The Fetter of Meditation Methods

T: So I know we’ve spoken about meditation techniques and methods before. We’ve covered that many times. But to cover it again, maybe it will become clearer to others. What do you think about common meditation methods or techniques? I don’t really want to mention other people’s names or techniques, but…

N: So in general, like, contemporary meditation techniques?

T: You google ‘Buddhism’, it’s meditation, the first thing that comes up.

N: Well, that’s the point that we’ve been making in all the previous talks on meditation really. You cannot possibly do those practices without the implicit view behind it. The view that certain performances, observances, mechanical concentration, surrendering to the perception, will somehow, magically, transcend you into the sphere of knowledge. That is implicit. Some people might really have that view really developed, some people might not have it so firmly developed, but if you think that a meditation technique can somehow result in some knowledge through itself, it means you are partaking in that view. And that’s why it’s completely wrong. So really a meditation technique is not so much—well it is obviously about the technique you do—but really what’s even more important is the view you have behind it.

So when we talk about meditation it’s not a method. In other words, regarding things as a method is your view. I remember in the past sometimes I’ve explained this to people and then they’ll be like ‘ah, OK, so your method is the ‘no method’ method’. It’s like, no, that’s not what I’m saying. Because people would think that denial of the method is—well, they don’t think—they take denial or refusal of the methods, they take it as another method. So that’s what I mean, it’s on the level of how you take things that you do. What is the implicit view, what do you believe those things can result in? That’s where the problem is. And that problem is made worse when you blindly just follow a technique. As I said, it already implies that view, and now you’re just doubling down on it. Through really not thinking for yourself, but the opposite, trying to avoid all the thinking and just concentrate and concentrate through watching your nostrils or, I dunno, whatever else contemporary meditation might be making you do.

So it’s the view behind it that you want to see. Am I holding a view that if I sit and concentrate on the nostrils, I will have an experience of a special kind that will somehow result in knowledge, or be the knowledge? And that’s already a wrong view. That’s already basically a fetter of sīlabbataparāmāsa. My virtue, my duty, if I adhere to it, will result in wisdom and liberation. And it’s the first fetter because of which you will not get wisdom and liberation. So usually methods and practices are within that fetter, and that’s why people would often be quite touchy about it as well. If somebody criticises their meditation method. Even if the criticism is wrong, say somebody criticises unjustly some method. Are you emotionally feeling defensive? It means there is no dispassion there. So it’s how you take things, how you regard them. What you assume behind them.

So the point is then not so much what you do. Well, what you do is you keep the precepts, of course. You restrain your senses, your eye, your nose, and so on. You’re devoted to wakefulness, as the Buddha would say, so you try to not lapse, basically try not to lose sight of the context of your situation. That’s already a form of samādhi. So now if you really want to develop the samādhi that pertains to liberation, well, you need the right view, as the Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta says. There is no samādhi without the right view. So it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but what you want to understand is that it’s not about ‘I’ll try this technique or try that technique’, it’s about ‘I must try to, basically, uproot my assumption of technique resulting in knowledge, and instead see a direct way to knowledge whereby I will know how to develop it and pursue it’. So that’s why it’s always like ‘he knows that he knows’ for a sotāpanna, for people who develop understanding. It’s not like ‘oh, I watched my nostrils then I had this super-calming experience, it was just out of this world, and that’s my knowledge’. No, that’s just a novelty experience.

Knowledge is that which you understand. That you know how it comes about—you know the origin, you know the danger, you know the escape, you know the cessation, all these things. It means you fully understand it, there is no chance there, or magical belief, ‘oh maybe, hopefully, it will happen like this or happen like that, when I concentrate on this, hopefully this will arise’. No no, you know exactly. If you attend to these things, this is where the mind is heading, if you don’t attend to these things, this is where the mind is heading. That’s why the clarity of awareness and mindfulness is basically what samādhi is. Composing that same mindfulness that you have. But that will be impossible for you to do for as long as you don’t abandon the view of a method that I just described. If you still, on the level of a view, assume or hold an assumption that if you go through the right motions, or attend to the right things, the knowledge will happen to you? That’s why it won’t happen to you. The only way for knowledge to happen to you is to understand what knowledge is, and then to develop it through your own effort.

