Guarding the Sense Doors

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Guarding The Sense Doors: Prerequisites

Once we've built a strong foundation of virtue through Right Action, Right Speech, and Right Livelihood, guided by Right View and Right Intention, we're ready for the next step in the Gradual Training: Guarding the Sense Doors.

Like virtue, Guarding the Sense Doors is a crucial skill. It needs to be developed and practiced continuously as we advance through the Gradual Training.

And what more is to be done?
We will guard our senses, not grasping at the form seen by the eye, not grasping at the sound heard by the ear.

Having abandoned attachment and aversion, we will guard the eye faculty. While staying in seclusion, if unwholesome, unskillful thoughts of covetousness and discontent arise, we should practice restraint, protect our eye faculty, and establish restraint over the eye faculty.

Having heard a sound with the ear ...
Having smelled an odor with the nose ...
Having tasted a flavor with the tongue ...
Having touched a tactile sensation with the body ...

Knowing a mental phenomenon with the mind, we should not grasp at its signs or features.

If, while staying in seclusion, unguarded, uncontrolled thoughts of covetousness and discontent arise, we should practice restraint, protect our mind faculty, and establish restraint over the mind faculty.

This is how you should train.

MN39

Guarding The Sense Doors: Introduction

At its core, the Gradual Training is the continuous process of letting go of desire and aversion, to lessen stress and dissatisfaction, and ultimately to end all stress and suffering permanently.

At this stage of practice, even though desire and aversion in interactions with others may have been reduced, a strong underlying tendency remains, karmic volition or mental energy rooted in past desires and intentions. This energy continually seeks satisfaction from the world.

Addressing this continual seeking is twofold. First, we renounce all possible sources of agitation or stress in our lives, abandoning contact with people, circumstances, or objects likely to give rise to greed, aversion, or delusion. Second, we develop the practice of guarding the sense doors, restraining ourselves from engaging with the world in ways that might lead to stress and dissatisfaction. We guard our senses from anything that could cloud the mind and prevent it from remaining stable, centered, calm, and mindful.

As the “Fires of Nibbāna” remind us, stress is cumulative: the more desire and aversion we allow, the more stress builds until it has a chance to dissipate. Each time we fail to guard the sense doors, we make practice more difficult, adding to the distress and dissatisfaction in our lives.

Guarding The Sense Doors In The Modern World

Living in today’s world is very different from the isolated existence of disciples during the time of the Tathagata. We are constantly bombarded by social media, 24-hour news, online shopping, and an overwhelming influx of information.

Daily life is crowded with responsibilities, duties, social and leisure activities, shopping, and fitness routines.

To follow the Tathagata’s Gradual Training, rooted in renunciation, we must first take significant steps to remove harmful influences and activities irrelevant to the practice.

Before we begin guarding the sense doors, it is essential to examine all sources of contact in our lives, identifying those that feed clinging, aversion, and unknowing.

Consider:

• Your social circle: can you maintain wholesome thoughts if companions engage in unwholesome activities or speech?

• Your use of social media: observe it for signs of craving, clinging, and attachment.

• The effect of news: if it does not directly affect you, is your attention to it driven by greed or aversion?

• Your purchases: are they necessary, or do they feed materialism?

• Your TV and smartphone usage: can you limit them to set times and wholesome purposes?

• Your attraction to entertainment media: notice the stress it stirs and the desires it fuels.

• Your urge for distraction: see how you use it to escape stress or agitation.

Analyze your activities and routines carefully. Release anything that is not essential for your livelihood, the care of your family, or the maintenance of your health.

Eventually, as one progresses in the practice, one will come to realize that all the above are a source of stress and dissatisfaction and will be abandoned.

You should understand those things that lead to dispassion, not to passion; to detachment, not to bondage; to diminishment, not to accumulation; to few desires, not to great desires; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to association; to arousal of energy, not to laziness; to being easy to support, not to being difficult to support. You should definitely consider: This is the Dhamma, this is the discipline, this is the Teachers instruction.

AN8.53

Distance Oneself And Be Alone

Author: Linmu

The places where modern people live are often filled with various comfortable and enticing colors, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures. These five external conditions are referred to as the five desires.

