Breath Mindfulness 2

Second Tetrad

5. Breathing in and out, they train in fully experiencing bliss (piti).

6. Breathing in and out, they train in fully experiencing happiness (sukha).

7. Breathing in and out, they train in fully experiencing heart-mind processes (cittasankhara).

8. Breathing in and out, they train in calming heart-mind processes.

In the second tetrad, we have instructions that direct the meditator to experience and be mindful of piti and sukha. Piti is an excited sense of bliss, rapture, thrill or zest. Sukha is a subtler and calmer happiness and pleasant feeling tone (vedana). Piti is stimulating and energizing, sukha is more soothing and refined. These factors are related to samadhi, the unification of mind and to samatha, a quality of calmness and peace.

Piti is sometimes felt as an electric feeling in the body. This can be compared to a similar experience that some have reported feeling while listening to music and has been termed “frisson”. It might therefore cause goosebumps, shiver like sensations and feelings of tingling which might come in waves. It seems to share similarities with the phenomenon some are now calling “ASMR”.

Piti can be very powerful, in the SPS commentary, Buddhaghosa says it is like being massaged with an expensive soothing oil or like a person that has a burning fever that is cooled with a thousand pots of cold water.

In contrast, sukha, while being pleasant and pleasurable, is not as active. It is a positive sense of agreeableness and enjoyment.

Piti comes from the joy and ease which grows from relaxing the body and letting go of the hindrances and from realizing that this is peaceful and skillful.

The Vibhanga defines piti as: “gladness, joy, joyfulness, mirth, merriment, exultation, exhilaration, and satisfaction of mind” and Sukha as “mental pleasure and happiness born of mind-contact, the felt pleasure and happiness born of mind-contact, pleasurable and happy feeling born of mind contact — this is called ‘sukha” (Vbh.257).

Buddhaghosa’s Atthasalini defines piti as “delight in the attaining of the desired object” and sukha as “the enjoyment of the taste of what is acquired“. He uses the simile of a parched traveler who is wandering the desert and sees an oasis. The thrill and excitement they feel when seeing this is piti, while the enjoyment and happiness they experience after drinking the water and resting is sukha.

So, in this step of anapanasati, the meditator should be mindful of pleasurable feelings that come from practicing and allow these sensations to arise on their own and grow. These pleasant sensations can be very subtle or very powerful. If you are not feeling anything, try to create a space in the mind that allows you to notice the subtle pleasantness or well-being which might already be there but remain unnoticed.

The breath should also remain a central feature of meditation in this tetrad. If you have gained some proficiency with the practice of the previous tetrad, you might have reached a state where the breath is calm and peaceful. Attend to the pleasurable aspect of the breathing sensations and allow them to come to the forefront of your meditation. If the breath is heavy or harsh, try practicing the instructions from the first tetrad for a bit longer.

Once piti and sukha begin to arise one can shift one’s attention to them and allow them to grow without forcing (as any forcefulness tends to weaken them), but one can also just let them be in the background and continue attending to the body.

Experiencing piti-sukha is necessary on the path because it strengthens the mind by providing it with a pleasant place to dwell in that is not based on external sense pleasures. The meditator’s mind is thus calmed and energized. Also the meditator realizes that there is something better than sense pleasures and so they continue to practice the path.

Experiencing piti-sukha is related to the blissful meditative states called jhanas. The Buddha compares the jhanas to the food and provisions for soldiers in a frontier fortress which give them the strength to repel enemies. They are the proper nourishment for the meditator’s mind. For more on the jhanas, see part 5.

Once you do notice some pleasant sensations, one is allowed to delight in them because they are spiritual factors. These pleasant feelings are promoted by the Buddha because they are free of unwholesome or unskillful elements. In MN 36 the Buddha states that one should not be afraid of these pleasurable states because they have “nothing to do with sensual pleasures or unskillful qualities.” Likewise, in MN 44, the nun Dhammadina states that after one reaches the first meditation or jhana (which has piti and sukha as major qualities) the subconscious habit of sense desire or lust has subsided.

Therefore, one should seek out this meditative bliss and make this one’s goal without reservation. Buddhist meditation should be about joyful states and feeling happy. If one is not experiencing joy in one’s meditation after practicing for some time, this is a good indication that some ingredient is missing from our practice (ethics? seclusion? view?). The more joy and happiness one feels in meditation, the less we are interested in sense pleasure. These feelings are therefore a good way to measure our progress on the path.

Piti is related to the verb pivati (to drink) and thus carries connotations of refreshment and the quenching of thirst. It is also related to the drink of the gods and thus is associated with rejuvenation and heavenly renewal. The liquid aspect of this verb means that piti is active and is characterized by movement and flow as shown by the stock similes of the bathman and the spring. Piti then is a flowing energetic quality that can be felt in the mind and in the body.

Sukha can also cover both mental and physical well-being and ease. It is thus defined in the Patis. as including both bodily and mental elements of pleasant feeling. Try to notice both of these aspects of sukha.

Piti-sukha can calm and energize the body (anapanasati step 4) as well as calm the mental formation (step 8) and gladden the mind (step 10) which is related to the second and third tetrads. All four tetrads are thus connected to piti and sukha in some way.

Generally, one should try practicing the previous steps in part one for some time and allow piti and sukha to arise on their own from the feelings of calm and relaxation. Try to let them naturally arise from the meditation process. Do not worry or obsess too much if they do not come right away. It takes time and practice to learn to let go in the right way.

Various suttas like MN 7 and SN 12.23 depict piti as a quality which arises out joy (pamojja). Joy is said to arise from confidence or trust (saddha) in the triple gem (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) and four noble truths. One way to cultivate and deepen this is to reflect on the qualities of the triple gem and on the four noble truths before beginning our formal practice. This gives our mind a sense of having a safe direction and a refuge from suffering. Pamojja is also something that is cultivated in the next tetrad dealing with the mind, and thus, this fact is another indication that the 16 modes of anapanasati are not strictly linear.

