Samatha: developing calm and tranquillity in meditation | Prof. Peter Harvey

[00:00:01] Welcome to Treasure Mountain, the podcast that inspires and guides us to find the treasure within human experience. I'm your host, Sol Hanna. Before I get started introducing this episode,

[00:00:13] I wanted to thank those who have supported this podcast and the other podcasts that I've been working on by offering a one-off of recurring donation via the Co-Fight platform. Not only has there this helped pay for some of the costs of recording and hosting the podcast,

[00:00:28] but also received really useful feedback from the supporters, but also some of our listeners as well as ideas for guests and including for this episode. So a special thank you goes to Caramilla, Alexander Bill, Wilson and Simon for we also support in the past month,

[00:00:45] as well as all those who have given off a one-off donation, a really do appreciate it. In this episode of Treasure Mountain, we will explore the purpose and nature of summer to meditation,

[00:00:56] and it's relation to other forms of meditation, notably the passion and meditation, and to the Buddhist path as a whole. And as our guest to help get us a deeper appreciation of summer to meditation is Professor Peter Harvey.

[00:01:13] Peter Harvey did a philosophy degree at Manchester University. Whilst there he became a Buddhist after attending talks with the Buddhist society and learning mindfulness of breathing Buddhist meditation.

[00:01:25] This then inspired him to visit India and do a doctorate of Buddhist studies at the University of Lancaster, Under Nenian Smart. From 1976 to 2011 he was a lecturer in religious studies at the Polytechnic and then University of Sandalund.

[00:01:42] He taught Indian religions, the study of religion and also some philosophy and ended up as a professor of Buddhist studies, running an online MA of Buddhist studies. The top of all that he has been in Buddhist meditation with the Sanatatrust since 1977, in Durham and Sandalund.

[00:02:02] And since 2015 in York and online Peter Harvey's publications on Buddhism include an introduction to Buddhism, teachings, history and practices, and an introduction to Buddhist ethics, foundations, values and issues. Whilst Peter retired from academia in 2011 he is still teaching meditation online through the Sanatatrust.

[00:02:27] Peter Harvey has a long, lived experience both practicing and teaching meditation as well as researching Buddhism and his next on guest to help us understand the hows and whyes of Samatatation.

[00:02:40] So join us as we seek for the treasure within. Welcome to Treasure Mountain Peter, how are you today? Okay, yeah, fine. Yep, good day.

[00:03:14] Well thank you very much for joining us on the podcast and hopefully we're going to learn a bit more about Samatatation and its place on the Buddhist path.

[00:03:24] I'd like to start off and I think a great place to start off and interview is to start with the basics. So what is Samatatation? Especially for those who may be up to familiar. Well, the word Samatat, Paul, it means calm peace, tranquility in Samatat.

[00:03:46] I think in Tibetan it's shinya which in Tibetan or from Tibetan it's translated karma byding. So it's a form of practice which usually works by working with the breath mindfulness of breathing and it develops a very calm, still focused alert mindful state of mind.

[00:04:16] Sometimes it's seen it's talked about as if only developed concentration. In fact, concentration is one of the key aspects of the practice in the sense of a concentrated, gathered focused calm state equally important is mindfulness.

[00:04:38] Kind of alert, attentiveness, really great sensitivity and noticing contemplatively what's going on with the breath, the body and the mind. So the aim is to develop increasingly deep states of stillness but kind of alert stillness mindful stillness.

[00:05:04] Yeah, and it kind of works on the assumption that based on experience that as well as the kind of surface of the mind with it wandering thought, sworees concerns plans emotional term loads as kind of in the background is a kind of source of deep calm stillness and brightness.

[00:05:29] Particularly nice quote from the sort of which I like and it's related to some of that is this mind is bright and shining but it is defile by visiting defilements, the hindrances.

[00:05:45] That background brightness is certainly not the in the mind state although it gets developed in the history of Buddhism into the wooded action, but it's once you get some sort of experience of fact it is a very good basis for developing both calm and inside.

