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From: pingali@.cs.umass.edu (Sridhar Pingali)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Conditioning and Meditation
Message-ID: <1991May10.171729.12912@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 10 May 91 17:17:29 GMT
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov


The Buddha spoke of conditioning. Buddhist psychology
has a great deal to say about the conditions that give
rise to various mental states - their proximate causes
etc. The Buddha made a clear distinction between skillful
and unskillful mind states - he didn't say that "everything
is the same". If that were so, there would be no reason to 
"do this instead of that" and there would be no holy life
to be lived. The main question that is repeatedly posited 
in the Pali texts is "What leads to suffering and what 
leads to the end of suffering"? As dependent co-arising
has it, "this arises because of that, and that arises
because of this". [Of course, there is a great deal more
to dependent co-arising than this. This is in fact taught
as the Middle Way - the path that avoids the extremes of
eternalism and nihilism].

Conditioning shows up in the repetitive nature of our mind
states. As we observe our minds, it becomes quite clear that
there are certain patterns in our thought process. Every    
moment of anger conditions the possibility of anger arising
again. The mind can become very still in meditation - but
suddenly, for no obvious reason, a thought could appear. 
The content of the thought is a product of our conditioning.
As we develop the capacity to be mindful, we begin to see
thinking more and more as an impersonal process - and stop
getting lost in the actual content of the thought. Initially
it might seem that all our thoughts are interesting - but
actually they are just the same old tired tunes, over and
over again. Mindfulness acts as the deconditioning factor 
because we are no longer lost in the story and there is the
space from which to see the impermanent, unsatisfactory and
impersonal nature of the thinking process. This is not to
say that thinking cannot be used in a skillful way - it can
be and is used to create the skillful mind states of loving
kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

It is helpful to clarify things a bit - for "thinking" can
seem like an imprecise term. There are five skandhas (aggregates)
that are spoken of - body, perception, feelings, mental formations
and consciousness. For example, in listening to a sound there
is the physical event of the sound waves striking the ear. This
corresponds to aggregate of the body. Hearing consciousness
arises almost concurrently and is the *knowing* of the sound and
perception is the *naming* of the sound (just noting "sound").
The aggregate of feeling (also translated as "volition") has a  
precise meaning and is used to denote the response of the mind -
the mind sees this as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Mental 
formations are the stuff that follow this - "that is a robin", or 
the image of a bird, or (based on the aggregate of feeling) "I wish
that stops (or continues)" etc., etc. The deeply conditioned response
of feeling (vedana) is what causes further conditioning into
grasping or aversion. All this is not just of intellectual
interest - that there are these aggregates, and that this is
indeed what is happening can actually be seen using mindfulness.

Mindfulness itself arises from two factors. The first of these
is perception - hence the emphasis on noting in some schools
of vipassana. Perception is the naming of things - so if we
are following the breath, we note "rising" , "falling" or
"in" and "out". The second factor that gives rise to mindfulness
is mindfulness itself. Each moment of mindfulness improves
the chance of there being another moment of mindfulness. Hence
the emphasis in the Theravada tradition on disciplined practice.
Meditation (as another post quoting Trungpa Rinpoche says), is
hard work. But it does get more and more effortless with practice
and the benefits and delight it brings are more than worth the
effort.

The word that the Buddha uses the most often in the Pali texts
is "effort". He repeatedly exhorted his disciples to effort,
continuously urging them to bear in mind the transitory nature
of all things and to not waste any opportunity to practice.
It is not true that the enlightened sages did not sit in meditation.
The Buddha himself spent six years in the forest before his
Enlightenment. This was in addition to the countless lifetimes
that he is said to have spent developing the paramis. Ramana Maharshi
sat immobile in meditation in the Shiva temple of Thiruannamalai
until his thighs became affixed (literally) to the ground. He
did not even speak for several years after he left home. But we
need not carry this burden of trying to "become enlightened".
Meditation is its own reward in the here and now. However long
the journey may be, mindfulness sure helps us relax and enjoy the
ride!
Sridhar Pingali