Other suttas also mention forms of happiness (sukha) which are not directly connected to formal meditation but could be seen as ways to support our sitting practice. MN 51 for instance, mentions two things which lead to a sense of happiness in everyday life.

The first is cultivating the “full spectrum of noble ethics”. This refers to the practice of the ten wholesome actions which was previously explained, as well as the practice of being content with little. In this case, it is specifically referring to a monks’ robe and bowl, but for a layperson, it could just mean being happy with little. MN 51 states that after one has cultivated this, one experiences an inner happiness that is blameless. The other practice is sense restraint, i.e. not letting the mind get carried away by sense impressions and craving or grasping at them. This sense of inner self-control leads to an “unrestrained” or “unsullied” sense of inner happiness.

All of this indicates that meditative bliss and happiness cannot be attained separately from other aspects of one’s life. Indeed, as the Dhammapada (Dhp) states, there are various sources of happiness. These are sources of happiness that we can develop, reflect on and be grateful for. The following verses from the Dhp can be useful for contemplation during formal meditation and for the cultivation of an inner happiness in daily life.

Our actions are all led by the mind, mind is their master, mind is their maker. If one acts or speaks with a pure state of mind then happiness follows like a shadow that trails constantly behind. – Dhp 2

If a man does good, let him do it again and again and let him take delight in it; the accumulation of good causes happiness. -Dhp 118

Happy is the arising of the Awakened Ones; happy is the teaching of the Good Dharma; happy is the unity of the group and happy is the ascetic life of the united – Dhp 194.

Friends bring happiness when a need has arisen; happiness is contentment with whatever there might be; to have merit at the end of life is happiness; and happiness is the destruction of all suffering. Happy it is, in the world, to be a mother, and happy it is to be a father; happy, in the world, is the life of a recluse and happy is the state of Brahman. Happy is age-long virtue and happy is confidence well-established; happy is the gaining of wisdom and happy it is not to do evil. – Dhp 331-333

To live without anger among the angry is, indeed, happy. To live unafflicted among the afflicted is happy. To live without ambition among the ambitious is happy. To live without possession is a happy life like that of the radiant gods. To live without competition among those who compete is happy, for he “who wins creates an enemy; and unhappy does the defeated sleep. The one who is neither a victor nor the defeated sleeps happily. – Dhp 201

Living with the wise is very comfortable and happy. “A wise man is pleasant to live with as is the company of kinsmen. -Dhp 207

One way to ensure happiness in our formal meditation is to develop these various elements and conditions in our life. If we have done this, we can then reflect and be grateful for these before or during our formal sitting practice, which can lead to the arising of joy, bliss and happiness. We will also just be more cheerful and peaceful in general, and this is a strong basis for formal meditation. Therefore, we can say that if we live the kind of life that helps us meditate joyfully, we will have meditations which helps us live with greater joy. In this way, our meditative happiness is supported by our everyday sense of happiness and vice versa.

Active cultivation

Ideally, piti-sukha arises on its own due to the practices cultivated during the first tetrad as well as the foundation of our daily practice of the path. Sometimes the simple act of reviewing the pleasantness of tranquility that comes from practicing Dharma, meditation and seclusion is enough to give rise to piti-sukha.

As we saw in the previous tetrad, some suttas allow for a kind of cultivation in which the mind is directed in a more active way. Likewise, Thanissaro Bhikkhu notes that the injunction in the sutta to “train” (sikkhati) allows for the use of more active methods. Some later Buddhist texts also state that the meditator can encourage the arising of piti and sukha through various means. Kumarajiva’s Sutra of Sitting Dhyana Samadhi says: if the mind is not pleased, encourage it to become more delighted.

If you choose to try any of the following ways for actively cultivating piti-sukha, remember to use a very light touch. The Taoist idea of “effortless action” (wei wu wei) comes to mind.

Methods to cultivate piti-sukha:

• Tell yourself that you will be open to feeling happiness and bliss, just try to set a light intention to sense these qualities or to allow them to come. Open your mind to the possibility of feeling joy in meditation.
• Try reviewing the pleasantness of tranquility that comes from meditation, stillness and seclusion.
• Take some extra deep and long breaths and focus on the pleasantness of breathing.
• If you’ve experienced a particularly special meditative state in the past you can briefly bring this memory to the forefront of your awareness and see if it triggers piti-sukha. The Buddha brought up his past childhood memory of being in the meditative state of jhana on the night of his enlightenment. It is similar to how remembering a sad or happy memory can triggers a related emotion. Be careful though not to make this an exercise in dwelling on the past.
• Thich Nhat Hanh says to smile and think about how wonderful it is to just breathe.
• Look at a picture of the Buddha or visualize it in the mind, and let it bring you joy, look at the slight smile and peaceful countenance or do this with a picture of your favorite meditation teacher smiling.
• Imagine flowing nectar or cool refreshing water pouring over you or gushing from within and imagine it bringing you calm, happiness and joy. You can use the image of the cool spring filling a lake, a simile taught by the Buddha.
• Thanissaro following Ajahn Lee’s teaching, recommends ‘playing’ with the perceptions of breath energy. This entails feeling and mentally guiding the breath sensations all over your body in whatever ways you find pleasant and soothing. Imagine you are breathing into or breathing from different areas. This seems to be similar to Kumarajiva’s method of imagining you are breathing in from all your pores.
• Mentally create an image of a bright sphere or ball of light and let it change or grow as needed for creating calm and joy. Buddhadasa recommends this method and it is also used in Tibetan Buddhism. It could be related to what the suttas describe as a contemplation called the “perception of light” (alokasañña). You might imagine it above your head and moving down your body, or appearing in your chest and expanding out, or appearing in between your eyebrows, filling your head and then moving down to your chest and filling your body, or just seeing it in the mind and letting it grow.

Use whatever methods work, active or passive. The goal is to get piti-sukha growing and spreading throughout your bodymind. Over time, one will become skilled at allowing these factors to grow, and you will rely less on artificial or less subtle methods to cultivate them (such as verbalizing instructions or visualization).

