Transcription
K: Sir, would you kindly explain, what is Buddhist meditation?
R: Buddhist meditation, the purest form of Buddhist meditation... ...it has taken many forms, many varieties. The purest form of Buddhist meditation is this insight into 'what is'.
K: You are using my words, put those... (laughs)
R: No, not your words. You are using those words! (Laughter) Long before you, 2,500 years ago these words were used. I am using them.
K: All right, then we are both two thousand years old.
R: Old. That's right.
K: Sir, I'm just asking.
R: It is called Vidarshana or Vipassana. In Pali Vipassana and in Sanskrit Vidarshana.
K: Darshan, yes.
R: It is insight vision, see into the nature of things, that is the real vision.
K: Have they a system?
R: A system is, of course, developed.
K: That's what I want to get at.
R: Yes, when you take the original teaching of the Buddha...
K: ...there is no system.
R: No, it is called 'Satipatthana'. That is the best discourse by the Buddha on this insight meditation.
K: No, I wanted to...
R: Wait, I'll tell you.
K: Yes, I am listening, sir.
R: There is no system in it. And the key point in that is the awareness. Awareness, that is called 'Sati', or in Sanskrit 'Smriti'.
K: Smriti, yes.
R: And to be mindful, aware, of all that happens... ...you are not expected to run away from life and live in a cave... ...or in a forest, sitting like a statue, all that. It is not that. And in this Satipatthana it is - if you translate it... ...if it is translated as establishment of mindfulness... ...but rather it is the presence of awareness, the meaning of that word.
K: Is this awareness...
R: Yes, awareness of every movement, every action, everything.
K: Yes. Is this awareness to be cultivated?
R: There is no question of cultivating. There is no question.
K: That is what I am trying to get at, sir.
R: Yes.
K: Because the modern gurus, modern systems of meditation, modern Zen... ...you know all the rest of it, they are trying to cultivate it.
R: Yes, I tell you, sir. I have written an essay on the psychology of Buddhist meditation.
K: No, I'm just...
R: Wait, wait. There I said that this teaching of the Buddha is for many centuries... ...misunderstood and wrongly applied as a technique. And they have developed into such a technique... ...that the mind can be instead of liberating, it can be imprisoned.
K: Of course. All meditation, sir, is imprisoning process.
R: If it is made into a system.
K: No, that's what... Please, sir, I am asking: ...awareness, is it something to be cultivated in the sense manipulated... ...watched over, worked at?
R: No, no.
K: Wait, wait. So how does it come into being?
R: There is no coming into being, you do it.
K: No, wait sir, no, just listen what I mean by...
R: You give the interpretation.
K: I want to find out, I am not critical... ...I just want to find out what Buddhist meditation is. Because now there is Buddhist, there is Tibetan... ...there are various types of Buddhist meditation... ...various types of Tibetan meditation, various types of Hindu meditations... ...Sufi meditation - for god's sake - you follow? ...they are like mushrooms all over the place. I'm just asking if awareness takes place through concentration.
R: No, not in that sense. For anything we do in this world a certain amount of concentration is necessary. That is understood. In that sense a certain kind of concentration is necessary... ...but don't mix it up with 'dhyana' and samadhi.
K: I don't like any of those words personally, dhyana...
R: But there concentration is the principle.
K: I know, I know. Most of the meditations that have been propagated all over the world... ...now involve concentration.
R: Zen and various other things, samadhis, dhyanas... ...Hindu, Buddhist, concentration is the central point.
K: That is nonsense. I don't accept concentration.
R: In the Buddhist, pure, Buddha's teaching meditation it is not that concentration. There is not that concentration.
K: It is not concentration. Let's put it out. Then what is this awareness, how does it come into being?
R: You are aware of it. It happens. You see, in the Satipatthana one great thing is... ...you live in the action in the present moment.
K: Wait, sir.
R: That is one form of Satipatthana.
K: Yes sir. The moment you say... ...in the present moment, you don't live in the present moment.
