Insurgent Heart: A Vipassana Manual for the Guerrilla Yogi — {3}
Contact: Aim / Attack / Harass
Table of Contents
~ Preface
2. Indigenous Knowledge: Bhavana
3. Contact: Aim /Attack / Harass
4. Mobility: Bases / Fluidity / Agility
5. Distrust: Suspicion / Investigation
6. Medicine: Metta / Divine Abodes
7. Retreat: Encirclement / Escape
8. Diversion: Distraction / Misdirection
9. General Strike: Invisibility / Cessation
10. The Guerrilla Band: Camaraderie / Community
11. Independence: Responsibility/ Self-Retreat
12. Intelligence: Education / Reporting
13. The Revolutionary Spirit: Discipline / Determination / Faith
14. Protracted War: Land Reform / Regular Army / International Support
15. {Afterword} Mindfulness: A Balm or a Bomb for Babylon?
~ CHAPTER 3 ~
Contact: Aim / Attack / Harass
Our theory is the theory of the rose, a flower that defends itself. Every being has to create methods of self-defense according to its own way of living, growing, and connecting with others. The aim is not to destroy the enemy but to force it to give up its intention to attack. Guerrilla fighters discuss this as a defensive strategy in a military sense, but it works in other areas as well. It’s a method of self-empowerment.
~ Çinar Sali, TEV-DEM, Revolution in Rojava
Guerrilla action is defined in a large part by a commitment to persistent punctuated harassment of the enemy, rather than definitive history-changing battles. Guerrilla units do their best to avoid getting stuck in prolonged defensive positions which expose their greatest weaknesses. Instead they try to rely on engagements of their own choosing, quick ones that have the greatest possible impact with the smallest probability of loss. This can mean short raids of high intensity that punctuate long periods of quiet, or a general campaign of tenacious harassment that may not be dramatically destructive but that wears down the enemy over time. Their dexterity of movement is dependent upon a profound sensitivity to a wide variety of environmental and internal conditions that guide them to oscillate between tactics of concentration and dispersal with the greatest skill.
He must exhaust the enemy by constant harassment.
He must attack constantly from all directions.
He must stage successful retreats, return to the attack,
avoid encounters with the enemy that are not of his own making.
~ Handbook of the Irish Republican Army
In vipassana practice, this strategy corresponds to our application of concurrent attention. We are not trying to obliterate a single target through prolonged engagement when we know our forces are likely be overwhelmed. We apply quick striking pressure to destabilize, weaken, exhaust, and undermine the cohesive momentum of ignorance. This is why we should not despair that our concentration seems so weak at times or that we are not having powerful insights at every sitting. We cannot expect to win the war against Mara at every moment of the rising of the breath. Instead we understand that our efforts to try to keep our attention concurrent with experience is a powerful training that over time debilitates the coherence of the empire of delusion.
Every single time we 1) connect with a target object; or 2) connect and maintain the attention there — even for a few moments; or 3) lose our connection but notice it and bring our attention back, are moments of significant victory and successful engagement. No matter how imperfect our attention is, no matter how scattered our minds seem, it is this persistent mindfulness with any target that ultimately wears the enemy down, pushes them to act desperately, breaks up their lines of defense, and keeps us attuned to their movements at all times.
We will never lose visual contact with our enemies; that is, we will accompany them from afar keeping within field glass range so that we are constantly aware of their position. If we do not fire into their quarters every night we are not performing our duty as guerrillas. A good guerrilla is one who looks after his men not exposing them to enemy fire; he makes sure they cannot see his troops with camouflage and skillful tactics. He hounds the enemy day and night, carrying on “minuet” tactics. That is, he advances when the enemy falls back; retreating to our right when the enemy plans to encircle us on that flank. We always keep the same distance from the enemy forces: some 800 to a thousand yards by day, sending two or three of our sharpshooters up as close as possible during the night to pester them, and thus bringing about the highest number of casualties.
