meditation for health : Chapter 2

Chapter 2—How to begin practicing Vipassana?

A good Vipassana practitioner starts with a right view. In our case, it means that whoever read Chapter 1, and is now able to give an answer to the question “What is Vipassana?” similar to what being concluded at the end of that chapter, then it can be said that he or she has already taken the first step.

Majority of people have an understanding that Vipassana practice is to sit with eyes closed and keeping a straight face, or to do a walking meditation along a monastery wall. Those are only the minority images that may stands out, but they still do not give us the whole picture. To the experts, true Vipassana may be practiced while putting food in one’s mouth, or right after laughing one’s head off, or even before one may not be done crying. As soon as one is mindful and truly aware of the ongoing phenomena as impermanent and uncontrollable as one wish, at such a moment one is in Vipassana.

When thinking of "becoming mindful," what does it remind you of? Taking examples from everyday life, one may think of being absent-minded while driving—when one started to be mindful of the fact, and stop daydreaming or thinking, when he/she was about to drive the car down a ditch. At this line of the book, please take a moment to remind yourself of what "being mindful" is like to you. Taking examples right now, you can experience the moment of mindfulness as you are aware of yourself reading this book, or asking yourself this very question.

But even then, notice that when you started being aware that you were driving, or being aware after being asked to look back at yourself, you still might not know how to look at your thoughts, in order to see them as something impermanent and uncontrollable.

So, let's try something right now. Let's put the feeling of "not knowing where to look" into use. If at the moment you are puzzled, confused, or trying to figure out for an answer, then that is good, since it is exactly this feeling that we want.

The state of being confused, dull, not knowing of what to do, is called in technical term as “hindrance,” which refers to mental obstacles that are barriers against our progression. The Buddha had given us guideline for dealing with it, which is to be mindful of the fact that our minds are currently besieged by doubt. And by being aware of such doubt, at that moment it can be said that you start to be mindful of things as they truly are. This is so because you start being aware that there is such a phenomenon (hindrance) existing.

But then, in order to see things as they truly are to the point where you can break free from doubt's influence, simply seeing the sustaining nature of doubt is not enough; you must see the subsequent ceasing nature of doubt as well.

So, now, to see the ceasing nature of doubt, the next question will be what to do so that the state of being doubtful disappears. To answer the question, let's first take a breath. At the point where you are able to tell yourself whether you are inhaling or exhaling, at that very second your doubt has already disappeared, and being replaced with mindfulness — being aware of inhaling or exhaling. When your mindfulness slips away from being aware of the breath, doubt or eagerness to know resumes. A key point here is to differentiate between the state of doubt and the state of doubt-free.

By observing at the very second where you were able to tell yourself whether you were inhaling or exhaling, you will see that the state of doubt, which felt uncomfortable and uneasy, would change into a new state that felt worry-free, content, and happy. By just seeing this difference between the state of doubt and the state where you are temporarily doubt-free, it can be said that you already started the initial phase of gaining mindfulness in Vipassana.

This is because when you started to feel that initially your mind was in one condition, but now it is in another one. In a way, this act of seeing is an indication that you started to see that your previous state of mind has already passed, ended, transformed, and is no longer in the present. And by nature, whenever one’s mind sees something disappearing, the mind will not see it as self-existing entity.

This is a very interesting point to consider. What does the mind see as a self-existing entity? The answer is the ongoing present state that is apparent at this very moment. For example, when contrasting between the state of doubt and the state of doubt-free, one would notice that the mind stopped clinging to the state of doubt in the past, but instead it clings to the state of doubt free in the present as a self-existing entity.

If you clearly understand this point and are able to observe the present nature of the mind that we are misperceiving, it means that you understand the principle of Vipassana rather well.

The next step that we need to know is what could be the objects of observation within us? The answer is that we can be aware of everything that is a part of our bodies and all things that are a nature of the mind with mindfulness in Vipassana.

But just being told only this much, you could still be confused. You may be confused on how to observe everything within your body and mind. Should you observe it as a whole at once? The answer is that you should analytically observe things separately because there is no such thing as seeing everything all together at once. Besides, it is impossible. Therefore, you should observe only whatever you can.

Next may be the most crucial question. Which part should we observe first? The Buddha advised us to be mindful of breathing the most. This is because breath is dependable. It can rescue mindfulness, nurture mindfulness, as well as give rise to mindfulness so that we can realize the true nature of things as being impermanent.

As mentioned previously, just simply being aware of breathing in or breathing out can be called being mindful. Whenever you are mindful, doubt and distraction are being replaced temporarily. Therefore, it is desirable to establish an aspiration in being aware of breathing in or breathing out as often as you can, in order for mindfulness to govern the mind, rather than letting doubt and distraction dominate.

Whenever your mind is attentively mindful with your breath, you can feel that the experience of “disappearing from this world” is taking a shorter time, and your mind will be in the ready state of becoming more and more aware of the subtleties of various aspects of your body and mind.

The problem for most people is that we are unable to establish willingness or we have difficulty in prompting ourselves to be aware of our breath or the subtleties of various aspects of our body and mind. The next chapter will introduce some strategies to overcome this obstacle.

Conclusion
To start practicing Vipassana is not difficult. Once you understood what you should be reflecting your mind on for observation, it can be said that you are already on the right track, such as comparing the difference between the state of doubt and the state of doubt-free. The energy-saving tool that will bring you out of the starting point is your breath. Simply being mindful of your breath for once is like having a dividing wall between the state of doubt and state of doubt-free for you to easily visualize. The following chapters will mention some basic strategies to help you to be able to practice Vipassana continuously and we will practice it together while reading this book!