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At Home in Contentment - Ayatana and the Truth · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

0:01
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Curious Mind
0:04
podcast. My name is Gabriel Ellis, and in
0:07
the last episodes I dealt with the topic of ayatana, or the
0:11
home base of consciousness or the home base of the ego as we
0:15
can translate it. And today I would like to return
0:19
to the Buddhist perspective on that.
0:22
So what I've described in the previous episode was to show
0:27
that also other spiritual and mystical traditions have the
0:32
experiential understanding that spiritual meditation practices
0:37
or devotional practices can lead to a change of the home base of
0:43
the self, the ego, the consciousness.
0:45
Meaning that consciousness makes a, a step up, so to speak, and
0:51
goes to a more comfortable, more lofty, airy, luminous space
0:56
where it is then seated. And it doesn't, it is not yet
1:01
not attracted anymore to the central realm.
1:04
So most other experiential, spiritual, mystical traditions
1:08
have this understanding. And why do I go back to the
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Buddhist perspective today is because Buddhism has the most
1:17
sober perspective on the ayatanas, on those home bases of
1:21
the ego. And why do they have the sober
1:23
perspective is because they're actually not very interested in
1:28
them. For them to switch ayatanas to,
1:31
to elevate the home base of the ego is just an intermediary step
1:36
on in the journey to awakening, salvation, Nirvana.
1:42
And so for them, it's just a technicality, so to speak.
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It is a very worthwhile one and a very attractive one and a
1:49
necessary one. But nonetheless, because they
1:52
don't perceive it as an end goal, they don't have this maybe
1:57
poetic, maybe devotional attachment to these levels, the
2:01
stages of the mind as other religious and mystical
2:05
traditions do. And so in terms of explaining
2:09
it, This is why it's better to go to the Buddhist perspective,
2:14
because they have the most sober, the most, so to speak,
2:18
objective perspective on those stages of consciousness and are
2:22
not too attached to them in any way.
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So before I come to describe those higher ayatanas, those
2:30
higher stages of consciousness, mind and spirit, I also want to
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mention that there are lower ones.
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So as I described in the 1st and the second episode on the idea
2:40
atanas, the main goal is to lift oneself up far away from the
2:45
attachment to the central realm. But a non attachment to the
2:49
central realm is also available to lower realms.
2:55
What I mean with that is that there are people who experience
2:58
lower realms of consciousness that are also not basically in
3:03
the everyday exchange with the outside world, with
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circumstances, but they are stuck.
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They are trapped in uncomfortable ayatanas of grief
3:16
and despair. So let's say a full blown
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depression is a good example of that.
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Why? Because people who are in severe
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depression, they are not in the interaction with the central
3:32
realm actually. So they don't even experience
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that from which Buddhist sources and other spiritual traditions
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warn us, namely to be stuck in the greed and the difficulties
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of the central realm. Depressed people wake up, they
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are in a bad mood. I'm exaggerating, but no matter
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what happens during the day, they stay in a bad mood of
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desperation and hopelessness and so on, and they go to sleep with
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it. So they also have the home base,
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not in the central realm, but in a realm that is independent from
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the central experiences, that is made-up by convictions, that is
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made-up by basically understandings that they have
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from of themselves, wrong understanding of themselves, of
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other people of the world, that it's a bad place to live in and
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so on. And so This is why their
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organisms, their unconscious, is not particularly interested in
4:32
an exchange with the outside world, with the sensual realm,
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basically because they expect that nothing good will come from
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that. OK, so having this out of the
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way, there are lower realms of desperation and grief and
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sadness. There are there's the central
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realm, the central realm that most people are located in.
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And then there are the higher realms that spiritual or
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mystical traditions aspire to lead us to so that we are free
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from the difficulties of those lower realms.
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And Buddhism specifically wants to completely transcend all
5:11
kinds of stages of the mind, of the spirit, of consciousness, of
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the ego, and wants to lead the practitioners towards complete
5:22
awakening or salvation from any kind of dependence of a stage of
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consciousness. Now, the basis for the Buddhist
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transcendence of the lower realms, the central realms, the
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higher realms, is not basically a technique.
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So the understanding that Buddhism starts off from a
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meditation technique and then one just has to adhere to this
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meditation technique and then one can reliably go to these
5:54
higher realms, is a gross misunderstanding of what the
5:59
Buddhist teaching is about. The Buddhist teaching is
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basically rooted, and all progress in Buddhism is rooted
6:07
in the truth, the truth more precisely of the mind, the the
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truth of the spirit, the truth of consciousness.