~ Alberto Bayo Giroud, One Hundred Fifty Questions to a Guerrilla
Our essential means of engaging the target objects of experience are through concentration (samadhi) and mindfulness (sati). Concentration is the range of mental skills that can make contact with a target object and maintain it there over time. Mindfulness is the observational quality of mind that has the ability to observe and understand what it is seeing. While they are distinct, concentration and mindfulness support each other in powerful ways and their symbiotic action is required as part of our training and fulfillment of the Dhamma.
Our lives are a constant bombardment of mental and physical phenomena. Classically, each moment of conscious experience is considered to be made up of the momentary coming together of three things: striker, receptor, and ignition. The striker is the sense object: any experience within the body, mind, or body-based senses. The receptor is the sense-base in the body itself: the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind-base. The ignition is consciousness that arises spontaneously when they come together. This coming together of conditions is called a moment of contact (phassa). When a visual object impinges upon sensitivity of the eye there is seeing consciousness. When a sound impinges upon the ear sensitivity, hearing consciousness arises. The mind is being impinged upon by a relentless torrent of contact at each sense door throughout our lives. This is what our life is, broken down: an endless assailing of moments of contact.
War is hell, but contact is a motherfucker.
~Written on an American G.I.’s helmet in Vietnam
Each moment of contact — of hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting, touching, and cognizing — is said to condition a pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling-tone (vedana). Because our minds can’t keep up with the barrage mindfully, we are overwhelmed and defer to our deepest survival training — craving toward the pleasant, aversion toward the unpleasant, and delusion toward the neutral. We drown in the river of experience and the mind’s contraction around experience — a “great flood,” as the Buddha called it — being pulled toward and pushed away from phenomena at a horrifying speed. It is depleting, it is diminishing, it is wearying. We are besieged by contact from our moment of birth until we die, and if you believe the ancients, on and on again from there until we take up the task of liberating ourselves from the cycle of becoming.
There are those of us who survive this bombardment by inclining toward the pleasant, by grasping at and seeking out new, exciting, pleasurable experiences: “craving types.” Others are oriented more toward aversion and have a deeper sensitivity to the unpleasant. They tend to reject, push away, or withdraw in fear from painful or threatening experiences: “aversive types.” Some are “deluded types” and defend themselves through confusion, dissociation, and find themselves instinctively drawn to the comfort of neutral territory. The strengths of craving types can be a capacity for enthusiasm, faith, and lovingkindness. Aversive types naturally tend toward wisdom and clarity. Deluded types incline toward balance. The shadows of these, though, are addiction, hatred, and doubt. To counteract these shadows, craving types are encouraged to practice in austere environments, aversive types in comfortable and beautiful ones, while deluded types are supported by a strong structure. All of us have all three built into us. This consideration of tendency is intended to demonstrate how each of us often has a certain hierarchy of defilement which can be helpful to acknowledge and understand. These tendencies are powerful and deeply engrained in how we related to every minuscule moment of experience. Our greatest weaknesses are often the shadow of our greatest strengths and this understanding is essential for the training of the guerrilla yogi.
No matter our basic “type,” our social and evolutionary training is to concentrate our attention on objects or move our attention away from them based on their pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral character. We become transfixed with that which we hate, engrossed with that which we are enamored, ignore that which is boring, and dissociate from that which is overwhelming. These tendencies are not merely training from this lifetime. We have evolved for millions of years from animals who used fear and craving as their primary survival mechanisms. This behavior is deeply encoded in our consciousness and should not be pathologized. It got us here. We owe it a lot. But it is also a prison, and keeps us trapped in this prison — indebted, confined, and invested in it — and we are seeking release. When we begin to practice meditation we are making the decision to stop running from this assault, to bear the burden of its force, to directly engage it as best we can. We train for war and peace with as much clarity and kindness as we can muster.