Meditators should experiment and see what works for them. Try to learn self-sufficiency in your meditation. Happiness and pleasure are an inseparable part of meditation. Find out how to make it joyful for yourself. If piti does not come during your session despite your efforts, just go back to relaxing the body and come back to it later.

When piti arises, enjoy it and review what you did to get it, so you’ll remember next time. Do not grasp of cling to it, but let it grow naturally to fill your entire body. It tends to be energizing and stimulating. If it goes away, that’s fine too. Notice if you did anything that made it disappear or if it did so on its own.

Some teachers state that one should let piti-sukha stay in the background and that one should continue to focus on the object of meditation, arguing that focusing too much on piti-sukha early on can smother it. Others state that in this step, one puts the object in the background and focuses on piti-sukha, enjoying it and letting it spread.

I think one experiences piti-sukha as one focuses on the breathing body but eventually piti-sukha becomes the central focus as one has to train to let it spread while the breath remains in the periphery. This is supported by the simile in the Kayagatasati Sutta (henceforth KSS), which speaks of someone spreading piti-sukha throughout the body as a bathman kneads a ball of bath powder. It seems that this indicates some effort and focus on piti-sukha in the initial stages.

This happens naturally though as the now peaceful and joyful breath becomes lighter, begins to fade and eventually disappears, leaving only the sense of joy and happiness. Ajahn Brahm compares it to the Cheshire cat whose body slowly disappears, leaving only its smile. Since every yogi is different, there are probably as many different ways to balance one’s attention in this step between the meditation object and piti-sukha as there are minds in the world. Once again, I’ll repeat my mantra: try different “recipes” and see what works for you.

Buddhadasa recommends that we “study the flavor” of piti. Are the feeling tones heavy or light, weak or strong, coarse or subtle? How do they arise and pass? How do they influence your breath, body and mind? Remember how they are different, can you tell them apart? Become friends with piti as it is a positive spiritual aid to awakening. This quality is dhammavicaya (analysis of dhammas), an important supporting element to meditation.

The Theravada school outlines five stages of piti which indicate further and further progress.

1. Slight (khuddaka piti) – Raises the hairs of the body
2. Momentary (khanika piti) – Arises momentarily like repeated flashes of lightning
3. Showering (okkantika piti)- Washes over the body, like waves, again and again and then subsides
4. Uplifting (ubbega piti) – Sensations of lifting of the body into the air
5. Suffusing (pharana piti) – Pervades the whole body touching every part like a lotus fully submerged in water. This signals one is entering samadhi or is close to samadhi. This is called “access” samadhi.

This “access” or “near” concentration signals that the meditator is getting close to first jhana but has not totally attained it yet. Vasubandhu also speaks of a similar proto jhanic “not quite there yet” state which is called ‘anagamya’ in the Abhidharmakosha. This is usually when your attention is mostly focused on the meditation theme, without wandering or barely any wandering. Thoughts are “in the background” and do not take you away from the object. The quality of the meditation theme might change too, the breath might become subtler for example. This idea of there being an “access” or “near” samadhi is not from the earliest texts however, but from later commentary literature. Still, it seems useful to analyze our mind state just before one enters jhana to better learn how to reach jhana itself.

Piti gives rise to sukha, which is a calmer and more soothing feeling. The next step is to shift one’s attention to this subtler phenomenon and enjoy this experience. First try to differentiate between the two since often piti will obscure sukha due to its higher energy level. Piti excites the mind while sukha is gentle, tranquil and soft. One can also notice the transience of piti and let it go. Then rest in the peaceful happiness that is sukha.

Study sukha like you did with piti, what is it like? How does it come and go? Let it grow on its own. Notice how piti and sukha interact with each other and with the whole field of awareness. How does the effect of piti on the mind and body differ from the effect of sukha?

Vedana

This tetrad is associated with the second satipatthana, meditation on vedanas. Vedana refers to physical and mental “feeling tones”. These are the hedonic responses which experience phenomena as having pleasant, unpleasant or neutral valence. It derives from the root -vid, and means something like “that which makes known”. We can understand vedana as that quality that allows an experience to be known or felt, it does this through a certain affective taste or subjective flavor, which is positive, negative or neither/indifferent.

This term is often translated as just “feeling”, but one must keep in mind that it does not refer to an emotion or a belief, as the English word feeling often does. Instead it is merely the mind’s reaction in terms of pleasure/pain to sense contact. Also, vedana is not the sensations felt by the body, rather, it is the affective response to both physical and mental phenomena. It is the experiencing of any phenomena as pleasant or unpleasant or neither.

Hence, the English term “feeling tone” might be a better way to capture this. According to Merriam Webster, feeling tone can be defined as: “a particular quality of one’s awareness measured in terms of pleasantness and unpleasantness.” This, I think, better captures vedana.

Mindfulness of vedanas is a key practice because as the Buddha said “all things converge on vedanas” (AN, 9, No. 14). What this means is that since vedana is the meeting place between body (kaya) and mind (citta), all mental phenomena are tied to vedana is some way. Since vedana is mid-way between the processes of the body and the mind, it often stands behind much of our thoughts and behaviors. Indeed, much of our life is led by the search for vedana and most of what sentient beings concern themselves with on a day to day basis is founded on their relationship to vedanas (and especially the cardinal rule of sentient life: seek the pleasant, avoid the unpleasant).

While the focus of the APSS is on cultivating pleasant feeling tone, the text also says that anapanasati fulfills or completes all of the four satipatthanas, and thus it must include meditating on all vedanas too, not just pleasant ones like piti-sukha.

The importance of contemplating all three kinds of feeling is supported by SN 47.49, which states: “The four kinds of mindfulness meditation should be developed to completely understand these three feelings.”

The SPS describes the second satipatthana thus:

How does a seeker meditate by observing sensations? When a seeker feels a pleasant sensation they know it as pleasant. When they feel an unpleasant sensation, they know it as unpleasant. When they feel a neutral sensation they know it as neutral.

