Stilling of All Activities

T: We were speaking about saṅkhāras earlier, and how it’s usually translated. How we were translating it in the past was ‘determinations’. But you seem to be translating it now as ‘activities’.

N: Or ‘activations’, yeah. The problem with it is, as I’ve said before, when you look into the Suttas there’s often very practical instructions given by the Buddha, how to calm the saṅkhāras, how to regard them, and so on. But any other translation, it just was not practical enough. “‘How to calm determinations…’ so I’ll just refrain from determining? But how am I ‘determining’ things? I’m not determining anything…” Or even more ambiguous, ‘formations’, ‘mental formations’. Well, everything is a mental formation, everything is a saṅkhāra. OK, but so what, so on that same mental level, what do I do? Because the Suttas talk about it, the Buddha gives examples of calming saṅkhāras. And calming saṅkhāras basically equates with samādhi. So I was looking practically into it, how would you convey that which saṅkhāras are? You could just say ‘saṅkhāras’, and if a person knows what saṅkhāras are that’s fine, but if somebody’s still not familiar… ‘Sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā, sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā, sabbe dhammā anattā’, so it’s an important term, an important thing. So how can you make it not so abstract? And then just look into what’s in common, to whether it’s a mental formation, whether it’s a determination, whether it’s cetanā, intention, because it’s said cetanās of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, that’s what saṅkhāras are. The Buddha said that in one of the Suttas. So what’s in common is that those things are active. Movements, intentions, directions, pressures. So, a form of activity. Activity by body, kāyasaṅkhāra, activity of speech, vacīsaṅkhāra, activity of the mind, cittasaṅkhāra, or manosaṅkhāra. So it’s the activities, in the broadest term.

Being conscious, it’s the fundamental saṅkhāra. That’s already a form of activation. Like, wake up, ‘switch your power on’, you’re aware. You’re not doing anything, but you are active. That’s how far saṅkhāras go, and that’s exactly why saṅkhāras determine viññāna, in paṭiccasamuppāda as well. Why saṅkhāras are the cause of viññāna to be established. Ignorance is the cause of establishing saṅkhāras, saṅkhāras establish viññāna. So it’s not just like ‘I’m not doing anything, so I’m free from saṅkhāras’. Abstaining from doing is something you’re doing, so that’s your activity. You can’t escape saṅkhāras by not having them, because you will be doing that. Which is an activity, on the basis of you being conscious and intentional. So, stilling of saṅkhāras is a relative thing. If you think you can just do away with them, well, you are on the level of the bodhisatta who thought ‘how do I find peace? By not doing anything, by removing doing of anything’ and in the end he even wanted to stop doing the breathing. And then he said ‘this will kill me, but there will still be no supreme freedom’.

So then he realised, it’s not about removing the activities, it’s about removing a particular aspect of them. Hence avijjā, ignorance of that aspect of activities, is the root of all problems. Not the activities, which you need to still, and that’s exactly what gradual training is. Pātimokkha is the first, keeping restrained by the virtue is the first layer of reducing the activities of the unwholesome kind. Moderate in eating, moderate in the activities that you have to do. Not distracting yourself with work, with talk, with company, again, moderating activities that you don’t have to do unless you have to do them. Seclusion. It’s just no activities of a distracting kind. But obviously, you still are active in seclusion. You move, you talk… well, maybe not talk—talk to yourself or something—but you move, you think, you intend, you plan, all of that. But now, those activities can become more obvious, more discernible. Because you’re in seclusion, not distracted by coarser activities. And that’s exactly the process of stilling the saṅkhāras, guarding the sense doors. The ultimate preventing from sort of spilling into the domain of the unwholesome activities.

So the whole point there, it’s not like ‘I’ll just stop doing everything’. It’s more like to see the relationship between wholesome activities and not going into the unwholesome activities, and then fundamentally to see that aspect that you are ignorant of, in regard to the activities, that will free you from activities and all the suffering. And that aspect is ownership of the activities. The fundamental activity of taking things as ‘mine’. Taking things as ‘belonging to me’. That’s also another thing you do, the Buddha called it mamaṃkāra, ‘mine-making’, ahaṃkāra, ‘I-making’. It’s not on the level of ‘I choose to make this mine’, it’s on the level of being conscious towards things as if they are yours. So it’s a very subtle saṅkhāra of course, but if you have been practising the gradual training, it will be the most obvious thing. You take things as ‘mine’, that’s why you are, not the other way around. The activities are there, that’s why you have a sense of self, not the other way around. Usually it’s ‘I am, I’m active, I’m inactive’. ‘I am, things are mine, or not mine if I relinquish them’. No, things are yours, that’s already activity. Activities are already there, you are already taking them implicitly as, to you, for you, thus that’s why you have a sense of self.