An untamed heart has difficulty resisting the temptations of the five desires, therefore, when exposed to them, various forms of greed and attachment will continuously arise. In order to avoid these temptations and reduce the generation of greed, we should try to stay away from bustling and noisy places as much as possible.

Go to a quiet and undisturbed wilderness or vacant house, restrain the senses, moderate your diet, regulate your behavior and conduct, reduce tasks, and live a simple life. If conditions do not allow, you can arrange a quiet and simple room at home or nearby for solitude. When entering this room, you should restrain yourself as mentioned before.

Whatever one keeps pursuing with his thinking & pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness

MN19

Guarding The Sense Doors: Overview Of The Practice

The basic principle behind Guarding the Sense Doors is simple: whatever we pay attention to, grows.

To progress along the Gradual Training, we must create conditions where tranquility and clear knowing can arise. This means cultivating a mental oasis amidst the jungle of the man-made world, so the right foundations for a peaceful and imperturbable mind are in place.

We do not need to live alone in the wilderness to do this. By simplifying our lives and greatly reducing sources of unwholesome contact, we create the space for adequate tranquility in the mind, the necessary condition for practicing Guarding the Sense Doors.

At its root, this practice is about “not grasping at signs and features”, not getting entangled in aspects of our experience that trigger desire or aversion.

Normally, when we encounter a sensory experience, the mind automatically identifies details we like or dislike. Based on our ingrained preferences, we fixate on those details, sometimes obsessing over them. If the mind is inclined to see something in a negative light, it will search for those details, reinforcing aversion. This habitual pattern increases both greed and aversion.

Guarding the Sense Doors is the opposite of this fixation. It is training the mind to neither be drawn toward nor repelled by the particulars of our experience.

The difficulty is that, until liberation, our desires hide within “paying attention.” Attention often comes with an agenda, to gain something, avoid something, ignore something, or change something. This process is driven by ingrained memories and conditioning, leading us to react automatically.

In truth, this kind of attention only deepens our entanglement and suffering.

The practice of Guarding the Sense Doors means paying attention in a way that prevents clinging to the specifics of our experience. It is the clinging to feelings and perceptions that begins the chain of suffering.

When contact is made, a feeling arises: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Pleasant feelings lead to craving, unpleasant to aversion, and neutral to indifference or neglect. These feelings feed unskillful thoughts, speech, and actions.

By Guarding the Sense Doors, we can prevent, weaken, and even stop this chain of dissatisfaction.

Guarding the Sense Doors is not a practice confined to specific times; it should be cultivated throughout the day, in all activities.

Guarding The Sense Doors: Progress In The Gradual Training

In the initial phase of Guarding the Sense Doors, we keep a close watch over our senses, engaging with the environment only when necessary. When walking, awareness stays with the act of walking itself, abiding in renunciation, and resisting attention to distractions, much like a disciple focusing solely on the path directly before them.

We remain mindful when sensory contact occurs, turning attention away from anything that might lead to craving, desire, or aversion. Guarding the Sense Doors is like posting a guard at the city gates, allowing in what is beneficial, and turning away what is harmful.

As practice deepens, we learn to see with peripheral awareness, without grasping at any theme or variation. Attention and the senses remain tied to the body, preventing the mind from wandering outward, while peripheral awareness stays open and unhampered.

With Right Mindfulness, the focus shifts from guarding the senses against external disturbances to the source, craving and clinging to perceptions of the body.

Advancing to the stage of Abandoning the Hindrances, we learn to disengage the senses altogether. In this state, there is no seeing or hearing in the usual way. Attention is unified so the mind dwells within the mental body, free from contact with physical existence and protected from defilements created by the five senses.

When sense guard is fully mastered, attention rests in the mind itself, stable, centered, collected, and unified, with awareness that is infinite, boundless, and free from obstruction. This occurs naturally when greed and aversion for the world are subdued.

Guarding The Sense Doors: Discerning Contact

The main skill in guarding the sense doors is discerning when the mind makes contact with objects in what the Tathagata calls “The World”, the Five Aggregates, recognizing desire, the arising of feelings, perceptions, intentions, and the thoughts that follow from this contact.

This requires developing appropriate attention, making contact with objects of “The World” in a way that does not lead to desire, aversion, or clinging.

Guarding the sense doors depends on Right View and Right Intention, so as not to become entangled with the objects of the six senses. When we desire and cling to objects, or personalize events in our experience, we become entangled with them, lost in their delusion.