Meditators commonly struggle with unpleasant and even painful sensations which disturb their meditation and learning to be aware and detached from them is important for progress. Vedanas condition the mind, they are the “makers” or “fabricators” of the mind (this is one way of reading the term cittasankhara). So to be able to calm the mind and gain insight into it, we need to watch and study vedanas.

The first basic practice to be cultivated here is being mindful of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feeling tones. This can be done with the Burmese vipassana method of mentally noting all vedanas that arise or just by watching closely without any mental labeling. This allows one to be constantly aware of the initial stages of the arising of likes and dislikes through sense contact, and thus to witness the very origin of all our reactions and cravings.

So to start this practice one can begin by watching all vedanas, without applying any value judgments or assessments. The sensations of breathing should always be our anchor and home base in this practice, just like with every other practice in anapanasati. Simply observe as vedanas come and go without getting involved in them. We watch all the vedanas, the pain in our legs, the neutral feelings in our back, the feeling of sukha which we cultivated in the last step. We notice what they are like and study how they give rise to reactivity, to thoughts of ‘turning away’ or ‘turning towards’.

There are different ways we can expand our practice to contemplate the different types of Vedana. One is to just be mindful of whatever feeling tones are present and note what type of vedana they are. Another method is to actively try to notice each type of Vedana. Give yourself a few minutes with each category and see if you can notice vedanas of each type in your current field of experience. Yet another method is to use the body scan and be mindful for different vedanas as you move through the body section by section.

The Madhyama Agama parallel to the SPS adds that one is to observe sensations and understand whether they arise due to bodily or mental contact. While the Pali SPS does not mention this, other suttas such as the Salla Sutta mention this distinction between bodily and mental vedana.

Examples of unpleasant bodily sensations we can observe in meditation include physical soreness, tightness, pain, heat or cold, hunger and thirst. One must also keep in mind that just as there are sensations arising from bodily contact there are also sensations arising from mental contact. These include sensations felt due to strong emotions or ideas or memories or wishes.

While sensations which arise from physical contact are the most obvious to observe, we cannot ignore the more subtle sensations associated with mental contact. We also need to understand that this distinction is not a strict one. Most experiences have mental and physical elements mixed together and the causal relationship between mind and body goes both ways. In this sense, vedana can be seen as taking an intermediate role in the communication between mind and body. Bodily contact leads to bodily sensation and is also felt in the mind by mental sensations, while mental contact in turn also creates both physical and mental sensations.

All of this arises in a complex web of causes and conditions. However, for the purpose of simplifying our meditation, we make use of these basic categories taught by the Buddha. They are useful in helping us understand the patterns of reactivity and evaluation that arise from different kinds of sensation.

This ability to separate the feeling tone from emotional evaluations and thus to avoid clinging or aversion was illustrated by the Buddha the simile of “the second arrow” in SN 36.6:

When an uneducated ordinary person experiences painful physical feelings they sorrow and pine and lament, beating their breast and falling into confusion. They experience two feelings: physical and mental. It’s like a person who is struck with an arrow, only to be struck with a second arrow. That person experiences the feeling of two arrows...

When they’re touched by painful feeling, they resist it. The underlying tendency for repulsion towards painful feeling underlies that. When touched by painful feeling they look forward to enjoying sensual pleasures. Why is that? Because an uneducated ordinary person doesn’t understand any escape from painful feeling apart from sensual pleasures. Since they look forward to enjoying sensual pleasures, the underlying tendency to greed for pleasant feeling underlies that. They don’t truly understand feelings’ origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape. The underlying tendency to ignorance about neutral feeling underlies that.

The sutta contrasts this experience with the way that a noble (i.e. awakened) person handles sensations. Their reaction is the opposite to the one above, they do not react to unpleasant sensations, they do not seek out sense pleasures and they truly understand the “arising, ending, gratification, drawback and escape” from sensations. Therefore, they only experience one kind of sensation. This is like being hit with only one arrow.

The core lesson is here is that painful vedana is inevitable but our reaction to it is not. This is the second arrow avoided by the wise.

A passage from the suttas compares the nature of feeling tones to different weather currents, constantly changing and of differing natures. It would be silly to fight against the weather, and just so it is foolish to resist the coming and going of vedanas:

Mendicants, various winds blow in the sky. Winds blow from the east, the west, the north, and the south. There are winds that are dusty and dustless, cool and warm, weak and strong. In the same way, various feelings arise in this body: pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. – SN 36.12

Yet another simile used by the Buddha is the following:

Mendicants, suppose there was a guest house. Lodgers come from the east, west, north, and south. Aristocrats, brahmins, merchants, and workers all stay there. In the same way, various feelings arise in this body: pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. – SN 36.14

We should therefore see vedanas in the same way that a hotel attendant sees various types of guests showing up and leaving (nice guests, mean guests, etc). Guests come and go and there is no need to get attached to any of them.

As feeling tones arise, change while they persist and then begin to fade away, one can notice how their valence changes over the course of this process. This is illustrated in the following teaching by the nun Dhammadina from MN 44:

“What is pleasant and what is painful in each of the three feelings?” “Pleasant feeling is pleasant when it remains and painful when it perishes. Painful feeling is painful when it remains and pleasant when it perishes. Neutral feeling is pleasant when there is knowledge, and painful when there is ignorance.”

This passage shows how feeling tone is a more complex idea than it seems on the surface. We could say that each type of feeling tone actually has within it the seeds of the others or that they are closely interconnected. When a pleasant vedana fades away, this very disappearance can be felt as another vedana by the mind, this one being unpleasant since the mind would prefer to continue to feel pleasure. When it comes to pain, the relationship is the inverse. When pain fades away, this is felt as a pleasurable mental vedana.

Neutral feeling tone is different in an interesting way and this gives us an insight into the Buddha’s worldview. From the Buddha’s perspective, when you pay attention to it, a neutral feeling tone is actually pleasant in a subtle way (since it is an absence of pain). However, when we are not mindful of this subtle pleasure, when we are ignorant of it (or actively ignore it), we tend to experience it as unpleasant (as boring or bland) and thus we seek more sense stimulation.

