Reading guide
Five deliberate perceptual exercises
A mendicant would do well to meditate, from time to time, perceiving: the repulsive in the unrepulsive; the unrepulsive in the repulsive; the repulsive in both; the unrepulsive in both; and finally, staying equanimous, mindful, and aware, shunning both altogether.
Practicing against the grain, on purpose
This isn't simply cultivating one fixed, correct perception. The first four exercises deliberately train the mind to see things the opposite of how they ordinarily present themselves — a form of cognitive and perceptual flexibility, practiced as its own discipline.
Each exercise given its own explicit purpose
Perceiving the repulsive in the unrepulsive: so that greed doesn't arise for things that arouse greed. Perceiving the unrepulsive in the repulsive: so that hate doesn't arise for things that provoke hate. The third and fourth combine both purposes, in either order.
The fifth exercise, transcending the whole practice
The final variation moves beyond both perceptual reversals into equanimity itself, targeting all three roots at once — so that neither greed, hate, nor delusion arises ‘in any way at all’, toward anything whatsoever.
A rare, explicit teaching on flexibility itself
Most meditation instructions in this collection cultivate a single correct perception directly. This discourse instead teaches the capacity to shift perception deliberately in either direction, as a skill in its own right, before resting in equanimity that needs neither.
What comes next
AN 5.145 returns to a familiar, foundational formula: the five precepts, stated in their plainest form as the discourse's title, ‘Hell’, suggests.
Key terms
The text
Five ways of meditating
§1“Mendicants, a mendicant would do well to meditate from time to time perceiving the following: the repulsive in the unrepulsive, the unrepulsive in the repulsive, the repulsive in both the unrepulsive and the repulsive, and the unrepulsive in both the repulsive and the unrepulsive. A mendicant would do well to meditate from time to time staying equanimous, mindful and aware, shunning both the repulsive and the unrepulsive.
Why perceive the repulsive in the unrepulsive
§2For what reason should a mendicant meditate perceiving the repulsive in the unrepulsive? ‘May greed not arise in me for things that arouse greed.’ A mendicant should meditate perceiving the repulsive in the unrepulsive for this reason.
Why perceive the unrepulsive in the repulsive
§3For what reason should a mendicant meditate perceiving the unrepulsive in the repulsive? ‘May hate not arise in me for things that provoke hate.’ …
Why perceive the repulsive in both
§4For what reason should a mendicant meditate perceiving the repulsive in both the unrepulsive and the repulsive? ‘May greed not arise in me for things that arouse greed. May hate not arise in me for things that provoke hate.’ …
Why perceive the unrepulsive in both
§5For what reason should a mendicant meditate perceiving the unrepulsive in both the repulsive and the unrepulsive? ‘May hate not arise in me for things that provoke hate. May greed not arise in me for things that arouse greed.’ …
Why rest in equanimity, shunning both
§6For what reason should a mendicant meditate staying equanimous, mindful and aware, shunning both the repulsive and the unrepulsive? ‘May no greed for things that arouse greed, hate for things that provoke hate, or delusion for things that promote delusion arise in me in any way at all.’ For this reason a mendicant should meditate staying equanimous, mindful and aware, shunning both the repulsive and the unrepulsive.”
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