The Power of Sublime Abiding
This is the 5th day of a chronicle of a 14-day meditation retreat at the Pa Auk Tawya in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar. Published days are available via the links below:
Day Five — The Power Sublime Abiding
No need to read in order. Depending on what interests you, there will be days that you definitely don’t want to explore. Today I discovered the incredibly salubrious benefits of radiating mettā.
Note: In editing my chronicle, I have added supplemental information about Pali terms and Buddhist concepts to attempt to make the experience easier to read. Please check the links and do further research always. There is a lot to understand and I still consider myself among the Dhamma uninitiated.
11:00 AM — A lot of visitors passed through the forest monastery today. The dining hall was packed at lunchtime.
Since landing in Burma I’ve abstained from checking the day of the week, but I’d wager it must be Sunday. Sunday is the post-colonial Uposatha for laypeople I suppose.
Uposatha
According to Wikipedia, Uposatha was a public holiday in precolonial Burma. Business came to a halt and citizens were disposed to Buddhist piety. Today is not actually Uposatha, but the presence of so many visitors reminded me of that special occasion.
The second day of my meditation retreat was actually Uposatha. I recall that now because I went to interview with the Pa Auk Sayadaw (or Sayadawgi) and was turned away.
The moon was resplendent then. It was full and it shone brightly even during the middle of the day. The full moon Uposatha is significant at this monastery. It is the day that all the monks, even the abbott apparently, ensure that they recite the Pāṭimokkha.
Pāṭimokkha
After ordaining as a bhikkhu (the Pali term for a Buddhist monk), male monastics must observe 227 precepts. Female monastics must observe 331 precepts. Yikes!
Pātimokkha is that list of precepts.
The Buddha was a serious dude. It seems like it is not easy to be a virtuous monastic. I can barely remember the ten precepts I aspire to observe.
Anyway, the full moon Uposatha provides bhikkhus the opportunity to recite the pātimokkha.
11:30 AM — I met a cadre of young Burmese laypeople. They had never seen dreadlocks so there was a line of folks waiting to take a selfie with me, including the young lady in red in the photo below. She offered to wash my dishes. I accepted. I really appreciated that kind gesture. The last two days were hard.
2:00 PM — After ~6 hours of meditation today, it is clear to me how opposed desire and serenity are. The more I wanted to follow Sayadawgi’s simple exhortation, the more I was unable to do it.
An Unskillful Yogi
I was super unsuccessful in my attempts to concentrate on the breath at the touching point. Being a novice meditator (aka unskillful yogi) is really challenging. The strong desire to succeed caused me to get frustrated whenever I was unable to do that itty-bitty, seemingly trivial thing. I hate being unskillful.
Anger and frustration are the opposite of serenity and I was cultivating massive amounts of those unwholesome mental states. Qi, or whatever that phenomenon I seem to be acutely mindful of is, steamed in through my nostrils and up the back of my neck. Yesterday’s twilight dukkha returned!
It overwhelmed me and I had to pause training. Fortunately, just as I opened my eyes and looked up, I saw my new friend (or dhamma brother), Hla Myo Naing (or Myo for short). I met Myo on the hike up the mountain on my way to the afternoon sitting. He was very kind to me at that time and I immediately recalled that.
Upon regarding him, I was mindful enough to recollect instructions on cultivating sublime abiding and began radiating mettā to him. That saved my butt. My mind became inexplicably calm. The obnoxious rice steam (that I suppose is qi permeating through my skull) dissipated. Within moments, I became unconscious of it. The panic and ire that accompany failing abjectly faded away.
Sublime Abiding
Mettā is the Pali term for goodwill. Radiating mettā is the Buddhist practice of wishing goodwill towards others and oneself. The act is itself sublime abiding once you develop mastery.
Technically, Christians radiate mettā too. Thanks to the annunciation to the shepherds in Luke 2:14, Christians singing Christmas songs like Gloria in Excelsis Deo spew mettā indiscriminately all over churches and shopping malls in the Western World.