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This is the teaching that the Buddha has laid out, and this is
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what his followers, his particularly monastic, the monks
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and the nuns who have followed the Buddha, what they aspire to
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apply to that practice the truth that the Buddha has laid out.
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There's a quote that sometimes appears in the oldest Buddhist
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texts in the polytexts, and the quote of those enlightened
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followers of the Buddha goes like this.
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I am a son of the Buddha, born from his breast, born from his
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mouth, grown from the Dhamma, created by the Dhamma, an heir
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to the Dhamma. And what is the Dhamma?
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Dhamma or Sanskrit? Dharma is an expression of
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either truth or an old meaning of Dharma is also the law, the
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law of the mind. Again, I mean Dharma is a
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general term, but applied to Buddhism, applied to the
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Buddhist, applied to the Buddhist teaching.
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It means how the understanding of how the functioning of the
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mind is according to specific laws that rule the mind and also
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rule the ascent, the progress of the mind.
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So in that sense, Dharma Dharma is equivalent to the Greek term
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Logos. Logos, which also means
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something like truth, but it represents the real reality, so
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to speak. Again, we have to keep in mind
7:55
in contrast to the central realm.
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So in the central realm, we can, we can infer laws, we can make
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hypotheses about those laws, but the truth of these laws, they're
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actually on a different realm. And in Plato's of two world,
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understanding there is the true realm of where the logos, where
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the forms are. And then we have only
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reflections of those in our daily life in our central realm.
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So the law as such is pure. What does it mean in practice if
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someone is a Buddhist practitioner?
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And again, I won't focus on Buddhist practice, but you can
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take any other spiritual, mystical practice in that
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respect. If someone is a Buddhist
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practitioner, they hear the words of the Buddha.
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They believe that this is the truth.
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But to believe that something is the truth doesn't make it the
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truth. So what they need to do is
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they're not reinventing the wheel.
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They're not setting aside everything that the Buddha
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taught and try to figure it out themselves.
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You know, they start with the teachings of the Buddha, but
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then they work hard to see the actual reality of that in their
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own minds, in their own experiences.
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And this is what we can say. Meditation practice is to give
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you a few example of this. There is one concept, old
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Buddhism, Poly Buddhism has many, many concepts and one of
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these concepts is the seven links or the seven limbs of
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awakening. In Poly it's bodhanga, Unga is
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the limb, Bodhi is awakening. So these are the limbs, are the
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elements of awakening. What is the first of these
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elements? What is the first of those
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limbs? It's what we have learned to
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translate as mindfulness. The original world word is sati,
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and it actually means memory remembering.
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What do we remember as a first step of the practice?
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We remember the words of the Buddha.
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So again, we don't start with a technique, we start with
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adhering to, and I'm trying to understand the words, the truth
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of the Buddha. The second step, the second limb
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in those seven limbs of awakening is the investigation
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of truth, Dhamma Vichaya, the investigation of truth, the
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investigation of the teaching. So again, the first step is to
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remember what the Buddha taught. The second step is to
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investigate what it means. And I'm investigating this in my
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mind, which means that I'm trying to grasp, to get an
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insight into the truth, the real truth of that, the lived truth,
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the experiential truth, not the conceptual truth.
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And this is what I'm doing in the meditation.
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There's a third limb out of this investigation of the truth,
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starting to see that there is an actual truth to it.
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That's not just concept, but it's not just something that is
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made-up, but that's something that is applying to my own life,
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to my own mind. The third limb is willpower or
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perseverance. Here we are.
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It's a strength, it's a curiosity, it's energy that
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comes from that, the energy to continue on the path.
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So this is an example for how at the beginning of the Buddhist
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practice, we don't have techniques to focus on the
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breath, for example, or anything like that.
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We have the teaching of the Buddha as the beginning.
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To give you another example, when we reach meditation stages
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in Buddhism, it's called Jana. So Jana's are kind of the
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progressively higher stages of meditation if we are successful.
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Now the there's kind of a very stereotypical description of
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practitioners in the Buddhist texts to get into Jana, and it
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starts with them finding an isolated place, an isolated Hut
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or the root of a tree. And then crossed with crossed
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legs, they sit down and they practice mindfulness or memories
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of remembering the teachings of the Buddha.
