element qualities, how they are undefined and flow into each other.

3) Observe how one elemental quality contain the others, and that what is dominant to you is dependent on the focus of your attention.

4) In daily life, observe how these elemental qualities arrange themselves as different emotions as a direct reflection of the state of mind that is present.

5) In daily life, observe how particular states of mind and qualities of attention also contain the above elemental qualities. Can you notice all four qualities in attraction or aversion?

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 03: Borders of Perception when:

• You understand elemental qualities in terms of their conditioned arising, ceasing, and as autonomous reflections of the mind within your body.

Guided meditation & video instruction.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana. 

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.
• You Tube: Video Instructions.

"Bhikkhus, perception (sanna) is not-self." The Buddha SN 22.59.

With precise application of attention and using the elemental qualities as a doorway, the mirage like quality of perception can be observed and penetrated. The function of perception is most easily observed by intentionally bringing your awareness to any point of contact between your body and something else. When focusing on the elemental qualities, the mind-created borders of perception dissolve. Learn to stay right on these borders so that perception does not return and soften into the elemental qualities present.

An example of a contact point is:

• Legs/buttocks pressing against your chair/mat.

Notice that when you bring your awareness to this contact point, there is an image in your mind of your legs or buttocks and the chair or floor. Focus on the elemental qualities at that contact point to observe how the perception becomes mirage-like and dissolves. 

All that is left is just the experience of touch. 

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Gently focus on the borders of the elemental qualities present and observe the dissolving of the mind-created borders of your body to observe the autonomous nature of perception for insight into its autonomous nature. 

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, ground awareness within your body and observe the mirage-like and unreliable nature of perception regarding all of these until the borders of your body and mind lose their solidity or cease. 

Purpose: To develop sensitivity towards the habitual overlaying of perceptional borders on all experience that arises within the six sense fields to perceive its anatta nature.  

Systematically move through these points:

1. One hand touching the other.
2. Your arms/hands resting on your leg.
3. Legs/buttocks pressing against your chair/mat. 
4. Touch of your eyelids/lips.
5. Touch of air and clothes on your skin.
6. The touch of air as it flows within your body.
7. Allow your attention to wander.
8. Observe perception arise in contact with the six sense fields.

For point 7 you can observe:

• Sight: slowly open and close your eyes.
• Sound: set a timer to beep.
• Smell: burn incense.
• Taste: prearrange some food.
• Touch: use points of touch in your body.
• Awareness: use points of touch within the mind.

Can you observe the perceptional overlays on each of these?

Can you notice perception cease, and all that remains is elemental qualities? 

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 04: Observe Attention Move when:

• You understand borders of perception in terms of their conditioned arising, ceasing, and as autonomous, illusionary overlays of the mind around experiences.

Guided meditation & video instruction.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.
• You Tube: Video Instructions.

During this investigation your meditation object is the observation of habitual movements of your attention towards the six sense fields. To develop the perception of anatta in regard to attention it is important to set up the conditions to observe attention habitually move. This requires creating a grounding point (body, hands or awareness) and loosening up of your attention so that it will wander, and habitual sensory scanning can occur. 

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Gently bring awareness to the touch of your hands, relax, and observe any habitual movements of your attention away from this point to observe its autonomous nature and insight into anatta. 

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and observe whenever your attention habitually moves away from it. 

Purpose: To develop the perception of anatta regarding attention by observing its anatta (not-self) nature. This can only be done by letting go of control over your attention and allowing your attention to habitually wander.  

1) Ground awareness within touch.

• Sit down in your meditation posture, hands resting together in your lap, and bring awareness to the experience of your hands touching each other.

2) Allow attention to habitually wander.

• Relax your mental grip on the touch of your hands and allow your attention to habitually wander. 

Note: For this to happen you must give up control over your attention at this point, allow samadhi to collapse. This means relaxing all effort at this point, even the effort to meditate. 

To develop insight is different to developing samatha, your effort is not towards stopping your attention from wandering, but rather towards noticing when it has wandered. This is a crucial difference to understand if you want to observe anatta: your mind is allowed to wander. 

This needs to be done if you wish to develop deep understanding of the habitual, autonomous (anatta) nature of your attention.

3) Take interest in when attention moves.

• All your attention should be towards observing the habitual movements of attention. 

Note: Treat this like a game, clarifying the precise moment attention shifts. Observe its autonomous nature, how it is happening all the time without your help. 

In daily life open your awareness wide, use that wide awareness as a grounding point and observe the habitual zooming in of attention, and its autonomous nature to clarify the perception of anatta.

When to progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 05: Where Attention Moves when:

• You develop the ability to stay with and allow your mind to wander without any desire to control it and understand the autonomous, anatta nature of mind wandering.

Guided meditation & video Instructions.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.
• You Tube: Video Instructions.

"Bhikkhus, formations (sankhara) are not-self." The Buddha SN 22.59. 

During this investigation your meditation object is observing where your attention moves to when it habitually scans the six sense fields. The difference here compared to the previous investigation is that instead of being interested in the habitual movements of attention, you are interested in what attention habitually moves to. This means not only observing the habitual movement of attention but also how attention feeds energy into what it focuses on. An example is the amplification of a sound or the ongoing nature of thinking etc.