R: That is what it says, that you don't live in the present moment. And Satipatthana is to live in the present moment.
K: Ah, no, no, no, you are missing it. How is one to live in the present? What is the mind that lives in the present?
R: The mind that lives in the present is the mind which is free from...
K: Yes, sir, go on sir, I am waiting, I want to find out.
R: ...free from the idea of self. When you have the idea of self either you live in the past or in the future.
K: The now is, as far as I, one sees, not I, one sees generally... ...the past modifying itself in the present and going on.
R: That is the usual.
K: Wait. That is the present.
R: No.
K: Then what is the present? Free of the past.
R: Yes.
K: That is free of the past, which means free of time. So that is the only state of mind which is now. Now I am just asking, sir, what is awareness? Does it come... How does it flower, how does it happen? You follow?
R: There is no technique for it.
K: I understand.
R: In asking how it happens, you are asking the method. You were asking how it happens.
K: Quite right. Let's cut out... I used the 'how' just to ask a question, not for a method. I'll put it round the other way. In what manner does this awareness come into being? I am not aware - suppose I am not aware. I am just enclosed in my own petty little worries and anxieties, problems... ...I love, and you don't love me, and all that is going on in my mind. I live in that. And you come along and tell me, 'Be aware of all that'. And I say, 'What do you mean by being aware?'
R: When you ask me that, just be aware of that pettiness.
K: Yes. So that means be aware...
R: You said of the pettiness.
K: Yes. Be aware of your pettiness. What do you mean by that?
R: Be aware of that.
K: Yes, sir, I don't how to be, I don't know what it means.
R: It is not necessary to know what it means.
K: What do you mean it is not necessary?
R: Be aware of it.
K: Yes, sir. You tell me, be aware of it. I am blind. I think that is an elephant, how am I to... You follow my question, sir? I am blind and I want to see light. And you say, 'Be aware of that blindness'. I say, 'Yes, what does it mean?' It is not concentration. So I say, 'Look, awareness is something in which choice doesn't exist'. Wait, sir. Awareness means to be aware of this hall... ...the curtains, the lights, the people sitting here... ...the shape of the walls, the windows, to be aware of it. Just a minute. Either I am aware one part, part by part by part by part... ...or as I enter the room I am aware of the whole thing: ...the roof, the lamps, the curtains, the shape of the windows... ...the floor, the mottled roof, everything. Is that what you mean, sir?
R: That also is a kind of awareness. That also is awareness.
K: That is awareness. Now what is the difference - I am not categorising... ...please I am not being impudent, or inquisitive, or insulting... ...what is the difference between that sense of awareness and attention?
R: It is wrong to put 'sense' of awareness. There is no sense of awareness. There is awareness.
K: All right. That awareness and attention. You see we have abolished concentration except when I have to... ...drill a hole in the wall, I hope I am drilling it straight, I concentrate.
R: No, no. We have not excluded it. There is concentration but that is not the main thing.
K: No, that is not awareness.
R: But concentration may be useful or helpful.
K: To drill a hole straight.
R: Yes, yes, like that. For awareness also... ...it may be helpful but it is not concentration on the central point.
K: There must be a certain sense of concentration when I learn mathematics.
R: Yes, for anything, sir.
K: Therefore I am just putting that aside for the moment. What is attention? To attend.
R: How do you explain, for instance, awareness, mindfulness, attention... ...how do you discriminate these three: awareness, mindfulness and attention?
K: I would say awareness in which there is no choice, just to be aware. The moment when choice enters into awareness there is no awareness.
R: Right.
K: And choice is measurement, division and so on. So awareness is without choice, just to be aware. To say, 'I don't like, I like this room', all that has ended.
R: Yes. Right.
K: Attention, to attend, in that attention there is no division.
R: Also that means no choice.
K: Leave it for the moment. Attention implies no division, me attending. And so it has no division, therefore no measurement and therefore no border.