The Way of the Mind

One of the first things that Goenkaji tells us during the 10 days Vipassana retreat was this:

When the mind comes in touch with a sensation, there is a reaction of craving or aversion.

Out of ignorance (avijja), one does not understand the impermanent nature of the body and the mind. One therefore constantly goes on reacting (sankhara) to the subtle contact (phassa) of matter with the mind, resulting in very subtle pleasant or unpleasant experiences or sensations (vedana), and generating craving or aversion (tanha). This habit-pattern of blind reactions continues, and cravings and aversions multiply, turning into clinging (upadana), which makes the process of becoming (bhava) continue.
https://www.vridhamma.org/research/Vipassana-and-Health

Gonkaji asserts: Reacting with craving and aversion is the habit pattern of the mind. One needs to observe this up close during Vipassana and break that habit pattern.

During the 10 day retreat I scanned the body for sensations and found lots and lots of them. I found sensations of pain, of expansion, of contraction, of solidity, of flow, of heat, of cold, of shiver, of vibration.

Reactions of craving and aversion were also visible, sort of. For instance, I could find myself wanting to shoo away (aversion) pain sensations and elongate pleasant (craving) ones. But I couldn’t quite figure how this practice would lead to any insight, and what impact that insight would have on my daily life.

With practice, especially since I restarted my practice a few months ago, I can now see this whole phenomenon up close and clearly. Let me share an experience.

With a lot of difficulty, I had managed to reduce 25kgs in body weight over a 18 month period. With that kind of weight-loss, I had also lost a lot of muscle. I then signed up for a personal fitness coach to help me with muscle gain. He put me on bulking-mode with calorie surplus diet and strength training, consequently my weight has gone up from 63 to 69 kgs in 8 months.

A few weeks ago, one evening, when I was with friends I ate out. While I stuck to my nutrition recommendations (even though I was eating out), the food I ate felt unusually heavy, perhaps because of the kind of soda hotels use. During my 1 hour meditation sitting later that night, I got a chance to watch the functioning of my mind up close.

During breathe-in, I felt my stomach very tight.
I felt a sense of heaviness in my stomach, like there was a rock in there.
I get a feeling that there is a rapid beat in the body, I assume its the heart.
Mental image of a super-fat version of me showed up in my mind space (Notice fear?)
Mental talk of people telling me that my weight loss was a short lived phase. (Notice fear?)

I noted the mental image and mental talk, continued body scan.
Mental talk of me telling my coach to start on a cutting plan immediately
Mental talk of my coach refusing to hear me
Mental talk of me getting angry at him
Mental image of my fattening up even more (Notice fear?)
Mental talk of me shouting and holding my coach to account (Notice anger?)

I noted the mental image and mental talk, continued body scan.
Memory (mental image + talk) of my recent conversation with a friend about his house construction complications.
Memory (mental image + talk) of my own house construction from last year.
Mental talk of how a silly mistake in construction could compromise the structural stability of my house. (Notice fear?)

I note the mental images and talk, get back to body scanning.
I get a feeling that there is a rapid beat in the body, I assume its the heart.
Shortly later, mental-image of a WhatsApp conversation from my wife reminding me to keep a basket outside the main door for accepting big-basket vegetable delivery.
Mental talk of someone blaming me that I had not done that. (Notice fear?)
Mental image of big-basket folks coming for delivery, but no basket.
Mental image of delivery man keeping veggies on the shoe rack outside the house
Mental image of cats and dogs eating those veggies
Mental image of my wife opening the door and watching destroyed veggies (notice fear?)

I note talk and image, get back to body scanning.
I get a feeling that there is a rapid beat in the body, I assume its the heart.
Shortly later, I remember (mental talk and image) I was supposed to get cash from the ATM to pay my house maid.
Mental talk+image of maid angry that I have not yet paid her and resigning from the job
Mental talk+image of my wife yelling at me that I got our house maid to leave (notice fear?)

I note talk and image, get back to body scanning.
I get a feeling that there is a rapid beat in the body, I assume its the heart.
I hear a mental image+talk in which Goenkaji said: “When the mind comes in touch with a sensation, there is a reaction of craving or aversion. That’s the habit pattern of the mind. One needs to observe this up close during Vipassana and break that habit pattern.”

