The Heightened Mind

The Buddha’s path consists of three trainings: training in heightened virtue; in heightened mind, or concentration; and in heightened discernment. Although all three are essential for Awakening, the Buddha often singled out the second training for special attention. Ajaan Lee does the same in the talks translated here. As he once said, the three trainings are like posts supporting a bridge over a river. The posts on the near shore and far—virtue and discernment—are not that hard to set in place, for they lie in shallow water away from the main current of the river. The posts in the middle of the river— concentration—are the ones requiring special effort, and so they need to be treated in depth.

In previous collections of Ajaan Lee’s talks, the main focus has been on technique. Here the focus is more on attitudes to bring to the practice of concentration. In some cases, Ajaan Lee shows the importance of concentration by exploring its role in the path of practice as a whole. In others he admonishes his listeners while they are meditating not to wander astray, or encourages them to stay the course. The admonitions and encouragement are especially notable for the inventive stories with which Ajaan Lee reinforces his points.

Many of the passages translated here had their beginnings in talks that Ajaan Lee gave to groups of people while they were meditating. In some cases, the people were his followers; in others, total strangers. Ajaan Lee thus found it necessary to cover all levels of practice at once. His main topic is often the most basic question that occurs to people new to meditation—Why meditate?—but he also includes brief hints to more experienced meditators, as food for their own contemplation.

One aspect of Ajaan Lee’s teachings that might strike you as foreign is his analysis of the body into four properties: earth, fire, water, and wind. This mode of analysis dates back to the time of the Buddha, although Ajaan Lee develops it in a distinctive way. Think of this analysis not as an attempt at biology or chemistry—the sciences we use to analyze the body from the outside—but as a way of analyzing how the body feels from the inside. This is an aspect of awareness that we often overlook and that, in English at least, we have a poor vocabulary for describing. As you gain through meditation a greater familiarity with this aspect of your awareness, you’ll come to see how useful Ajaan Lee’s method of analysis is.

Source:
The Heightened Mind
DHAMMA TALKS
Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
TRANSLATED FROM THE THAI BY ṬHĀNISSARO BHIKKHU