Appropriate attention and guarding the sense doors are rooted in renunciation, a deep understanding that nothing in this world is worth grasping or clinging to, and that doing so only brings agitation and stress.

Right Intention, grounded in Right View, when continually reinforced, is the power that keeps the mind stable, centered, collected, and unified, intent on guarding itself from becoming entangled in greed, aversion, and unknowing.

Without Right View, Right Intention, Right Action, Right Speech, and Right Livelihood, we end up constantly trying to put out fires, instead of preventing them from starting in the first place.

The Simile Of The Six Animals

Author: Linmu

The Tathagata gives the simile of the six animals. If you catch six different animals - a dog, a bird, a snake, a wolf, a fish, and a monkey - and tie them all to the same pillar in the square. Dogs want to enter the village, birds want to fly into the sky, snakes want to crawl into holes, wolves want to go to the wilderness, fish want to jump into the water, and monkeys want to enter the forest. Each has its own desired destination.

But because each animal is tied up and kept struggling, it eventually becomes exhausted and can only rely on the pillar for support. The six constrained senses are like these six animals, constantly wanting to climb and explore their favorite phenomena. To tame these senses, we also need to tie them to a pillar, and this pillar is the body.

Attention on the body is the rope that keeps the senses attached to the post and prevents them from grasping and getting entangled in the environment or in our thoughts.

Guarding the Sense Doors, Eating Mindfully, Practicing Wakefulness, and Right Mindfulness all require one to establish attention on the body to protect oneself from any greed and aversion.

Depending on the situation, one might need to tighten the rope, bring attention closer to the body, for example, when faced with challenging situations like delightful sights. At other times, we may loosen the rope and allow the senses more freedom, making attention wider, for example, when performing tasks like crossing the street.

Eventually as the six senses no longer grasp or feed on their respective objects, for example sights, sounds and tastes, they settle down and are content resting in place.

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Guarding the Sense Doors: How To Practice

When we first begin practicing Guarding the Sense Doors, we keep the six senses tied to the post, the body. This means we do not let the senses reach outside the body to grasp or interact with objects of “The World.” We avoid letting attention become scattered, keeping it within the body, and use peripheral awareness to move through the world while avoiding contact with signs and features that might give rise to unwholesome mental states.

As we perform a task, we remain mindful, aware of both mind and body, and attentive to any tension or scattering of attention.

If there is tension or tightness anywhere in the mind or body, we loosen the rope, widening attention in that area to release it. If the mind begins to scatter, we tighten the rope, bringing attention back to the body or to the task at hand.

When the mind escapes, lost in thought and no longer tied to the post, we bring it back and secure it again, restoring mindfulness and attention to the body or the task.

Mindfulness in this stage of practice is a balance, not too tight, not too loose, free from clinging, aversion, and unknowing. This requires spreading awareness throughout the body to counteract unawareness, which, if left unchecked, leads to the arising of unwholesome mental states.

Even when we are engaged in tasks that demand full attention, it is beneficial to keep a small portion of awareness on the mind and body. When there is no tension in the body and the mind is not scattered, the result is greater effectiveness and less stress.

When Right View and Right Intention are developed and mindfulness is established in the body, the mind naturally does not want to become entangled in anything. We simply remain with the intention to stay free from entanglement, letting the mind remain clear and peaceful.

Any desire-passion with regard to the eye is a defilement of the mind.

Any desire-passion with regard to the ear… the nose… the tongue… the body… the intellect is a defilement of the mind.

When, with regard to these six bases, the defilements of awareness are abandoned, then the mind is inclined to renunciation.

The mind fostered by renunciation feels malleable for the direct knowing of those qualities worth realizing.

SN27:1

From the origin of attention is the origin of mental phenomena; with the cessation of attention, there is the passing away of mental phenomena.

SN47.42

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Garding The Sense Doors: Appropriate Attention

When one attends improperly, unarisen defilements arise and arisen defilements increase. When one attends properly, unarisen defilements do not arise and arisen defilements are abandoned.

MN2

When the Tathagata says, “We will not grasp at any theme or variations,” it means that a liberated person understands nothing in this world is intrinsically beautiful or ugly, tasty or distasteful. All such judgments are created by the mind and, by themselves, are empty of any substance. The liberated mind does not desire or cling to anything based on these judgments.