T: So let’s say that a person is doing, he comes across mindfulness of breathing. But he doesn’t have that view, that if I do this breathing step-by-step technique (breathing in for ten seconds and breathing out for ten seconds, whatever the technique might be) he doesn’t have the view that it will lead to magical insight. Or just, out of the blue, he’s gonna be liberated.

N: He doesn’t need to have such a coarse view, I wasn’t alluding to that. All you need to do is not know where the place of mindfulness of breathing is, what it does. And you won’t be doing it rightly. That’s why ānāpānasati is taught to those with the right view. To get rid of the remaining āsavas and kilesas. So if you don’t have the right view, you have no ānāpānasati, no basis for ānāpānasati.

T: So, then I consider, well I don’t have the right view, but here’s this ānāpānasati, so let me try and do it.

N: Well, it would be impossible for you to do it without the implicit view of a method behind it. And that’s why you will not be able to do it rightly. When I say it will be impossible for you to do it without implicit view of the method, in other words I’m saying it’s impossible for you to do it without your sīlabbataparāmāsa. So if you want to even try ānāpānasati rightly, get the right view, as in abandon sīlabbataparāmāsa. That’s why that is the first fetter that is abandoned. One of the first three fetters that is abandoned for a sotāpanna. And that’s why there are no methods for him. Because he sees directly what the path to nibbāna is. Not in a mystical manner, not in some magical, transcendental outcome of certain practices. No, he understands, ‘if I abstain from this and cultivate this, my mind will be liberated’ as clear as day. He might be lazy and negligent and not choose to abstain from things sufficiently enough, so he might not become an arahant in this life, but nevertheless, he knows. And he knows that he knows. So all the previous talks we did about the methods and techniques, just bundle all that into sīlabbataparāmāsa, because that’s what it is practically speaking.

T: But that method, that technique, that fetter calms me down. And I’m not doing anything bad, I’m not drinking, I’m keeping the precepts, whatever. I’m a good person. So it calms me down. That method, which is a fetter…

N: If you want to be a good puthujjana, yeah you can do methods, no problem. But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about arahantship. So if you want to be a calm, good person that doesn’t drink and go out, and calms through concentrating on your nostrils, or you can do any concentration and calming and breathing technique, psychotherapy, or whatever. It’s going to make you a better worldly person. It’s not going to free you from the world. So don’t conflate the two, and then you can decide for yourself what you want to do. But that’s what I’m saying, the worst is when you think you can have it both ways. ‘Oh, I know I don’t know, I know I don’t have a reference for what a truly calm mind is, a truly liberated mind is, but this meditation suits me and I will do it, and I will also implicitly believe that it is bringing me closer to nibbāna, although I have no reference point whatsoever’. That’s nothing other than wishful thinking. And again, you can do it if you want, but if you realise for yourself, actually that’s quite a perilous thing to perpetuate in my mind. It is just wishful thinking.

T: So what about doing a technique… Now that you’ve said that to me, so I still do my technique, but I know that I’m not free from suffering. So I’ll keep doing my calming technique of breathing, I know that I’m not free from suffering, I know that I don’t have right view, so I’ll keep an open mind.

N: I mean, yeah, you have to start somewhere I suppose, but see, your start there is not with the technique you’re doing. Your start there is with what you just heard me tell you. In other words, even if you had no technique, whatever you were doing on account of practice was your technique, so to speak, even if it wasn’t very formally defined. You don’t need to do anything to be within the fetter of virtue and duty. The duty of observance, the duty of concentration, the duty of my sīla and so on. You are within it. So it’s not about finding the least harmful technique or something like that, no, it’s about actually hearing the instruction that will make you think in the context above your technique.