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And then the 1st 2 elements of the first Jana is vitaka and
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Vitara. Vitaka again are words, the
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words of the Buddha. And Vitara is pounding, is
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grinding, is repeating, hitting again and again the meaning of
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those teachings in my mind, realizing the truth of them in
13:05
my mind. So again, the beginning of the
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meditative journey or the progress in the meditative
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journey is to grasp, to understand, to get insights into
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the truth of what the Buddha taught in my own reality, in my
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own mind. Further applications are in what
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is called Vipassana meditation. Vipassana meditation.
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Now it goes a little bit more in the direction of techniques.
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You can go to the Pasana retreats and then you'll learn
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how to apply this. What are the major kind of
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hallmarks? What are the major constituents
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of the Pasana, The Pasana practice?
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It's again 2 core principles that the Buddha laid out.
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One is anicha. This is what it's called in
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Pali. Anicha means that nothing stays
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the same, but things become other than what they are.
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Or in other words, it's impermanence.
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So the principle of impermanence is fundamental for Vipassana and
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impermanence is a core principle of what the Buddha taught.
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Things just don't stay the same, neither meta and most of all,
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not in our mind. Things constantly change in our
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mind. And so to observe that, to
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understand that, to get the deep insight into that is the role is
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the goal of Vipassana meditation practice.
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So again, here it starts with the principle of truth.
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Investigating this truth, realizing this, this truth in my
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mind is what constitutes the progress in meditation.
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Second core principle that Vipassana is built on is called
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anatta, which means it's difficult to translate this
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term, but it basically means that there is no substance, that
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there is no core to things, that things are what they are, and
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what they are is constantly changing.
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But there is no substance, for example, in me and myself that
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would remain the same and just superficialities would change.
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Now everything in the is in a constant flux.
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And so to contemplate again my inner truth, to contemplate this
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principle of the lack of substance, of inherit inherent
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substance is a fundamental aspect of Vipassana practice.
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So actually, when you go to a Vipassana retreat or when you do
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guided meditation on vipassana, you're not following a
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technique. You are following techniques
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derived from the fundamental truths that the Buddha laid out.
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And so again, we start with the truth, and the truth is logos in
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Greek terms, meaning that from that perspective, meditation
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practice is applied philosophy, philosophy as the set of
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constructs that try to describe the reality of the world.
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The specialty in meditation though is or Buddhist meditation
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is that it's about the truth of the mind.
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How does the mind work? How does suffering work?
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Unhappiness or happiness, attachment and the lack of
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attachment, how does that work? The inner workings of that is
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the Dharma is what the Buddha laid out and to understand this
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for myself to make it a lived reality.
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This is what meditation practice is and this is what elevates the
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states of the mind to higher levels because elevating the
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mind is the result of applied truth to my own mind.
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Now I describe that the term ayatana is the term for the
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levels of the mind for where the ego, the consciousness, the
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mind, the spirit is having as home base.
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And so there are different ayatanas mentioned in the
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Buddhist texts, not just like in other traditions, kind of the
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divine realm or the realm of light.
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Though there are different ayatanas mentioned in the text,
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there is a rare mention of what I said before the Jonas, the
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meditation stages as ayatana. So when I do practice and for a
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short while, I get what is characteristic for those lower
17:52
Jonas, ecstatic feelings, feelings of firework, light
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euphoria. So this, these are
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characteristics of lower stages of China.
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Usually when we achieve those stages, it's basically a
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vacation. We find them fascinating, but we
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don't build our home yet in them.
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It's only when we really apply the teachings to see the central
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realms, to see them for what they are, which is that they are
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dangerous, that they are lowering us, that they are
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inviting us to stay in places of suffering.
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And when we learn what the escape from these realms, from
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the central realms is, only then those short vacations in China
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become more actually retreats, home stages, home places, home
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bases of the mind, because then we understand that we have
18:54
nothing significant to get from the central realm.
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We're not interested in the central realm anymore.
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We're interested with something that is according to higher
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truths. And so we let go from the
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attachment of not of central objects, but of the sensual
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realm in general. And so the spirit, the mind, the
19:13
consciousness is orienting itself automatically to
19:17
something else, to something that is more elevated.
