Step 9, Experiencing our State of Mind

Meeting Step 9

We arrive at Step 9 when we can experience the twofold stillness of both Steps 4 and 8, when we've stilled both the body and any emotional or mental reactivity affecting us. Now both body and mind are still, and in the quietness of this state we are ready for our next experience.

Step 9. One trains oneself, "Experiencing my state of mind I'll breathe in;"
one trains oneself, "Experiencing my state of mind I'll breathe out."

What these words mean

This is the fifth time in the Anapana practice that we've been asked to "experience" something. The Pāli word used here means 'experiencing', 'feeling' or 'being aware of' something.^{Footnote 1} Anapana is an experiential practice. We don't just 'know' something in our heads, or 'see' something is true. We feel it, we know it. This is something that affects us.

What we experience at Step 9 is called our citta (pronounced "chit-ta"). This is not some internal part of our make-up. Citta is best represented in English as our 'state of mind'.^{Footnote 2} Our state of mind is something tangible that we can feel, though it's not a 'thing'. It's more of a quality that varies. Something may 'put us in a good mood' or 'in a bad mood'. Something may make us angry, something else may make us happy, or frightened, or calm, and so on. So our state of mind is conditional, it may depend on what happens to us, or at least on how we perceive what happens to us. And then the state we're in goes on to condition how we think, how we behave and how we react to other things.

If this is what will be liberated in Step 12, we need to develop it in a way that is not dependent upon external circumstances. Can we avoid 'bad moods', or 'feeling low', no matter what happens to us?

The third stage of Jhāna practice

We saw in Step 5 that the second phase of Anapana practice, with its pīti and sukha corresponds to the second stage of Jhāna meditation. Could it be that the third phase of Anapana practice, with its quietness and stillness corresponds to the third stage of Jhāna meditation? If so, it will give us further guidance over what we may expect in this new phase of the practice. What the third part of both practices have in common is that they represent a place of great stillness.

The text that illustrates Jhāna practice portrays its third stage like this.

It is like in a pond of blue water-lilies, pink lotuses, or white lotuses. A few of the plants are born in water, have grown up in water, and are thriving, fully immersed in the water. These, from the tops to the roots are filled, flooded, drenched and saturated with cool water, so that no part of the entire plant would be untouched with cool water.

Just so, a meditator fills, floods, drenches and saturates this very body with a well-being free from enhanced sensitivity, so that no part of one's entire body is untouched with this well-being.

A still, quiet place

The very image of a lily pond may suggest a place of tranquility and beauty. These are plants that grow in deep, still water. The particular focus of this illustration though is on the few plants that have not yet reached the surface of the water. Seeds in the muddy bottom of the pond have germinated, and the young plants are growing, making their way slowly up towards the light at the top of the pond.

A place of life and growth

These plants are still immature. They've sprouted, and they are on their way to becoming mature plants, but for now their only task is to grow. At this stage they have not yet reached the surface. When they do, they'll develop characteristic round floating leaves or lily-pads and large, beautiful flowers. Only then will they be able to produce their own seeds, and complete their life cycle. Notice that their growth must occur within the deep, cool water of the lily pond where they can be permeated throughout with water. If the pond dried out, these plants would die.

It's these immature plants that are likened to the third stage of Jhāna practice, in which we can see a parallel to the third phase of our Anapana practice. This third stage is rather different from what went before it. The busy and skilful first stage, wetting and kneading the bathing ball, has passed. Even the second stage, illustrated by the uniformly cool water of the pond, rising entirely from the underground spring, has given way to a new picture.

Where the previous picture was more static in nature, this one is more dynamic. These immature plants are alive and growing. They have started their journey, but have not yet completed it. We too have started our journeys, both our journey through life, and our meditative journey. However old we may be, none of us have yet reached our full maturity. This third phase of Anapana practice will nurture us along the way.

Just Standing, or, Just Sitting

The lotus plants simply stand still in the water and appear to do nothing. They have nothing to do but to live, to grow and to mature. In the same way, we simply sit still in this third phase of our practice, and appear to do nothing. But like the plants, it's the environment in which we sit that nurtures us and promotes our growth. Once we've come to the double stillness of Steps 4 and 8, our minds are no longer preoccupied by the needs of the present, or by unresolved issues of the past. In this new-found stillness we can be open and unafraid, absorbing all that life offers us for personal growth.