‘Whatever I’m doing is a technique, but how am I regarding it, what is my view behind it?’ So even if you choose now, after you have heard what I’ve just said to you, if you choose to adhere to your technique, well, OK, maybe you still don’t have faith in what I said so you’re doubtful, but at least use that. OK, so let me then think, what are my hopes, assumptions, implications behind the technique I’m doing? What are my thoughts in regard to this? What am I hoping to achieve? Do I even know what my goal is of my own meditation, or do I just sort of decide it as the day goes by, depending on how I feel at that time? Do I know the outcome? Do I have the true measure of wholesome calmness? Or am I just calm in the same sense you’re calm after you wake up after a full night of sleep? Or am I calm because my mind cannot be perturbed by suffering and anything that comes through the senses because I’m in control of my senses? Which calmness is it? Am I calm because I’ve surrounded myself with a soothing environment that never challenges me, never disturbs me, never disturbs my senses, there is no heat, cold, insects, other people, voices, sounds, noises? Or am I calm because all of these things, when they arise, I am unmoved by those things? Am I precious about my meditation time? Like, must I have my safe space where nobody will disturb me so I can sit and concentrate because there is no other way I can concentrate? Or can I concentrate in any given scenario, even if I end up in a hospital, immobile, in a cast, I can’t move, surrounded by fifty other patients? Because that’s basically where your life is heading. Destruction. You will not be able to exercise influence over your environment and circumstances for much longer, really. So if your meditation is always dependent on the right circumstances, that’s not meditation. That’s literally just soothing and covering up the wound without actually treating it.

T: So let’s say I was doing a meditation technique, now I’ve heard what you say, and I abandon that technique of breathing.

N: OK, so what do you do now?

T: Exactly! So now I’m trying to find out, what is right view? So I need to find out what is right view, how do I get it, what is this, where do I start? What would be your suggestion?

N: Well, you start by listening to more of the instruction that directs you in that way. By re-reading the Suttas that you read before and new Suttas that you haven’t read, with this new, fresh set of eyes, so to speak. That’s what you’re looking for now, what the right view is. And then yeah, what else do you do? Well the Buddha says what you do. Restrain, practise virtue, see danger in the slightest fault. Are you seeing danger in the slightest fault? Is that the context in your mind that you invest effort to maintain throughout the day? Is it? Because by the way, there is no meditation without sīla. So even if you disregard everything I say about techniques, if you get offended or whatever else, doesn’t matter. Ask yourself, whatever technique you’re doing, is your sīla impeccable underneath it? Or is your sīla good enough, by your own measure, so that you can go and develop your perfect technique? Because there is no meditation without full restraint of the senses. So do you spend your day restrained? Celibate? Withdrawn?

So even if we don’t go into debate over techniques, has that requirement been met? If no, there is no discussion with you then. Because whenever you talk about meditation, that’s not what meditation is. Because you have no basis for it. It’s basically like, when the Buddha said to that monk who was asked about ‘what is the pleasure of being withdrawn from sensuality?’ and this monk couldn’t quite explain it. And the Buddha said, ‘well if you fully understood it, similes that you haven’t heard before, they would have occurred to you’. And he said, imagine you come with a man to the bottom of a hill. You climb to the top of the hill, he stays at the bottom, and you tell him ‘oh, dear friend, the view from the top of the hill is immeasurable, I can see the valleys and oceans and forests, it’s just heavenly’. And the man at the bottom turns around and all he sees is tree trunks. And he says ‘nah, I disagree, I don’t see that’. And then if this man had compassion for the man at the bottom of the hill, he would come down the hill, grab him by the arm, drag him up the hill, and say ‘see for yourself’. And the simile was being withdrawn from sensuality, you’ll see for yourself.