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And so it turns its back away from the central realm and turns
19:24
towards the higher realm. And those higher realms can be
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Jonas. More frequently mentioned is the
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Ayatana of infinite space. This is when kind of the
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individual objects become uninteresting and the vessel in
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which those individual objects are embedded, which is space as
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such, becomes the more interesting realm to Orient
19:50
myself towards. So infinite space, where is
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infinite space embedded? If I transcend that, it's
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embedded in consciousness. So infinite consciousness is the
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next higher ayatana that people can get accustomed to, to build
20:06
that base on, depending on the practice.
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Beyond even that, as they, as the teachings tell us, is the
20:15
realm, the ayatana of infinite nothingness.
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And beyond that, there is even a more lofty ayatana of neither
20:24
perception nor non perception, or neither consciousness nor non
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consciousness. OK, so that of course is very
20:32
abstract. I doubt that many practitioners
20:35
have the privilege to achieve those stages either in vacation
20:40
style or to actually build their home base in those stages.
20:44
But nonetheless, we see a layout very logical progression in the
20:49
Buddhist texts of ayatanas as a result of insight into the truth
20:56
of the mind or the deficiency deficiencies of the mind.
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Now, what I try to do in my channel is to combine different
21:04
perspectives and to bring them together under a psychological
21:09
umbrella. And this is what I want to do
21:11
now as well. It is fine and nice to be
21:15
fascinated by those different realms of consciousness.
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And I can imagine that they're so fantastical.
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You either are, you know, completely fascinated by this
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and, and think that I want to experience that too, or you
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think it's so fantastical that it's completely unrealistic
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nonetheless, because it's not a reality yet when we hear it.
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Let's take someone who is fascinated by that.
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They read books, they see YouTube videos, they hear maybe
21:46
monastics to talk about those realms.
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And it's like science fiction, It's like fantasy.
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They want, they want that they want to get them.
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And So what they do in their mind is to form an image, an
22:00
ideal. And as I've described in many
22:05
episodes before, when we set up ideals for ourselves, it is
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good. It can bring us forward.
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It can make us work, practice, listen, communicate, and so on.
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But the disadvantage, the possible problem when we set
22:23
ourselves ideals, is that we create a conflict with the
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unconscious. Because on the one hand, we want
22:30
to go somewhere. On the other hand, this place
22:34
that we want to go to is not a reality yet.
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And so I'm in love. I'm infatuated with a fantasy
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because I don't know what the reality of those fancy realms
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are. I'm just in love with how it
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sounds and what I imagine how it could be to get there.
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And so I'm pushing myself towards this practice.
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I'm pushing myself to get there. Sometimes I imagine that I'm
22:56
just very close or my last meditation session, I, I think I
23:01
got a glimpse of that. So these are all aspects of
23:06
infatuations of ideals. Now, how does it work?
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Because usually when we set ourselves ideals to become rich,
23:17
to be good looking, to, you know, you know, make good
23:19
presentations, to be successful, efficient and so on, it leads,
23:24
like I said, to the conflict with the unconscious.
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And the unconscious is not convinced by what we want to
23:30
achieve and it brings us back to our normal needs.
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And so we are conflicted. On the one hand, we want to
23:38
exercise and we want to practice, we want to learn.
23:41
On the other hand, we are tired, we are exhausted, we are
23:44
pessimistic. And these are the impulses from
23:47
the unconscious. So how is it supposed to work
23:50
when we aspire those, when we develop in those Buddhist
23:55
teachings, doesn't it create these problems that we fall in
24:00
love with ideals and that we lie to ourselves, that we suppress
24:06
normal reality? And we do basically what the
24:10
term is spiritual bypassing. We have real life issues with
24:15
ourselves, with self esteem, with other people, with our
24:20
family, with work and so on. And then what we try to do out
24:24
of anxiety, out of the lack of responsibility for our lives, we
24:29
try to find an easy way out to the heavens, to those divine
24:33
realms. Actually, I don't have to do
24:36
anything. I don't have to argue with
24:37
anyone. I don't have to struggle with
24:39
work. I don't have to challenge
24:41
authorities. I just have to go to the forest
24:45
and sit somewhere in a cave, in a monastery.
24:48
Escapism. This is what the danger is,
24:50
spiritual bypassing. I try to forget about my
24:55
relationship issues by going to some monastery and sitting cross
24:59
legged and meditate all the time.