Appropriate attention means directing awareness not toward the sense objects and entanglements of the world, but toward the source of the entanglement itself, the root of stress and suffering, our desire and clinging to the Five Aggregates.

It is not the beautiful or ugly things of the world that are the problem, but the ingrained feelings, perceptions, desires, and intentions that have been formed within the mind. Instead of trying to solve the problem externally, appropriate attention turns inward, observing feelings, perceptions, desires, intentions, and thoughts.

We must see through the mistaken belief that our feelings and desires have real substance and can provide lasting happiness. The reality is that it is clinging to the Five Aggregates, believing our desires to be substantial and satisfactory, that causes stress and dissatisfaction.

Unlike the disciples in the Tathagata’s time, who lived mostly solitary lives and guarded their sense doors primarily during interactions with laypeople, such as when going for alms, those in the modern world face far greater numbers of distractions and disturbances.

The first objective of appropriate attention in guarding the sense doors is to become aware of what we habitually give attention to, and the power these objects have to affect us and create disturbances in our lives.

Guarding the sense doors involves identifying and abandoning unnecessary unwholesome mind contacts, unwholesome habits, and situations that lead to craving, desire, and the unwholesome propagation of thoughts.

When certain circumstances cannot be avoided, we learn to make contact with them without adding disturbances to our lives, avoiding entanglement in greed, aversion, or unknowing.

As practice deepens, the emphasis shifts from guarding the senses against the objects of “The World” to guarding against the danger of the sense doors themselves, clinging to the Five Aggregates as me, myself, or mine.

When attending to things, if unarisen sensual desire arises or arisen sensual desire increases; if unarisen desire for existence arises or arisen desire for existence increases; if unarisen ignorance arises or arisen ignorance increases, these are the things that should not be attended to, which he does not attend to.

MN2

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Understanding Contact

Understanding “contact” is essential for deepening one’s practice. Contact is the meeting of three factors:

• The sense organ: such as the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind.

• The sense object: what is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, or mentally cognized.

• The sense consciousness: the awareness that arises at that specific sense base, such as visual consciousness.

When these three meet, contact arises.

For example, eye-contact occurs when a visible form, the object, comes into range of the eye, the sense organ, and visual consciousness arises. The meeting of these three conditions produces the moment of contact, the condition for feeling to arise.

After contact, the mind interprets or elaborates on what is seen by applying memory, naming, and categorization. Previously stored perceptions and feelings are recalled, shaping the way the object is experienced.

Due to ignorance and craving, a sense of “I” or “mine” may be inserted into the experience, manifesting as desire, aversion, or delusion. This process gives rise to the experience of ourselves as a being in a three-dimensional world, separate from what is perceived.

But even when there is contact, what follows from contact is not fixed. When mindfulness and wisdom are present, the process stops at mere contact and feeling, without further mental proliferation, without reacting with craving, aversion, or identification.

Contact can occur without grasping or clinging, without propagating it into suffering, allowing the cycle of reactivity to stop before it begins.

When it comes to things that are to be seen, heard, thought, and known:

in the seen will be merely the seen; in the heard will be merely the heard; in the thought will be merely the thought; in the known will be merely the known.

When this is the case, you won’t be by that. When you’re not by that, you won’t be in that. When you’re not in that, you won’t be in this world or the world beyond or in between the two.

Just this is the end of suffering.

UD1.10

When there is self-referencing, the sense of self is in the looking. The sense of self is in the object itself. This is clinging.

Contact is the starting point of the chain of cognition that makes things personal. Memory is accessed to create feelings and perceptions. These include the perception of being separate from the object of perception, and of a self that needs to interact with the object. From there, the process propagates into thoughts, views, and actions.

Dependent on eye & forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact.

With contact as a requisite condition, there is feeling. What one feels, one perceives (labels in the mind)..

What one perceives, one thinks about. What one thinks about, one complicates.

Based on what a person complicates, the perceptions & categories of objectification assail him/her with regard to past, present, & future forms cognizable via the eye.

MN18

Experiencing Contact

Contact can be recognized because, when it occurs, there is self-referencing. As contact is made, feelings and perceptions arise, and the mind labels the experience as good, bad, or neutral. Making the contact personal brings stress.