But most people are like the man at the bottom. They argue the view from the top, while they are still deep down in the forest of sensuality. Because that in itself is already a form of meditation, sense restraint throughout the day. You cannot possibly do that without having developed proper imperturbable mindfulness. And what is imperturbable mindfulness other than composed mindfulness, other than samādhi. Literally, composure, keeping it together.

T: And that’s actually something you can get your mind around, so to speak. Don’t do anything wrong.

N: And always be aware, out of the corner of your eye, of that background in your mind. So I’m about to do this, I’m doing this—the environment I’m in, am I heading towards the unwholesome, or wholesome? If unwholesome, make the effort to rein yourself in, pull yourself out. That’s where the work is done.

T: So I say ‘am I doing anything wrong, or am I going to do anything wrong, are there any unwholesome intentions here?’ But that requires me to have a specific way of being aware.

N: Being aware of the context. That’s what I keep saying. And by the way, if all you do is concentrate on what’s in front of you, your intentions will become invisible to you. More than they already are. You can never attend your intention. Because the only reason you’re attending things is because you intended to do so. Intention is always in the background. Intention is always the state of mind. That’s the whole connection between cetanā and citta, etymologically speaking. Intention and the mind.

T: So you want to be aware of your intention…

N: Exactly, and that’s not something you can concentrate on. That’s only something you can know as it’s there enduring. As the current context of your experience.

T: So this type of awareness, of being able to be aware of your intentions behind your actions, it’s a kind of basic tool for a person that’s going to be wholesome, or a responsible person.

N: It’s the first step, being self-aware, perpetually. So is your practice of ‘concentration’, whatever it is, is that improving that self-awareness that you have throughout the day? Or is it making you completely lapse, and go into a state of unawareness? Because when the Buddha described how Sāriputta went through all the jhānas, he described that every single one of those jhānas, the most refined ones, were fully understood, fully known, mindfulness was clear as day throughout it. So that can be another criteria, if you can’t quite shake off that you’re ‘doing’ the ānāpānasati or something. Well, make sure your self-awareness is not compromised. Knowingly he breathes in, knowingly he breathes out. So are you aware even more of your current situation when you’re doing your technique, method of meditation? Or basically the world is shut out?

T: Are you narrowing your mind?

N: That’s what it comes down to. I’ve said that before, yeah, one-pointedness, but is it one wide point that includes everything? Or one narrow point that shuts everything out? And when I read most of the contemporary instructions, it was always about the direction of shutting everything else out. That’s why it goes hand in hand with ‘stop thinking, stop thinking, too much thinking, just focus, just focus, just concentrate, repeat the mantra, concentrate’—become basically a thoughtless, half-asleep state. Just do it repetitively until you go into that mental stupor, so to speak.

T: So I want to develop right view, and I start restraining the senses…

N: Seeing the danger in the slightest fault and restraining the senses will already make you wakeful, mindful, and alert. And that’s already samādhi to begin with. And then, within that, when that’s not taking too much of your energy, when the mind is established, when the mind is pliable and lighter and not heavy, then you could read the Suttas, take other things that in your mind need to be understood. What is suffering? What is the origin of suffering? Any aspect the Suttas talk about. What is anicca? What is dukkha? Like, understand it. Make the effort, within that properly developed basis of sīla, sense restraint, mindfulness, and samādhi. So you are doing your wisdom practice now. So, am I trying to understand, or am I watching my nostrils because I’m basically tired of trying to understand? And yeah, sometimes you might be tired of trying to understand, that’s what I mean, it will be taking too much effort. Then OK, stop it, but that doesn’t mean you stop your sense restraint, control of your senses, and daily mindfulness. You don’t stop your samādhi, you don’t stop your self-awareness.