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Gently bring awareness to the touch of your hands, relax, and observe where habitual movements of your attention move towards in the six sense fields to observe the autonomous nature of mind constructions and insight into anatta.  

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and observe whenever your attention habitually moves away from it. 

Purpose: To develop understanding of the anatta (not-self) nature of constructions of the mind. This is done by allowing attention to habitually move and taking interest in the connection between habitual attention and the creation and feeding of energy into mental constructions.  

1) Ground awareness within touch.

• Sit down in your meditation posture, hands resting together in your lap, and bring awareness to the experience of the touch of your hands.

Note: For this to happen you must give up control over your attention at this point, allow samadhi to collapse. This means relaxing all effort at this point, even the effort to meditate. 

2) Allow your attention to habitually wander.

• Relax your mental grip on the touch of your hands and allow your attention to habitually wander.

Note: To develop insight is different to developing samatha, your effort is not towards stopping your attention from wandering, but rather towards noticing when it has wandered. This is a crucial difference to understand if you want to observe anatta: your mind is allowed to wander. 

3) Take interest in where your attention moves to.

• All your attention should be towards observing where your attention habitually moves to such as sounds, sensation, thoughts, memories etc. 

Note: Treat this like a game, clarifying the precise moment attention shifts and what are the habitual interests of your mind. Observe how when your attention rests on these interests, energy feeds into them and gives them life. You can be playful with this and soften/relax that flow of energy and see what happens. 

Observe the autonomous nature of these mind constructs and its self-feeding nature. Observe how it is all happening by itself, without your help. In daily life open your awareness wide, use that wide awareness as a grounding point and observe the habitual zooming in of attention, and the feeding of mental formations and its autonomous nature to clarify the perception of anatta.

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 06: Experience of Thinking when:

• You develop you clearly understand the autonomous and conditional relationship between habitual movements of attention and feeding of experiences/distraction through the focus of this attention.

Guided meditation & video instruction.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.
• You Tube: Video Instructions.

These inquiries are held more as a question in the mind rather than a thought structure. You can observe thinking processes over several days and reflect on these questions after each meditation to clarify your observation. This is very interesting when done in a group as we develop an understanding that everyone does not experience thinking in the same way that we do. it is wonderful to abandon the thorn of judgment and the expectation that others understand us.

Example: In my own experience I primarily hear thoughts in my head and mouth, taste thoughts in my mouth and feel my thoughts in my body. Over the years the ability to produce a mental image has improved slightly, but it is very fleeting, yet many meditators express that their thoughts are images or movies. I cannot even comprehend this.

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Keep your meditation object gently in mind, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to habitually produce thoughts, taking interesting in if you experience them as sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or bodily feeling to observe their autonomous nature and insight into anatta. 

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to wander and think to answer the questions in the instructions. 

Purpose: To observe the autonomous and impersonal nature of thinking by observing how the mind stimulates one or a combination of the five sense organs to communicate (produce thought). This insight not only develops an understanding of the illusionary nature of thinking but also an understanding that everyone's thought process does not necessarily function the same way ours does. 

After establishing a mindful presence in your body, relax to allow your mind to wander and answer these questions:

1. Do you see your thoughts?

Are your thought images or play as a movie? Where are these images located, is it in one location or do they move around? For example, I am not able to see my thoughts, at most I get a flash image that instantly collapses.

............................................................

2. Do you hear your thoughts?

Is it your voice or someone else? Where are these words located, is it in one location or do they move around? For example, I hear thoughts in my mouth, in the front of my head and outside of my head. 

If you also see your thoughts do your movies also contain verbal commentary?

............................................................

3. Do you smell your thoughts?

This manifestation of thinking seems to be rarer, but still possible. For example, if I think of a rose, or a walk by the seaside, I feel it in my body and I also experience the smell of it. This is a mind created experience that conveys information, so it is also classed as a thought.

............................................................

4. Do you taste your thoughts?

Hot apple pie, with whipped cream, custard and melting vanilla ice cream. Did you see, hear or taste that desert? I can taste it in my mouth now. I can also feel its texture in my mouth and sitting in my stomach. there are rapidly flashes of images as to what it looks like. I can see, taste and feel this hot apple pie, what about you? How is your mind stimulating your senses to communicate with you?

............................................................

5) Do you feel your thoughts?

Do you experience mind created feeling of tactile sensations within your body that are separate from the other five senses, yet contain all the information you need to know what is going on? If you do than your mind is producing thought by stimulating your body sense. 

For me this is a primary sense, instead of thinking about others I feel my way into them. When working in a warehouse I didn't see where something was in my mind, I mostly thought and 'felt my body going there'. This allowed me to map thousands of items.

............................................................

6) Are your thoughts experienced as a combination?

When observing thought in groups I observed that there are some meditators that only experience thoughts as one sense, primarily as sight: an image or a movie, or as a sound: voice in their head. Often meditators that see their thoughts cannot hear them, but not always.

Others have a combination of the five senses. What is important to note is that thinking has no set manifestation, and no set location. Observing in this way its mirage like, fleeting and anatta nature is clearly revealed. 

Insight: Thinking is simply the mind stimulating one of the five senses to convey information, it is nothing special.

