I was experiencing quite a lot during the meditation retreat today. There are times when using the method of practice (in this case huatou, or asking a question) is refreshing, while other periods involve this kind of dryness that's hard to explain. It is as though all the juice has been squeezed out of the lemon, and I don't seem to experience any doubt sensation. In fact, I often experience a sense that the juice is running out of the huatou. But it's in those moments that I need to fully be in that experience itself--to just be and to use that experience to pose a question on where it originates.
I often have difficulty telling whether the pain or the 'dry spell' is more difficult to bear in the meditation practice. I think that even the 'dryness' one experiences has a source in mind, and one only need keep pointing to the source. Sometimes even when I fix upon a solution to pain or dryness such as through a compelling visualization, I later realize that the 'fix' is not genuine. For one, it doesn't last that long (at least not the benefits, anyway), and secondly, it's not what one is looking for anyway. There is a wonderful parable in The Lotus Sutra which describes this temporary 'halfway point' between towns where a person goes to take a rest from their travels. If one stays in that town, one loses sight of the destination to which they are meant to go. In the same way, it's very easy to see how empty are the half-way measures in meditation. One needs to really keep trying to get directly to the source of mind, even if it ends up being a failed attempt. I think the more I attend the intermediate retreats, the more I see that there is no substitute for the real pointing to mind. There is something interesting here, because what one perceives as success in one moment may end up being off the mark the next..and vice versa. That is why it's so important to let go of measuring the results of meditative practice.
I have always been assailed by pain in meditation, especially toward the last few periods of sitting at the end of the day. Recently, I came across a passage in the Surangama Sutra which talks about a bodhisattva, Pilindavatsa, who uses awareness of pain to attain enlightenment. It reads:
I heard the Thus-Come One say many times that nothing in this world can bring true joy. One day, as I was reflecting upon this teaching during my alms round in the city, I failed to notice a poisonous thorn lying in the road. I stepped on it, and pain suffused my entire body. I reflected on the sensation: I was aware of a deep pain, but I was also aware of my awareness of the pain, and I realized that in this pure mind there is neither pain nor awareness of pain. I had this further thought: how can it be that one body has two awarenesses? I held fast to this thought, and before long my body and mind became empty. (p.214)
I love this example for several reasons. First, it talks about this attitude that 'nothing in this world can bring true joy". I think that one of the driving forces of meditation is the ability to experience unconditioned joy, as opposed to the conditioned pleasures of the world. Pilindavatsa is apparently intent in contemplating this point as he was making his alms rounds, when he suddenly steps on a poisonous thorn. Not only does Pilindavatsa feel the pain but he also senses his awareness, which seems to divide him into two parts. Pilindavatsa has this insight that although there is a pain sensation, the sensation and its awareness are empty and interdependent. I am thinking of the example: if I use an anesthetic before stepping on a thorn, will the pain come to awareness? In these cases, my sensory awareness and the pain are temporarily arising in mind, but they lack a permanent substance, and they depend on so many interlocking factors. Through contemplation, Pilindatavatsa lessens his attachment to pain and is helped to know that the pain is not a permanent situation in mind.
In daily life today, can one use pain as a basis for purifying the mind or becoming enlightened? I believe that pain itself is a gateway to deeper contemplation, for which one can even be thankful. For myself, I find that contemplating the 'non-self' of pain is perhaps the best and most direct method for addressing pain. If one contemplates that the sensation of pain does not have an attached sense of self, who then feels pain? When doing this practice, I was able to see that pain is not so 'painful' when there isn't this self acting to try to control the pain or exaggerate pain as having awareness in itself. I think this contemplation of pain as an aggregate of sensation would help lessen self-attachment and help me realize that pain is just a phenomena like any other. Attaching 'me' to the pain only aggravates and centralizes its claim on my awareness, which then leads to further attachment. Asking the question "who is experiencing the pain" also seems to work in situations where one experiences pain in meditation.
Surangama Sutra: A New Translation (2009) . Buddhist Text Translation Society
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