Sutra Club: Food Sutta
fivebells
Veteran
Welcome to this week's Sutra Club. We're discussing SN46.51, the Ahara Sutta. The nest of links below are offered in the hope they will be useful, but there is no required reading for participation in this thread! In the comments, feel free to ignore the rest of this post if it doesn't speak to you.
I learned of this sutta through Thanissaro Bhikku's book Wings to Awakening, which has had an enormous positive impact on my meditation practice over the last ten months or so. My comments on the Food Sutta will be mostly owing to Thanissaro's perspective, though I am responsible for any inadequacies.
After the Mindfulness of Breathing and Four Foundations of Mindfulness suttas, this is the sutta in which I have found the most practical advice. Close study and experimentation with the advice in this sutta can pay huge dividends.
The Food Sutta gives advice about ways to stabilize, sharpen and gladden the mind for concentration and insight practice. It organizes this advice around the five hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, sloth/torpor, anxiety/restlessness, doubt/uncertainty), and the seven factors of awakening (mindfulness, analysis of qualities, persistence, concentration, rapture, serenity and equanimity), giving a little gloss on how to enhance and degrade each of these qualities.
The sutta speaks of "feeding" and "starving" the hindrances and and factors of awakening. As Thanissaro points out in his essay on the Food Sutta, this is not an idle metaphor:
The image of feeding and starving here is directly related to the insight into conditionality that formed the essential message of the Buddha's Awakening. In fact, when he introduced the topic of conditionality to young novices, he illustrated it with the act of feeding: All beings, he said, subsist on food. If their existence depends on eating, then it ends when they are deprived of food. Applying this analogy to the problem of suffering leads to the conclusion that if suffering depends on conditions, it can be brought to an end by starving it of its conditions.
This essay also gives a useful summary of the Food Sutta's recommendations for dealing with the five hindrances:
- Sensual desire is fed by inappropriate attention to the theme of beauty and starved by appropriate attention to the theme of unattractiveness. In other words, to starve sensual desire you turn your attention from the beautiful aspects of the desired object and focus instead on its unattractive side.
- Ill will is fed by inappropriate attention to the theme of irritation and starved by appropriate attention to the mental release through good will, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. In other words, you turn your attention from the irritating features that spark ill will and focus instead on how much more freedom the mind experiences when it can cultivate these sublime attitudes as its inner home.
- Sloth and torpor are fed by inappropriate attention to feelings of boredom, drowsiness, and sluggishness. It's starved by appropriate attention to any present potential for energy or effort.
- Restlessness and anxiety are fed by inappropriate attention to any lack of stillness in the mind, and starved by appropriate attention to any mental stillness that is present. In other words, both potentials can be present at any time. It's simply a matter of how to ferret out, appreciate, and encourage the moments or areas of stillness.
- Uncertainty is fed by inappropriate attention to topics that are abstract and conjectural, and starved by appropriate attention to skillful and unskillful qualities in the mind. In other words, instead of focusing on issues that can't be resolved by observing the present, you focus on an issue that can: which mental qualities result in harm for the mind, and which ones don't.
In short, each hindrance is starved by shifting both the focus and the quality of your attention.
I've been finding the recommendation of stillness for restlessness and anxiety particularly helpful. The meditation described starting at minute 22 of this talk has some useful advice about opening to stillness/space in different aspects of experience.
The recommendations of the Food Sutta for developing the factors of awakening are a little vague in places, so here are some links to clarifying commentary in the sutta's and Wings to Awakening.
Definition of the factors of awakening. In particular, paragraph [4] shows that rapture means the rapture of the first three jhanas. This means that one of the "mental qualities that act as a foothold for rapture as a factor for Awakening" is concentration itself. See also SN 45.8: "rapture & pleasure born of concentration." Delight is another foothold for rapture:
He should then direct his mind to any inspiring theme. As his mind is directed to any inspiring theme, delight arises within him. In one who feels delight, rapture arises.
SN 52.1 indicates that mindfulness is a food for equanimity as a factor for awakening. The passage immediately after that is relevant, too.
MN 62 describes how to consider the five elements as food for equanimity. The passage immediately after is relevant too.
