Introduction to Insight Meditation, Session 4: Mindfulness of Consciousness

by Philip L. Jones

I. Beginning Meditation - Mindfulness of Feeling (10 min)

A.Review the instructions (see handout)

II. Discussion (10-15 minutes)

A.Questions from previous session and from week's practice

III. Progression of Practice 

A.As I mentioned last week, the meditation instructions focus on more subtle aspects of our experience each week.

B.Last week we moved from physical sensations to feeling (ie, whether things are experienced as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral)

1.Feeling is important because we tend to try to hang onto things that are pleasant and we tend to try to push away, or get away from, things that are experienced as unpleasant.

a.When we try to hang on, or push away, we create more stress in our lives.

b.The alternative presented by insight meditation is to learn to be present for whatever life presents.

C.With each of these objects of meditation (sensations, feeling, consciousness or mind states and thoughts), part of the process is finding that we don't have to immediately react. Finding that when we can see the sensations or feeling as just sensation or feeling then we have a choice about how to respond.

1.If we can simply be present for the experience in that moment, if we can open to it without holding on or pushing away, then we can get a taste of the freedom and peace that is waiting there for us all of the time.

D.One teacher (Matt Flickstein) describes our usual lives as being similar to living in a room that has black paper over the ceiling that blocks out the light above it.

1.Each time one brings mindfulness to an experience, each time one is present for something that one would normally push away or hang onto, it is like poking a pinhole in the black paper.

2.With each pinhole a little bit of light shines through. 

3.The more pinholes one creates, the more light shines through ( the more peace and freedom one experiences).

4.And then eventually, when the conditions are right, a big piece of the black paper falls down and then the light really shines through.

5.So, although it may not seem significant, each time we open to an experience and just let it be, we are letting a little more light into our lives.

E.Tonight we will broaden this effort to include consciousness or mind-states.

IV. Mindfulness of Consciousness

A.Consciousness is simply the awareness that arises when a sense object comes into contact with a sense organ.

1.The sense organs in this tradition are thought of as including the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body(touch) and mind.

2.Sense objects are those things that stimulate each of these particular organs.

3.Consciousness is simply the pure white light of awareness that shines on this object when it enters the field of the sense organ.

a.An analogy is a motion detector with a light attached to it. When an object moves in the sensory field of the motion detector, the light comes on and illuminates it.

B.Because consciousness is neutral, we can only know it through the mental factors that occur with it, for instance consciousness with joy or consciousness with hatred.

C.So, Consciousness can have lots of different qualities:

1.It can be consciousness with an emotion, such as joy, anger, lust, fear, etc.

2.It can be constricted consciousness or spacious consciousness.

D.One of the mental factors that arises with consciousness is volition or choice, a choice of how to respond to contact with the sense object.

1.How we respond can lead to more stress or less stress.

a.If we try to hang onto something or to push it away, we are setting ourselves up for more stress.

b.If we can simply be present with it, by being mindful of it, then we can experience greater peacefulness in our lives.

V. Questions & Discussion (5-10 min.)

VI. Meditation: Mindfulness of Consciousness (10-15 minutes)

A.Focus, simply being aware of the mind-states, noting them (without labeling)

VII. Questions & Discussion (5-10 minutes)

A.Were you able to notice the differing mind-states or the way consciousness changed when different objects came into awareness?

B.Any questions or comments?

VIII. Investigating Consciousness

A.In order to clearly understand what type of consciousness is present, it is important to investigate it with one's awareness.

B.In this situation, investigation is not an analytical tool, but rather just a process of being curious and noticing

C.We can investigate the different types of consciousness not only by paying attention to consciousness and its mental factors but also by looking through the lens of mindfulness of physical sensations and mindfulness of feeling.

1.For example: If there is a constricted, an angry mind-state, what does that feel like in the body? Is there tension, tightness, rigidity or relaxation? What is the heart rate like when there is an angry mind-state? What is the breathing like?

2.What is the feeling associated with that angry mind-state, is it pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?

3.Can you really get into the experience and know it?

IX. Meditation: Mindfulness of Consciousness (10-15 minutes)

A.Focus: Investigating/opening to the different mind-states

X. Questions & Discussion (5-10 minutes) 

A.Were you able to notice the differing mind-states or the way consciousness changed when different objects came into awareness?

B.Any questions or comments?

XI. Wholesome and Unwholesome Mind-States

A.As we begin to have more awareness of our consciousness, we can also reflect on the fact that some mind-states bring more happiness, more peacefulness into our lives while others bring more difficulty.

B.States of generosity, kindness, joy have different effects on us than states of greed, fear, anger and aversion.

C.As you investigate, or open, to the different mind-states and actually let yourself experience deeply what they are like, it will become more apparent whether they lead you to peace or to difficulty.

D.Part of what we are doing as we investigate and open to these mind states is we begin to see how they create the stress in our lives.

E.What we will also begin to see is that we can feed and cultivate our state of mind.

1.If, when anger arises and we are clear that anger is present, we buy into the angry thoughts then we are actually feeding the anger.

2.The same is true for kindness or generosity.

3.It is important to differentiate between the power we can experience when we see that something wrong is occurring and anger in which we are blaming. We can exercise our power against an injustice while also maintaining a stance of kindness.

F.There are also meditations that we can do which actively cultivate states that bring peace and joy into our lives. One of these is called "metta" or loving-kindness.

XII. Lovingkindness (Metta) 

A.Aquality of unconditional acceptance and openness

1.Different from passionate love which is conditional

a."I'll love you as long as you love me."

2.Different from sentimentality (sweet, nice and no pain -- denying reality of pain)

B.Lovingkindness in insight meditation

1.Loving-kindness begins with the way we relate to our own experiences.

2.Wecondition our mind-states and thoughts by how we respond

a.Aversive, judgmental reactions lead to more judgments and more thoughts. 

(i) These reactions put more energy into the mind-state or thought process, thus creating more of what we are hoping to avoid and keeping us stuck in that spot.

b.Responding with loving-kindness to our mind-states and thoughtsallows us to see them clearly and to let the energy be freed up.

(i) This is something you can actually experience when you are stuck on something and then finally can relax into it, letting it be.

C.Metta meditation

1.Metta meditation was originally taught as a way of helping people open up to fear.

2.It is a little different than the mindfulness practices that we have been doing, as the object of meditation is a phrase.

3.By repeating these phrases to ourselves, we are actually doing a concentration practice that settles the mind, while also cultivating a tendency to respond with more gentleness, more kindness.

4.The phrases are simple

a.May I/you be safe from inner and outer harm

b.May I/you be happy and peaceful

c.May I/you be healthy

d.May I/you live with ease of well being.

XIII. Questions & Discussion (5-10 min.)

XIV. Metta Meditation (15-30 min.)

XV. Closing quote from Galway Kinnel

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don't flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to re-teach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on the brow

of the flower, and retell it in words and in touch, 

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing

-- excerpted from Galway Kinnel, "Saint Francis and the Sow", Mortal Acts, Mortal Words, Houghton Mifflin, Co., 1980.

XVI. Handouts

A.Mindfulness of Consciousness

B.Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation (Loving-Kindness by Sharon Salzberg, Shambhala, 1995, pp. 29-32)