Because of the unique nature of neutral vedana, it is very important not to forget to be mindful of them. They can be hard to notice because they’re generally unremarkable and so tend not to call attention to themselves. They also seem stable, but their stability is an illusion based on our very act of ignoring. Buddhaghosa’s SPS commentary states that neutral sensations are “dark and unclear” and that one should attend to them thus:

At the disappearance of pleasure and pain, the neutral neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling occurs, which is contrary to the pleasant and the unpleasant.” To what is it comparable? To a deer hunter following the hoof marks of a deer which midway having gone up a flat rock is fleeing. The hunter after seeing the hoof marks on the hither and thither side of the rock, without seeing any trace in the middle, knows by inference: “Here the animal went up, and here, it went down; in the middle, on the flat rock, possibly it went through this part.

Another reason why neutral feeling tones should not be neglected but instead should be emphasized is because they are a constant source of joy, if only we payed attention to them. Just being aware of neutral feeling tones and developing sustained mindfulness based on these vedanas can be a source of inner joy and peace, which in turn can lead to piti and sukha.

Focusing on the breath is then a perfect place to notice neutral vedanas, since the breathing process is usually felt as a neutral feeling in the background of our experience, not being particularly pleasant nor unpleasant. Indeed, this neutrality is precisely why it takes training to keep the mind focused on the breath, since our usual response to the breath is the habit to ignore it and seek something more interesting.

However, if we pay attention to breathing carefully and continuously, we can begin to see how there is a subtle pleasure in the very act of being mindful of the breath. This subtle pleasure can then be a launching pad for stronger forms of meditative pleasures, such as piti and sukha. It can also be a refuge from strong painful vedanas or emotions.

Sensuality and beyond

The second element of this exercise in the SPS focuses on further dividing feelings into various categories: sensual and non-sensual (or more literally “carnal” and “un-carnal”). The difference between them is the difference between peaceful meditative bliss and the pleasure one gets from eating chocolate. More precisely, sensual feeling tones arise from the contact (phassa) between the sense organs, consciousness and sense phenomena. Feeling tones that are not sensual do not arise from this process of sense impression.

Feeling tones are further explained by the Buddha in the following sutta passage:

‘What, monks is carnal piti? Piti which arises dependent on the five kinds of sensual pleasures. What is spiritual Piti? Here, a monk enters and abides in the first jhana… second jhana. What is even more spiritual piti? Piti which arises when a monk whose poisons are evaporated reviews his mind released from lust, anger, and delusion.’ – SN 36.31

Carnal sensations are related to sense pleasure, craving, irritation or anger and delusion. Letting the mind dwell on these is regressive to the path, while non-sensual spiritual feelings help one progress and are related to letting go. Carnal sensations include both painful and pleasurable sensations. Both should be seen with equanimity.

One should not relish and obsess over sense pleasure, and one should also not hate painful sensations. As this is the usual default mode of worldly untrained persons it takes effort to break out of this tendency. However, one should also watch out for the other extreme: excessive asceticism which avoids and fears pleasant vedanas and seeks out and relishes pain. According to the Buddha, both of these ways of being in the world are deluded because they are confused about the real source of suffering – our mind’s reaction to vedanas, not the vedanas themselves. This is one of the reasons that his teaching is known as the “middle way”.

Pleasant spiritual feeling tones include piti-sukha, calm (pasaddhi), joy (pamojja), and any state which is free from the three root poisons of greed, aversion and delusion, such as the four meditative absorptions called jhanas. These are said to be wholesome because they lead us away from carnal pleasures and from craving.

An example of an unpleasant and unworldly sensation is a strong wish for liberation which comes from seeing the futility of worldly existence and from realizing that one has still not achieved liberation. This spiritual feeling is called “samvega” and can spur us on to further practice. Also, a healthy sense of shame and regret at having done harmful things or at having failed to do good could also be said to include unpleasant spiritual sensations. These unpleasant sensations lead one to do better in the future. Thus, even though these sensations are unpleasant, they are skillful.

Regarding neutral sensations, worldly neutrals could include the sense of satiety one feels after experiencing sense pleasure, while the spiritual neutral category can include the equanimity one experiences in the fourth jhana, which is beyond all pleasure and pain.

The reason why the Buddha teaches this important distinction is because he himself understood that spiritual sensations are useful and lead to good qualities, while sensual sensations are worthless and lead to the unwholesome:

Haven’t you known me to teach the Dhamma like this: ‘When someone feels this kind of pleasant feeling, unskillful qualities grow and skillful qualities decline. But when someone feels that kind of pleasant feeling, unskillful qualities decline and skillful qualities grow. When someone feels this kind of painful feeling, unskillful qualities grow and skillful qualities decline. But when someone feels that kind of painful feeling, unskillful qualities decline and skillful qualities grow. When someone feels this kind of neutral feeling, unskillful qualities grow and skillful qualities decline. But when someone feels that kind of neutral feeling, unskillful qualities decline and skillful qualities grow’? – MN 70

Using our previous example, the peaceful bliss of Buddhist mediation leads to equanimity, a calm mind and to letting go, while the pleasure of eating chocolate just leads to more and more craving for sugary treats, a craving that is never fully satisfied.

Therefore, an important part of this contemplative exercise is to understand and see how the different categories of feeling tone lead to wholesome or unwholesome qualities.

So to practice this aspect of satipatthana, we simply take the previous schema we were working with of dividing sensations into three types (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) and we add a two more categories. As before, we can verbally note sensations in the mind as they arise, or we can run through the various categories and see if we can find each type of sensation. We can also employ the body scan method.

At first, this practice might seem somewhat mechanical and unnatural. With practice however, it can become the default way we see the world of experience and it becomes increasingly subtle and non-conceptual. Over time, we will get a “feel” for how these different categories of feeling tone have a different energy and we may not even need to label them in the mind to understand what is going on.

This contemplation can also provide us with a great opportunity to gain insight into dependent arising (paticcasamuppada) of suffering. A sutra from the Samyukta Agama and its Pali parallel explicit teaches the contemplation of dependent arising by focusing on the link of vedana (SA 290 and SN 12.62). One is to observe how vedana arises from sense contact, to know vedana “as it really is” (i.e. as a conditioned and transient phenomenon) and to see how it disappears.