So you don’t want to still the activities because the magical peace will happen when saṅkhāras subside. No, there is no stilling of activities in that sense. Saṃsāra is the fundamental activity of perpetually active wandering on. And on. And on. And it never ends, doesn’t matter what you do. Unless you remove the ownership of those neutral activities that you have discerned on account of withdrawing yourself from every single unwholesome activity of the body, speech, and mind. Gradual training. So when that’s discerned enough, there is no more sense of ‘I am’ taking these things up, there is no ahaṃkāra, mamaṃkāra, there is no avijjā in regard to saṅkhāras. So saṅkhāras are gone. The activities that are left are the activities on account of this conscious body and name-and-form externally for an arahant, and he knows when that breaks apart, when that exhausts itself, that will be the end of it. So the true stilling, the true samādhi, is the removal of that sense of self in regard to activities. To remove that taking-up as ‘mine’. To remove that self-centredness being put first, and seeing sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā, sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā, thus self-centredness or dhammā, is all not-self-centred any more. Sabbe dhammā anattā.

And that’s why the first jhāna is the basis for that complete uprooting of the sense of self. It’s the first basis of the first non-activity. Abiding in non-activity is a synonym for jhāna. But then, the Buddha said, ‘when I’m in jhāna I walk, sit, go to the toilet…’ so there are activities in jhāna. So what isn’t in jhāna? Well, the Cūlavedalla Sutta says, in Majjhima Nikāya, what isn’t there. Sister Dhammadinna the nun, she says, the sense of ‘I am’ is not there. One who is in first jhāna does not think ‘I am in the first jhāna, I entered the first jhāna, I exit the first jhāna, I shall be in the first jhāna this long’ there is no sense of ‘I am’. There is no ahaṃkāra being made that’s now there, being self-centred. It’s just saṅkhāras that, from that point of view of ownership, are thoroughly left alone, inactive. And she also answered to the same question, she said it’s because one’s mind has been developed beforehand, through stilling of that taking things as ‘mine’ on the basis of complete virtue and gradual training and withdrawal and seclusion. The mind enters and abides in a state of not taking things as ‘I am’, even on the level of thought. So you have thinking-and-pondering purified from ownership.

T: Then you start seeing the body as an impersonal…

N: Exactly, that is already the experience in the first jhāna, everything is impersonal, top to bottom, wherever you look. That’s why the Buddha did encourage, he said the basis for arahantship is the first jhāna or higher, in that Anguttara Nikāya Sutta, and then he said ‘how is it so?’ Well, for a monk who is in the first jhāna, if he then regards everything in that first jhāna as perilous, as a dart—everything that’s wholesome, everything that’s not taken as self—regard it in a way that it’s not wanted. Then his consciousness completely turns away from any basis, and that’s the complete freedom. But you won’t be able to so purely regard things, see them in their nature as a dart, as debt, as not worth having, if you’re still self-centred, if there is still conceit, basically if you’re not in the first jhāna. So the first jhāna, walking, standing, laying down, eating, going to the toilet, seclusion, it’s active, very active. Yet completely abiding in the non-activity of taking things as ‘mine’.

People do have this recognition of stilling the saṅkhāras, you know, people read the Suttas. There’s that Sutta that says ‘how do you still them?’ Well, imagine you’re walking and you ask yourself ‘why am I walking so fast? Let me slow down. Why don’t I stand? Why don’t I sit down? Why don’t I lay down?’ So there is this whole, pretty much infinite layers of how much you still the activities. But not as a goal in itself, and not as something that will lead you then to a magical revelation of the goal. You won’t find that in the Suttas. But most people’s techniques and meditation practises are exactly that, activities that they do with an underlying view that this will result, give me the result.

And that’s the fundamental principal of the activity of sensuality. I work, I earn, I protect, I gain, I enjoy, I engage, and I get pleasure as a reward. And there is a Sutta where the Buddha says, ‘what is the danger?’ Well, different Suttas talk about the danger in sensuality, what it is, but in this particular one it says the danger of sensuality is ‘here, a man recognises, ‘because I’m attached and dependent on the pleasure of the senses, the pleasure of having a wife, kids, everything else, I am burdened, I suffer under the pressure of duty for work, earning, protecting, worrying, providing…’’ All those duties are now not optional for you because of your dependence on the pleasure that you get on account of the senses that requires your engagement on this high level, of providing, worrying, constantly moving, to be there. Because if you slowed down, these things will go away, and then immense suffering will happen. Because your mind is dependent on them. So he realises the danger of depending on the sensuality is all the pressure, the work, the burden of all these activities that become unavoidable then. The only way to avoid them is to remove your dependence on the pleasure. And that’s exactly why you have to have been withdrawn from that type of dependence for a long time before you can even start approaching the first jhāna in that true, impersonal sense, seeing these activities on the level they should be seen.

