February 2017/2560

New Year greetings from NE Thailand.

After having spent a busy few weeks in Bangkok from December 5th to 20th, I returned to the quiet Nibbana Cave at Poo Jom Gom monastery. I had only been away for about two weeks, but when I returned the season had abruptly changed from late monsoon to the cold, dry season. The water in the Mekong River had dropped drastically, the bamboo on the upper hills had turned from glistening green to parched brown and many trees were shedding their dried leaves to the winter winds. The cool, northerly breezes blowing in from the mountains of Laos were, of course, refreshingly welcome.

Mekong River at a low level, looking towards Laos.

Originally my Bangkok schedule was not too busy, but I had to add on some extra engagements, including five visits to the dentist and several more talks in Thai. Fortunately, the Thai retreat went very smoothly, even though at the last moment I had to arrange for two Thai monks to assist me with chanting and leading the walking meditation. The 200 participants were very disciplined and diligent, and very generous in their support. Sixteen monks were also in attendance, fifteen of them newly ordained as a merit-making offering to the late King of Thailand.

One of my engagements was a talk at a Dhamma-teaching event where I was one of five speakers. The monk preceding me was a very well-known teaching monk in Thailand, so the venue was packed with around 1,000 laity and monastics. I arrived early and had occasion for a short chat with him, and then listened to his talk. He is obviously a very gifted speaker, presenting a range of Buddhist teachings relevant to the modern Thai lifestyle. However, it did occur to me that most interested Thai Buddhists must already know much of what he was saying – to 'take care' of your mind, not be attached but to 'let go', etc. I thus reflected that even if people know the basic principles, why is it so hard to actually keep them? 

The conclusion I came to is that it is because we don't have enough of the right mental tools which are necessary to put the theory into direct practice. Most particularly, many people are lacking in sufficient collectedness (or concentration) and clear awareness (or mindfulness), the two main qualities to be developed in Buddhist meditation.

Looking at it from the other end, when the mind is sufficiently collected, it is protected from unskillful states and so we can easily let go of difficulties. This occurs due to three main factors of collectedness. Firstly, collectedness triggers a range of associated wholesome states such as peace or bliss, energy, clarity, and tranquility, which support other equally skilful mental qualities. Secondly, the collected mind remains more settled in a peaceful state and is not easily distracted by disturbances. 

Collectedness means that our usual self-preserving reactiveness to sensory stimulations is calmed, so that they no longer have such a strong effect. Thirdly, collectedness results from a focused attention. With focused attention we are able to attend to what we wish; that is, we can attend to skillful thoughts and not attend to unskillful thoughts.

Clear awareness allows us to better know what sensations are in the body, what the feeling tones are and what states of mind arise, whether they are beneficial or not, what their cause is and what brings their cessation. The three types of experience which are most likely to lead us to get lost in either attraction, aversion or delusions, are physical sensations, feelings of pleasure and pain and states of mind, whether emotional or cognitive. This is why development of clear awareness regarding these three areas of our experience is so valuable. We not only learn about these experiences first hand, but also come to understand what causes them and what brings their cessation. Thus we are in a much better position to take care of our minds.

Most of us normally only become aware when we are on the receiving end of emotions and moods. We think that moods arise from some particular sensory impression, little realizing that in fact they are mostly affected by the mood we are already in, and by our general temperament. So if we are already in a state of stress, one more adverse impression may send us over the edge, or if we are especially high-strung, we may respond unusually strongly to some arbitrary impression. Then we try to manage our moods, often very clumsily with our time-worn collection of coping strategies, and usually with only limited effect because we don't comprehend all the casual factors involved.

Imagine, however, what it would be like if we trained the mind to be much better prepared for dealing with troubling emotions before they arose, rather than merely cleaning up the mess afterwards? When the mind is 'empowered' with collectedness and clear awareness, it is naturally well-protected and more readily lets go of disturbing influences.

Clearly, then, the mind has a significant effect upon general health, so why isn't much emphasis given to mental exercise and training? Most people are familiar with the benefits of physical training for increased health, but relatively few people appreciate the value of mental training for increased physical and mental health. And even Buddhists who know that meditation is important rarely follow it up with any consistency.

The key to mental health, as for physical health, is daily practice. Doing physical exercises a few times a week is beneficial, but only regular daily exercise will significantly change one's overall health. Likewise, thinking the occasional good, positive thought will be of some benefit, especially when we begin to appreciate that benefit. However, to enact noticeable changes in our general mode of thinking, only some sustained development of our mental training will have lasting effect. Some research has shown that anything less than eight minutes of sustained mental practice will have no effect at all. The main point is that regular sustained meditation practice assists in changing the connections between brain neurons which provide the fundamental pathways of mental processes. Occasional mental exercises may temporarily alter the connections, but only sustained practice will change them durably.

I have been mentioning to people about a BBC documentary I saw on a flight where the presenter, Michael Mosley, practiced mindfulness of breathing for ten minutes a day for seven weeks. This enabled him to make a radical change from being primarily a negative thinker to a more optimistic general attitude. More details can be found at: https://jakekuyser.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/mindfulness-on-tv/

On February 20th I will be giving a talk at the Buddhadasa Archive in Bangkok (BIA) on the topic of what modern brain research has learned about the effects of Buddhist mind-training. So I will probably have more to write about in the next blog installment.

Ajahn Chah Commemoration Ceremony

Following several very quiet weeks in the Nibbana Cave, I travelled to Wat Nanachat to attend the ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of Ajahn Chah's passing. In practice this also means having occasion to meet many visiting senior monks. This year several of the more junior abbots attended as well, so I had the opportunity to catch up with Ajahn Jayanto from Temple Monastery in New Hampshire, USA, Ajahn Kalyano from the new Norwegian monastery and Ajahn Jutindharo, abbot of Hartridge Monastery in Devon, England, where I hope to spend the Rains Retreat this year.

I am not normally keen on attending large public events, but I do recognise their benefits on suitable occasions. When they are well organised, the devotional energies of many people can unite to create an exceptionally moving atmosphere. Each year when we meet in the huge hall at Wat Pah Pong and the voices of one thousand monks and novices recite the homage to the Buddha, I feel a powerful surge of religious emotion. Since I was near the front of the circumambulation procession this year, I couldn't see the crowds following behind until we mounted the memorial stupa and I could witness a sea of some 10,000 white-clothed lay-followers eagerly expressing their religious devotion. Fortunately, the circumambulation of the memorial stupa is only the culmination of five days of Dhamma practice for 2,000 of the people who resided in tents at Wat Pah Pong and followed a programme of walking and sitting meditation, together with Dhamma teachings. Thus the atmosphere was very contemplative and reverential, as opposed to merely festive.