So yeah, you don’t have to actively, if you cannot, but that doesn’t mean, oh now I am justified in going into the state of oblivion of forgetting about myself. That’s like what we spoke about in that other talk, I forget the title, like, you never rest. Doesn’t mean you always work, just simply means you refuse, even when you don’t work, you refuse to give in to that distraction and self-delusion where you forget about yourself. So in that sense, you’re always diligent. So you never rest, yet that type of effort is effortless. It doesn’t tire you out. Distraction tires you out. Sensuality tires you out. Misguided effort tires you out. Mindfulness, done rightly, it’s effortless and you can’t have too much of it, as the Buddha would say. So another thing is, you can re-evaluate when there are certain practices that you find helpful. What is helpful to me? What is the helpfulness aspect of those practices? What is my measure for helpfulness? What’s my criteria? What’s my value? Is it how it makes me feel? Or do I see it genuinely supporting my sense restraint, composure, clarity of mindfulness in day-to-day life? Or I don’t quite see that? And if you don’t make the effort to see it, in itself, it cannot present itself to you. You need to do it.

T: So how does this seeing the danger in the slightest fault, sense restraint, relate to yoniso manasikāra?

N: Well it’s that first step, having that knowledge of the context and not being absorbed in the object of your concentration or attention. Knowing where your intentions are. That’s already the beginning of yoniso manasikāra. Knowing where your intentions are enduring, because they are there enduring. So, knowing the background. Discerning the peripheral. That’s pretty much it. And that’s why if you practise that, you will get to see the sign of your mind. The more clear-seeing of your intentions you are, cetanā, the clearer citta will become outlined.

T: The clearer the set-up is, the framework of experience, the way things are situated.

N: Yeah, and that’s determined pretty much by the state of the mind, that’s why the mind is the forerunner. And that’s why the prerequisite for the right view is that, grasping the sign of your mind. The outlines of your mind, seeing it for what it is, enduring there. Not abstractly, not as a speculative thought, not as a mystical experience at the end of your concentration effort. No, right there and then my mind is such, and you see it. You see the suchness of it. And you don’t interfere with it. The state of mind is first. That you, by the way, did not create, you are subjected to it in the same sense you are subjected to this weather. It comes, and goes. It arises, it ceases, it increases, it decreases, doesn’t matter. The point is, for somebody who doesn’t see the sign of their mind, who doesn’t see the mind in suchness, as enduring (elated mind as elated mind, depressed mind as depressed mind, happy mind as happy mind, as the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta says) they put themselves first. So it’s, I own this mind. This mind is mine. And that’s why you suffer. When the mind that you don’t want basically is directing in the direction that it’s unpleasant. And you’re being influenced and pressured and effected by the unpleasant state of mind. By it being not as lofty as you want it to be, not as light as you want it to be, not as motivated as you want it to be. But if you were to just see mind for what it is, you would not be affected by it. It’s only because you keep implicitly sort of entertaining the notion of ownership of it.

T: So once you are familiar with that order, or that seeing the mind…

N: You need to cultivate it, it’s not like a ‘one and done’ deal. Like, you see it once, and it’s done, finished. You see it once and you have to then keep restoring the order because your habits, your āsavas, will sort of keep washing you away from that order, into the wrong order so to speak. Same like, you’re going against the stream, you have to sort of persist in an even application of effort to go against the stream until you reach the end of that stream. If your effort lapses, the stream will pick you up and drag you down again. So it’s the same with the right order, you need to sustain it. But seeing the right order, on the basis of seeing your mind in its suchness, is the beginning towards the right view. And that’s why that’s what the right view is. Seeing the right order. Knowing what comes first. That’s why those people who got the right view after the Buddha would speak would say ‘oh, it’s amazing, it’s like master Gotama putting first that which was second, and putting second that which was first’. Putting that which was upside-down, putting down, and that which was down putting up. Fixing it.

T: Turning upright that which was upside-down.

N: And that’s why you would know now what to do. Sustain, protect, and develop that order. Which is the Noble Eightfold Path. Don’t cause the disorder through lust, aversion, distraction. Through intentions based on lust, aversion, and distraction. Abstain from it, and this order will become solidified.

T: So where does, then, ānāpānasati come in?