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight Meditations: Idappaccayatā when:

• You develop a clear understanding of the conditional and illusional experience of thinking as it arises within your own mind and as a reflection into the mind of others.

Guided meditation & video instruction.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.
• You Tube: Video Instructions.

While the perception of anatta is cultivated by noticing that experiences:

• Arise and cease; by themselves. 

The perception of conditionality is cultivated that these anatta experiences are:

• Within themselves autonomously constructing the conditions for other anatta experiences to arise and cease.

The perception of conditionality is developed by intentionally directing your attention towards the conditioned nature of things. This is done by precisely observing the specific conditions for experiences to arise, and the specific conditions for experiences to cease. To truly experience idappaccayatā requires not only that experiences arise and cease due to specific conditions, but also that they arise and cease due to conditions, outside of themself. It is the 'outside of themselves' aspect that matures the perception of anatta and reveals the law of kamma.

"When this is, that is.

When this is not, that is not.

With the arising of this, comes the arising of that.

With the ceasing of this, comes the ceasing of that."

The Buddha  AN 10.92

Insight into Specific Conditionality is developed by observing any part of the below causal chain during meditation.

Observable Causal Chain:

Sensory contact > initial perception > ***feeling tone > layered perception> like & dislike > craving > initial thinking > proliferation of thinking > speech > action.

How Each Link is Observed:

1)Sensory Contact: 

• By observing the presence of any sensory experience, contact with a sense organ and the awareness of it as an interdependent group.

2) Initial Perception: 

• By observing the understanding: "I know what this is" or "I don't know what this is" that arises directly after contact.

3) ***Feeling Tone: 

• By observing the presence of pleasantness & unpleasantness that is released after initial perception as a sorting mechanism for the mind.

4) Layered Perception: 

• By observing how your mind applies layers of past & future judgements over the top of the experience changing a simple sensory experience into one that has past and future relationships associated with it. 

5) Like & Dislike: 

• By observing the stance taken within your mind in relationship to the feeling tone present and layered perception as "I want" or "I don't want" or "I don't care".

6) Desire:

• By observing how attraction or aversion-based desire arises within your mind dependent on your mind's relationship to the feeling tone present.

7) Initial Thinking: 

• By observing the initial story based on attraction or aversion is overlayed on the layered perception to personalise what has been experienced.

8) Proliferation of Thinking:

• By observing the transformation of initial thinking into complex thinking loops as your mind seeks that access that which is pleasant and escape from that which is unpleasant.

9) Speech:

• By observing the desire to verbalise thinking in order to solidify and justify your minds stance towards it in regard to attraction and aversion based on past experience.

10) Action:

• By observing the urge to physically act in order to fulfill your mind stance and desire in regard to attraction and aversion.

***It is important to understand that from an arisen relationship to feeling tone, that each of these links from 3-10 have the potential to create the conditions for a back-feeding-loop that triggers another release of feeling tone (vedana) and potential causal chain.

........................................................................................

Insight into Specific Conditionality is developed by:

1. Recognising each stage of the causal chain.
2. Understanding the conditions for that stage to arise.
3. Observing the conditions that stage creates by its arising.
4. Understanding the conditions for that stage to cease.
5. Observing the conditions that stage creates by its ceasing.

How this unfolds as the experience of hearing a dog bark:

1. Sitting peacefully in meditation.
2. Hear a sound.
3. Dog barking.
4. Unpleasant feeling.
5. My neighbour's dog.
6. I don't like it when their dog barks.
7. Aversion.
8. Increasing unpleasant feelings.
9. Wanting the sound to stop.
10. Irritation.
11. "I want their dog to stop barking.
12. Stronger unpleasant feeling.
13. Anger.
14. "How dare they allow their dog to do this! Don't they care about my well-being?"
15. Shouting: "Hey you, stop your dog from barking!"
16. Standing up and slamming the door in anger.

During mediation and in daily the causal chain of Specific Conditionality can be cut at any stage by applying the GOSS Formula:

GOSS:

1. Ground: be aware of the experience of your body to establish mindfulness.
2. Observe: observe when your attention wanders, noticing its autonomous nature.
3. Soften: gently relax interest in this wandering until awareness rests in your body.
4. Smile: smile with your eyes into the subtle pleasure of letting go of that effort.

Apply your GOSS formula to:

1. Abandon the desire to physically move.
2. Abandon the desire to speak.
3. Abandon the desire to proliferate.
4. Abandon the desire to think.
5. Abandon the desire to like or dislike.
6. Abandon the desire to believe perception.
7. Abandon the desire to react to feeling tone.
8. Abandon the desire to engage with seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, minding.

Note: The key is to notice the effort that supports the desire to (....) and to soften relax deeply into that effort. This is done not to make any experience within the causal chain go away but rather to relax the 'grip' of habitual attention so that the mind can no longer feed the process. this process is accelerated in GOSS steps 3 & 4 by tuning into, basking within the pleasurable feeling of letting go and the factor of joy that rises within the mind.

..............................................................................

Creating a gap in the Causal Chain at Contact.

Seeing for example requires three things to create 'contact':

1. A sight
2. A working eye
3. Awareness

If any of these is absent, then you cannot see.