And these neutral activities I’m talking about, it’s exactly what we’ve been talking about in all these talks, just in different terms. Finding an impersonal anchor, the body there, underneath your current, emotionally engaged activity. This or that worry, hindrances, whatever else. All of that is constantly undermined, and underlied, by the physicality of the body. ‘Oh, I’m so worried, I can’t stop thinking about it’, but look, there are all these activities the body is doing that I’m completely unaware of. Or if I’m aware of it, I’m putting it second, I’m putting my worry first. I am first, what concerns me is first, this [gestures to body] is second, this is irrelevant, why would I care… Then sometimes people might recognise ‘actually no, being mindful of the body is how you calm your mind’. But then they take that mindfulness in that directly active ‘I am doing the mindfulness of the body’ sense. Which means that will now be undermined and underlied by the actual, peripheral physicality of the body.

T: Which they’re not seeing.

N: Which they’re not seeing, because now they make it a thing of ‘I am’, ‘mine’, ‘doing this is important for me’. And that’s when your meditation practise, mindfulness, whatever else, is just mechanical observances. That’s why the only way to see it is as we’ve been saying many times, peripherally. So whatever’s there, you’re engaged with your sense of self, with your sense of ownership, peripheral to that you discern the body. You know, emitting sounds, noises, sweating, tired, laying, in position, all these activities. The reviewing of the organs which the Buddha encourages, it’s the same purpose. It’s not a medical examination or some mystical release, no. Peripherally see that while you’re so deeply concerned about something, or elated, there is the fleshy beating heart, skin, nose, enduring there in this lump, this sack filled with various types of beans, like the simile. There’s this type of bean, there’s that type of bean, behind everything. Moving, living on it’s own, not even aware that there is you, such-and-such, there, concerned about things. And whatever you might be concerned with, or go for, or reject, or rejoice in, it’s second to the physicality of a [wipes mouth, inhales deeply through nose, scratches face in an exaggerated manner] living, operating body, subject to elements and everything else. It’s second to it. Doesn’t matter how self-important you are, it’s second to the physicality of that sack of skin. It cannot be otherwise, and if you stop and think about it you realise that. But the reason why people don’t understand it is because when they stop and think about it, they overdo it, they make it into a thing, they don’t see it on the right level. Which is the peripheral level, which is the level where mindfulness is.

T: Impersonal activity happening…

N: Exactly, impersonal activities, that have no ahaṃkāra and mamaṃkāra ‘level of activation’ are there. But you don’t see the connection. Because you are self-centred and those are the activities that matter to you. So whether you do your ānāpānasati or satipaṭṭhāna like ‘I’m doing it, I’m doing it, I’m doing it’, while peripherally, there are all these impersonal activities that could serve as a perfect anchor for complete removal of ownership and complete vijjā of saṅkhāra. Which would then remove the dependence of consciousness on the level of activity, and it would free you from suffering. And that’s why people depend on activities, that’s why people are afraid of solitude and inactivity and so on. Because the consciousness depends upon a certain level of engagement. Engagement, another form of activity, another form of saṅkhāra. So you want to find the impersonal activities that are occurring all the time regardless of your mental state, hindrances, your intentions.

T: Feelings, just feeling feelings.

N: Well exactly, see, in-and-out breathing is an activity of the body. Neutral activity of the body. It’s an activity, but it’s an activity, as the Buddha said, that does not tire you out, and does not bring unwholesome things to increase. It actually makes them decrease. But it’s an activity of the body. You can engage with it to learn how to see peripherally. As I said before, you find your breath underneath, so to speak. Thinking-and-pondering is the activity, vacīsaṅkhāra, the activity of the speech. It’s impossible to speak unless thinking-and-pondering is active. It’s just inconceivable. And fundamentally, feeling, perception, coming and going, arising on its own, are the activities of the heart, of citta. That’s what defines citta, citta is the activities of that kind. So you remove ignorance, ownership of feelings, perceptions in the broadest sense, your citta basically has been freed. So the activities can not cause you suffering. That’s why presence of activity means presence of dukkha. Sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā, doesn’t matter what, doesn’t matter how refined the saṅkhāra.