To experience contact, choose an object in your peripheral vision. Slowly turn your head toward it, but do not look at it directly. At some point, you will notice that when contact is made, attention momentarily shifts back to the mind as the process of cognition takes place. This is self-referencing, this is contact.

When practicing Guarding the Sense Doors, and when entangled with an object in the environment, there is tension in the mind, a pull or a push, greed or aversion toward the object. There is labeling, marking the object as good, bad, or neutral. This is contact. This is self-referencing.

Becoming aware of the push and pull, of the labeling of objects, and of the judging of things as good, bad, or neutral, is crucial for recognizing contact and the greed, aversion, and clinging that follow.

Once upon a time a tortoise was foraging for food on the riverbank in the evening. A jackal was also foraging for food on the riverbank in the evening. The tortoise saw the jackal from a distance while foraging. Seeing this, it withdrew its limbs into its shell and remained silent and still.

The jackal saw the tortoise from a distance while foraging. Seeing this, it approached the tortoise and stood nearby, thinking, If this tortoise extends any of its limbs, I will seize it, pull it out, and eat it. However, as long as the tortoise did not extend any of its limbs, the jackal, unable to find an opening, eventually left.

In the same way Māra the Evil One is always waiting for an opportunity, thinking, Perhaps I might find an opening in their eyes... or in their ears... or in their nose... or in their tongue... or in their body... or in their mind.

Therefore live with your sense faculties guarded. When seeing a form with the eye, do not grasp its signs and features. If you leave the eye faculty unguarded, unskillful unwholesome states of longing and dejection might invade you. Practice restraint for its protection, guard the eye faculty, and undertake its restraint.

When hearing a sound with the ear...
When smelling an odor with the nose...
When tasting a flavor with the tongue...
When touching a tangible with the body...
When cognizing a mental phenomenon with the mind, do not grasp its signs and features.

If you leave the mind faculty unguarded, unskillful unwholesome states of longing and dejection might invade you. Practice restraint for its protection, guard the mind faculty, and undertake its restraint.

When you live with your sense faculties guarded, Māra the Evil One, finding no opening, will become disheartened and leave, just as the jackal left the tortoise. Like the tortoise withdrawing its limbs into its shell, the disciple withdraws his thoughts into his mind.

SN35.240

Upasika Kee Nanayon: Mindfulness Like The Pilings Of A Dam

The following article has been adapted for the gradual training:

Upasika Kee Nanayon

If we don’t pay attention to keeping the mind centered or neutral as its foundation, it will wander off in various ways in pursuit of preoccupations or sensory contacts, giving rise to turmoil and restlessness. But when we practice restraint over the sensory doors by maintaining continuous mindfulness, it’s like driving in the pilings for a dam. If you’ve ever seen the pilings for a dam, you’ll know that they’re driven deep, deep into the ground so that they’re absolutely firm and immovable. But if you drive them into mud, they’re easily swayed by the slightest contact. This should give us an idea of how firm our mindfulness should be in supervising the mind to make it stable, able to withstand sensory contact without liking or disliking its objects.

The stability of your mindfulness is something you have to maintain continuously in your every activity. The mind will stop being scattered searching for preoccupations. Otherwise, the mind will get stirred up whenever there’s sensory contact, like a rudderless ship going wherever the wind and waves take it. This is why you need mindfulness to guard the mind at every moment. If you can make mindfulness constant in every activity, the mind will be continuously neutral, ready to probe and investigate for insight.

As a first step in driving in the pilings for our dam, in other words, in making mindfulness stable, we have to be intent on neutrality as our basic stance. There’s nothing you have to think about. Simply make the mind solid in its neutrality. If you can do this continuously, that’s when you’ll have a true standard for your investigation because the mind will have gathered into concentration. But this concentration is something you have to watch over carefully to make sure it’s not just oblivious indifference. Make the mind firmly established and centered so that it doesn’t get absentminded or distracted. Maintain steady mindfulness, and there’s nothing else you have to do. Keep the mind firm and neutral, not thinking of anything at all. Make sure this stability stays continuous. When anything pops up, no matter how, keep the mind neutral. For example, if there’s a feeling of pleasure or pain, don’t focus on the feeling. Simply reinforce your intention to keep the mind stable, and there will be a sense of neutrality in that stability.