This also means that everything else in this conditional process can not arise. If you break contact, nothing else, including feeling, including thinking, including violence, cannot exist.

Unifying attention for jhana, as an example, removes awareness from the eye door, so sight is not possible. This is the same for hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and minding (thinking, likes, dislikes, views, opinions etc). 

Abandonment of the function of the sense door itself, while it works in regard to interrupting the chain of conditioning, also means that you cannot function of the world because you need your senses for the world to exist. 

This is why you have to emerge from jhana so that you can eat and drink. You have to release the suppression of your senses by allowing awareness to engage with them. Otherwise, your body would die since it is in the physical world and subject to its laws.

........................................................................................

Summary:

• Abandonment at this point, of the senses, while possible, is not a solution.
• The key to cutting the causal chain is understanding vedana: feeling tone and the inherent relationship of attraction or aversion of the deluded mind towards it.

Vedana is experienced as the background feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness released by our mind to sort the world into dangerous and safe. Learning to tune into and understand our relationship towards vedana is the key to ending habituated attraction, aversion and indifference. 

I observe vedana within my mind & body as the underlying feeling tone of pleasantness, unpleasantness, or neither pleasantness-or-unpleasantness that is produced by my mind as a way of sorting all experience into safe, dangerous or not relevant to me.

..........................

Sorting Mechanism.

1. If the mind deems an experience to be safe and of advantage it will produce a feeling of pleasantness in relationship to that experience.
2. If the mind deems an experience to be dangerous it will produce a feeling of unpleasantness in relationship to that experience.
3. If the mind deems an experience as not important to it, then it will produce no feeling tone in relationship to that experience.

These sortings are stored within long-term memory as a future reference point for present perception.

This sorting mechanism works well from a survival point of view; however, the problem is that the mind is inherently deluded.

In its deluded state the mind can sort:

1. What is dangerous as being safe and release a feeling of pleasantness towards it.
2. What is safe as being dangerous and release a feeling of unpleasantness towards it.
3. What should be acknowledged as being of no importance and release no feeling tone towards it.

Since the mind inherently find pleasantness attractive, unpleasantness unattractive, and no feeling tone uninteresting, it habitually responds in a deluded way, deluding itself, and embedding that delusion through its response of attraction, aversion or indifference.

..........................

There are Two Types of Vedana.

The Buddha introduced two types of Vedana: Worldly and Spiritual in the Satipatthana Sutta MN10. Understanding these two types of vedana as a first-hand experience is essential on the meditative path.

Worldly & Spiritual Vedana.

1. Worldly: produced by the mind when it grasps onto any experience.
2. Spiritual: produced by the mind when it lets go of any experience.

..........................

Worldly Vedana Potentials: Grasping.

Produced when the mind grasps onto an experience.

1. A worldly feeling tone of pleasantness creates the potential for attraction to arise within the mind.
2. A worldly feeling tone of unpleasantness creates the potential for aversion to arise within the mind.
3. A worldly absence of feeling tone creates the potential for indifference to arise.

Spiritual Vedana Potentials: Letting Go.

Produced when the mind lets go of any experience.

1. A spiritual feeling tone of pleasantness creates the potential for meditative joy & letting go to arise within the mind.
2. A spiritual feeling tone of unpleasantness creates the potential for disenchantment to arise within the mind.
3. A spiritual absence of feeling tone creates the potential for equanimity to arise.

.......................

How Do I Experience Vedana?

It is helpful to understand that there are no positive or negative vedana.

Positive and negative are separate judgements from the mind, and this judgement can change dependent on the context of the feeling of pleasantness, unpleasantness or neither pleasantness nor unpleasantness.

Vedana is simply vedana. It is neither good or bad, right or wrong, positive or negative.

It is just as it is.

I can offer an example that you may be able to relate to: a banana. When you mindfully eat a banana, you may notice that there are two experiences in your mouth.

1. There is the texture of the banana.
2. There is the flavour of the banana.

It is possible with observation to seperate the texture from the flavour.

• Sensation = texture.
• Flavour = vedana.

What is the overall flavour of sitting here reading this now? is it pleasant, unpleasant or neither?

Is this worldly or spiritual (is there grasping or letting go within your mind).

Vedana & Physical Pain.

As an actual meditative experience physical pain is experienced as:

Physical pain = Sensations: hot, sharp, throbbing, moving, tight etc. + unpleasantness + aversion.

1. The unpleasantness is a preconditioned judgement to the experience.
2. The tension is a physical response to aversion.
3. Aversion is a mental response to the unpleasantness, not the sensations.

Within this is a potential for an aversive feedback loop.

A judgment of vedana can be applied to any experience within the causal chain that arises from sensory contact (six senses), from initial perception onwards. The mind can even produce vedana to sort vedana, causing a feeling tone feedback loop. All part of the chain of dependent origination, after sensory contact, has a vedana potential.

This is all you really need to see.

1. Notice the pushing away of experience, the aversion.
2. Notice the tightening within your body & mind from this aversion.
3. Notice the effort to not like, not want.
4. Gently soften and relax that effort in your body & mind.
5. Feel the pleasure of putting down that heavy weight, letting go.

You have now transmuted worldly unpleasant vedana into spiritual pleasant vedana, training your mind in the path of disenchantment and letting go.