SN 46.53 describes which factors of awakening should be developed when.
SN 12.23 lists some prerequisites for the development of each factor of awakening.
Comments
From inappropriate attention
you're being chewed by your thoughts.
Relinquishing what's inappropriate,
contemplate
appropriately.
Keeping your mind on the Teacher,
the Dhamma, the Sangha, your virtues,
you will arrive at
joy,
rapture,
pleasure without doubt.
Then, saturated
with joy,
you will put an end
to suffering & stress.
AN 9.11
Anyone want to talk about their struggles in meditation with illwill, torpor, sensual desire, anxiety, boredom, doubt, low self-esteem, etc.?
Anyone want to talk about their efforts to develop mindfulness, discernment, conviction, concentration, rapture, serenity, equanimity, etc. in meditation.
Personally, having done hell-realm (anger) contemplations for a year, it was a revelation to me that you could mitigate tendencies to anger and hostility by developing metta in meditation.
What are people's experiences with regard to practices, beliefs and attitudes which foster or degrade mindfulness? Thanissaro says in his translation that the food for development of mindfulness is "well-purified virtue and views made straight," which aren't huge considerations in most modern books on mindfulness.
One thing I've found useful when my mind keeps wandering is to say to myself, "If I were to remain alive even for the next ten breaths [or whatever duration] to put the Buddha's teachings into practice, even that would be of tremendous benefit." I find this greatly reduces my mind's wandering.
I find the moving away from, or around, hindrances often quite natural as soon as I recognize the hindrance. For me it has been a bigger challenge to actually recognize hindrances. This is a job of mindfulness, to see them when they are still small, but also of right view; to see wholesome and unwholesome, not to mistake something that is actually a hindrance for something that is not. This is a practice in it's own right. Because if we really knew the hindrances, I think enlightenment would be a breeze. Which quite obviously, it's not.
For example, the initial idea I had of 'ill will' was way too coarse for what the Buddha was actually pointing at. Same for the other hindrances. The mind can be so tricky and attachments can be so subtle, I find it's quite amazing actually. For example, a mantra "buddho" or "in, out" or whatever, can be a tool at first, but a hindrance of restlessness later on. Practicing metta when anger arises is a good tool, but on a subtle level can arise out of aversion to anger.. a hindrance again. In many other ways can hindrances give rise to others, but also trying to get around hindrances can give rise to other hindrances.
Focusing on the breath is a tool also, but can become a hindrance of "sense attachment" as well, I found. Breath is a tool for me to build stillness and non-movement of mind. The breath can fade out, leaving only the stillness, but the mind can easily cling to the breath. This still happens to me often and I think to many others as well, because it is quite a scary thing to not notice anything but stillness. There, in that stillness, it is where the hindrances are really being unraveled in my experience, and deeper understanding of them arose. Quite funny how you understand things once you start to abandon them.
When I used to sit with a campus meditation group, I would sometimes feel arrogance arising since I knew most of the people were new to meditation I would almost think "Heh, they can't even sit still for 10 minutes? How can they last?" or "They're always asking the simplest questions... are they only that far in their practice?"
But I soon realized that they are brave to be newcomers and practice with a group of total strangers, asking questions about a personal practice. When I started, i was too afraid to join a group and just read instructions online, with the belief that I wouldn't be a "noob" when I went to sit with a sangha. So I guess I sort of developed metta for these other meditators, as well as defeated my arrogance with humility.
I suppose we can also see it in the whole picture as when we first have the correct view that we should refrain from unwholesome conduct, then we begin to develop virtue. In order to develop virtue, we will see the need to have mindfulness so that we can be aware of our actions and thoughts, scrutinize them and refrain from those which are unwholesome. This will lead us to put more effort into developing mindfulness. So in this way, the practice of developing virtue causes us to develop mindfulness, and the more mindfulness develops the more virtuous our actions become which in turn promotes greater mindfulness, so they kind of work in a spiral reinforcing each other but perhaps the starting point is having correct views and developing virtue.