25:01
This is the danger, and this is indeed what happens to many
25:04
people. But how is it supposed to work?
25:10
What is supposed to happen successfully when we meditate is
25:15
that through the investigation of the Dharma, through
25:19
investigation of the truth of the mind, first of all, I get
25:25
insight into the problems that I have, maybe not necessarily in a
25:30
kind of a therapeutic way, but I understand what attracts me.
25:35
I understand why I have issues with people because I'm
25:38
interested in truth. Secondly, the whole idea of the
25:45
Buddhist Dharma of the Buddha, describing what the truth of the
25:50
matter is, that at the end the promise is to find full
25:56
satisfaction, not in a hedonistic way, but the full
26:00
satisfaction of escaping from suffering.
26:03
Or to put it in more psychological terms, the
26:06
satisfaction of the actual needs that I have, not the apparent
26:12
ones. The apparent 1 can be at one
26:15
power. I want this car.
26:19
I want the satisfaction of a great conversation.
26:21
This is how it appears to us. But when we look deeper, these
26:24
are all representatives of more fundamental needs or the
26:28
fundamental need of peace, of truth, satisfaction of real
26:36
love, real openness. These are very fundamental and
26:41
abstract needs behind the everyday needs that we actually
26:45
experience. So the whole idea of the
26:48
Buddhist progress and what allows us to build our home in
26:53
another realm, on a higher realm, is not that we forget our
26:58
daily needs and bypass them, but that we actually satisfy them.
27:05
We ingest, we develop, we get insight into what we actually
27:10
want, not what society told us or we thought what we wanted,
27:15
but we investigate reality, the reality that was laid out by the
27:19
Buddha, that is for the Buddhists.
27:21
And then we get inside in those. And then there comes the deep
27:24
satisfaction of, oh, this is what it is.
27:27
This is what I truly wanted. I wanted to be satisfied with
27:32
myself, within myself, not to struggle.
27:36
The lightness of the mind. These are experiences of the
27:39
first developments of the meditation practice.
27:44
This is what we actually experience when the mind
27:47
elevates and then we understand, oh, this is what it's about.
27:52
And then the teaching tells us, Buddhist masters tells us this
27:56
is just the beginning. And so we are interested, we are
28:00
hooked. And psychologically, the
28:03
unconscious that usually rebels when we set ourselves
28:07
unrealistic or high ideals because it understands that it's
28:12
not there and it protests because it wants us to keep in
28:16
mind the actual needs that we have.
28:19
This unconscious ideally on a Buddhist progress of the mind,
28:23
it get what it wants. It even gets what it wants in a
28:28
much better way than I thought I could do through daily means.
28:33
And so This is why it subjects itself and submits itself to the
28:40
to the process, to the process of meditation, not because it is
28:44
pushed down and suppressed forcefully, aggressively by
28:50
willpower. Maybe this is necessarily in the
28:52
beginning. No, because it truly understands
28:56
he wants the right thing. She wants the right thing.
29:00
Which means the manager and us, the ones that guide our
29:04
meditation, the ones that investigate truth.
29:08
I unconscious am in good hands. Let them do their thing, because
29:14
so far I got what I wanted, true satisfaction.
29:19
And so the unconscious stays relatively quiet or is on board
29:24
and supports us with the necessary energy to go through
29:28
the practice. Now this is ideal.
29:31
How is it in reality? The ups and downs in the process
29:35
of meditation, even though we achieve higher stages, we lose
29:39
it. Sometimes we get complacent.
29:43
We tell ourselves that we achieved something but actually
29:46
it's not, it's not real. So sometimes we fall back in the
29:52
practice and then yes, of course the unconscious comes back and
29:55
complaints and wants us to do something and puts us in
29:59
conflict. But again, ideally when we
30:03
practice correctly, the unconscious is appeased, and
30:07
this is a confirmation for the practitioner that they're not
30:11
doing spiritual bypassing, but they're actually progressing
30:14
towards the truth. The truth that you know a little
30:18
bit in Christian terms not only sets us free, but also our
30:22
unconscious. OK, to give you just two more
30:27
clues, a little bit more in the direction of practice and
30:30
technique. As I repeated again and again,
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it starts with the truth we pass on our meditation is such an
30:38
application of the Buddhist truth in practice.
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There are two more principles that I want to mention for
30:43
practice. 1 is the imperturbable to not react.