Vedana is a crucial link in the chain of dependent arising because it is situated just before craving (tanha, lit. “thirst”) arises, which is the crucial cause of suffering in the schema of the four noble truths. It is therefore in this very important place that mindfulness meditation can have a decisive effect on our ignorant way of engaging with our experience.

If you can stop and notice sensations by themselves without reactivity, you can break the origination of craving or aversion. Instead of constantly dwelling on feeling tones and building all sorts of stories about them, just watch them. As we do this we will see our responses begin to bubble up in the mind. The more one practices this meditation, the better one will get at paying attention to feeling tones as they arise and the less one will be carried away by them because of carelessness.

As you meditate on vedanas, keep reminding yourself that it is here that craving and aversion arises, as a reaction to different vedanas. So try to watch with a sense of equanimity how the mind want to react the vedanas you are observing. Watching our habitual reactivity to vedanas is just as crucial as watching the vedanas themselves.

As you meditate and improve your mindfulness vedana, you will notice that there are different gradients, different magnitudes and intensities of the feeling tones. Vedana is then better thought of as a spectrum of sensations. This continuum can be thought of as follows:

1. The most pleasurable sensations possible
2. Very pleasant
3. Mildly pleasant sensations
4. Slightly pleasant
5. Neutral
6. Slightly unpleasant
7. Mildly unpleasant
8. Very unpleasant
9. The most unpleasant possible sensation

There’s also different kinds of unpleasant and pleasant sensations each one associated with the six different types of sense organs (remember, the sixth is the mind). For example there are different kinds of sensations associated with seeing or with hearing or with touch and so on. One can bring our attention to all these different types of sensations. MN 137 outlines how our reactions to these different senses lead to two different categories of happy, painful or equanimous sensations: those associated with attachment, sense pleasure and the lay life, and those associated with renunciation arising from the contemplation of the transient and unsatisfactory nature of sensations.

This allows for a different method of meditation on vedanas: go through the five senses and then the mind and see if you can notice the vedanas that are active in all of these sense fields.

One should also attempt to see how aversion and craving arise not just from present sensations, but from the memories of past sensations and the expectation of future sensations. One should be like a scientist and observe all these processes as objectively and detached as possible. With practice, we learn not to identify and crave vedanas in the past, present and future.

The Buddha also added another dimension to mindfulness of vedanas. He taught we should seek to understand vedana in the following way: There are ascetics and brahmins who do truly understand the gratification, drawback, and escape of the three kinds of vedana. I see them as the true ascetics and brahmins. – SN 36.27

What this means is explained by the Buddha as follows:

The pleasure and happiness that arise from vedana: this is its gratification.

That vedana is impermanent, suffering, and perishable: this is its drawback.

Removing and giving up desire and greed for vedana: this is its escape.

– SN 36.15; SN 36.17

So by keeping this schema in mind, we have yet another tool with which to analyze out mental patterns of reaction to vedanas. Whenever a particularly powerful vedana arises that occupies your mind, think to yourself: what is the gratification, drawback and escape from this vedana?

Another advantage of mindfulness of vedanas is that it can give insight into the formation of our views and opinions (ditthis) which are often simple rationalizations of conditioned desires and aversions. Much of our cognitive biases regarding our own opinions and views have to do with feeling tone. When we think about and defend an idea which we see to be “ours”, there’s a certain felt sense we experience. When someone attacks our opinions, it feels painful, but if someone agrees with us and tells us we are correct, we feel a pleasant vedana.

So turning this meditation to the realm of our ideas and emotions can give us insight into why we believe certain things and why we cling to some ideas. It can help us uncover blind spots in our thinking, let go of clinging to views and it can also help us to avoid getting angry when talking to those we disagree with.

Since vedanas are very ephemeral, contemplating them is also a good way to gain insight into instability and suffering:

When, bhikkhus, the concentration by anapanasati has been developed and cultivated in this way, if he feels a [pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral] sensation, he understands: ‘It is impermanent’; he understands: ‘It is not held to’; he understands: ‘It is not delighted in.’ If he feels a pleasant feeling, he feels it detached; if he feels a painful feeling, he feels it detached; if he feels a neither-painful nor-pleasant feeling, he feels it detached. – Anapana Samyutta

Bringing mindfulness to bear on pleasant and unpleasant vedanas also allows one to grow more dispassionate and unattached to vedanas and this increases our tranquility and insight. This practice can take us all the way to awakening, as depicted in various suttas such as in SA 969 and it’s parallel MN 74, which depicts the awakening of Sariputta, one of the Buddha’s major disciples. Sariputta is said to have reached awakening after listening the following teaching on the contemplation of vedana given by the Buddha:

There are three types of feeling, namely painful feeling, pleasant feeling, and neutral feeling. Regarding these three types of feeling, what is their condition, from what do they arise, from what are they born, from what do they evolve? These three types of feeling are conditioned by contact, they arise from contact, are born from contact, and evolve from contact. With the arising of this or that contact, feelings arise. With the cessation of this or that contact, feelings cease, are appeased, become cool, and are forever extinct.

In regard to these three types of feeling – experienced as painful, experienced as pleasant, and experienced as neutral – one knows as it really is the arising of this and that feeling, their cessation, their advantage, their disadvantage, and the release from them. Knowing this as it really is, one contemplates these feelings as impermanent, contemplates their arising and disappearance, contemplates freedom from desire, contemplates cessation, and contemplates letting go.

One knows as it really is that one is experiencing feelings that are limited to the body, and one knows as it really is that one is experiencing feelings that are limited to life. At the time when the body breaks up at death, all such feelings will forever become extinct, be forever extinguished without remainder. One reflects: “A pleasant feeling experienced at that time will be destroyed together with the body, a painful feeling experienced at that time will be destroyed together with the body, a neutral feeling experienced at that time will be destroyed together with the body. All this is on the side of dukkha.