In the words of Ajahn Chah: "[Sila, samadhi, panna] must be practised together, for if any are lacking, the practice will not develop correctly. The more your sila (virtue) improves, the firmer the mind becomes. The firmer the mind is, the bolder panna (wisdom) becomes and so on ... each part of the practice supporting and enhancing all the others."
Torpor was induced in me by a lama I used to meditate with. There was nothing I could do at the time except meditate elsewhere. If it happens now, I have a nap and then meditate.
Difficult arisings always have a quality of urgency/agitation/irritation. In essence dukkha.
I go through the body, check the breath and watch the show . . . I don't really make much effort anymore. Just sit. Que Sera Sera.
Due to work and family, I've had (sometimes lengthy) intervals where I didn't have time to meditate. At those times, my Buddhist practice mostly consists of keeping an eye on mind states that arise during the day. Ill-will is probably the most common (irritation at work, stress during the commute, kids squabbling and driving me nuts, etc), but the others make regular appearances as well.
So although this sutta is designed for meditators, I also find it useful for the daily work of maintaining good sila.
On the cushion, restlessness and sloth seem to be the biggest obstacles for me.
@karmablues, I agree. Virtue is critical, and unskillful behavior (anything which leads to drama, basically) makes mindfulness much harder to maintain. I wish I was advanced enough to do this.
I preferred to read the Avarana Sutta which speaks of the same hindrances or obstacles, in fewer words, whilst also giving a great representation of the hindrances like channels branching from a river.
The food sutta is more complex because it contains more technical information about how to meditate.
The sutta says that the food for serenity is appropriate attention to serenity, and lack of food is inappropriate attention to it. ("Serenity NOW!!!!") In other words, when serenity arises, you notice that (third noble truth), and ideally you study the causes and conditions which led to it to develop skill in fostering it (fourth noble truth.)
For me, the most reliable condition for the arising of serenity is attention to stillness. Attending to the space I perceive the objects the objects around me to occupy, the silence which noise is arising from, the stillness which the motions of the body and mind are arising from. I got these perceptions from the meditation starting at minute 22 of this talk. They relate closely to the perceptions which 5th jhana (dimension of infinite space) are based on.
So my attitude towards meditation is to let go, to simply "be" instead of "do". Just to be with the present moment. This includes having no goal, because once you have a goal, it's something outside of the present moment . I find that when you are really in the present moment, by it's very nature, the mind becomes still and happiness arises.
Different meditations are appropriate for different circumstances. If the mind is already very still, then "simply being" can be the right approach to ending fabrication. Most circumstances call for more active approaches, though. Most people who try to "simply be" are actually fabricating a being which is "simply being." Suffering arises, and they relate to it as something not to react to and something to simply observe. They have become the non-reactor and the observer, and they struggle to maintain this state, and this is suffering.
For relatively tractable and harmless forms of suffering, simply observing without reaction is often enough to release the suffering, so the unreacting observer is a relatively skillful position ("becoming," in the dependent origination sense) to adopt. As skillful as it is, though it's still a becoming. And other forms of suffering require more active involvement to take them apart , and it's not just coarse forms. Even very subtle suffering can require this. The key issue is 1) how strong the attraction/aversion/greed related to the suffering is, because if it's too strong observation without reaction won't even arise as an option, and 2) how destructive the suffering is, because if it's truly harmful it's irresponsible to tolerate it in the name of observation without reaction.
For instance, as you imply, the "doings" which are conducive to a refined meditative state like the jhanas can become an object of attachment, and a sensual desire to attain the state can develop. At that point, the appropriate approach is some form of insight meditation to take apart the attachment. Simply observing without reacting could leave you stuck for a long time, because the mind will "naturally" incline to that refined state.
There's also the issue of bringing the fruits of meditation into daily life. Most everyday behaviors can't occur effectively without some form of personal identification (becoming) which is very different from observation without reaction. So if you want to live a normal life and bring meditation into it, actively shaping more skillful becomings is really the only way to go, and to do that well you need to develop the tools this sutta is pointing to.
Sense desire is a desire for exiting things outside of this moment. Aversion is not accepting how things are. Restlessness is getting involved with the moment. Dullness is often caused by a mind that has been too active. Doubt is wanting to know, not just being with whatever is. So every hindrance goes away if we are able to just observe the present moment.