[00:06:05] I'm curious, do you think that that state of calm, that state of stillness? Is that could we understand that as being like the natural state of the mind but it's covered up with all this distraction and thinking and wanting and through somatoe we're just.

[00:06:25] Gradually letting go of all that thinking and doing is is that one way to understand it. But you could say that although if you call it the natural state that implies that sometime in the in the past you've experienced it. I'm right. I'm right.

[00:06:41] Even a very young baby has potential to buy a month or whatever. So it's in. Terrible, I'll be done with theory is yard it the mind is flashing in and out of that state all the time. But normal needs. Yeah, it's covered over. Yeah.

[00:06:59] We're going to go off in a slight tangent here. I want to know if somatoe meditation is the only form of meditation that you practice and teach or do you teach other forms of meditation as well.

[00:07:14] Why well, my main practice is form of mindfulness of reading to do all that somatoe. But you can also develop somatoe by focusing on element for the water fire and everything's like that.

[00:07:26] I'm loving kind of practice is something we can't practice on tea and that technique comes under the broad heading of somatoe. We also do somatoe in some of the constant concentration of in permanence. I painfulness, non-self.

[00:07:45] One of us are walking in the somatoe trust there's quite a lot of. Damage discussion. Sort of study and chanting chanting is a very important aspect of our practice. Not just as a bit of ritual before the real stuff but when you really get.

[00:08:04] Into chanting it just part of the practice. It does cultivate some of the symbol of states or energy and joy and also on the standing. Yeah.

[00:08:15] Wow, that's a course we need to have a lot more questions but one of the things I really wanted to ask was you said that there were almost like different types of meditation lead into somatoe.

[00:08:29] So in one sense we don't do somatoe meditation we for instance might do breath meditation which leads us into somatoe. Is that am I understanding that correctly? Yeah, well my for the sub breathing could be taken either in a somatoe direction or are we passing another action.

[00:08:46] So it's a big angle both ways and in cunning clue elements of both. But in something like Buddha goes this this is the micro of path and pure indication. There's a whole list of folks who possible focuses of contemplation.

[00:08:59] I mean some devotion if you come to play the qualities of the Buddha down around sangha that can develop somatoe. Not as perhaps as deep as mindfulness of breathing but you know so yeah somatoe.

[00:09:12] It can the word can be used in two ways for equality, a state of mind and then the kinds of practices lead to that then become called somatoe meditation.

[00:09:24] It's a bit like we pass an hour with pass an hour is inside and then the practices are particularly aimed at cultivating that.

[00:09:31] Yet called insight meditation and pass an hour right and of course what you're saying is that there are there's multiple practices potentially that could be used to lead to somatoe. Still calm tranquil state of mind.

[00:09:45] Yeah that's true but certainly certainly amongst western Buddhist if you like 8% is mindfulness of breathing. Right right right right which of course is pretty universal. So it's not the only form of meditation that you teach but it's still a very very important form of meditation.

[00:10:06] Could you outline the benefits of and the reasons for practicing somatoe meditation? Right well I'll start at there more beginning level goes to all so it helps you develop less mental wandering.

[00:10:21] And I'm helpful for patterns so it makes you easy to concentrate on other things as well as meditation. Obviously increasingly the calm and in a stillness and with calm comes lifting joy and ease for happiness.

[00:10:39] There's a big role for joy energize joy in the body and the mind in some of us. It's a kind of energizing aspect of the practice. Also develops equanimity so you're less booked by the ups and downs of life and of your own emotions.

[00:10:58] It helps you become stronger in your character emotions. You could be more your own person, you could be more together. You can be more in charge of yourself things like that. But if you've got an ice car on center, probably speaking comes in goes a bit.

[00:11:21] You could also be more open to other people on that needs because you've got a kind of secure basis within you. So thank you. And then if the mind is very calm and clear, then there are it's easier to develop insight because I'm in a silly example.

[00:11:43] If you're driving your car and the car windscreen is all that you missed it. I can't see what you're going. Clean the windscreen, you can see where you're going. So how much do you speak helped clean the windscreen? Particularly in the places. Yeah. It gives more clarity.