For somebody who is not free from ‘I-making’ and ‘mine-making’, every activity implies ‘I-making’ and ‘mine-making’, because that’s the fundamental activity based on avijjā. You remove avijjā, you remove ‘I-making’ and ‘mine-making’ activity from the mind, then you can’t say activity is there. That’s why the Buddha said, from a puthujjana’s point of view, in an arahant, saṅkhāras have ceased. Because from a puthujjana’s point of view, there is no other type of saṅkhāra that is not rooted in ahaṃkāra and mamaṃkāra. If there were, you would be at least a sotāpanna. But yes, an arahant still talks, walks, perceives, does things by body, by speech, by mind. Yet, there are no saṅkhāras. So relatively speaking, there are no saṅkhāras.

So yes, that’s why I was considering translating saṅkhāras as activities. Activity/activation, I suppose. But you do want to have that emphasis on that, it’s not the random activity of a rolling stone or something. It’s the activities that are based on intentional action. Because intention is another form of activity. It’s the fundamental activity, practically speaking. Every consciousness is intentional. It’s not a separate thing. And when the Buddha said what the determinations are, what is the aggregate of determinations, he said it’s the intentions of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches. That’s the aggregate of activities. That’s the aggregate of saṅkhāras. That’s the aggregate of determinations, whichever way you translate it. So saṅkhāras are the intentions of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches. The ‘activations’ of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches.

T: The intentions of your senses?

N: Well they are actually the intentions of your senses. But for a mind that’s not free from avijjā, ‘mine-making’, ‘I-making’ is what’s first. Which means even when these intentions come, you have not created them, they are yours. And that’s why people are, by default, moved by what they see, hear, smell, taste, touch. And immediately assume the ownership, and immediately assume engagement. So that’s why, again, the gradual training, withdrawal from that, you still have ‘I-making’ and ‘mine-making’ and so on, but you are withdrawing from that automatic assumption, and action out of assumed ownership, towards sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches. So that you get to see then, if you’re withdrawn sufficiently enough, you get to see that ‘I-making’ and ‘mine-making’ as ‘oh, that’s why…’. Stop doing that, everything else is fine, can be left alone like a tree stump, killed at the root.

T: You start seeing the creature.

N: You start seeing the creature, exactly. That’s what that nun said to Māra, when he was talking about ‘what are you doing?’, she was like ‘who are you talking to, who are you referring to? There are only saṅkhāras manifesting and enduring.’ In other words, she’s not even seeing any of these activities even as a coarser form of self. So there’s probably some traces of conceit, she must have been anāgāmī or very close to arahantship, she said ‘there’s just saṅkhāras coming and going’. Just activities manifesting, and then new activities manifesting, and so on. But it’s important to not fall into the view—well, it’s important actually to step outside of the view, because most people abide in the view—whereby you think ‘OK, so I just stop everything and that’s how I stop…’ That’s another activity. Choosing to abstain from choice, choosing to not intend this or that, is what you’re intending right there and then. Abstaining from these particular choices, is my choice. So that’s why you can’t remove the saṅkhāras, as in to make them not be there, and you cannot possibly act your way out of action. So kamma, good kamma, bad kamma, sure, but your kamma’s always going to be there. Unless you remove that ownership on the fundamental level of intention and consciousness, and your thought.

T: You can’t decide that.

N: You can’t decide that, because that’s a very strong, very coarse form of activity. Like… something’s moving really fast. [Picks up some leaves and rubs them vigorously.] So my hands are very active, my hands are very active. [Makes a fist.] So now I’ve stilled the movement. But this is now my activity. Yes, it’s a relative stillness, in regards to doing this with these leaves [rubs leaves again]. A relative stillness, but it’s still an activity, because if I stop holding on to the leaf, it’s going to start moving again. So don’t have the view to expect that you can just rigidly stop everything and that’s how you enter the peace of non-activity, because that’s going to be your activity. And whoever committed to those intense focusing, controlling meditation techniques, well, if they’re self-honest they would see initially they got the peace from that relative stilling, and after a while all they were getting was frustration in trying to get that peace back, and they were getting more wound up, and more intense. And I know from my own experience, when I was still a layman. You try everything, you don’t know what’s right or wrong, and you start doing this technique and two days, three days, the peace is gone because now this [clenches fist] is your reality. Stop everything, stop everything, I will move slowly, I will not speak, I will never speak, I will never look at anything. And that becomes a very active thing that you’re engaged with. So there’s no peace. So the true peace of stilling saṅkhāras is the peace of removing the ownership. So the true peace of meditation, that stills the saṅkhāras correctly, is the removal of the ownership of saṅkhāras, not removal of saṅkhāras. That’s why for the correct meditation, you need the right view. You need to understand where the problem is. The ownership. You can’t just do it, because you’re doing it with ahaṃkāra and mamaṃkāra.