CONCENTRATION AND MINDFULNESS
Concentration (samadhi) is most fundamentally the ability to 1) direct the application of mind to a target (vitakka) and 2) to maintain that application over time as the target changes (vicāra). Aiming (vitakka) and sustaining (vicara) the attention are the first two subatomic elements of concetration, what are called jhānic factors; the others being rapture (pīti), pleasure (sukha), and tranquility (ekaggatā).
The urban guerrilla’s reason for existence, the basic condition in which he acts and survives, is to shoot…Shooting and marksmanship are the urban guerrilla’s water and air.
~Carlos Marigellha, Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla
If we think of mindfulness as a bullet — that makes a powerful connection with the target object — concentration is the barrel of the gun: the vehicle that channels the attention by which its potential is reached. You can throw bullets at your enemy but it wont do much damage. Without the barrel of concentration the spark of mindfulness cannot connect with the target in a meaningful way. This connection of mindfulness to the target is the absolute source of insight and so its importance cannot be overstated. As objects are appearing with unrelenting speed, the attention must learn to be like a machine-gun of equal capacity. It is a training whose difficulty cannot be overstated.
This is the weapon. With this weapon you can fight your battle. With this weapon you can be victorious. If you fight with a pillow as a weapon, you cannot win.
~ Webu Sayadaw, The Way to Ultimate Calm
When the jhānic factors of vitakka and vicara are applied to a target of our choosing — the stream of sound, the body as a whole, a physical touchpoint, or the breath (for example) — we have our first weapons to counter the conditioned tendencies of the mind’s attention and the overwhelming oppression of greed, hatred, and delusion.
When we try to aim and sustain the attention on our target we immediately encounter the millions of other objects that call upon us: ones that are more interesting, more exciting, more scary, more urgent — and we see the power of the heart’s pull in those directions. One cannot overstate how difficult and radical it is to target the attention in the field of chaotic action outside of the siren call of the pleasant or the painful. It is revolutionary because it begins to break us out of our profound conditioning to only expend our force of attention on that which feeds on our greed, hatred, and ignorance.
PITI
If we are successful over a period of time in keeping the attention on this target, we begin to develop a genuine interest that is beyond this polarity of pleasure and pain. This is the beginning of what we call rapture (pīti). It is a natural engrossment with experience, sometimes referred to as “joyful interest,” that has the ability to be fully engaged and interested regardless of vedana. With enough persistent application of vitakka and vicara, through jungle and desert, mountain and valley, we find pīti, with its accompanying energy and enthusiasm and finally calm that is the doorway to deeper exploration.
The sensations that arise alongside pīti can be quite powerful — from tingling to swaying to incredible lightness to disturbing sea-sickness. If they arise, we should notice these sensations, notice the enjoyment or even intoxication, but ultimately bring the attention back to the primary object. We can get transfixed by this pīti and so we must be cautious. We are not wanting to reject this energy or shut it down, because we need to be able to use it to deepen our engagement. But our attention is often not purified enough to be able to engage with these powerful sensations without becoming subject to craving, aversion, and delusion so it is best to recognize this and make sure to not lose the connection with the primary target. Otherwise it is just another trap, a more powerful pleasant sensation — a “spiritual” one — which seduces us away from our objective and back into the dynamics of pleasure and pain. It was persistent attention that brought about these experience, and maintained, balanced attention that will move us through to the next phase of concentration: happiness (sukha).
SUKHA
In sukha, we gain a powerful foothold in what is considered wholesome pleasure. The pleasure of seclusion, of non-distraction, of collectedness and creates a buoyancy of mind necessary to pursue the challenges of the path. It is not a pleasure that comes from sensory objects themselves but from the forces of concentration that have developed through the practice. It is beautiful to feel the goodness of practice in our minds and bodies. It is a great support to our efforts. These pleasures should be treated as meaningful fuel for your practice — something that can help invigorate us, inspire us, motivate us, but should also not distract us. We must still keep the mind suspicious of the quagmire of enchantment and focused on the target.