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The principle of non reaction and meditation is quite an
30:54
important one. It means that whatever pops up
30:56
in the mind, you don't react to it.
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Because we don't want to fall into the traps of old habits of
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reaction. And by practicing non reaction,
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the imperturbable, the unshakable, the unmovable, by
31:12
practicing that we get detached from the more sensually oriented
31:18
happenings in our mind, from the thoughts that get triggered by
31:22
that, the emotions get that, get triggered by that.
31:25
And so it can, can lead to a very peaceful state of mind when
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we practice non reaction, non attachment and all those
31:34
principles that go in this, in this direction.
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The other principle is kindness, goodness.
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We need that for practical reasons.
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We need that also if we want to develop certain qualities of the
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mind that allow us to go further in our practice.
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In practical terms, we need that because when we practice
31:59
meditation, especially in the beginning, meditation becomes an
32:05
exercise and failure, exercise and frustration because we want
32:10
to focus, let's say, on the breath.
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We want to focus and Vipassana, Vipassana mana on the coming and
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going of experiences in the mind.
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But no matter what, I want to focus on my experiences that the
32:26
mind takes me on a journey, daydreaming to do lists,
32:32
difficulties, frustration again. So this is the normal experience
32:37
of the beginner and meditation. And what do we do when we get
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frustrated, when we don't achieve our goals of wanting so
32:47
nicely to concentrate on an object, to concentrate on the
32:50
breath for example, we get frustrated and when we get
32:53
frustrated we get angry. So what is quite normal for
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practitioners when they start out is that in the reaction to
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the failure to concentrate, they become auto aggressive, they
33:08
judge themselves, they become harsh in the language and the
33:13
attitude towards themselves, emotions of frustration and self
33:19
depreciation might come up. And all of these of course are
33:23
strong disturbances. When I get angry about myself
33:26
that, you know, I failed to concentrate, it will not make my
33:31
next minutes better in concentration.
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The aggression in that is what hinders it.
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And So what I need to develop quite in the beginning already
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is that when I catch myself, I think drifted away in my
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meditation to bring myself back with kindness.
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That when I think of other people and how they wronged me
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and so on, to apply in the meditation, but also in daily
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life, of course, kindness, forgiveness, understanding,
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empathy, compassion, all of those qualities towards myself,
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towards other people. So this is in a sense
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functional. It's necessary as a technical
34:12
skill in order to progress in meditation.
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But in Buddhism it's even more than that.
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Later traditions, by the way, historically, Mahayana, Zen and
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so on, they put much more emphasis on kindness, on loving,
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kindness of the heart as a quality, as a Salvatore quality,
34:31
one that liberates us. But even an old Buddhism, the
34:37
qualities of loving kindness is a goal in itself and can be a
34:43
stepping stone on salvation. When I Make Love, basically
34:49
kindness, the center, the home base of my mind, And I develop
34:53
further and further by making this more subtle, more
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boundless, more endless, more limitless in my mind.
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These are legitimate ways to liberate the mind.
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And if you want the a Poly term for us is chito vimuti.
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Vimuti is the liberation, chita is the mind.
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So this according to the old sources can liberate the mind in
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itself as well. Kindness, loving kindness.
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And so additionally to all those principles of truth, I just want
35:34
to point out two more technique and technically oriented
35:38
principles of practice. 1 is to not react.
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And one is loving kindness towards myself, other people and
35:46
towards my mind. So this concludes my short
35:51
series on Ayatana. I hope you got some more
35:55
understanding in how the mind is built.
35:58
That the mind is built not just around the normal experiences
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that we have in daily life and the short excursions of
36:05
happiness or devastation, but that there are legitimately
36:09
other stages, other levels of consciousness that if we
36:14
practice accordingly, we can make them our home.
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And having made them our home, we they living in this place,
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staying, residing in this place mentally makes our life so much
36:28
more easy, light, convenient, loving and so on.
36:33
And this is for the people who don't aspire to transcend them
36:36
completely like Buddhism suggests we should do as a goal.
36:42
But of course that there are the few Buddhist practitioners who
36:46
are not satisfied with having elevated states of mind or home
36:50
bases of the mind. They want to go all the way.
36:54
But this is something that exceeds my understanding and my
36:59
ability to describe, so I hope you enjoy it.
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Let me know if you have any question or comments and I hope
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to see you next time.