IV) Maintenance (Anurakkhana)
The effort to maintain the state of calm and relaxation is the effort to keep focusing on what is going on within the body and the mind, instead of focusing on external objects. What is going on within is the reaction to the object perceived. This inward focus must be maintained through out the day.
When we focus on external objects we react to them. When we take our attention away from them, the reaction stops and we calm down. When we become constantly conscious of the reaction, the stop is maintained because it cannot go on consciously. This is because the reaction can occur only unconsciously.
This practice has to be done every moment in our lives, while we are in the four postures:
1. Walking
2. Standing
3. Sitting
4. Lying down
In other words, it is to be done every moment during the waking life, from the time one wakes up till one falls asleep. As one keeps on practising this way, the mind calms down and the body relaxes. The practice turns into a habit. This results in mental happiness and physical comfort. This tranquil state of mind and body can be developed into the first ecstasy. This state of deep tranquillity could be further developed gradually into the Four Ecstasies (jhāna).
When one enters the fourth ecstasy by maintaining this purity and tranquility of mind, the mind becomes focused internally (upekkha). Then it becomes possible for the meditator to become aware of how one perceives, or the process of perception itself, in the form of the five accumulations (panca khanda):
1. Feelings (Vedanā)
2. Sensations (Saññā)
3. Mental Constructions (Sankhāra)
4. Perceptions (Viññāna)
5. Mental Images (Rūpa)
When the accumulations are perceived, what one perceives are the stages in the process of perception, which are commonly personalized as “mine.” The subjective process of perception is normally personalized while the object of perception is normally alienated as not mine.
Insight is gained when one is able to recognize that these stages in the process of perception are dependent on conditions and are therefore impersonal processes. This way one begins to see the impersonality of all phenomena. Then one begins to see that personalization of these impersonal phenomena only leads to suffering. It is in this way that the value of depersonalization is recognized. This makes one dispassionate and thereby one loses one’s personality perspective.
Although one has lost one’s personality perspective, one is still aware of one’s “feeling of self” that accompanies tension in the muscles and sensations that arise from them. Though there is no real “self” the “feeling of self” is still present. This is due to emotions that produce tensions. The constant awareness and observation of these feelings of self associated with emotions and tension helps one gradually reduce the “feeling of self.” From here on it becomes a constant awareness of emotions and the “feeling of self.” This leads to constant relaxed happy living, and good pleasant behaviour, which also brings happiness to others around.