Experiencing what is pleasant, one is free from bondage and is unbound; experiencing what is painful, one is free from bondage and is unbound; experiencing what is neutral, one is free from bondage and is unbound. From what bondage is one free? One is free from lustful sensual desire, from irritation, and from delusion; and I say one is equally free from birth, old age, disease, death, worry, sadness, vexation, and pain. This is reckoned freedom from dukkha.” … – SA 969

As we can see from this passage, mindfulness of vedanas can include various aspects related to the vedana itself, including:

• Vedana’s dependence on sense contact for existence.
• Their advantage, disadvantage and release (i.e. gratification, drawback and escape).
• Their impermanence and disappearance at death.
• How they are dukkha/suffering.
• The freedom from sense desire (for pleasant vedana), from irritation (regarding the unpleasant) and from delusion (regarding neutrals).

Another possible benefit of mindfulness of vedana is its power to help us through painful moments of sickness, injury and even death. This is indicated in SN 52.10 where Anuruddha says that because of his practice of satipatthana, bodily sensations do not overwhelm the mind and in SN 36.7 where the Buddha teaches satipatthana to a group of monks in a sick ward. This effect of mindfulness meditation is now well known as mindfulness based interventions have been adopted in clinical settings.

Internally and Externally

As the SPS says, one is also to meditate on sensations “internally and externally”. How does one meditate on sensations externally? When does this by observing other beings and noticing the various cues which indicate that they are experiencing different kinds of sensations. This practice can then lead us to see how their reactions to the various types of sensations leads to suffering. We can then apply this wisdom to our own way of dealing with sensations.

It is often difficult to look at ourselves critically and objectively and so this external mode of observation can be another alternative way of meditating on sensations which bypasses our own ego defenses since it is focused on other persons. By doing this we see how others hurt themselves through their reactivity and this could lead to the understanding that we ourselves often react like they do.

There are two ways to practice this external contemplation. One way is in our everyday life as we interact with various persons throughout our day. Another way is to bring the memory of past observations and interactions with these persons into the formal meditation. In this way we are uniting daily life practice with our formal sitting meditation. We compare both our observation of others and our inner experience of vedanas. Thus we contemplate vedanas “internally” and “externally”.

Thought this contemplation we can also see how vedanas don’t just exist in us, for also they exist for others as well. All the pain and pleasure we spend our life dealing with is also experienced to some degree by other people. Our experiences aren’t the only ones that matter in this sense. Because of this, our sense of being separate from others, of being a totally different and unique self that is the center of sensation, can also begin to fade.

Experiencing and calming cittasankharas

The next step is to fully experience the activities (sankharas) of the heart-mind (citta). The final step in this tetrad is to calm or relax cittasankharas. According to Analayo, other sources in the Vinaya say to “let go” of sankharas as well.

Sankharas are in a general sense both “compounded” things, “constructions” (literally “things put together”, “that which has been constructed”) and also, the process of “fabrication” which “puts together”, “constructs”, “concocts” or “conditions” phenomena.

In this sense, cittasankhara refers to the aspect of our mind which forms or fabricates our mental events out of sense impressions. It also refers to our volitions, dispositions, or intentional constructs. It is a term with a broad semantic field, and has been translated as activity, composition, compound, construction, fabrication, formation, process and preparation.

According to the Patis, cittasankhara in the context of anapanasati refers to feelings (vedana) and perceptions (sañña). Meanwhile, the Sariputrabhidharma states that is refers to ideations and volitions. So cittasankharas seems to refer to a broad category of phenomena which includes our sensations and perceptions, as well as our reactions to them in our thoughts, our ideas about them and how our faculty of volition or will responds.

This is important to note, because this tetrad is the section on vedanas and yet it also speaks of observing and calming our way of seeing, naming, thinking about and reacting to vedana. This is because regular people cannot just let vedanas be, they automatically perceive them in a particular way and generate sankharas out of ignorance of the nature of vedanas. As the Buddha says:

With contact as a requisite condition, there is vedana. What one vedanas [senses], one perceives [or recognizes, sañña]. What one perceives, one thinks about. What one thinks about, one complicates. Based on what a person complicates, the perceptions & categories of complication assail them with regard to past, present, & future forms cognizable via the eye. -MN 18

Our typical and automatic response when dealing with pleasant vedana is to react with clinging and craving for more. Meanwhile when presented with unpleasant vedana we generally react with aversion and anger. We should observe the inner push or pull of the sensations, which almost always accompanies the sensations themselves. This observation of our reactivity to sensation is just as important as mindfulness of sensations themselves. It gives us insights into how sensations condition the mind and how we create suffering.

Regarding neutral vedanas (literally “neither pleasant nor unpleasant”), these are usually ignored because they bore us. Our tendency with these sensations is to go in search of something more interesting and exciting.

Developing mindfulness of sensations allows us to notice unhelpful reactions and patterns of response that lead to suffering and stop them from getting worse. Much mental suffering begins at this lower level. It can be shocking how quickly our mind automatically reacts to affective tone without us even noticing it. But it really should not surprise us that sentient beings would have evolved a highly attuned fight or flight mechanism, as well as instincts for seeking food and sex . However useful these patterns are for survival, they cause much suffering if we do not learn to manage and relax them.

Since this ‘hedonic bias’ is the way we automatically and involuntarily react, any attempt to be mindful of this and deviate from this automatic process will require some kind of effort. We must practice continuously and cleverly in order to overturn the automatic and subconscious habitual patterns of the mind’s relationship to feeling tones.

So it is logical that in this step, being mindful of vedanas is paired with calming our perceptions of the vedanas, our thoughts about and cognitions of vedana and all of the mental fabrication and story-making which arises out of this. As Buddhadasa notes, this also means calming vedanas themselves, since they are also reactive formations to the contact between our senses and the world. This practice then is attacking the problem of craving from various angles, the awareness of the vedana to see its true nature and our unskillful responses to them.

