A guide to mindfulness and Vipassana meditation as taught by Luangpu Pramote
People in this generation are different from the previous generation of practitioners. In the past, when practitioners entered the temple, the first thing they did was request the precepts. But now, people come in wanting to learn how to develop mindfulness and wisdom right away. The starting points are different. Nowadays when people listening to …
I’ve been teaching meditation for over 30 years from when I was a layman and have taught countless students. Each meditation student aspires for something different. Most wish for happiness. Only few aspire to attain liberation. Wishing for happiness, requires one to perform good deeds such as being generous and keeping precepts. Is it good …
The reward for your practice is peacefulness. Nothing is more valuable or more blissful. External peace is easily obtained. You can stay alone at home and get it. You can easily gain verbal peace by refraining from being talkative and only speak when necessary. But inner peace is the hardest, because the mind is quick. …
Each of us has a limited amount of time. The average lifespan is approximately thirty thousand days and then we leave this world. Some people have less time, sometimes just one day. Some die in the womb. Our lives are not that long. Buddhists shouldn’t be careless. The Buddha tried to warn us in his …
These are easy things to talk about but hard to practice. Seeing the mind arise and fall so quickly sequentially. Asking, “The eye went to see, do you see that?” At that point so many mind moments have already passed. So let’s keep it simple. The Buddha taught cittanupassana. This is the practice for those who are not skilled in jhana, or deep concentration. Once we become quite skilled in observing the mind more and more and our mindfulness is sharp and with quality concentration, we will see the mind arising and falling at the senses. As we become an expert we will see clearly that all types of mind arise and fall. There aren’t any minds that arise and don’t fall. Seeing that the mind arises and falls we will gradually wash away wrong view of eternalism.
Keep practising and training. One day, we’ll see the truth, that these five aggregates are suffering. We’ll see this stage by stage. When we see it, we will release, and be liberated from suffering. In that moment, the mind will encounter true shanti, true peace, true happiness.
The term “natural phenomena” consists of only two departments, namely, the form and formless phenomena. Although there is another kind of phenomenon, which is called nirvāṇa or nibbāna, it is not accessible to a worldly person — thus, we should ignore this for now. We should continue observing the form and formless phenomena until we realize the Three Marks of Existence. We must observe them until the truth of the Three Marks of Existence is revealed. Therefore, what is critical in our observance lies in perceiving the underlying Three Marks of Existence within the form and formless phenomena.
Only when there’s the knower mind can we truly cultivate wisdom. Without a stable mind, we can’t really develop wisdom, because the mind is too scattered. I’ve been teaching about “don’t wander off and don’t overfocus” since I was still at Suan Poh. It sounds funny, doesn’t it? What kind of meditation is this “don’t wander off and don’t overfocus?” Essentially, it’s how to re-establish the concentration foundation. Without concentration, our mind wanders all over the place. With wrong concentration, we overfocus and suppress. A scattered mind prohibits us from being mindful of our body and mind. Even though we may be able to see our mind or the body while overfocusing, it’s impossible to see their truth.
Have mindfulness observing what’s behind your thoughts, speech, and actions. If you can do this, existing unwholesomeness will cease. New unwholesomeness won’t arise. New wholesomeness will arise. Existing wholesomeness will develop.
When our practice is truly refined, we’ll see that other than suffering, nothing arises. Other than suffering, nothing sustains. Other than suffering, nothing falls away. It’s all just suffering that arises and falls.