If you’re careful not to let the mind get absentminded or distracted, singleness of mind and concentration will become continuous.

Mindfulness is the key factor in all of this, keeping the mind from concocting thoughts or labeling things. Everything has to stop. Keep this foundation snug and stable. Then you can relax your attention while keeping the mind in the same state of neutrality. Relax your attention so that it feels just right. The mind will be able to stay in this state, free from any thoughts that might wander off the path. Then keep an eye out to see that no matter what you do or say, the mind stays solidly in its normal state of inward knowing.

If the mind is stable within itself, you’re protected on all sides. When sensory contacts come, you stay intent on keeping your mental stability. Even if there are any momentary slips in your mindfulness, you get right back to the stability of the mind. Other than that, there’s nothing you have to do. The mind will let go without your having to do anything else. The way you used to like this, hate that, turn left here, turn right there won’t be able to happen. The mind will stay neutral, equanimous, just right. If mindfulness lapses, you get right back to your mindfulness, recognizing when the mind is centered and neutral toward its objects, and then keeping it that way.

The pilings for the dam of mindfulness have to be driven in so that they’re solid and secure with your every activity. Keep working at this, no matter what you’re doing. If you can train the mind so that stability is its basic foundation, it won’t get into mischief. It won’t cause you any trouble. It won’t concoct thoughts. Furthermore, it will be quiet. Once it’s quiet and centered, it will grow more refined and probe in to penetrate within itself, to know its own state of centered concentration from within.

As for sensory contacts, those are things outside, appearing only to disappear, so it’s not interested. This can make cravings disband. The mind will simply stay stable, centered, and firm in its neutrality. This stability can easily help you abandon the cravings that lie latent in connection with all feelings. But if you don’t keep the mind centered and unified in advance like this, craving will create issues, provoking the mind into turmoil and wanting to change things to get this or that kind of happiness.

If we practice in this way repeatedly, hammering at this point over and over again, it’s like driving pilings into the ground. The deeper we can drive them, the more immovable they’ll be. That’s when you’ll be able to withstand sensory contacts. Otherwise, the mind will start boiling over with its thought concoctions in pursuit of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations. Sometimes it keeps concocting the same old senseless issues over and over again. This is because the pilings of mindfulness aren’t yet firmly in place. The way we’ve been stumbling through life is because we haven’t really practiced to the point where mindfulness is continuous enough to make the mind firmly centered and neutral. So we have to make our dam of mindfulness solid and secure.

This centeredness of mind is something we should develop with every activity, with every in-and-out breath. This way we’ll be able to see through our illusions, all the way into the truths of inconstancy and not-self. Otherwise, the mind will stray off here and there like a mischievous monkey, yet even monkeys can be caught and trained to perform tricks. In the same way, the mind can be trained, but if you don’t tie it to the post of mindfulness and give it a taste of discipline, it’ll be very difficult to tame.

When training the mind, you shouldn’t force it too much, nor can you simply let it go to its habitual ways. You have to test yourself to see what gets results. If you don’t get your mindfulness stable, it’ll quickly run out after preoccupations or easily waver under the impact of its objects. When people let their minds simply drift along with the flow of things, it’s because they haven’t established mindfulness as a solid foundation. When this is the case, they can’t stop. They can’t grow still. They can’t be free. This is why we have to start by driving in the pilings for our dam so that they are good and solid, keeping the mind stable, centered, and unified whether we’re sitting, standing, walking, or lying down. This stability will then be able to withstand everything. Your mindfulness will stay with its foundation, just like a monkey tied to a post: It can’t run off or get into mischief. It can only circle the post to which its leash is tied.

Keep training the mind until it’s tame enough to settle down and investigate things, for if it’s still scattered about, it’s of no use at all. You have to train it until it’s familiar with what inner stability is like, for your own instability and lack of intention and commitment in training it - is what allows it to get all entangled with thought concoctions, with things that arise and then pass away. You have to make it stop. Why is it so mischievous? Why is it so scattered? Why does it keep wandering off? Get it under control! Make it stop, settle down, and grow centered and unified!

Once you have practiced in this way, the next step is to use mindfulness to maintain it in your every activity, so that even if there are any distractions, they last only for a moment and don’t turn into long issues. Keep driving in the pilings until they’re solid every time there’s an impact from external objects or so that the mental concoctions that go straying out from within are all brought to stillness in every way.

