Review a meditation afterwards in terms of its factors
After a sitting, look back at the states you met — calm, joy, restlessness — as passing combinations of factors, not as a self or a prize.
Why it works
Nyanaponika points out that the Dhammasaṅgaṇī analyses even meditative absorption soberly, as a transitory combination of conditioned, impersonal factors that differ from ordinary ones only in intensity and purity. He notes that the disciple is advised to follow absorption with an analytical retrospection (paccavekkhaṇa) on the states just experienced, and that doing so guards against three defilements that can ride in on a powerful experience: craving for it, the false view that it reveals a self or a deity, and the conceit of having attained it. Reviewing a sitting the same way keeps a good session from becoming something to grasp and a hard one from becoming a verdict on you.
How to do it
- At the end of a sitting, open your eyes and take a minute before getting up.
- Recall what was present: was there calm, interest, joy, restlessness, dullness, doubt?
- Describe each as a factor that came and went rather than as “my good meditation” or “my failure.”
- Notice any pull to repeat a pleasant state or any pride in it, and name that too.
- Note one thing, briefly, without turning the review into a long analysis.
Evidence
Nyanaponika’s Abhidhamma Studies, which grew out of his German translation of the Dhammasaṅgaṇī and its commentary, describes analytical retrospection after absorption and the three defilements it wards off. Mendis’s essay connects the factors to meditation practice, including the hindrances that must be suspended for absorption. The support is textual and practitioner-based. (anecdotal)
Retrospection was taught in the context of deep absorption; applying it to an ordinary sitting is a gentler use. Its effects have not been studied.
Sources
- Nyanaponika Thera (1949; 3rd ed. 1976). Abhidhamma Studies: Researches in Buddhist Psychology. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.
- Mendis, N. K. G. (1985). The Abhidhamma in Practice (Wheel Publication No. 322). Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. Access to Insight edition.
Common mistake
Turning the review into self-assessment — grading the sitting, or treating a peaceful state as proof of progress. The traditional point of retrospection is to see the state as impermanent and not one’s own, which is the opposite of collecting it.
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More practices for Abhidhamma: The Buddhist Analysis of Mind, Mental Factors and Kamma
- Name the root that is present in this moment
When you notice a reaction, ask which root it is growing from — greed, hatred or delusion, or their opposites: contentment, love and understanding.
- Find the universal mental factors in one ordinary experience
Take one moment — hearing a car pass — and look for the factors the Abhidhamma says are present in every mind-state: contact, feeling, perception, intention, focus, vitality, attention.
- Tell a wholesome state from a pleasant one
Before acting on something that feels good, check whether it is rooted in wanting or in goodwill — the Abhidhamma treats “pleasant” and “wholesome” as separate questions.
- Watch the sequence from contact to reaction
Trace how a sight or a remembered remark moves from first contact through feeling and recognition to the moment you react — the moment the Abhidhamma says action is made.
- Look at the intention, because intention is what makes an act kamma
Before and after something you do, name the intention behind it — the factor the Buddha identifies with kamma itself.
- Use the list of mental factors as a vocabulary for what you notice
Learn a handful of the Abhidhamma’s unwholesome and beautiful factors — conceit, envy, worry, restlessness, mindfulness, tranquillity — so you can recognise them as they arise.
- Study the Abhidhamma through the Saṅgaha, with others and in small pieces
Begin with the Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha and a guide to it, learn the four ultimate realities and the factor groups first, and keep testing the terms against your own experience.
Related concepts
- Anatta: The Buddhist Teaching of No-Self in Practice
What the no-self insight actually means — and the practices that make it useful, not nihilistic
- Dependent Origination: How Suffering Arises and Ceases
The twelve-link chain as a map of how suffering sustains itself — and where to step off
- Yogācāra: The Eight Consciousnesses, Seeds and the Three Natures
The Buddhist school that studied how the mind builds the world it then reacts to
- Vipassana Meditation, Made Practical
Insight, equanimity, and the body-scan approach to liberation from reactivity
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