Fulfillment and Liberation
- A talk by Ajahn Viradhammo given at Amaravati in 1996
In Buddhism we speak of two levels of consideration. The first is the conventional
level of 'me', as a person, and 'you', as a person. For example, there is 'Viradhammo':
fifty-ish, quickly getting out of shape, has duties, is a senior monk at Amaravati;
his Mom is in Canada - and he has a little scar on his head with three stitches.
That is 'me', as a person. There is the sense here of a person, of social responsibility,
of a position in society; of the age of the body, of its genetic and cultural
make-up. This is the packaged sense of self that a typical person works with,
which is quite valid.
At this level, the considerations are morality, right livelihood, responsibility
for the environment, social action, expression and creativity. This is one level
we operate on, where we can find all kinds of fulfillment; it is a very rewarding
thing to be able to work to express and create something. However, it is not
liberating - because things change. We really notice that it is not liberating
when someone criticises what we are doing. You might think you are doing a great
job but when someone pokes a few holes in it, then you see how un-liberating
it is - how bound one can be to it. If all we are trying to do is to find fulfillment
on the level of family, social action and creativity, then of course our hearts
are never fully appeased, because those conditions are always changing and they
depend on so many other factors which are beyond our control. If my whole sense
of fulfillment is my family, but then my kids leave home, or someone dies, or
my child comes home with a red Mohican... what do I do if my whole life is dependent
on that?! So we would say that fulfillment on this level is not where liberation
lies, it is not a refuge - although that is not to put it down.
The second level is the Dhamma level, the level of liberation of the heart.
When we develop a Buddhist lifestyle, we can see how our families and our social
positions can actually be our `monasteries'. They are the place where we practise
inner vigilance and contemplation. Whether you are an artist, a doctor, a photographer
or on the dole, that is your monastery, that is where you practise.
I was in New Zealand for nine years and was involved with a very beautiful monastery
project. During that time there was the necessity to function on the social
level - I had to work and to organise things - but, through all that, the most
important things to consider were suffering and non-suffering: the inner world.
We built this lovely meditation hall (half my monastic life has been spent on
building sites!). One whole side of it was open, and we had doors that were
ten feet by ten feet - pretty big doors! However, the joiner who was making
the doors up was not very efficient. He would always tell us that the doors
were coming next week - and this went on for four months! On the wordly level,
we had to say to him, "Hey, listen! We have a contract, you are not meeting
your responsibilities." But on the inner level, we all had to take responsibility
for our annoyance at this joiner. So both levels were operating.
This meditation hall is convertible. There is a cloister at the front, onto
which these huge doors open. On top of the cloister we had a marquee custom-made,
so we could double the size of the hall on big occasions. We got the best tentmaker
in New Zealand to make this marquee - but it was faulty. We had to take tough
steps to ensure he didn't rip us off, but we still could not hate him. Sometimes
we wanted to; the mind was saying, 'What a rip-off! What are we paying this
man all this money for?' Our practice was right there; the tentmaker was our
monastery. So without denying the necessity and the challenge of living in the
world, we also recognise the inner world. If we view those two worlds skilfully
we find a balance between conventional reality and the inner work. Then the
tentmaker becomes a person with whom I learn to stand up for what is right,
rather than putting my tail between my legs and running away. He helps me learn
to be patient.
This inner world is what we work with on a retreat. Although we should not forget
the conventional world - Buddhism is not just a weird experience called retreat!
We cannot spend our life on a retreat, we have to live in the world. The gift
of a retreat, of course, is that we don't have to do so much social re-organising.
If the toast is burned, it's burned; we don't sue the cooks. So we work with
whatever we have, and we have the freedom to observe. A retreat offers the opportunity
to look at suffering and non-suffering.
Maybe in your own lives you have difficulties to deal with - mortgages or recalcitrant
teenagers? Don't try to solve those problems now! Instead, I suggest you work
with that very feeling of anxiety or worry as a present condition. This is the
skill of moving from the conventional, social level of 'me', as a person, to
the impersonal level of basic Dhamma elements. This level of the teaching then
breaks down our conscious experience to fundamentals which we can look at, no
matter what our social situation is. For example, thought - mental activity
- is one of the fundamental things we have been looking at. If this activity
is always kept on the personal level, it's, 'Well, what am I going to do tomorrow?