The key to cutting the causal chain is understanding vedana: feeling tone.

Let's start with a reference based on my own experience in MIDL:

1. Bodily sensation is not pain.
2. Feeling tone is not bodily sensation.
3. Feeling tone is mental not physical.
4. Feeling tone is not always present.
5. Feeling tone can cease.

I have offered these to remove some of the common confusions regarding vedana.

.......................

Abandoning at Vedana. 

The next point in the conditioned process is feeling tone (vedana).

If we abandon our relationship towards feeling tone, we still have the use of our six senses, but everything else in the conditioned process can not arise. Notice earlier, that a person arises between feeling and perception. 

With the arising of a person, is the arising of all the conditioning in regard to that person, the arising of all suffering, of all habitual conditioning and delusion.

If I abandon my relationship to any feeling tone that arises from contact within the six senses, then I can still see, hear, smell, taste, touch etc. But everything else in the conditioned process collapses. 

The mind, in this moment, is free. 

When seeing I just see, when smelling I just smell etc. 

If through the development of wisdom, we can penetrate delusion (habitual not knowing) for long enough, to see the reality of feeling tone, then we can gradually change our mind conditioned response to feeling tone, and therefore change the arising of all suffering.

This is the understanding that arose for me in my own practice of MIDL: 

"Unpleasant feeling and pleasant feeling are impermanent, they are empty, impersonal. They are not found within any experience within the world, or within any experience within the mind. They are illusions produced by my own mind, a simple impersonal sorting system. They are produced through the minds delusion, so cannot be trusted."

........................................................................................

What abandoning at vedana looks like

As abandoning of identification with feeling tone (vedana) has weakened through abandoning (softening). The habitual attachment and aversion in regard to that identification has significantly weakened. As attraction and aversion has weakened, their intensity and strength has faded. 

With the fading of attraction and aversion, there has been a significant lowering of the production of pleasant and unpleasant feeling tone, produced by my mind. At times some feeling tone is present, at other times I experience all feeling tone cease.

This is clearly seen in regard to experiences that once were accompanied by strong feeling tone. 

Now this feeling tone has significantly is weakened or is no longer present. This is because, in my experience, feeling tone is a sorting mechanism produced by my own mind, and when my mind does not feel the need to sort experiences as good or bad, then it also no longer produces pleasant and unpleasant feeling tone.

In this way I can see the cessation of feeling tone in regard to sensory stimulation at the six sense doors.

........................................................................................

But I want to experience pleasant feeling!

And for the common question:"But I want to experience pleasant feeling!"

Pleasant feeling can still be accessed, but it is not accessed by sensory stimulation, it is accessed through the engagement of attention. This means that it does not arise from the beauty of a sight, this is a judgement. What one person sees as beautiful; another may see as ugly. 

A pleasant feeling arises from the quality of the attention applied to seeing. Attention itself has feeling, beauty and pleasure built into it. If you give your full attention towards anything, through a wholesome mind, it will become interesting, and pleasurable.

The pleasant feeling that arises from the beautiful sight, is conditioned and impermanent, therefore it cannot be relied upon and will lead to suffering if grasped on to. 

The pleasant feeling that arises within the quality of attention, can be experienced again and again, regardless of whether the sensory experience is normally considered good or bad, if the attention is based in continuity of mindfulness and wisdom. 

"Seeing in this way, the well-trained disciple of the Noble Ones grows disenchanted with perception (sanna). Disenchanted they become dispassionate." SN 22:59 The Buddha. 

***Important warning for this meditation.***

CAUTION: These investigations involve intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone, in this way meditation can become very real. Be cautious and only do this with guidance from a skilled teacher and/or with appropriate training in softening, samadhi and insight.

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Keep your meditation object gently in mind, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to habitually produce thinking to observe the constructed nature of thinking patterns and insight into specific conditionality. 

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to wander and think to answer the questions in the instructions. 

Purpose: To develop insight into habitual tendencies of your mind and observe the constructed nature of thinking patterns and their relationship to bodily sensations (kaya), feeling tone (vedana) and heart/mind (citta) as an autonomous, conditioned process. 

In this meditation you ground awareness within your body and relax control, in order to allow the habitual mind to produce thinking in order to observe its constructed (sankhara) nature. 

Conditions: This meditation is best practiced after a busy or overstimulated day so that your mind will be triggered to remember the past or plan for the future.

Step 1: Allow your mind to wander.

• After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Preparing Your Attention for Insight, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to wander and think to answer the below questions. 

Step 2: Take interest in any thinking patterns or memories.

• As you relax your mind may start remembering something from the past or thinking about something in the future. you can encourage this thought process and then gently soften to allow your mind to run with that memory/thought. See if you can notice the causal links as one memory/thought creates the conditions for the next.

Step 3: Notice your bodies response to the thinking or memory.

• Notice any changes within sensation within your body as a reflection of that thinking or memory such as tightness around the base of the throat, chest or belly and the effort of your mind to continue keeping it within your attention.

Step 4: Notice any feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness.

• Observe any feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness that arises within your body as a reflection of this thought or memory and any associated liking of disliking of that feeling.

Step 5: Apply the GOSS to the effort to like or dislike.