[00:12:00] Yeah, okay. So it does help as a basis for we fastener as well. So those are things which gradually build up through cultivating the very same way. It's a very safe and diverse stages. But it's a slow, gradual process. You're developing skill sometimes.

[00:12:21] It's two steps forward and one step back or two steps back. One step forward. Anything is facing the right, facing the right direction and using the tools of practice. A learning to get better at using them. So it's one thing having a toolbox of tool.

[00:12:38] You need to know how to use them well. Absolutely. That's really like that explanation and it sounds like there's it's beneficial in and of itself because it can lead to well calm and stillness and even joy.

[00:12:53] And then also it has leading on effects because it can lead to greater clarity of insight as well. Yeah, that's that's really good. Now one of the questions this is a little bit more of a technical question.

[00:13:08] How does Sameter meditation help to develop the Buddhist path of practice? What where does it fit in to the Buddhist path of practice? Right. Well, or example, no belief factors of the no belief factor path. The eighth one is right concentration.

[00:13:26] That's defining the sort of as jarons and nuts. You get the jarons from some of the meditation. If you look at the list like the seven factors of awakening, mindfulness investigation. And we go to energy joy, tranquility, concentration, equanimity.

[00:13:47] There's a that's almost that's a very kind of summit of progression. And the five faculties, cross-full confidence, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom. You've got Sameter and we pass out in all these kind of lists in different balances.

[00:14:06] And there is one sort of which simply says what is the path to the foundation of our, it's Sameter and we pass in our. So they are like two hands at work together. But there could be different emphasis on how these are developed,

[00:14:21] different orders in which they are developed. There is I mean, there are things called dry insight, which uses very little summator. But, um, people in summator, that's a bit dry. Blush. Blush a bit of a sack. Okay. Okay. Well, that actually leads me on to the next question.

[00:14:44] This is a bit of an area of controversy because in recent decades, as you'd be aware, there's been a lot of interest and practice of, so could we pass an or inside meditation. Uh, off. This is traced back to traditions that originated in Myanmar with teachers like Mahasi,

[00:15:01] Saadal. Some people who follow, uh, in this practice, in this kind of insight or personal practice, might say that developing summator meditation is just a distraction on the path. And that is not really needed to attain awakening.

[00:15:18] How would you respond to this kind of criticism of summator meditation? Yeah, I think that development started in 19th century, took off in the 1950s in Burma, Myanmar, and then spread more widely. I think it was part of a kind of modernization of Buddhism,

[00:15:36] and also making meditation more available to lay people. But in the process, there was some throwing out the baby with the bath water in terms of criticism of some forms of summator. And also the idea that, oh, you need very long retreats to get really developed summator.

[00:15:56] I think in more recent decades, I think there's been an increasing re-interest in summator through a range of teachers in nature and the West. So I think it's kind of starting to get a bit more rebalanced. As it happens, some of the drops from teaching my boomin,

[00:16:17] you a toy monk, an India who came to the UK, and actually a disrobe part because at the time, there was this big strong surge in embers in summator's no good. And he thought, no, this is what I want to preserve and pass on.

[00:16:35] So he was very traditional teaching in the West. Well, as an Iperman, he was involved in the summator traps in the early days. Well, he's our route teacher still alive as in his 90s. And he really goodness. And he came to England in 1962.

[00:16:54] We've been in India, we just wrote, he came to England on the back of a motorbike with a friend. He collected it with a tie-amp, a sea, and then he took a little bit of talk, some meditation. And then some people in London and particularly came to university,

[00:17:11] I kind of, he taught them, and that was the, the kind of ultimate route of summator traps, which actually is a trusty ball up in the early 1970s. So yeah. Okay. Now, so he has his roots both in classical sound and some of the later traditional device.

[00:17:32] And sound and some of the later traditional developments of that. Right, right, right. Now I did want to just pick up on something he said earlier as well, which is that summator meditation can help to lead into the development of insight into the personer.

[00:17:53] And you mentioned previously that they kind of work together. Could you elaborate a little bit upon this idea of how summator meditation can assist in the development of insight? Right, okay. Not so much that summator on its own develops insight.