Although I was oblivious of it at the time, I radiated mettā when singing in the choir during my church attending days at Christmas time. Sadly, I never did it with sufficient intention to discover how powerful the practice is until today.
Radiating mettā is magical, and it is the pillar of the brahmavihāras (the Pali words for the “dwelling place of the brahmās” or simply “sublime abidings”). According to Bhikkhu Thānissaro, a famous and very prolific American Theravadin monastic:
Brahmās are beings who live in the higher heavens, dwelling in an attitude of unlimited goodwill, unlimited compassion, unlimited empathetic joy, and unlimited equanimity.
Radiating mettā seems to transport me to that realm and, with respect to panic, I feel unassailable.
Advanced meditators (jhāna-proficient yogis) extend goodwill to all beings with the thought [1]:
May all beings be happy and secure.
For unskilled yogis, the official way to radiate mettā to a respected person is to extend goodwill to them with the following four thoughts [2]:
May this good person be free from danger.
May this good person be free from mental pain.
May this good person be free from physical pain.
May this good person be well and happy.
Ideally, the object of your meditation should be of the same sex. So I should only radiate mettā to men. I guess that helps us from cultivating unwholesome desires at such a pious occasion. That said, I’ve always wanted to ask my teacher whether I would cultivate unwholesome desires if I was gay and radiated mettā to another man. ANYWAYZ… Back to the meditation hall:
Maybe Myo’s striking up a friendly conversation on the way to the meditation hall is also a form of radiating mettā. [Maybe the lady in red was sharing mettā too.] I don’t know. I am just scratching the surface of Buddhist philosophy, but the desire to connect and share was well received by me although we were both supposed to be observing noble silence.
Noble Silence
It is absolutely certain that we weren’t supposed to communicate at all. Everyone’s aspiration here is to keep completely silent. Even gesturing is uncool.
I suppose it is considered noble because we are all helping each other down the path of knowing the first noble truth, which is Buddhist parlance for direct and intimate knowledge of dukkha. [2]
2:30 PM — Maybe Sayadawgi’s method works for most novice meditators. Can it work for bullheaded, stupid passionate people like me? I am beginning to have doubt (perhaps the worst of the defilements). My faith has always been weak.
The last two days of earnest training could be expressed in a word: dukkha.
Dukkha
Suffering is a crude, but very imprecise translation of dukkha. Dukkha actually means not knowing, understanding or penetrating the truth of the five aggregates (or khandhas in Pali). From the Buddha’s perspective, those without direct and intimate knowledge of the khandas are suffering. They are suffering from not knowing the truth and doomed to remain in “perpetual wandering” (a cycle of death and rebirth known as saṃsāra in Pali).
Those that know, understand and have penetrated the truth of the khandas are said to know the first noble truth. For most people (according to the Buddha in the Samādi Sutta) the only way to know the first noble truth intimately is through training (aka cultivating concentration) to a very high level.
3:00 PM — What seems to be bearing more fruit is sitting down and just getting friendly with the concept of the breath. Sounds dumb to write that. Obviously, that’s what I was supposed to be doing from the start if you read the ānāpānasati section of Sayadawgi’s Knowing and Seeing.
After the simple (i.e. characteristic-free) in-breaths and out-breaths have both been identified for some extended and noticeably comfortable period of time, the touching point suggested by Sayadawgi unveils itself magically.
That didn’t mean that every in-breath and out-breath at that point was noticeable, but it empirically proved desire and calm are opposed to each other.
Unparalleled Tuition
I feel blessed. The sayadaws here in Pyin Oo Lwin are so good at (and kind when) articulating I am doing wrong.
During my last interview with Sayadawgi I got a little peeved that he was repeating instructions. It was almost like the first words out of his mouth were “don’t follow the breath back into the head”.
I’d never considered it possible that I was doing such a stupid thing, but it turns out that even today I was doing it unwittingly. Yup… I am mad unskillful. Worse yet, I am a terrible person for experiencing ire when the cutest samatha tutor in all of Burma pointed out specifically what I was doing wrong.
This single mistake was probably the cause of all the pain I experienced last March in Korea.
I feel so much shame.