I post this not because it's very related to the sutta, but because I think it is actually the attachments to doing and interfering that keeps many people from attaining calm states of mind. Yes, an active engagement can be useful, but I find it important to emphasize that it's just a tool towards letting go. Because letting go or "not doing" are non-attachment, which is what leads to non-suffering.
In the calmest states of mind I have experienced, there was no thought, no control, there was no "me", let alone me "doing" anything. Then when the mind is still and peaceful, it sees deeply and insights happen without having to go after it.
But true, in the end we also need to let go of the `observing position´, or call it consciousness.
E.g., You want something, and thoughts about it keep taking attention away from the present moment. How are you going to mitigate this issue? The sutta suggests attending to the unattractive aspects of the thing you want.
We're all trying to get to that still, peaceful place you're talking about, but the path there is rarely via simply deciding to let things settle down by themselves. If it works, great, but as the sutta shows, it is a technically limited and inflexible approach.
In the same way, the factors for awakening are all there in that still quiet space, and you can often develop them by "just being in the present moment," but not always. This was happening to me just today with anger getting in the way of serenity. The 'observer' was there, and I was attending to the constituent sensations construed as anger, but it wasn't going away, and I was able to mitigate that by attending to stillness. I've tried the "just being in the present moment" approach with this kind of anger before (practiced that way for years), and it hasn't worked for me. The active, fabricating approaches of metta and attending to stillness have.
Overall, instructions like the food sutta leave you with a much richer and more flexible approach to meditation than "just being in the present moment," and they've afforded my practice much more resiliency when the demands of everyday life have leaned up against it.
A lot of meditations I just drift around in thoughts or even if focused I just feel relaxation of space rather than 'knowing' what space is. It's a difficult question it's like asking how red a fire engine is?? Something like that... applying a word label. But just to steer to get a taste of 'space' this space makes new thoughts possible and it also makes the recognition of thoughts AS thoughts possible.
Again my meditations are all different. The majority of my thoughts are about how to get a better body feeling because I am on a cocktail of anti-psychotics. These drugs make me feel drugged which makes sense because they are drugs. I trade non-delusion for bad body feeling.
So the above answers your questions. I am talking about things arising in practice. I am assessing the need for better body feeling to make it worthwhile, and I am questioning the nature of reality in exposing myself to the 'space' and trying to understand how space can be used or of benefit, what is the nature of space.. is this space or is that space? Is it a void does it feel peaceful is it the stillness behind feeling? I try to let those questions be asked but not get off of the present moment and having a light touch ie being able to let go and just be unknowing.
But then again maybe you are leading to an acceptable state just you need to be light on your feet yet honest and matter of fact. I like the approach to transcendent meditation how it is experience based. Mindfulness meditation such as Shikentanza I like because it encompasses all experience.
I try to deal with it by telling myself to stick with it. If the doubt is quite overwhelming, then I fall back onto the most basic of meditations - being aware of the in and out breaths at the tip of the nose.
But it's only circular reasoning from a certain point of view. One could say hindrances keep you from the present moment, or the present moment makes the hindrances disappear. It's both true in a way. See, the hindrances also appear in the present moment. Everything is in the present moment. So in a way it's only a figure of speech to say "be in the present moment".
I'm all for being flexible and creative in meditation. But I'm just clarifying that the active approach for me is not the end of things. I aim all activity towards letting go. That also gives a better idea and insight into what kind of activity the Buddha was pointing at in suttas such as this.
Fortunately all the meditation I have done shows me that it is possible to let go of the need for 'good feeling'. I haven't yet found a way to control whether the hindrances are there but I have some muscle memory for "letting go". One tactic is to on the spot do a meditation and go into the senses and drop the mind for a breath every so often. But I haven't found a way to avoid the times when I don't feel good. I think just noticing you have the hindrances is pretty powerful because then you know what is happening and it builds confidence in the teaching on the hindrances,, they are really there and they are suffering. I suppose continued attention on them will reveal their taste, texture, odor and so forth what I mean is that somehow my view can be transformed??