So in these steps, we broaden our mindfulness from the domain of vedana alone, to mind’s reactivity to vedana. Notice what’s going on within the domain of our mind, all our thoughts about vedana, all our ways of perceiving, recognizing, and responding to vedana. Just be mindful of these processes without doing anything. Try to minimize sense stimulation so that one can more easily focus your attention on the mental processes that do appear. If one is doing something which is exciting while practicing mindfulness, like eating delicious food, try to slow down.

The contemplation of cittasankharas also includes being attentive our latent tendencies or subconscious habits (anusaya) regarding vedanas. The Vedana Samyutta states:

The underlying tendency to greed should be given up when it comes to pleasant vedana. The underlying tendency to repulsion should be given up when it comes to painful vedana. The underlying tendency to ignorance should be given up when it comes to neutral vedana. – SN 36.3, MN 44

When you feel pleasure without understanding feeling, the underlying tendency to greed is there, if you don’t see the escape. When you feel pain without understanding feeling, the underlying tendency to repulsion is there, if you don’t see the escape. As for that peaceful, neutral feeling: he of vast wisdom has taught that if you relish it, you’re still not released from suffering. But when a mendicant is keen, not neglecting situational awareness, that astute person understands all feelings. Completely understanding feelings, they’re without defilements in this very life. – SN 36.3

These qualities are then a kind of latent predisposition that we all have towards certain kinds of behavior that get triggered by various stimuli and causes different kinds of behavior, such as pleasure seeking or avoidance. This means that craving and aversion have calcified, and can be active when one anticipates an experience, not just when the experience is happening in the present.

As MN 44 makes clear however, these underlying tendencies are only there when it comes to worldly sensations, they generally do not stand behind spiritual sensations like the jhanas or the sadness that comes from reflecting on the fact that one has not yet reached liberation, since these are skillful sensations.

In the final step of this tetrad, we attempt to relax and calm these sankharas. We observe how the mind moves and reacts to vedana. Sometimes just being mindful of cittasankharas and noticing how they cause suffering is enough, other times a more proactive approach might be needed. So we can try to investigate this process. We can ask questions like “what is pushing or pulling the mind?”, “how is this happening?”, “how long did the process take?”, “is it skillful?” Then as we begin to understand what is happening, we can come back to the breath and try to relax and calm ourselves.

It is important to remain still and non-reactive to bodily and sense impressions when practicing this step. The Buddha said:

Rahula, develop the meditation in tune with earth. For when you are developing the meditation in tune with earth, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind. Just as when people throw what is clean or unclean on the earth, feces, urine, saliva, pus, or blood, the earth is not horrified, humiliated, or disgusted by it; in the same way, when you are developing the meditation in tune with earth, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind. – MN 62

This mere act of remaining still and calm without reacting can help relax cittasankharas as they arise.

We can also start observing how sankharas are transient, dukkha and not “me” or “mine,” by doing this they are weakened and the mind slowly lets them go.

Another way to practice this step is to attend to the attractive qualities (assada) of the cittasankharas, those qualities which draws the mind to them, and see how these enchanting features are also impermanent and dukkha. Likewise notice the disadvantageous qualities (adinava) of the sankharas and vedanas, such as the fact that they are distracting and keeping you from true peace.

You can also identify and ask questions about a sankhara, to investigate it. Where is it coming from? Why and how is it happening? Who is intending? How can it be released?

Contemplating cittasankharas can also be done in a more general way by simply transforming everyday irritations, cravings and emotions into a meditation whenever and wherever they arise. Whenever one experiences negative emotions, instead of reacting unskillfully, one can take a short break from what one is doing and practice mindfulness right there. In this way, the “obstacle becomes the way”.

Shankaras often come and go unnoticed and sometimes, we can only realize what has happened retroactively. This is also part of mindfulness of cittasankharas! In fact, until our practice matures and we gain some experience with it, a lot of our mindfulness of cittasankharas will be done through reflecting on past experiences and understanding how certain mental reactions and thoughts led us to do certain things.

Since sati’s dual meaning also includes remembering and recollecting, contemplating on past mental states and intentions is a key part of the practice. After all, unless we are a fully awakening being, there is no way we can perfectly be aware of everything that happening with perfect mindfulness. However, we can still reflect on past events and try to gain insight into them from a place of temporal distance.

It is an important element of this step that we have to be willing to calm and let go of all mental sankharas, this includes even pleasant ones which we cultivated before like piti and sukha. This does not mean we completely stop experiencing piti-sukha, but that we let them get calmer and subtler.

As noted by the Satyasiddhisastra, this step also includes being mindful of and then calming and stopping any forms of grasping and craving for pleasant sensations like piti-sukha, as well as any associated thoughts related to such cravings. The Sravakabhumi similarly says:

To the meditator experiencing piti sukha, there may at times, owing to temporary loss of mindfulness, arise false ideation of the self and related conceptually proliferated notions accompanied by craving. Thereupon, he is able to understand promptly and become detached from them.

While sensations like piti-sukha are wholesome overall, it is still possible to cling to them. According to MN 44, jhana states are beyond the underlying tendency to lust, so how can this be possible? I understand this issue as referring to a sense of clinging which arises after we have experienced the spiritual pleasant vedanas of jhana, or to the experience of unworldly pleasant vedanas outside of jhana (perhaps in proto-jhanic samadhis).

While clinging to these spiritual sensations is definitely better than clinging to worldly sense pleasures, this subtle type of clinging still impedes our practice. So in this step we need to be mindful of any desire for pleasant spiritual sensations and try to relax and let this go.

We ultimately cannot control this process and these sensations tend to come and go even if we are meditating correctly. Since spiritual sensations arise from letting go, the less we grasp after piti-sukha the more of it that we will get. Paradoxically, the more we let go, the more we will experience higher and subtly greater states of mind. Even if you are blissing out, this step is necessary for progress and for entering the highest states of freedom.

Tell yourself in this step that all things are transient and must be released, and that holding on to even pleasant feelings will only destroy your happiness. Let go of controlling and of being in charge. Let go of the fear of not being in control. The more you let go the more unified and calm your mind will become.