EKAGATĀ
If concentration is pursued, this pleasure can smooth out into a place of deeper stillness, of tranquility based on one-pointedness (ekaggatā), the ease of mind that is the doorway to the deepest peace of equanimity and the unconditioned. When this place of tranquility is explored, we come to see how unrefined and restless the pleasure of sukha can be, and are compelled by the simple purity of this kind of stillness, the profound restfulness of this experience.
The implementation of this series of jhānic factors is one important aspect of what is meant by attack: the application of mindful attention to a target over time. This is how we overcome the pleasure/pain syndrome, break out of the prison of delusion, that we are trapped in. Over time, more and more of our human experience is successfully engaged in this way. But we start small and build from there.
While these units function as guerrillas, they may be compared to innumerable gnats, which, by biting a giant both in front and in rear, ultimately exhaust him. They make themselves as unendurable as a group of cruel and hateful devils, and as they grow and attain gigantic proportions, they will find that their victim is not only exhausted but practically perishing.
~Mao Zedong, Guerrilla Warfare
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the concentration of the guerrilla yogi is the emphasis on momentary concentration (khanika samadhi) rather than on fixed absorptive concentration (appana samadhi). In vipassana practice, we bring the attention to targets — physical, mental, or body-based experiences — that are changing and it is their changing nature that we are seeking to observe. The hardest thing for us to see is the source of all liberating insights because it is the ignorance and resistance to this undependability which is the source of our suffering.
Yogis could choose instead to practice fixed concentration on targets that appear to be non-changing. Most often these are conceptual objects like a visualized image, a phrase, a field of color, or a particular spiritual emotion, like metta (lovingkindness). Even in some real objects change can be so subtle as to be ignored: a candle in a dark room or the subtle sensations at the tip of the nostrils when breathing. Using extreme control of attention rather than mindfulness, the yogi ignores all other experiences. When another object of contact arises in consciousness, the yogi ignores it and comes directly back to the object of fixed concentration. After some time, the mind becomes absorbed into a state of apparent stability which can create a profound sense of tranquility and even bliss. It is blissful because you are ignoring reality and the mind is powerfully repressed. It is very powerful. It is very seductive. And because there is no wisdom in it, it also has the potential to be dangerous. The danger comes from the deepening belief in Self that can result from this kind of effort and this kind of outcome.
In the metaphors of traditional Buddhist warriorship, absorptive concentration in jhāna is like having a standing army. And like most standing armies there is less sensitivity to ethics, to motivation, and less capabability of the dexterity and versatility that the guerrilla yogi depends upon. Jhāna is powerful but dangerous and requires long periods of intense seclusion that are not accessible to most of us. And for those of us for whom it might be, jhāna is usually like a powerful drug whose highs are sensational but from which we must crash, over and over again, and the effects of this can be debilitating and destructive.
On one hand, concentration is the vehicle that allows for mindfulness to explore effectively. On the other, it can suffocate and stifle the dynamism of reality, cutting off our ability to grow. While keeping the mind fixed on an object is an important skill, it is a more important skill to understand why the mind moves away. If the concentration is too strong, or the emphasis on concentration too strong, we wont value the learning that comes from the mind’s wandering, from the forces that impel it to grasp or reject or trickle into the stream of fantasy. We need to see these things in order to liberate ourselves, we need to be able to learn about the mind — its beauty and its neuroses — not simply control it.
Using khanika samadhi we can train the mind on reality — in all its dynamism — and through this develop a degree of concentration that is powerful enough to penetrate but also nimble enough to keep connected through the wildness of moving life. We may choose a primary target and try to watch its changing nature, but we are not distraught when another object enters the field of attention. We have the flexibility to show up for that object as well. The guerrilla yogi uses these tools of momentary concentration because they see that it provides them with the flexibility they need to engage and disengage with the enemy at a moment’s notice: and because it works. Through momentary concentration we can still attain “access concentration” which is a vipassana jhāna necessary for penetrating insight to arise. Over time we may build a powerful army — one including jhāna — but we must do so based on solid radical foundations otherwise our army will recreate the exact dynamics of control and oppression and entanglement that it was supposed to be fighting.