N: Well ānāpānasati comes in to it for somebody who understood the right order, and they want to develop the further calmness of the mind. The further non-perturbability of their mindfulness. Because that’s what ānāpānasati fortifies, your satipaṭṭhānas. So it’s basically just, doing the same practice of mindfulness of satipaṭṭhāna, just doing it on the level of your breath. That’s it, that’s what ānāpānasati is. It’s the same practice, just instead of going up and down and about, you just sit still, and you do it within this. But it’s the same practice. That’s what the Buddha said, when that body that’s there, when you are mindful of your breath, is body that stands for the body, or ‘body among bodies’ as it’s translated. And you’re mindful of that body correctly, means you’re seeing the characteristics of that body correctly. The suchness of it. Without your ownership, without your interference. You stay with that sight long enough, any notion of ownership and interference will fade away. Any notion of lust will fade away. Any notion of procreation will fade away.

T: So that satipaṭṭhāna ānāpānasati is based upon this prerequisite, should be done on this prerequisite, of seeing the mind in the right order.

N: Regardless of which concentration you do, it’s all about fortifying your mindfulness. The mindfulness which you supposedly have before your concentration. If you read the Suttas, you’ll see basically that mindfulness is that which gets developed. To the extent necessary for the final knowledge. Either through sharp wisdom, either through sense restraint, determination and so on, samādhi. Any form of samādhi, done rightly, it’s the samādhi that fortifies your mindfulness. The clarity of your recollection and your awareness. Self-awareness. So you ask yourself, with your current practice of meditation, is your concentration fortifying your day-to-day mindfulness, or is it in the complete opposite direction of it? Like you ‘emerge’ from your concentration, and now you start making the effort to be mindful, and be present, and be aware of your intentions. Well that’s what your samādhi should be fortifying, not something else. Whether it’s vipassanā, whether it’s samādhi, either way basically you’re developing one, it brings the other. Whether you’re making effort actively to understand, or just through fortifying your mindfulness without active contemplation, you’re developing the same understanding.

But, you know, with the introduction of more and more commentaries, and interpretations, and obviously two and a half millennia, now it’s like this whole view of ‘oh, this is my study, this is my formal practice, my mantra, my this, my that’ and you have no idea how any of that relates, you just hope that all these things that make you feel good, make you feel Buddhist and a committed practitioner, will somehow result in your enlightenment. It’s no different to, like with martial arts back in the day, it originated in the form of self-defence, or during a war time. But then, a couple of millennia later, they got so mystified and now people have these hollow forms, doing these hollow forms, unable to even defend themselves. There’s no practical value of it. So that’s it, like ‘formal meditation’ today is completely the opposite of your self-defence that you would apply during the day, which is sense restraint, and your mindfulness, and your awareness of your intentions. So why would you do it then? Why don’t you just find a self-defence class that will teach you self-defence, as opposed to venerating some two millennia old tradition that is divorced from practicality, and then go and have to do the actual self-defence?

So that’s what I mean, yeah, do your samādhi as much as you want. But, do it in the sense that you can sustain it throughout your day, even when you’re not sitting in your protected, safe environment. That’s the samādhi you should cultivate. That’s the samādhi that’s at least closer to making you imperturbable, eventually. Making your mindfulness imperturbable. Not like, oh, now I’m justified in shutting everything else out, and engaging in my practice of concentration to calm myself down. But then when I re-emerge from my formal practice, now I have to restart my mindfulness, my sense restraint, and remind myself of the values I need to maintain throughout the day as a form of self-defence. That’s not the samādhi that you should be cultivating. As simple as that. Go straight, cultivate that which will develop further that which you want to develop. So do a meditation, as I said, that you can then spread throughout your day. Even when you’re not ‘formally’ sitting. So then there should be no difference between ‘formal’ and informal meditation.

T: It’s the same thing.