[00:18:14] If you'd like to do it and extend, but it gives a very good foundation for it. Sumator when it really gets the mind into a very calm still, joyful state leads to what called the genres or disruptions. Which come very rich in joy throughout the body,

[00:18:32] happiness throughout the body and then letting go of those and more equanimity, etc. and great clarity. It's quite interesting that the tutors imply that in the fourth of the four genres, that's the most mindful state. So as I say, there's a tendency, oh, mindfulness is really personal.

[00:18:51] Well, yes, it's also equally important in summator as well. So if you get the mind into a very clear and god-a-taste, and in order to do that, you have to let go of those areas things. In particular, first of all, the five entrances to desire for sense pleasures,

[00:19:14] he'll will dullness and drowsiness, restlessness on these unbacilating doubts. You'll be able to get the mind into jarny. So you've got to learn the late go of those. And then to get to the second jarny, we'll have to let go of certain colleges and the first jarny.

[00:19:32] And then you need to let go of joy, etc. So it's a process of increasing the letting go and developing the heart-mine if you like. And but cultivating very, or lifting pleasant experiences, but learning not to be attached to them.

[00:19:52] We can pass it out of the tendency to say sometimes, oh, deep calm, the jarny, oh, you can get attached to them. Well, you can get attached to anything, including we pass it out today. So it's a getting better at learning not to get attached to things.

[00:20:10] And in fact, one of the practices I do based on the sources is trying to get my mind as calm as I can in a sit. And then from that very calm state, stepping sideward slightly and reflecting this state is conditioned, dependent, impermanent.

[00:20:28] It's not quite what I want it to be often. It fluctuates, so it's look at, and I can't possess it, it's non-cell. So you can develop very deep calm and then reflect that. Even this very, very pleasant calm, economist state is conditioned nothing to get attached to.

[00:20:49] So if you shouldn't get attached to that, how much more so than ordinary everyday stuff. Also, also, if you can get the mind into a very calm, godly, joyful state, when you come back to everyday consciousness,

[00:21:05] you think, yeah, this is obviously more limited than the state I've just been in. So it helps you, it helps everyday insight quite a lot all with personal or insight that develops in some of the meditation. When you're not meditating, but you're experiencing things in a reasonably calm

[00:21:26] mindful way. And you don't need to get attached so much to this and that in the ordinary everyday world. Because you've got a very calm, joyful refuge to be able to. But you shouldn't get attached to that either.

[00:21:41] Yes, well, I like the way you described the meditation as progressive states of letting go. That was quite appealing, but it also sounds to me like there's a bit of a symbiosis between the samarthar and the vipassana.

[00:22:01] So ultimately we should be trying to use a bit of both. We might need some bit of personal for instance, will we use it for instance to. By and skillful means to overcome hindrances would that be right? Well, yes, we question the house of our,

[00:22:19] some of our spontaneous skills will mean so for competition. This is too. I mean, like to counter, I mean, very we're like, for example, loving kindness, coming so I'm in the back is counter acts, second ignorance of ill will,

[00:22:33] and you need to browse some energy to do somatir practice on the out, or then develop more, which count truss, third hindrances for example. So when in both in somatir and we pass it that it's developing skills. And you get developed skill by practicing them.

[00:22:51] And of course if you're learning a skillet useful to have a practical teacher. So you might say some of us are we pass it up like you need to go to teacher. You need to go to teacher and it's like an apprenticeship.

[00:23:05] You know, an important part of somatir certainly is reporting. You know, when somebody's learning the practice and when they've learned it to report to their manifestation teacher regularly. And the teacher can get sense of, you kind of, you've got that teaching on practice,

[00:23:25] but you can't even use it not quite right. You've picked up the hammer and using it inappropriately. You know, like when you're trying to hammer in a nail, sometimes you bang it too far or it bends. Well if you apply meditake practice with too much effort for example,

[00:23:44] it doesn't work or too little. So you need to balance balance and getting feedback from the teacher helps. Yeah, I suppose as a beginner, especially you wouldn't necessarily know where you're going wrong.