This training isn’t really all that hard. The important point is that, whichever of the many practice subjects you choose, you stay mindful and aware with a mind state that’s centered and neutral. If, when the mind goes straying out after objects, you keep bringing it back to its centeredness over and over again, the mind will eventually be able to stay firmly in its foundation. In other words, its mindfulness will become constant, ready to probe and investigate because when the mind really settles down, it gains the power to see things "as they are" within itself clearly. If it’s not centered, it can jumble everything up to fool you, switching from this issue to that, from this role to that; but if it’s centered, it can disband everything, all defilements, cravings, and attachments, on every side.

So what this practice comes down to is how much effort and persistence you put into getting the mind firmly centered and unified. Once it’s firm, then when there arise all the sufferings and defilements that would otherwise get it soiled and worked up, it can withstand them just as the pilings of a dam can withstand windstorms without budging. You have to be clearly aware of this state of mind so that you won’t go out liking this or hating that. This state will then become your point of departure for probing and investigating to gain the insight that sees clearly all the way through, but you have to make sure that this centeredness is continuous. Then you won’t have to think about anything. Simply look right in, deeply and subtly.

The important point is that you get rid of absentmindedness and distractions. This in itself gets rid of a lot of delusion and ignorance, and leaves no opening for craving to create any issues that will stir up the mind and set it wandering. This is because we’ve established our foundation in advance. Even if we lose our normal balance a little bit, we get right back to keeping attention on the stability of our centered and unified mind. If we keep at this over and over again, the stability of the mind with its continuous mindfulness will enable us to probe into the truths of inconstancy, stress, and not-self.

In the beginning, though, you don’t have to do any probing. It’s better to simply keep your intention on the stability of your foundation, for if you start probing when the mind isn’t really centered and stable, you’ll end up scattered. So keep your intention on making centeredness the basic level of the mind and then start probing in deeper and deeper. This will lead to insights that grow more and more telling and profound, bringing the mind to a state of freedom within itself, or to a state where it is no longer hassled by defilement.

This in itself will bring about true mastery over the sense doors. At first, when we started out, we weren’t able to exercise any real restraint over the eyes and ears, but once the mind becomes firmly centered, then the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body are automatically brought under control. If there’s no mindfulness and concentration, you can’t keep your eyes under control because the mind will want to use them to look and to see; it will want to use the ears to listen to all kinds of things. So instead of exercising restraint outside, at the senses, we exercise it inside, right at the mind, making the mind firmly centered and neutral at all times. Regardless of whether you’re talking or whatever, the mind’s attention stays in place. Once you can do this, you’ll regard the objects of the senses as meaningless. You won’t have to take issue with things, thinking, “This is good; I like it. This is bad; I don’t like it. This is pretty; that’s ugly.” The same holds true with the sounds you hear. You won’t take issue with them. You focus instead on the neutral, uninvolved centeredness of the mind. This is the basic foundation for neutrality.

When you can do this, everything becomes neutral. When the eye sees a form, it’s neutral. When the ear hears a sound, it’s neutral; the mind is neutral; the sound is neutral; everything is all neutral because we’ve closed five of the six sense doors and then settled ourselves in neutrality right at the mind. This takes care of everything. Whatever the eye may see, the ear may hear, the nose may smell, the tongue may taste, or the body may touch, the mind doesn’t take issue with anything at all. It stays centered, neutral, and impartial. Take just this much and give it a try.

Moderation And Mindfulness In Eating

And how, disciples, should you train yourselves? You should think: We will be content with the bare minimum, taking food in moderation.

We will reflect wisely on the purpose of eating, not indulging in sensual pleasures or beautifying ourselves, but only to sustain this body, to avoid harm, and to support the holy life.

We will abandon old feelings and not generate new feelings. We will maintain our well-being and live blamelessly.

MN39

Because eating is such a constant source of pleasure for humans, and such a regular activity, mindfulness while eating becomes an excellent way to observe how desire gives rise to greed, and how clinging to perceptions and feelings propagates future suffering.