I find this third phase very similar to some forms of Zen meditation, which involves what we might call Just Sitting (known in Japanese as za-zen). I once went on an introductory meditation weekend at a Zen monastery, but I was quite unprepared for the experience of sitting, motionless, in front of a plain cupboard door, doing nothing. The monks and nuns made sure we were sitting in the correct posture, that seemed very important for the practice, and they came round to tweak a shoulder or whatever to help us, but they gave us no instructions on how to meditate. We were to Just Sit. Only now, as I work through the Anapana practice, do I find I can do this. Now I have completed eight steps which prepare me for this new phase of the practice. Now I have developed both a bodily and a mental stillness, and now Just Sitting is a pleasure.

What is the third stage of Jhāna?

As we sit and enter into this new phase of the practice, the four-stage Jhāna Text tells us what happens in the mind at this stage. That text, which appears in quite a number of the suttas, describes the third of those stages in this way.

From the fading of the enhanced body-sensitivity and by dwelling with equanimity, mindfully aware and attentive, one enters and maintains the third stage of meditation, of which the noble ones declare, "One dwells pleasantly, with equanimity and mindful awareness," experiencing well-being through the body.

1. The fading of pīti

In this third stage a number of things change. The enhanced sensitivity, the pīti, fades. However much skill and energy we may have devoted to its development, it is only a temporary phenomenon. It was a way of developing the well-being, and that well-being remains. The pīti has served its purpose and may now pass away. Yet the idea of fading implies a gradual departure, over a period of time. When we begin this third phase the pīti will still be present, and it may still be helpful, but at some point we'll find it has gone.

2. The development of mindfulness with non-reactivity

Interestingly, this Jhāna Text makes no mention of mindfulness before the third stage. Rather than something we start with in our practice, it's seen as something we develop, and perhaps only recognise at this stage. I think this is because of the link with equanimity. We saw much earlier that mindfulness is a dispassionate awareness. We can certainly come to Exercise 1 and seek to hear dispassionately whatever sounds may arise.

Yet our dispassion is limited for as long as we continue to be affected by our reactivity. When we react, for or against something, our dispassion is compromised. Only after Step 8 are we truly dispassionate towards whatever thoughts or issues may arise in our minds. Only now can we really experience equanimity and mindfulness towards those issues.

3. The ability to enjoy Just Sitting

What exactly is the third stage of Jhāna meditation? The text answers that question by means of a quotation. "One dwells pleasantly, with equanimity and mindful awareness." Three things come together and remain in this third stage: pleasantness, equanimity and mindfulness. This is why the monks and nuns can spend hours sitting in zazen. This is why we can sit for long periods now: this is very pleasant as we experience well-being through the body and non-reactivity in the mind.

A claim from Buddhism's first generation

Whose words are being quoted here? They are attributed only to "the noble ones". When the text was composed no explanation was needed. Clearly, this was a source of unquestioned wisdom. These people are being quoted because they knew, and their words put in a nutshell all that one needed to know about this third stage. I expect these noble ones were the first generation who created the Buddhist movement, that is, the Buddha himself and his first followers. Although the words of this quotation have not been identified anywhere else, they read as though they could be a line from one of the early poems that circulated within the Buddhist movement, such as those in works known as the Aṭṭhaka or the Pārāyana. ^{Footnote 3}

Exercise 9 on the next page will enable us to practise Step 9 and the Third Stage of Jhāna meditation.

Footnotes

1. paṭi-saṃ-vedeti: to experience, feel, be aware of (DOP). From this is derived the word used here.

2. "The central meaning of citta ... is that it represents one's 'state of mind'. By this I mean that citta is the term used to refer to the qualitative picture, as it were, of the way all one's mental processes are functioning at any given moment." — Sue Hamilton, "Identity and Experience: The Constitution of the Human Being According to Early Buddhism", London: Luzac Oriental, 1996, p. 110-111.

3. The Aṭṭhaka ("The Book of Eights") and the Pārāyana ("To the Other Shore"?) are now the fourth and fifth parts of the Sutta Nipāta, an important, largely poetic book of the Khuddaka Nikāya. Verses from both books are occasionally quoted in the suttas of the four main Nikāyas.