[00:24:00] You might know that you're stuck, but you wouldn't necessarily know how or why you're stuck in this where a teacher can really be helpful. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well on that note, let's say for instance someone was listening and they're thinking they'd like to practice somatimeditation.

[00:24:17] And what advice would you offer them in terms of getting started with this practice? Right, obviously depends on if there's actually an in-first and last available to them or at least a retreat they can travel to and what part the world is very in-acquatra.

[00:24:37] There are various more somatimed teachers around in your part, the world of Western Australia and these are Chambraam who mainly emphasise as somatimed approach. As it happens, he's very first teacher in the UK with nine boomers. So this is where you're, I was thinking I recognize that night.

[00:24:58] Yeah, anyway. So yeah, he's in Western Australia. In America for example there's Lee Brassington written a book right concentration of practical guide to the genres. And numerous somatimed type teachers, Shaila Catherine. You know if you google some of these people you can get some information.

[00:25:19] An important, Burmese teacher who teaches strong somatimed also, we pass in our is Pa. Pa, Alq, Sayador. American list, Tunisero Bikku. And in the Tibetan tradition is Alan Wallace written a book called the Attention Revolution. So you do a bit of good thing.

[00:25:45] I'll find out in your little area. And of course as well as person to person classes retreats. There are also some online classes available or pop-casts. YouTube videos from various teachers as well. So YouTube videos, if you like, start to give you a taste of. Yeah.

[00:26:09] I mean as it happens, somatimed trust, synth, covid, the use of zoom. I already had an online class based on written text and person reporting. But I will also do a zoom class now. This year there's been a big boost in the number of people.

[00:26:29] So I've got currently about 45 people in the class. And therefore not really in your mind anymore. But I started eating, I'm going to eat chocolate. They'd run for about 30 weeks. So that teaches the various stages of mindfulness of breathing that we use.

[00:26:45] So it's like relevant theory that helps. So just to I just wanted to follow up on that, so you gave a lot of different names of teachers who are teaching some documentation.

[00:26:56] And I think that these days there's quite a lot of resources available online, podcast, YouTube and so forth. And that can be a very good place to start. But you also said that you know, especially if you start to get a bit of stuff.

[00:27:12] it could help to get some direct advice from a teacher. Now, is that correct? Yeah. If you can get it. If you can get it, that can be tricky. I know some of the people who are listening to this podcast are not necessarily close to such teachers

[00:27:32] in geographically speaking. I mean, in my current class, the other night, I've been from five continents on the Zoom class. Really, goodness male. Right. Now, I guess that leads into a question about the summer to trust because you've been practicing and teaching with the summer

[00:27:52] to trust in the UK for a good many years decades. Could you tell us first of all a bit about the summer to trust and its courses, including their online courses? Because I believe you're not the only teacher with the summer to trust as well.

[00:28:07] No, there's about, we've got about 120 for teachers. About what are our figures? 73 men, 51 women, that within 2020. So we've got about 26 classes around the UK. Got some in Ireland, some in Germany, some in the US. So our teachers are also, obviously, and some of these other countries as well,

[00:28:36] but it developed in the UK. We've got a retreat sentry and whales, and now we've got a sentry and Manchester and William Milton Keynes. So this is a series of retreats some of these centers from if I late spring going through to the autumn,

[00:28:58] something to winter as well. Some events occasionally, there are online days, and things like that. The online course which I teach and with their help of various other summer teachers, so it starts in early October and runs through to about June or a little bit later.

[00:29:19] It's the combination of written teachings which I've developed over the years which I used to give out basic spaces and then the Zoom class and recordings of those classes. So we teach the way we teach my first of breathing

[00:29:37] a very one aspect of which different from most other people is we never use the normal breath length. We use different breath length, starting with what's called the longest comfortable breath without straining. This is partly so that while the way our teacher puts it,

[00:29:55] he just use the normal breath length. It's more easy to just drop into normal everyday states of mind rather than developing more different or skilled states of mind. And because we use four different breath lengths, so it's long as longer shorter, shorter, comfortable breath.

