The Dukkha of Grieving

In my previous post, there arose an epiphany with regard to the relationship between the elements of the five aggregates of clinging (form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications and consciousness), and the availability of self-arising charisms (jhana). At the beginning of meditation I am met with whatever is there, and in the past I’ve obsessed around how to “be” with those elements – which becomes an exhausting process of noting, then letting go, noting, letting go, noting, letting go. Through recent dhamma studies, however, I’m revisiting the Buddha’s advanced meditation instructions around replacing attachment to the aggregates with attachment to absorption in jhana. The Buddha teaches, in other words, that clinging to phenomena (whether pleasant or painful) leads to a world of suffering, so it’s better to cling to self-arising bliss, joy and ecstasy, as this leads to a clear and steady mind that sets the stage for cessation. At some point on the journey, when we’ve given up our craving for (and clinging to) what leads to suffering, we also give up our craving for (and clinging to) jhana – but that’s a ways down the road yet, at least for me.

As it turns out, I’ve been given an immediate opportunity to put all of this to a test.

I found out a few days ago that someone very close to me has died, under circumstances that I’m not entirely clear about. When I say “close,” I mean this is someone I’ve known for 15 years, who has shared a lot of her background and history, who worked on herself in various ways, and who I regarded as a beautiful presence on this planet. Although we lived on different continents and I never even heard her voice, we were more than just friends. I had grown to love her.

And now she is gone, just like that.

It didn’t hit me on day one or two, but the initial shock turned to pain late on the third day, and by yesterday it felt like being smothered by the weight of the world. As I looked into the bottomless well of my emotions, I recognized how easy it would be to succumb to fear, anxiety and depression, as has been a pattern after traumatic experiences during this lifetime. I felt the pull toward the realm of death.

The thought came to me early yesterday, “Well, here’s where you practice.” Morning meditation was a maze of distraction, a chaotic morass of memories and emotions. At the 45 minute mark, however, I arrived at a place where I could choose Door Number Two – pleasurable sensations – in a way that brought a measure of relinquishment and relief. Then, as I left the house to drive to a store, everything flooded back in.

During five hours out and about, I allowed the memories, feelings and fabrications to exist, and did my best to concentrate on my attachment to them. As the minutes crept by, I was able to follow the attachment back to previous life-traumas, to see how I took them on as a part of me, of who I am. I could also see how those traumas have solidified in time, unable to express their impermanence, since I’d fabricated them into (seemingly) permanent aspects of myself. Thanks to a twice-daily meditation practice that produces saturation in pleasant arisings, I began to shift from attachment to trauma into attachment to the pleasant arisings. I dipped in and out during those hours, alternating between overwhelming pain from grieving into overwhelming bliss and joy.

By the time I got home last night, my habitual clinging to suffering had transformed into a loving acceptance.

I don’t know what today or tomorrow will bring, as this is a new experience for me. Never in the past have I given myself an opportunity to recognize my craving and clinging to overwhelming suffering, my attachment to the drama of it all. Always in the past I have spiraled into full identification with the suffering, which guaranteed days, weeks and sometimes months of ups and downs, perhaps physical illness or injury, relationship fractures and God knows what else.

What I’m getting at here is that this is not a case where we flee from our trauma into bliss-bunny states of ecstasy. We don’t pretend that the pain of loss, for instance, isn’t there. We don’t block ourselves off from the awful truth that a person we love is no longer here. We allow the full brunt of it. And… we notice how we turn those aggregates into becoming. In other words, the pain and suffering actually become a part of our self-concept when we lose track of our attachments – but if we recognize when we are losing ourselves in attachment to pain and suffering, we (as meditation practitioners following the Buddha’s teachings) can avail ourselves of self-arising pleasure while the waves of pain and grief do their thing.

Seems odd and perhaps counter-intuitive, but I’m finding that it really can work this way.

The thing to remember is, it’s not the content of our suffering, but our relationship with it. That’s where we can make skillful choices that eventually deliver us from the endless round of becoming.

The Ending of Dukkha Depends on the Jhanas

As a lay practitioner trying to piece together a solid foundation in the Buddha-dhamma, I thought I’d share an epiphany that has arisen lately.

Recently I revisited the Jhana Sutta, Anguttara 9:36. I couldn’t find a translation from Jeffrey Brooks (Jhanananda), so I printed out the versions from Thanissaro Bhikkhu (https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN9_36.html) and Bhikkhu Sujato (https://suttacentral.net/an9.36/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin).

In this teaching, the Buddha comes right out and says that the aim of the Four Noble Truths – to permanently end suffering caused by craving and clinging to the 5 Aggregates – DEPENDS on attaining and absorbing in all eight jhanas, both rupa (material) and arupa (non-material).

Than Geoff’s (Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s) opening:

I tell you, the ending of the effluents depends on the first jhana… the second jhana… the third… the fourth… the dimension of the infinitude of space… the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness… the dimension of nothingness. I tell you, the ending of the effluents depends on the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception.

For each of the jhana stages it’s said:

He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, and emptiness, not-self. He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of the deathless. “This is peace, this is exquisite – the pacification of all fabrications, the relinquishing of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion, cessations; unbinding.”

In my twice-daily meditation practice and during waking mindfulness, I’ve been watching and experiencing what Than Geoff calls “effluents,” or what Sujato calls “defilements.” For me, this is the constant bubbling up of thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions, stories, fantasies – the churning, chaotic mass of tantalizing diversion that jumps from one thing to another, always changing, always triggering trauma, patterned reactions and behaviors. I would typically spend the first third to half of my sits attempting to really “be” with these things, to note them, categorize them, go deep with them, run them through the Three Marks (Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta), then formally let them go – before returning to the bliss, joy and ecstasy that patiently waited. Instead of engaging Samma-Samadhi, I was engaging a mental obstacle course.

The Buddha, from my recent reading, prescribed jhana as the only skillful, essential, indispensable “replacement” for the aggregates of clinging, which are impermanent, not-self and pathways to suffering. Until we have relinquished craving and clinging, he recommends repeatedly accessing self-arising bliss, joy and ecstasy. Yes, jhana is impermanent and not-self – but it does not lead to suffering (except, perhaps, a tiny, subtle bit of stress due to clinging), and is in fact a requirement for total unbinding. At the point when we’ve honestly achieved dispassion for ALL craving and clinging… it’s time to abandon the path itself.

From this, I returned to Jeffrey’s suggestion that we remember a recent successful sit at the moment we sit on the cushion. My sense is that the craving and clinging are not eliminated by virtue of becoming absorbed in jhana… but our experience of letting go becomes much more skillful and effective as absorption deepens. There’s no need to fight it out with phenomena; we’re much better off immediately replacing mundane phenomena with jhana, from the perspective of which our mind-resources are freed up to access the clarity and skill required for true relinquishment.

This teaching answers the question I’ve been carrying around lately: How much work must I do to let go of my craving and clinging for the elements of the 5 Aggregates? The Buddha is clearly answering that we can simply recognize how all phenomena are detrimental and toxic, then just head into deeper and deeper jhana states – and from there, really let go of arising phenomena.