It is not radical to build quickly. It is radical to build fundamentally.
~ Scott Nearing
THE TARGET
The rule is:
Never give battle on the enemy’s terms.
Divert him by quick attacks in other areas.
Hit him at his weakest point and drive a wedge through him.
~Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army
Just like the guerrilla army, we do not choose the most well defended headquarters of anger and craving as our primary targets. We don’t go looking for our deepest fears, our most compelling addictions, our places of most aggravating confusion as our principle targets for engagement. The guerrilla yogi always raids the enemy at its easiest and most accessible point. We know that our forces would be overwhelmed if we tried to go up against Mara’s most fortified positions, so instead we choose a place of relatively neutral experience as our primary target.
For our primary target we try to pick something that is relatively neutral and still clearly evident. For some that may be the breath at the abdomen. For others, the stream of sound experience. Sometimes the sensations of the whole body seated or just a touchpoint — like the hands — are the best places to begin our training. There are endless possibilities of targets, dependent upon the particular conditions of each yogi. Generally speaking it must be something that we do not experience as very intense — not something we have a strong instinctual agenda with changing — to be our training ground for concentration and mindfulness.
When men and reserves are insufficient and the enemy is strong, the guerrilla should always aim for the destruction of this vanguard point. The system is simple and only a certain coordination is necessary. At the moment when the vanguard appears at the selected place — the steepest possible — a deadly fire is let loose on them, after a convenient number of men have been allowed to penetrate.
~ Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare
No matter what aspect of reality we are bringing our engaged attention to, we should always remember to only target phenomena that are actually and presently arisen — the vanguard experience — and not try to engage an enemy or object that we imagine is behind, underneath, beyond what we are currently experiencing.
This may seem obvious but it is in direct contradiction to typical western psychological training. In western psychology we are taught to consider the self as a layered thing: like an onion, with normal consciousness on the top, surface, level and with powerful unconscious or subconscious forces acting in the shadows, the invisible and unseen recesses of the mind. We are taught that many of these phenomena cannot be seen directly but can be inferred based on patterns and analysis that we observe in our minds and actions. In this context, the self is a three dimensional thing: we are taught that our problems are “deep” or that other things are “on the surface,” that there are “underlying” and “hidden” tendencies in the psyche.
Classical Buddhist psychology offers a different perspective which is invaluable for the guerrilla yogi to understand. In it we see that mind-and-body experience can be directly observed only in a momentary way — in a single dimension — that is not physically or psychologically spatial. Reality only exists in a momentary way. That is to say, there is only what is experienced in the present moment, and the present moment, so fast and fleeting, can only hold one experience: a single moment of sound, of sight, of smell, of taste, of touch, of cognition. This is the vanguard point of the armies of Mara. There is no unconscious or subconscious, only the subtly conscious, flashing in and out of existence with immense speed. The perspective and perception of space — of inner and outer, of deep and shallow — is merely a psychological framework for managing what would otherwise be an overwhelming onslaught of sense experience.
We only have the vanguard point to engage. In our case there actually is no army behind it, no deeper well of delusion or shame or jealousy or doubt, these things we think of as our deepest problems. There is only what is arisen in the present moment. This gives us an incredible tactical advantage because we don’t need to fight an entire army, we don’t need to excavate and destroy our deepest fears — only attend to this one moment of fear, of sound vibration, of physical pressure. We don’t concern ourselves with that which is unarisen, behind, underneath, beyond: we come to see these as monsters of our own creation, patterns of approach that only make our path harder. In this, we have a chance of success.
You have the teachings, the technique. All you need now is effort. And why do you need effort? Because during meditation the enemies will come to disturb you.