When we eat with full mindfulness, we can watch how, from contact with food, feelings and perceptions are created. From these feelings and perceptions, the mind fabricates flavors, what the Tathagata calls Mental Fabrications. We can see how we cling to these mental flavors, and how this clinging leads to present and future intentions, such as the desire to keep enjoying the taste. This can lead to delusion, such as eating mindlessly long after hunger or enjoyment have faded.

When the tongue tastes food and there is consciousness of it, the meeting of the three is contact. From this contact, three types of feelings and perceptions arise: pleasurable, unpleasurable, and neutral. Based on these, mental formations are created. Flavors are fabricated in the mind, generating desire and mental volition. There is the intention: “I like this. I want more.” The mind clings to these fabrications and tries to savor them as long as possible, creating both present and future desires, and planting the seeds for future states of being.

In truth, our taste buds can only detect five basic sensations: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory. It is the mind that constructs the rich variety of flavors from these simple inputs. If we pay close attention to our taste buds while eating, we will see that the flavor does not exist in the taste buds themselves, but rather in the mental fabrications built from feelings and perceptions. We cling to these mental flavors, making them seem lasting and substantial. Yet, if we shift attention back to the raw sensations on the tongue, we find only a continuous play of sensations, not fully formed flavors.

When we indulge in and cling to the mental flavors the mind creates, there is pleasure. But if we broaden awareness and release the pleasure that comes from clinging, we can discern an underlying stress in the mind, rooted in desire.

Desire brings stress at multiple stages: before tasting, in the anticipation of pleasure; while eating, in the wish to prolong it; and afterwards, either in aversion when we have had too much, or in lingering craving when we have not had enough.

The problem lies in the endless cycle of turning to sensual pleasures as an escape from discomfort. This is why Mindfulness of Eating is such a valuable practice, it helps us see clearly the four types of nutrients that sustain future suffering and rebirth.

The Form Aggregate:

When physical food is fully understood, the lust for the five cords of sensual pleasure is fully understood.

When the lust for the five cords of sensual pleasure is fully understood, there is no fetter bound by which a noble disciple might come back to this world.

SN12.63

The Feeling and Perceptions Aggregates:

When the nutriment contact is fully understood, the three feelings are fully understood. When the three feelings are fully understood, I say there is nothing further for a noble disciple to do.

SN12.63

The Mental Volitions Aggregate:

When the nutriment mental volition is fully understood, the three cravings are fully understood. When the three cravings are fully understood, I say there is nothing further for a noble disciple to do.

SN12.63

The Conciousness Aggregate:

When consciousness as nourishment is fully understood, name and form are fully understood. When name and form are fully understood, I say there is nothing further for a noble disciple to do.

SN12.63

Beyond helping us understand the Four Nutriments, Mindfulness of Eating is also beneficial because overeating can be a significant obstacle on our path. Furthermore, it serves as a valuable way to assess our personal levels of clinging, aversion, unknowing, and attachment to our body.

Mindfulness of Eating

To cultivate mindfulness of eating, the Tathagata instructs us to approach food consumption with the same level of revulsion as we would feel if we were to consume our own child.

And how should the nutriment physical food be seen?

Suppose a couple, taking a small amount of provisions, would enter a great forest. And they have with them their only beloved and cherished child.

Then due to their small amount of provisions being exhausted and depleted while still in the middle of the forest, they might think: Our small amount of provisions is exhausted and depleted, and there is still a great stretch of forest ahead of us.

What if we were to kill our only beloved and cherished child, make dried flesh and powdered meat, and by eating our childs flesh, we might cross the remainder of this forest, lest all three of us perish?

Then the couple would kill their only beloved and cherished child, make dried flesh and powdered meat, and by eating their childs flesh, they would cross the remainder of the forest.

While eating their childs flesh, they would beat their breasts and lament: Where are you, our only child, where are you, our only child? What do you think would they eat that food for amusement or for enjoyment, or for the sake of physical beauty or attractiveness? No, venerable sir. Wouldn't they eat that food only for the sake of crossing the forest? Yes, venerable sir. In the same way I say that physical food should be seen.

When physical food is fully understood, the lust for the five cords of sensual pleasure is fully understood. When the lust for the five cords of sensual pleasure is fully understood, there is no fetter bound by which a noble disciple might come back to this world. - SN12.63

The perception of repulsiveness in food, when developed and frequently practiced, leads to the deathless: