Attaining special insight from meditation

by Venerable Thubten Chodron

Q: What is special insight, and how can we attain it from meditation? – C.P.

A: Special insight is the correct discernment of the object of meditation coupled with the single-pointed concentration of calm abiding. To train in it, we need to develop the ability to analyse the meditation object. While stabilising meditation is emphasised in the development of calm abiding, analytical meditation is instrumental to gain special insight. However, analytical meditation may also be used in the development of calm abiding, and stabilising meditation contributes to special insight. In fact, special insight is a combination of analytical meditation and calm abiding.

Analytical or discerning meditation doesn’t mean that we’re constantly conceptualising, thus getting lost in mental chatter. Rather, by understanding the object of meditation well, we’ll be able to experience it fully. We aren’t necessarily involved in discursive thought during analytical meditation. We may use more subtle thought to help us correctly discern the object. Then we concentrate on what we’ve discerned to make it firm and to integrate it with our minds. Eventually, our conceptual understanding will turn into direct experience. Thus the end product of analysis is non-conceptual experience. In The Sutra Requested by Kasyapa, the Buddha said: 

O Kasyapa, just as fire arises when two pieces of wood are rubbed against each other, so analytical wisdom arises from the conceptual state. And just as the fire increases and burns away all the wood, analytical wisdom increases and burns away all conceptual states.

There are two basic types of analytical meditation. In one we aim to transform our attitude. For example, when meditating on love, we change our attitude from anger or apathy into genuine affection. In the second, we analyse the meditation object in order to understand and perceive it. The meditations on impermanence and emptiness are examples.

In the first type of discerning meditation, we seek to transform our attitude. When meditating on love, the object of meditation is other beings. We consider their kindness towards us in the past, present and future. Letting ourselves absorb the profound implication of the fact that all others want to have happiness and to avoid suffering as intensely as we do, we then reflect on how wonderful it would be if they could have happiness.

As a result of this, our minds are filled with deep and impartial love for all others. A powerful feeling ౼ the wish for others to have happiness ౼ arises inside us. Having developed a loving attitude by using analysis, we then maintain this deep experience of love using stabilising meditation. Some people may continue to meditate on love and develop calm abiding on it.

In the meditation on impermanence, analysis helps us to understand the transitory nature of our world. We can take something we’re attached to ౼ music, for example ౼ and contemplate its quality of change. A melody has a beginning, middle and end. It doesn’t continue forever. Even while it lasts, it’s continuously changing. Each sound lasts a split second, and even in that short moment, it too changes.

When we consider impermanence deeply, we’ll understand that our universe is always in motion. Although it appears firm and stable to our ordinary perception, in fact, it’s transient. Understanding this helps us avoid attachment and the pain and confusion which accompany it. Recognising impermanence, we’ll be able to appreciate things and experience them fully while they last. When they disappear, we won’t mourn them. This automatically soothes mental turmoil in daily life.

When meditating on emptiness, we analyse the ultimate nature of people and phenomena. We investigate whether our ordinary assumptions about how people and phenomena exist are correct. When we analyse carefully, we find that they are empty of all false projections of inherent existence. At this point, we’ve correctly discerned emptiness.

To attain special insight on emptiness, we conjoin our correct understanding of emptiness with calm abiding. This allows our minds to remain focused on emptiness for a long time. By concentrating on reality in this way, our minds are purified of obscurations.

We can do analytical meditation on rebirth and cause and effect to understand how they function. Contemplating the kindness of others and the disadvantages of selfishness, we’ll generate love and the spontaneous wish to benefit others. In short, everything the Buddha taught is food for meditation.

Both calm abiding and analytical meditation are important. If we just have the ability to concentrate, but we can’t correctly analyse meditation objects such as emptiness, then we lack the ability to cut the root of ignorance. On the other hand, if we correctly understand emptiness, but are unable to maintain our concentration on it, then our understanding won’t have a deep impact on our minds and our ignorance won’t be totally abolished. When we’ve conjoined calm abiding and special insight, then we’re firmly on the path to freedom.