~ Webu Sayadaw, The Way to Ultimate Calm
ATTACK
Aiming and sustaining the attention are the building blocks of concentration but ultimately we are concerned with wisdom, which is dependent upon mindfulness: seeing clearly and profoundly that which we are observing. While all our other weapons can help suppress the forces of greed, hatred, and delusion, it is only liberating insight that can uproot and extinguish them.
Here bhikkhus, the warrior shoots from a distance, knows the right time to shoot and breaks down a huge mass.
Bhikkhus, how does the bhikkhu shoot from a distance?
Here, bhikkhus, whatever forms…feelings…perceptions…formations…consciousnesses, in the past, future or present, internal or external, rough or fine, unexalted or exalted, at a distance or in close proximity, all that matter `is not mine, am not in it, it is not my self.’ He sees this, as it really is with right wisdom.
Bhikkhus, thus the bhikkhu shoots from a distance.
~The Buddha, Yodhājīvasuttaṃ
Our efforts to “aim and sustain” the attention are no different than the guerrilla tactic of “attack and harass” except that by observing the mind and body we are not attacking them — we are attacking the forces of greed hatred and ignorance that mindlessly drive the direction of our attention and learning to have a relationship of wisdom and kindness to the mind and body.
The perfect attack can be considered when the Seven Factors of Awakening (bojjhanga) are entirely in balance. Mindfulness (sati), investigation (dhamma vicaya), energy (viriya), rapture (pīti), calm (passaddhi), concentration (samadhi), and equanimity (upekkha) comprise the seven qualities of mind that when present in strength and in balance produce a consciousness that is capable of insight.
SATI
Mindfulness (sati) is considered the general of the bojjhanga, the factor that gives all of them agency. It is rooted in an older Sanskrit word, smrti, which can be translated as “memory.” Sati has a range of connotations such as remembrance, unforgetfulness, non-obliviousness, unconfused, presence of mind. It sees things as they truly are. It is by its nature non-elaborating, non-conjuring, non-conceptual, not shrouded in views — bare — it is considered the primary weapon against and protection from delusion. Sati is not heavy, not harsh, not rigid. It is supple, light, invisible. It has not flavor of its own. It is uncontracted, unmanipulative attention that allows phenomena to arise and pass according to their own nature without the tethers of reactivity and control.
In the suttas sati is almost always paired with sampajañña, clear comprehension, so we can see that mindfulness is not merely “bare-attention” but a kind of observational force that has the power to understand very profoundly the nature of what it is observing. In many ways it is weaponized in the process of investigation.
[Thinking,] ‘I shall protect myself,’ establishing of mindfulness is to be practiced; [thinking,] ‘I shall protect others,’ establishing of mindfulness is to be practiced. Protecting oneself, bhikkhus, protects others; protecting others, one protects oneself. How, bhikkhus, does one protect others by protecting oneself? By continued practice, by development, by making great… How, bhikkhus, does one protect oneself by protecting others? By patience, by absence of cruelty, by friendliness, by kindness.
~ Buddha, Atta-rakkhita Sutta
Breaking down the complex relationship between concept and direct experience is very difficult and is why the late Mahasi Sayadaw developed his particular style of mental noting. The Mahasi method of satipatthana vipassana emphasizes 1) the recognition of the target in the field of awareness; 2) the deliberate mental noting of the target; and 3) the observation of the target through its duration. In this approach we silently apply a soft mental label in the mind that describes the experience as it is directly experienced. The label can be as simple as “rising, rising” or “falling, falling” if we are noting the movement of the breath in the rising and falling abdomen. It can become more nuanced and sensitive to change over time, noting “pressure… tension… tightening… unpleasant… disliking…” or “softening… warmth… pleasant… enjoyment…” Emotions such as “fear… anger…calm… compassion… sadness” should also be noted as they arise and, just as other phenomena such as “reaching…lifting…chewing…swallowing,” should be watched until they pass away or another experience becomes predominant. Noting can also be more general, “body… mind…” are sufficient if this is the scope of the field of attention in that moment.
