In my own meditation, I've looked at my mind over many years and with many techniques in mind. There are many different ways to approach it. The Satipatthana sutta has 4 frames of reference and about a dozen lists. Those 4 frames are helpful, but they are ways of looking.
The 4 functions of meditations are frameworks of activity. These are mostly my own invention (to the best of my knowledge), though they mirror tetrad 3 of Anapanasati.
1. Concentration or Focus
2. Listening, Careful Observations
3. Insight, or different ways of looking
4. Fabrication or Creation. This is making the mind do things or see things.
In concentration, one is trying to keep the mind on one object. This is planting a deep pole into the ground. Stay here is both the intention and the result. It's okay to wander, but one is supposed to not focus on the wandering, but simply come back. It's like training a dog. It's about doing one thing over and over and, when needed correcting. And our minds are unruly dogs... They must be corrected over and over and over. The object of concentration can be the breath, an idea, a vision, or a mantra.
Somatically, I teach students to imagine grabbing a stick and sticking it in the ground, and then identifying with that stick and their object of meditation.
In listening, one is trying to make a careful observation of what arises, as quickly and as detailed as possible. This is the heart of awareness meditation, which is what Joseph Goldstein teaches to beginners. Watch it arise, name or note it, then begin again. Don't follow the storyline. If you feel an itch, name it and note it and then just watch it. Don't scratch immediately. Watch it and then, if you must, scratch it slowly, ie mindfully. One is not trying to do any analysis in the sense of picking any thought process apart, or trying to see connections.
Somaticizing listening, I suggest people hold out open hands and wiggle their fingers. Imagine being a spider in the middle of a spider web, and get super sensitive to the web. And notice anything that gets caught in that web.
In insight, the point is to see in a different way and to see connections. Insight comes mostly after listening. You can't have much insight if 90% of the story is in your blind spot. Listening let's you see the story and the blind spots. Now that you can see all the individual objects, you start seeing connections. A useful analogy might be that listening is snapshots/stills and insight is video clips. You see A happen first, then B happen next, and then you add C by choice, and then D happens. Listening might mean sometimes you see B only. Or sometimes just D. Insight is seeing the patterns. The Satipatthana sutta (4 frames of reference for mindfulness) is another form of insight. Instead of trying to look at time sequences or co-arising, one looks at individual moments, but from different perspectives. Suppose we mostly look at a person and see the face. Satipatthana suggest we look at the back of the person. And maybe zoomed in to the feet, then legs, etc (component parts). Then maybe zoomed out as one person in a large city or room. And then maybe with a boroscope like in a colonoscopy. Satipatthana, in all 4 frames, also says to look at it as arising and passing away (over time, or over the lifecycle) and also as a non personal observation ("independent and unsustained")
This can be passive, but it can also be active. Like in Satipatthana #3, we can look and ask specific questions. Is there greed, or no greed, or half-half greed? The active is setting the frame. Then we listen.
Somaticizing this, I suggest people get a rock or a mug or a pencil. And then I have them turn it over, put their eye really close, close there eyes and "look" with their hands, etc. This gets into the detail side of insight. And then, imagining the life cycle. The item breaking. But also the component parts. This is related to the Tangerine meditation made famous by Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.
Finally, there is Fabrication. This isn't the final method, in that you need to do the first three to reach the 4. They can come in any order and loop. I just list it last. It is the most active element. At it's heart, fabrication is getting good at arising or extinguishing any mental state. At it's perfection, anger is something you can turn on and off like a light switch. So is Metta/loving kindness. So is desire.
Sharon Salzberg encourages people to start with Metta meditation. It's a good technique for many (but not all). Metta meditation fabricates Goodwill for all people. Kindness is another term that is used. By doing Metta meditation, we are fabricating Goodwill and extinguishing ill-will. We wish nobody to be poisoned or wronged, even if they are "bad people" who cause lots of harm. Fabrication is the main part, but in the course of fabrication, we develop the focus element (#1). And the listening element (#2), because we notice places where it is hard to generate Metta. For example, many people have trouble generating Metta for noisy neighbors or other bothersome people. Probably more have problems generating Metta for themselves. Third, insight is developed, sometimes naturally or by accident, because we start seeing the arising of Metta and its passing, or the arising of ill will and its passing.
Fabrication (including fabricating Metta) is fully active. Hence, there is the possibility of "steamrolling" our emotions. Our emotions might be grief and sadness. Rather than sitting quietly and listening, we might force ourselves (inadvertently) to do Metta. This is what I call "yanky", like yanking the leash of a dog. It works, but it's not skillful. Sometimes we need to yank, but often we don't. The experimental mode of fabrication is to experiment... How can I use the minimum yank to generate Metta? How can I generate Metta with a lot of force because I want it quickly? How can I generate Metta by just allowing it to appear, rather than pushing for it to appear?
We want to get good at fabrication, but the Buddha was quite clear that the end of suffering requires the end of fabrication. We use fabrication as we need to, especially to keep our defilements and destructive habits in check. Convincing ourselves we don't need that 5th piece of cake is a fabrication exercise. We have to take that step first, so I'm not deriding people who take such a step. But I'm giving you a foreshadowing. At some point, you'll have to look at the urge for that 5th piece of cake. Seems impossible to stop the urge... It seems like you can only respond to the urge. But it is very possible to cut off urges before they become actionable. Hint: it requires insight. One tip is that it's possible to notice a pain in the body as just a pain in the body, before it becomes a pain in the mind. And then that pain generates it's own urges, mainly aversion and possibly ill-will and blame.
Somatically, I would give people a set of 10 stones and maybe a piece of paper with 4 quadrants. Fabrication is the arranging of the stones of our mind.
My annoyance of western reductionist approaches to meditation is that they tend to focus on just one of these 4 functions. Some emphasize focus. Some emphasize listening. Some emphasize insight (and fabricating insight is not possible... any fabricated insight is mostly false). Some emphasize fabricating things, like kindness or equanimity.
These are 4 beautiful tools. They are interrelated. In some sense, focus is fabricated. And insight leads better focus. Which leads to better insight. And that can allow us to disentangle processes, which means we can fabricate more adeptly. In the processes of these 4 functions, they all have arrows to every other one. So, in a technical sense, every teacher is right. Focusing on any 1 can get you all 4. But focusing on 1 can also get you only that 1. As early as possible, I think people should be given a taste of all 4.
Tetrad 3 of the Anapanasati has all 4. Sensitive to the mind is listening. Gladdening the mind is fabrication. Steadying the mind is focus. Relinquishing and releasing the mind is insight, maybe with some fabrication.
Meditation and these 4 functions are value-free in that they can be used for skillful or unskillful purposes. If you want to manipulate the world and become all powerful (like Devadatta), you can use meditation for that defilement-filled purpose. But, to follow the Buddhist path requires adopting Right View, which is clarity on what is helpful and unhelpful, but also how things arise and pass away. Insight that is skillful is right view. But insight all by itself could be unskillful. You can see how things are fabricated, but maybe you are blind to the harmful consequences. Or you are greedy and care only about yourself, willful or oblivious to harming others.
May you explore and master all 4 functions. May you experiment and see for yourself. And may you use them to decrease suffering and increase deep happiness and contentment and peace.
UUDR
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