[00:30:12] You need the more things to be mindful of. You need to sense what's the breath doing now. We need to change the next breath now. And the four different breath lengths have slightly different effects on the balance of mindfulness and concentration.

[00:30:26] I sometimes compare them to like four years on a car, whatever. And then we have the ages where you count. And this is not counting at the end of a breath, but like the longest breath you count slowly from one to nine

[00:30:41] on the in breath, nine back to one on the out breath. So you need to be aware of the breath where we are with it. But where do the count in a live way, not automatically way? Whereas on the shortest breath you just count like one,

[00:30:59] one, et cetera. And then we have stages where you don't count. You just follow the breath in a very full and complete way, feel of the breath in the body for those down to the navel and back up. And then what's called touching when we just focus,

[00:31:16] feel of the breath, not stroll, an orstrel. And then when that starts to work, and you get what's called an emitter, and it's that kind of mentally impression of the breath, which might be visual, kind of patch of light, or it might be some new tactile sensation,

[00:31:33] say something called settling nuts. When the mind can get really, really very gathered and you can get strong joy and happiness developing, et cetera. So there are stages to learn gradually by this, by this, by this, there are also some shorter online courses,

[00:31:53] where a variety of teachers maybe teach something very weak, or whatever. So we've got those two forms that kind of more structured course, which I teach and then these shorter ones. And then on the structured course, all the new people have a weekly report online.

[00:32:12] So I take quite a lot of those, but there's other teachers take some reports like that. So like, Tuesday afternoon and early evening, most of Thursday, up till the time, I'm taking reports at certain times, login at this time.

[00:32:29] I want to chat for about 50 minutes and something like that. So, right, and I should actually just say before I go on, I'm any further that there will be a link in the description below, which is to the Samadutrust.

[00:32:41] So if you want to explore more of what the Samadutrust has to offer, you can do it via that link. I have to, after I have to ask you one more question, because, set up my own curiosity, I've not heard of those different techniques,

[00:32:56] either different length breaths in the counting and watching the breath in different parts of the body. Is that, what do you call that? Is that a skillful means to help focus the mind on the breath? Or is there some other reason for doing that?

[00:33:10] Well, the counting following, touching and settling. Now, if it goes right back, you can see in the application, it's very, very traditional. The different breath length. We're not quite sure whether that's something in mind, boom and develop.

[00:33:26] But if you actually look at the description in the sort of, in the way in the mind, let's read the basics. It starts off, breathing in long, breathing in long, I know I'm breathing in long, bringing the in short on the way.

[00:33:41] And the similarly is of a wood turn on a on a lat. Because when you make a long turn, you know it's that when you make a short turn, you know it's that. Well, those are deliberate actions. They're not just how the how it happens to be.

[00:33:57] So, and so this, if you generate or guide the breath, say to be nice and slow and long, you leave it very mindful to do that. There's a certain act in doing it. And also the process of slowing down something makes it easier to be mindful of.

[00:34:18] And also as it happens, and I slow, full beat, but not horse breath, physically has a calming effect as well. Mm, okay. Well, if this has been really fascinating, Peter, I really enjoyed this. But I think we might leave it there on this.

[00:34:37] Have I missed anything that I should be telling our listeners about regarding sanitary meditation and perhaps how they could get involved in sanitary meditation if they aren't already. No, just do some Googling and reading. Tell you what, I can finish with it.

[00:34:56] A polychum, a blessing chum, just a short one. Because in a sense, maybe it conveys something of the tonality of feeling of something. Please do that a bit last night, okay? Mm-hmm. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, go to Peter Harvey for joining us

[00:36:21] on this episode of Trisha Mountain, in which we learn about the wise and house of sanitary meditation. And if you want to know a bit more, please look at some of the links in the description below. If you would enjoy this podcast, I'd appreciate it

[00:36:37] if you could share this episode with your friends or other people who you think could benefit from its sage advice. Trisha Mountain podcast is part of the everyday dumb and network. You can find out more about the Trisha Mountain podcast

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[00:37:07] of Trisha Mountain podcast, as we seek for the Trisha within.