Over time mental noting helps give us a sense of what leads to what — especially in the relationship between the mind and body where the most profound insights begin to emerge. Our entire life can be tracked through the sequence of noted experience, “pressure, hardness, throbbing, unpleasant, disliking, a visual memory, anger, blame, aversion, etc” all happen in sequence and help us investigate how life is actually unfolding moment by moment rather than as the normal series of constructions conjured by the mind.
The mental label is still a description: a mental construct at a distance from the direct experience itself. It is by using the notional capacity of the mind — something that might otherwise wander in distraction — that we stay in close relationship with the experience itself. This is an essential skill for the guerrilla yogi just as noting the position of the shadows at different times of day is for the guerrilla warrior.
Over time can feel like a distraction from or an impediment to the directly observed experience. When it feels cumbersome or frustrating we let the noting go, understanding that every tactic and technique has its time and place. Noting can never keep up with the actual speed of sense-experience arising and passing. Trying to do so when the attention begins to be able to move as fast as reality will slow us down. While noting is an essential tool of the guerrilla yogi, when the conditions are unfavorable it is a technique that should always be put down in favor of sinking into the direct experience when that is an option. It is always good to know that the noting can be brought back at any time when we feel lost or disconnected from the present moment experience.
DHAMMA VICAYA
Investigation (dhamma vicaya) is the inquiring factor of the mind that looks more deeply into phenomena as they arise and pass. It is this tool that gives mindfulness its blade-edge to cut into experience in order to understand its true nature. Dhamma vicaya is not conceptual investigation. It is not thinking about or ruminating on an object or an experience. It is not intellectual. It is investigation on the same terms of the target object itself — from inside the experience — and to be at its fullest capacity for insight must be motivated by genuine interest, and not seek to manipulate based on preference. It explores the wetness of water, the warmth of heat. It helps break out of believing in the solidity of the concept of “pain” and explores the molecular elements such as pressure, heat, throbbing that make up the experience we call “pain.”
What is a thought made of? What is the relationship between this unpleasant physical sensation and the mental experience that arises in dependence upon it? These questions can be asked intellectually but can only be observed truly through a committed experiential investigation into the nature of phenomena. It is through our commitment to dhamma vicaya that we purify the motivation of our attention, coming to see the humbling degree to which we are usually trying to control reality through our awareness and so find our way back to an unmanipulative exploration of non-attached interest.
A spy is a peasant working for us who accompanies the enemy troops pretending to be their friends and selling them anything they need. The type of article sold or his profits or losses are of no consequence. The important thing is that he become friendly with as many of the enemy, of all ranks as possible. He should never ask them for any information whatsoever, but rather report everything, every movement, he sees; about the equipment the enemy has; information on their delays, etc.
~ Alberto Bayo Giroud, One Hundred Fifty Questions to a Guerrilla
VIRIYA
Investigation applied over time develops energy or strength (viriya). It is said to manifest in “a state of non-collapse.” Classically, viriya is generated for the reason of the Four Right Endeavors (sammā-ppadhanā): restraint (samvara-ppadhāna), abandoning (pahana-ppadhāna), development (bhavana-ppadhāna), protecting (anurakkana-ppadhāna) as explained here,
In this connection a bhikkhu generates purpose, strives, initiates strength, takes hold of his mind, endeavors for the sake of the non-arising of bad, unskilful dhammas that have not arisen; he generates the purpose, strives, initiates strength, takes hold of his mind, endeavors for the sake of abandoning bad unskilful dhammas that have arisen; he generates purpose, strives, initiates strength, takes hold of his mind, endeavors for the sake of the arising of skillful dhammas that have not (yet) arisen; he generates purpose, strives, initiates strength, takes hold of his mind, endeavors for the sake of establishing, of not losing, of increase, of abundance, of development, of fulfillment of skillful dhammas that have arisen.