All of the above happen within a matter of one or two seconds. And then,

I get a feeling that there is a rapid beat in the body, I assume its the heart. (Notice fear?)
I watch it.
The rapid beat is there, but I can see its not the heart.
I watch a flow of vibrations in the body.
I laugh and the vibrations slow down, become gentle.
The stomach feels heavy.
I move on and continue observing sensations in the body.
Everytime I cross the stomach, it is feels heavy.
After a while, the body lets out a big burp.
Stomach feels lighter.
Body scan continues.
A big fart.
Stomach feels lighter.
Body scan continues.

When I got off the cushion, I noticed the craving I have developed for a lighter-body. The end effect of craving for a lighter body is same as aversion for a heavier body, neither of which is satisfying. They both lead to misery. The actual sensation isn’t an issue because it arises and passes away. The craving/aversion response makes it stick around and creates a false sense of self.

My fitness coach has educated me that his plan for me adding muscle involves bulking (which means adding weight with a proper guided nutrition and workout plan) and then cutting (which means losing weight with a proper guided nutrion and workout plan). So in a way, the sensations of heavy and lightness are part of the plan. Reacting to those sensations not only show up within the limited region of fitness and health, they manifest in every other aspect of life from big basket delivery, to maid-relationship, to house construction.

My big insight from this sitting left me a clearer understanding of the working of my own mind. When I react with craving or aversion to any body sensation, the reaction colors the experience of every aspect of my life including those that have nothing to do with the body-sensation that triggered in the reaction in the first place.

Noting the sensations, even those that make up my reaction lets me be a space in which sensations can simply arise and pass away, because none of them satisfy and they aren’t me anyway.

This insight is slowly but surely influencing my life experience off the cushion.

When angry, fearful or otherwise negative thoughts occupy my head; I am sometimes able to pause and look at them. Having noticed during my meditation sittings that such thoughts are the way in which aversion manifests, I simply conclude without further debate that I am generating aversion for some body sensation like hunger, or itch, or unpleasant sight or talk or smell.

Much the same way, if mental talk and images of grandeur, success, fantasy, lust, material possession, desire for material objects (clothes, phones, cars etc), desire for non-material-elements (fame, appreciation, attraction etc) or anything else overly positive occupy my head; I am sometimes able to pause and look at those as well. Previously, I would get carried away and in fact even indulge in them to break free from the otherwise unsatisfactoriness of everyday life. But now because of what I see in my meditation sittings, I know that craving manifests in such mental images and talk. I simply conclude without further debate that I am generating craving for some body sensation like good taste, smell, look of another person, the sight of a advertisement on social media, the photo of friend on Facebook with his brand new Mercedes Benz, or some other pleasant sight or talk or smell or sound.

I am increasingly convinced

that craving leads me on a path of having to keep craving to retain the sensations that felt momentarily pleasant;
that aversion puts me on a path to keep generating various forms of aversion in order to hate or be-angry at or otherwise keep generating aversion towards the sensation that momentarily felt unpleasant.

The sensation for which I generated craving or aversion would have long left, but I end up burning a memory of it deep into this sensation space around me somewhere, in order to generate it over and over and over again to keep craving or hating it. That’s dukka or dissatisfaction right there. The range of sensations I have collected to crave and hate have composed a false sense of self, which keeps me looping over my “sensations collection” and I have found myself a prisoner of that museum of sensations.

I am now slowly letting go of those artefacts in my museum of sensations. I am letting go intensely during my meditation sittings, but then I can see that it’s happening by itself off-cushion as well. The dreams I now get have flavours of craving and aversion, which I am not bothered by or find any need to figure out meaning of once I wake up. I am skeptical about the first feeling that crops up whenever anything happens. Many times I feel that some sankara is showing up disguised in the content of the current situation. I am letting it be and in the process I move through spaces of pleasurable-orgasm to miserable-dirt, knowing that none of them are me. To an outside observer, it does not look pretty. I have plenty of metta for people who are accommodating my presence around them as I let this happen to me.