Anyway, one thing is certain to me right now: If you want to learn to concentrate, go straight to Myanmar and look for the best teacher here. Without doing a scientific study, I can’t say that the Pa Auk Sayadaw is the best teacher in the country, but he’s the best teacher I’ve ever met. [3]
In any case, you can’t go wrong. Burma is a Theravadin’s dream.
First-Class Citizens of Burma
In Myanmar, a monk is a first-class citizen. All other citizens in this amazing Union, take extremely good care of monastics. They are given medicine, food, clothing, and shelter.
If you want to know the truth as expounded by the Buddha, I can’t imagine a better destination. You can get to know the truth of dukkha and the other noble truths for free.
Even people from far away countries, like Jamaica, can catch a flight, ordain, get a meditation visa, and stay as long as they can handle it. Meditating for eight hours a day is not easy, but laypeople, monastics, and even the government in the Union of Myanmar will stand by you.
Even if you don’t ordain, you are still welcome to come and train. It is the best scholarship opportunity I have ever known.
3:30 PM — Interview time.
Questions for the Pa Auk Sayadaw
Can’t go today: I am overwhelmed with shame.
Questions for U Kumarābhivamsa Sayadaw
- Why does radiating mettā to you or a layperson calm my mind? How is that even possible?
- What is the procedure for inviting the Sayadaw to another country to teach meditation? Can a layperson organize this?
Recollection/Interpretation of the Response
Essentially, U Kumarābhivamsa Sayadaw explained that for the same reasons harboring ill-will towards another being cause you pain and discomfort, radiating mettā to another causes peace and calm.
The response made sense. The scientist in me wanted a less superficial response, but I was unable to even ask the second question due to the number of interviewees.
Yup… The dhamma is precious. The fundamentals of economics apply knowledge at a good monastery as well.
I am hungry for more discourse, but I should be courteous to others here and practice patience.
My extremely short interview opportunity concluded with U Kumarābhivamsa Sayadaw exhorting me to recall the four stages of meditation in the Buddha’s meditation instructions…
The Four Stages of Meditation
I understand the four stages of (ānāpāna) meditation according to be:
- Breathing in/out long, he understands: ‘I breathe in/out long’.
- Breathing in/out short, he understands: ‘I breathe in/out short’.
- Experiencing the whole breath, I shall breathe in/out; thus he trains.
- Tranquilizing the whole breath, I shall breathe in/out; thus he trains.
NOTE: Please consult your teacher and refer to your meditation manual.
5:00 PM — Those bouts of explosive diarrhea have finally dried up. Now all that remains is good old-fashioned runny diarrhea.
I’m thrilled!
8:00 PM — Bedtime. I did 300 kicks again today. That helped me to sleep soundly last night. Kicking and dragon breathing also get the qi out of my head.
[1] Read about jhana here.
[2] I supposed incorrectly. After publishing this I found out that noble silence is the second jhana after reading the Kolita Sutta (SN 2:21). If you consider the mental factors that are supposedly present in the second jhana, this makes complete sense.
[3] No doubt the industrial engineer in me wants the abridged version of these thoughts for efficiency’s sake. However, my experience has been that the unabridged version above packs more intention as it requires more effort to accomplish. So power through it!
[4] Sayadawgi is terse. However, I am slowly becoming convinced that he knows how to teach ānāpānasati like no other. He’s got mad skills and I appreciate über efficient tuition. I have trained under other meditation teachers that I personally hold in high regard, but I don’t recall any identifying my issues quite as adeptly.
Professor Zumbi is a certified Capoeira teacher. He received his teaching qualification in the presence of great Capoeira masters like Mestre Suassuna and Mestre Acordeon. Zumbi organizes Capoeira Retreats that conclude with an introduction to Ānāpānasati at a highly acclaimed meditation center.
Professor Zumbi is not a meditation teacher and this is not a meditation guide. Zumbi’s meditation articles are written to share thoughts and personal experiences. Please find a qualified teacher if you want to undertake Ānāpānasati. Follow your teacher and forget everything you’ve read here.