~ Vibh 208
One of the greatest challenges for the guerrilla yogi is development of the extremely nuanced sensitivity to the quality of energy that is present and the effort made to manage it. So often when we make the effort to increase our energy we unknowingly also cultivate striving, forcing, and wanting. We generate a pressure on the present moment experience that is actually more interested in some future moment of being, some thing we are trying to achieve, some state we are trying to attain. Thus in our attempts at cultivating energy we undermine our efforts. For a beginning yogi, true balanced energy may not be recognizable as energy at all because it does not have that sense of contraction of the mind that we associate with effort. True viriya should not make us strain, should not create a sense of spiritual constipation. More often than not, the guerrilla yogi does not try to attain any unattained state of energy but simply works with the level of energy that is present and makes the most of the current conditions.
PITI
Rapture (pīti), as has been stated, is a natural and joyful engrossment with experience that breaks through the stranglehold of preference on the mind. This enthusiasm and enthrallment with the target object can have a range of intensity, with a spectrum of physical sensations associated with it.
For one enraptured at heart, the body grows calm and the mind grows calm. When the body & mind of a monk enraptured at heart grow calm, then serenity as a factor for awakening becomes aroused. He develops it, and for him it goes to the culmination of its development.
~ Buddha, Ānāpānasati Sutta
PASSADHI
Thus we also see an important link between rapture in the mind leading to physical tranquility (passaddhi) or calm, resulting in mental tranquility, calm, serenity, repose. This mental settledness then provides the foundation for concentration.
For one who is at ease — his body calmed — the mind becomes concentrated. When the mind of one who is at ease — his body calmed — becomes concentrated, then concentration as a factor for awakening becomes aroused. He develops it, and for him it goes to the culmination of its development.
~ Buddha, Ānāpānasati Sutta
SAMADHI
We have already discussed concentration in some detail and will continue through the chapters of this book.
UPEKKHA
With concentration developed and all of the other factors coming into balance, the mind develops equanimity (upekkha) a profound balance of mind, stability of acceptance and understanding that comes most powerfully as a result of insight. The mind can build equanimity in many ways but the most profound upekkha as insight knowledge comes from the most profound acceptance of things as they are, of not needing to make anything one way or another to feel satisfaction. It is the happiness of peace and something an arahant is said to experience at every moment at every sense door.
The seven factors of awakening can be held in this linear way but they also develop and arise and pass in less structured ways, dependent upon conditions. Our greatest effort cannot force these factors to arise or to come into balance. They are deepened simply by maturity in the practice. In fact, much of the guerrilla yogiʻs strength of approach is in learning how to continue to engage our targets even when certain factors or others are weak. Over time we develop more and more capacity with all of these factors and they come into balance with more frequency.
It is helpful to consider the bojjhanga as being broken down, after mindfulness, between energizing (investigation, energy, and rapture) and tranquilizing (tranquility, concentration, equanimity) factors. In this way we can also see the ways in which they keep each other in balance. Investigative interest is balanced by concentration, energy is balanced by tranquility, and rapture is balanced by equanimity, so that none of them override or dominate the other.
The bojjhanga are our primary weapons against the forces of delusion. It is through these mental factors that we gather the capacity for insight. It is because of these insights we are able to find peace within the instability of reality because there is no coherent self that is threatened by it. We “destroy this whole mass of suffering,” as the Buddha exclaimed, by breaking it into smaller and smaller bits of experience — to the degree that we no longer believe in the solidity of anything and are freed from the need to secure ourselves a home in that which can never provide stability.
His main concern must be the care of his gun, since the weapon is his friend and protector, his means of survival. The rifle must be kept clean and oiled, especially when you are out in the country, marching by dusty paths where guns easily get dirty.
~ Alberto Abayo Giroud, One Hundred Fifty Questions to a Guerrilla
Click here for Chapter 4 (Mobility: Bases /Fluidity / Agility)
Click here for Chapter 2 (Indigenous Knowledge: Bhavana)