GOSS: Ground > Observe > Soften > Smile. 

1. Ground: be aware of the experience of your body to establish mindfulness.
2. Observe: observe the reaction within your body, noticing its autonomous nature.
3. Soften: gently relax the underlying effort of your mind to attract or resist.
4. Smile: smile with your eyes into the subtle pleasure of letting go of that effort.

Repeat again at Step 1.

Investigation: Take interest in what is driving your thinking patterns like remembering, worrying, planning, fantasising etc. and use a simple label to describe it. Observe the feeling or pleasantness or unpleasantness underlying that emotion and see what happens when you soften into it.

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 08: Past, Present, Future when:

• You understand thinking patterns as observable, impersonal experiences that are simply produced as a protection mechanism of the mind.

Guided meditation & video instruction.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.

"Seeing in this way, the well-trained disciple of the Noble Ones grows disenchanted with formations (sankharas). Disenchanted they become dispassionate." SN 22:59 The Buddha

***Important warning for this meditation.***

CAUTION: These investigations involve intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone, in this way meditation can become very real. Be cautious and only do this with guidance from a skilled teacher and/or with appropriate training in softening, samadhi and insight.

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Ground awareness within your body, bring a past or future memory to mind, observe the feeling tone in your body change to observe the conditional relationship between mind, body and feeling tone to develop insight into specific conditionality.

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to wander and think to answer the questions in the instructions. 

Purpose: This investigation develops an understanding of the role of attention, bodily sensations and feeling tone as a reflection of whether attention is sitting on past memory, future thought or present experience. The advantages of this are:

• Through understanding the conditioned/constructed nature we learn to clearly separate sensations that arise in our body due to the touch of the world, from sensations that arise in our body due to the touch of our mind.
• We also learn the important skill of separating vedana (feeling tone) from these sensations allowing us to decondition habitual relationships of attraction, aversion and indifference.

In this meditation, you continue to observe the habitual patterns within your mind by intentionally directing your attention towards past, present and future in a methodical way to observe changes within your body sensations and feeling tone in relationship to these.

Step 1: Prepare your attention for insight.

• Prepare your attention for insight as per the instructions in Preparing Your Attention for Insight and ground awareness within your body and the experience of your hands touching.

Step 2: Observe what it feels like to be present.

• Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now. Observe the experience of just sitting here, the simplicity, no past no future just here.

Step 3: Bring a pleasant memory to mind.

Observe what the past feels like.

• Bring to mind a pleasant memory from the past, holding it gently within your mind. Observe any change of the experience of your body in regard to sensations and feeling tone: pleasantness. Apply GOSS.

Step 4: Observe what the future feels like.

• Bring to mind a pleasant thought of the future, holding it gently within your mind. Observe the change of the experience of your body in regard to sensations and feeling tone. Soften into it. 

Step 5: Observe what the present feels like.

• Reground awareness within your body and soften into it. Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now. Observe the experience of just sitting here, the simplicity, no past no future just here.

Step 6: Repeat with an unpleasant memory or thought.

Repeat this process of experiencing past, present & future with an unpleasant memory of thought and apply the GOSS Formula toward softening any resistance that you feel.

GOSS: Ground > Observe > Soften > Smile. 

1. Ground: be aware of the experience of your body to establish mindfulness.
2. Observe: observe the reaction within your body, noticing its autonomous nature.
3. Soften: gently relax the underlying effort of your mind to attract or resist.
4. Smile: smile with your eyes into the subtle pleasure of letting go of that effort.

Investigation:

Take interest in the focus of your attention and the changing landscape of sensations within your body. Be curious regarding the underlying feeling: pleasant, unpleasant or neutral regarding past, present and future-focused attention. Observe the undeniable urge to escape from unpleasant feelings, to search for pleasant feelings and to stop paying attention when neutral feeling is present. 

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 09: Pleasant Feeling when:

• You understand through your own experience the intimately conditioned relationship your bodily sensations (kaya), feeling tone (vedana) and citta (heart/mind) that is triggered by where your attention is focused.

Guided meditation & video instruction.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.

"Bhikkhus, feeling (vedana) is not-self."  The Buddha SN 22. 

***Important warning for this meditation.***

CAUTION: These investigations involve intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone, in this way meditation can become very real. Be cautious and only do this with guidance from a skilled teacher and/or with appropriate training in softening, samadhi and insight.

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Ground awareness within your body, bring a pleasant thought or memory to mind and observe the feeling tone in your body change to develop insight into specific conditionality. 

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to wander and think to answer the questions in the instructions. 

Purpose: This investigation develops the ability to separate pleasant feeling tone (vedana) from sensation and observe its function as a sorting mechanism of the mind (to signal safe).  This requires earlier training in sensitivity to body sensations and enough samadhi and insight as to not to get entangled with the experience. 

Pleasant feeling tone can be observed by bringing to mind a happy memory or thought. As you do this notice that a feeling of pleasantness appears in your body as a reflection of the contact between attention and the thought or memory. Separating out a feeling tone from what is being experienced is like separating the texture of a banana as you eat it, from its overall flavour/taste. Bodily sensations are the texture, feeling tone (vedana) is the flavour of that experience.

Step 1: Prepare your attention for insight.

