origin, cessation, allure, danger, escape
Apr. 11th, 2019 05:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cattasallaThere is a formula repeated often in the suttas that I don't think gets enough attention in Western teachings. It's a remarkable little fivefold mode of analysis that can enable the practitioner to deal with virtually any unwholesome or unskillful state or quality that arises. And that is to contemplate the phenomenon, and see its origin, cessation, allure, danger, and escape.
The first step is just to see when it happens. When do you get upset? What distracts you? When do you feel greed? What triggers it? What conditions have to be in place for it to occur? Are their underlying conditions or tendencies or beliefs that get activated, things you might not really be aware of? This also involves accepting the negative thing is happening. Yes, it's something you eventually want to get rid of, but first you have to see it and understand it, which means accepting it, and letting it just be, without trying to change it.
The next step is to understand its absence, which comes in two forms. First, seeing what causes it to go away. Does it simply just weaken over time and you can then move on? Is there something you can do to hasten its departure? What's going on when it stops? Second, look at what the mind is like when it is absent, and hasn't arisen. What conditions aren't there? What conditions are? What is happening in your mind that is preventing it from arising?
In general, these unwholesome states arise because there's something alluring about them. As much as we may think we do not want them, at some level there is some appeal, some attraction, and some clinging. So try to understand what the unwholesome state does for you. What gets gratified? What do you get out of it? If it's greed for sensual experience, the pleasure of the sensual experience is the obvious answer. If it's anger, do you get a sense of power, of control?
But, with any unwholesome or unskilled state, there is a danger. If there weren't, it wouldn't be classified as unwholesome and unskilled! So once you've understood its origin and cessation, and seen the allure, what is the danger? How does it harm you? What are its negative consequences? And don't just reason through them--try to feel it. Pay attention to how you feel, and cleary see where it hurts, where it is tense, where it is ultimately undesirable.
At this point, the final step is easy. The escape is always just to let go, to stop clinging, and to release into liberation. And once you clearly comprehend the danger, and see that the allure or gratification is simply not worth the trouble, it often happens almost automatically! (Of course, some deeper things might need a great deal more work...)
The first step is just to see when it happens. When do you get upset? What distracts you? When do you feel greed? What triggers it? What conditions have to be in place for it to occur? Are their underlying conditions or tendencies or beliefs that get activated, things you might not really be aware of? This also involves accepting the negative thing is happening. Yes, it's something you eventually want to get rid of, but first you have to see it and understand it, which means accepting it, and letting it just be, without trying to change it.
The next step is to understand its absence, which comes in two forms. First, seeing what causes it to go away. Does it simply just weaken over time and you can then move on? Is there something you can do to hasten its departure? What's going on when it stops? Second, look at what the mind is like when it is absent, and hasn't arisen. What conditions aren't there? What conditions are? What is happening in your mind that is preventing it from arising?
In general, these unwholesome states arise because there's something alluring about them. As much as we may think we do not want them, at some level there is some appeal, some attraction, and some clinging. So try to understand what the unwholesome state does for you. What gets gratified? What do you get out of it? If it's greed for sensual experience, the pleasure of the sensual experience is the obvious answer. If it's anger, do you get a sense of power, of control?
But, with any unwholesome or unskilled state, there is a danger. If there weren't, it wouldn't be classified as unwholesome and unskilled! So once you've understood its origin and cessation, and seen the allure, what is the danger? How does it harm you? What are its negative consequences? And don't just reason through them--try to feel it. Pay attention to how you feel, and cleary see where it hurts, where it is tense, where it is ultimately undesirable.
At this point, the final step is easy. The escape is always just to let go, to stop clinging, and to release into liberation. And once you clearly comprehend the danger, and see that the allure or gratification is simply not worth the trouble, it often happens almost automatically! (Of course, some deeper things might need a great deal more work...)