N: It’s the same thing. And the Buddha said it so many times, so many times. Like, he establishes his mind in jhāna, the perfect context, withdrawn from sensuality, imperturbable, and then whether he sits, eats, goes to the toilet, extends his arm, whatever he does is divine. Because the state of this mind is divine. Second jhāna, third jhāna, same. So there you go, establish your mind in jhāna and then go about, and see how long your jhāna will last. Again, if you don’t take anything I say, well, this should at least, you could reason is the right thing to do. So even if you disagree with everything else, the advice that your meditation should theoretically be sustainable throughout your day, throughout your time, and should certainly be improving your mindfulness and everything else, you cannot find fault with that. If you don’t take anything else I say, well, at least use this and revise your meditation practice. And by the way, it doesn’t matter, ‘oh, I must find out if this teacher’s wrong…’ that’s all irrelevant. What’s relevant is why you are doing it for yourself.

Are you aware of the motives behind and how you’re doing it? What’s your, as I said, implication of the method behind. Are you hoping it will magically result or protect you or whatever else? By some sort of lofty development as a product of it? Are you losing your self-awareness when you’re practising it? Or are you increasing your self-awareness, even when you stop practising on account of your previous practice? Are your intentions clearer to spot as a result of your samādhi practice beforehand, or do you have to redo the same effort every time? You can’t find fault with that. Because that’s exactly what the Buddha was saying. You should always know what you’re doing while you’re doing it, and abstain from doing unwholesome, and cultivate wholesome. You should never lose that context at the back of your mind. So, no amount of samādhi and concentration is justifiable, to take you away from that. And then you realise, oh yeah, quite the opposite. Samādhi and concentration should be bringing you even closer to knowing those things. So is your samādhi bringing you closer to knowing the states of your mind, knowing your intentions behind actions when you’re not sitting and meditating?

T: Continuously.

N: How continuously can you do it? Or can you only do it when you’re in a protected environment? So if you are overdoing your concentration, with this new value, of finding the common ground that you can sustain whether formal or informal, it will basically pull you out of your overdoing extent, so to speak. If you were overdoing it before, now when you realise ‘but I should be able to sustain it throughout the day’, you will step back from that overly-concentrated self absorption, where you lose the sight of your situation. And when you’re pulled back into that, OK, so that’s the extent I can practise these calming techniques and so on, without over-committing, and actually even when I’m not sitting and meditating, I can still sustain the same self-awareness. So that’s composure, literally, keeping it together. But, you wouldn’t say to somebody, you can keep things together when you shut everybody out, lock yourself inside, spend three hours preparing… No, it means you are quite precious. The one who, amidst things falling apart, keeps it together, is the one who can keep it together, is the one who has samādhi. Even in colloquial terms. ‘Keep it together man!’, like when people say that.

T: It’s like, I can keep it together as long as I’m shut in my room.

N: So it’s only relative, it’s not really keeping it together. You want to keep it together regardless of the circumstances. That is the imperturbable samādhi. The unshakable mindfulness. That’s it. So that single-handedly will make you stop over-thinking about methods and techniques. Because it’s irrelevant actually, you realise. Do I watch my nostrils for four seconds or eight seconds? That only matters to somebody who hopes in this magical product, result of their concentration, mystical result basically, that will be equated with knowledge and wisdom and liberation. No. So you realise, most of it doesn’t matter. What matters is you making the effort to sustain your mindfulness in a controlled environment, and a less controlled environment. In a formal environment, or an informal environment. Same mindfulness. Because it’s the same mind by the way.

T: Same awareness. Fully alert and aware.

N: Yeah. So if you can only sustain it in a protected environment, OK, but you want to recognise it. OK, so it’s quite dependent on certain circumstances. Which means, if those circumstances change, my mindfulness will go, and I’d better make further effort to uproot that dependence. Otherwise, if I’m not able to meet my requirements, I will fall apart. And then my sense restraint will suffer, my sīla will suffer, and everything else will suffer.