• Prepare your attention for insight as per the instructions in Preparing Your Attention for Insight and ground awareness within your body and the experience of your hands touching.

Step 2: Bring a pleasant memory to mind.

• Bring to mind a pleasant memory, holding it gently within your mind. Observe any change of the experience of your body in regard to sensations and feeling tone. Soften into it.

Step 4: Bring to mind a pleasant thought.

• Bring to mind a pleasant thought of the future, holding it gently within your mind. Observe the change of the experience of your body in regard to sensations and feeling tone. Soften into it.

Step 5: Smile & soften into the pleasantness.

• Smile into this feeling of pleasantness with your eyes and allow it to enter your mind. Observe the relationship between the feeling tone, your attention, and the magnification of that pleasant feeling. Gently soften/relax into that pleasant feeling and observe whether the pleasant feeling tone grows or fades.

Step 6: Reground awareness into your body.

• Reground awareness within your body and soften into it. Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now. Observe the experience of just sitting here, the simplicity of it. Notice what happens to the pleasant feeling tone now that your attention has moved from the thought/memory and feeling tone, to the sensations within your body.

Investigation:

Through this investigation, we can observe how the mind sort's memories by attaching vedana (feeling tone) to them. When attention contacts the memory, the feeling tone attached to it releases in the body. We can also notice how the 'worldly' pleasant feeling tone leaves a feeling of lack, of wanting more or not having enough. We can also observe how it fades as the attention resting on it is softened and that as we continue to soften, the 'worldly' pleasant feeling tone is replaced by a 'meditative' pleasant feeling tone produced by the quality and structure of attention itself.

From this we get a glimpse of where liberation is found.

• Take interest in how the experience of your body changes as a direct reflection of turning your attention towards a pleasant memory.
• Notice how the pleasant feeling is not produced by the world around you but rather is a carried sorting mechanism attached to the memory, that is released with the contact of attention.
• Notice any wanting or longing that arises in your mind as well as the feeling of 'something missing' when you dwell on this pleasant memory. 
• Observe the effect that softening your interest in the memory and its associated feeling has on the pleasant feeling in your body, how it fades.
• Observe how as you soften a pleasant feeling arises in your mind, then fills your body, taking its place.

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 10: Unpleasant Feeling when:

• You understand pleasant feeling as an observable, impersonal experience that is simply produced by the mind to signal 'safe'.

"Seeing in this way, the well-trained disciple of the Noble Ones grows disenchanted with feelings (vedana). Disenchanted they become dispassionate." SN 22:59 The Buddha  

***Important warning for this meditation.***

CAUTION: These investigations involve intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone, in this way meditation can become very real. Be cautious and only do this with guidance from a skilled teacher and/or with appropriate training in softening, samadhi and insight.

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Ground awareness within your body, bring an unpleasant thought or memory to mind and observe the feeling tone in your body change to develop insight into specific conditionality.  

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to wander and think to answer the questions in the instructions. 

Purpose: This investigation develops the ability to separate unpleasant feeling tone (vedana) from sensation and to observe its function as a sorting mechanism of the mind (to signal danger). This requires earlier training in sensitivity to body sensations, skill in softening and enough samadhi and insight as to not to get entangled with the experience. 

Unpleasant feeling tone can be observed by bringing to mind an unhappy memory or thought. As you do this notice that a feeling of unpleasantness appears in your body as a reflection of the contact between attention and the thought or memory.

Separating out a feeling tone from what is being experienced is like separating the texture of a banana as you eat it, from its overall flavour/taste. Bodily sensations are the texture, feeling tone (vedana) is the flavour of that experience.

CAUTION: These investigations involve intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone.

Step 1: Prepare your attention for insight.

• Prepare your attention for insight as per the instructions in Preparing Your Attention for Insight and ground awareness within your body and the experience of your hands touching.

Step 2: Bring to mind an unpleasant memory.

• Bring to mind an unpleasant memory to mind (weak one at first), holding it gently within your mind. Observe any change within the experience of your body in regard to sensations and feeling tone. Soften into the effort to resist this feeling.

Step 3: Encourage the memory to grow.

• Once relaxed, encourage the thought/memory and observe the relationship between the feeling tone, your attention, and the magnification of that unpleasant feeling.

Step 4: Gently soften any effort to resist.

• Apply GOSS and gently soften/relax into the effort to resist its unpleasantness and observe whether the unpleasant feeling tone grows or fades.

Step 5: Bring to mind an unpleasant thought.

• Bring to mind an unpleasant thought/anticipation of the future, holding it gently within your mind. Observe any change within the experience of your body in regard to sensations and feeling tone. Soften into it.

Step 6: Encourage the thought to grow.

• Once relaxed, encourage the thought and observe the relationship between the feeling tone, your attention, and the magnification of that unpleasant feeling.

Step 7: Gently soften any effort to resist.

• Gently soften/relax into the effort to resist its unpleasantness and observe whether the unpleasant feeling tone grows or fades.

Step 8: Reground awareness into your body.

• Reground awareness within your body and soften into it. Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now. Observe the experience of just sitting here, the simplicity of it. Notice what happens to the unpleasant feeling tone now that your attention has moved from the thought/memory and feeling tone, to the sensations within your body.

Investigation: (as in previous investigation).

• Take interest in how the experience of your body changes as a direct reflection of turning your attention towards an unpleasant memory.
• Notice how the unpleasant feeling is not produced by the world around you but rather is a carried sorting mechanism attached to the memory that is released with the contact of attention.
• Notice any wanting or longing that arises in your mind to avoid this feeling, as well as the feeling of 'disturbance/unease' when you dwell on this unpleasant memory. 
• Observe the effect that softening your resistance to the unpleasantness of the memory has on the experience of your body and mind.
• Observe how, as you soften, a pleasant feeling arises in your mind, then fills your body, taking its place.

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Insight 11: Specific Conditionality when:

• You understand unpleasant feeling as an observable, impersonal experience that is simply produced by the mind to signal 'danger'.

"Seeing in this way, the well-trained disciple of the Noble Ones grows disenchanted with form, feelings, perceptions, formations, & awareness." SN 22:59 The Buddha 

***Important warning for this meditation.***

CAUTION: These investigations involve intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone, in this way meditation can become very real. Be cautious and only do this with guidance from a skilled teacher and/or with appropriate training in softening, samadhi and insight.

Meditation Instructions.

Summary: Ground awareness within your body and gradually move attention though the previous investigations to observe the habitual process of construction and conditioning and insight into specific conditionality.  

Preparation: After preparing your attention as per the instructions in Insight 01, be aware of the touch of your hands, relax your mental grip and allow your mind to wander and think to answer the questions in the instructions. 

Purpose: To continue to observe the intimate relationship between bodily sensations (kaya), feeling tone (vedana), mind (citta) and their conditioned/constructed nature (sankhara) to develop deep understanding of Specific Conditionality (Idappaccayatā). It is the understanding of the experienced world regarding Specific Conditionality that reveals the path for targeted deconditioning of vedana.  

Unpleasant feeling tone can be observed by bringing to mind an unhappy memory or thought. As you do this notice that a feeling of unpleasantness appears in your body as a reflection of the contact between attention and the thought or memory.

Separating out a feeling tone from what is being experienced is like separating the texture of a banana as you eat it, from its overall flavour/taste. Bodily sensations are the texture, feeling tone (vedana) is the flavour of that experience.

CAUTION: These investigations involve intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone.

Step 1: Prepare your attention for insight.

• Prepare your attention for insight as per the instructions in Preparing Your Attention for Insight and ground awareness within your body and the experience of your hands touching.

.......................................................

Step 2: Methodically observe elemental qualities.

• Methodically break your bodily experience into elemental qualities following four ranges of experience: softness-hardness, coolness-warmth, dryness-wetness, expanding-contracting. Expand your awareness and observe these qualities within the six sense fields.

Investigation: 

Develop intimacy with the interconnectedness of elemental qualities.

.......................................................

Step 3: Observe any perceptional borders that arise.

• Observe the mirage like and unreliable nature of perception in regard to all of these until the borders of your body and mind lose their solidity or cease.

Investigation: Observe how perception rests on elemental qualities to a 'thing'.

.......................................................

Step 4: Relax your mental grip and allow wandering.

• Next, relax your mental grip on the touch of your hands and allow your attention to habitually wander. All your attention should be towards observing the arising of energy within the mind as it flickers out to engage sensory input.

Investigation: Observe how attention flickers between elemental qualities within the sense fields giving rise to 'things'.

.......................................................

Step 5: Bring a pleasant thought or memory to mind.

• Bring to mind a pleasant thought or memory from the past, holding it gently within your mind.

Investigation: 

• Observe any changes in sensations within your body as a reflection of that memory. 
• Observe any changes within the borders of perception in relationship to this memory.
• Observe and separate the feeling of pleasantness from bodily sensations.
• Observe your relationship of liking and wanting that feeling.

.......................................................

Step 6: Soften any underlying effort to like.

• Soften into the underlying effort to like pleasantness and observe whether it grows or fades.

.......................................................

Step 7: Bring an unpleasant memory to mind.

• Bring to mind an unpleasant thought or memory from the past, holding it gently within your mind.

Investigation: 

• Observe any changes in sensations within your body as a reflection of that memory. 
• Observe any changes within the borders of perception in relationship to this memory.
• Observe and separate the feeling of pleasantness from bodily sensations.
• Observe your relationship of liking and wanting that feeling.

.......................................................

Step 8: Soften any underlying effort to dislike.

• Soften into the underlying effort to dislike unpleasantness and observe whether it grows or fades.

.......................................................

Step 9: Allow your mind to habitually function.

• Allow your mind to habitually function.

Investigation: Observe the building of experiencing from the ground up starting by observing:

1. Sensory contact.
2. Arising of perception.
3. Feeling tone.
4. Like, dislike, indifference.
5. Mind based bodily sensations.
6. Desire.
7. Thinking, fantasising, etc.
8. Habitual construction.

Soften into the underlying effort beneath each of these and learn to break the causal chain.

When to Progress.

You are ready to progress to Sakadagmi: Once Returner when:

• You have experienced Sotāpanna-insight and that experience matches the above criteria. 

It is very helpful at this stage of insight to discuss what you experienced with a skilled teacher or another experienced meditator that you trust.