I don't know... We need to do this; but what if we do that? Yes, let's try this,
then we'll do that...' All that is on the personal level - but on the Dhamma
level, this is simply planning, worry, thought.
If we remain on the personal level, there will always be this to-ing and fro-ing
- struggling. It is only on that impersonal level of consciousness that we can
understand not-self (anatta). It's not that life itself is impersonal - we still
have our individual kamma, but it is on this level that we can penetrate to
a liberating understanding, by passing beyond ignorance. We are not going to
avoid the tentmakers and the joiners altogether; life is always going to be
that way.
There are many teachings that can help us; for example the Four Noble Truths
or Dependent Origination (paticca-samuppada). Sometimes, we might feel over-whelmed
if we try to figure these out, but in time we come to see that it's a really
beautiful package, intellectually very lovely. More than that, these teachings
encourage us to look in the right place, and show us the path to freedom. They
take us away from the personal situation with the joiner or the tentmaker, directly
to a fundamental sense of stress. So we develop the ability to examine on this
level all the time. If I can look at the 'aggro' I feel towards the joiner and
take it out of the personal realm by simply looking at it as stress, then I
will be able to understand any 'aggro' I may have for the rest of my life and
know how to deal with it.
The Buddha encouraged us to consider how human consciousness and the human body
are involved with pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feelings and sensations;
to use feeling (vedana) as a framework for contemplation. When you are thirsty,
you drink a glass of orange juice; it is pleasant. When you are sitting here
and your knees hurt, that is unpleasant. That is very obvious. So no matter
what you are finding pleasant or unpleasant - the body, the weather, a person,
or your own mind - notice the feeling of pleasant-unpleasant-neutral; consider
attraction-repulsion-neutrality. When we are not in touch with Dhamma we often
don't consider these fundamental states of mind. We just enjoy the pleasant
and try to minimise the unpleasant - which seems like a logical thing to do.
But then that keeps us very restless, because no matter how hard we try to do
this, there will always be pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. Sense-consciousness
is this way.
Seeking the pleasant, trying to be rid of the unpleasant is samsara. The more
we do this, the more we want to do it, and the more we have to do it. We become
addicted to this way of operating. We get into this very restless phenomenon
called rebirth - becoming, doing, all the time. And this takes us away from
our real home. This takes us away from the unconditioned, because pleasure and
pain are always conditioned. As they change, we feel the need to change. As
we grasp pleasure and pain, we find ourselves being spun around the samsaric
wheel.
The wheel is one of our traditional images. The rim of the wheel represents
sense experience - the contacts we experience, pleasant and unpleasant - all
of it spinning around. Grasping the rim of a wheel simply wrings us around with
the general momentum. So grasping the pleasant, then trying to hold onto it
and afraid of losing it, we make tremendous effort to keep it going; or getting
angry at the unpleasant - in both cases we continue to spin around endlessly.
But the hub of the wheel is the centre of knowing and being, and this can take
it all. This is where the unconditioned lies. If we can summon awareness and
be that still centre of knowing, there are still comings and goings - but we
have a refuge. This is what Ajahn Chah called, 'our real home.'
This is the basic structure that the Buddha asks us to look at. Our sensitive
body contacts objects. That contact produces pleasant, unpleasant, neutral feelings
- vedana. From there comes craving (tanha), the grasping of craving (upadana),
and the whole process of becoming (bhava) and rebirth (jati). If one carries
on like this over time, it becomes a habit. It is then very difficult to return
to the still centre of being, because one is so restlessly engaged with that
which moves, with the emotions and the thoughts.
Why are we kidnapped so much? Even though we sit here determining, 'I will not
get kidnapped!' - it's very hard, isn't it? Don't think you are alone in this,
we are all in the same boat! It is very difficult because of our habits, our
kamma. Even though we might have really good intentions, situations arise where
we feel anger or fear. That is kamma.
What we are trying to do is to break up all these kammic patterns. The way we
can do this is by beginning to look at Dhamma, rather than remaining stuck on
the level of personality. The contemplation of feelings (vedanupassana) is one
of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. It requires careful attention to notice
this basic structure of the way that some things attract our attention, while
others repel. We can try it with an emotion, with a bodily feeling, with a thought;
or with people. On this retreat maybe you find difficulty with someone, or maybe
you fall in love with them. Notice how some people are physically very attractive,
while some are not. Some people have a lot of charisma, and others don't. Notice
how you are attracted or repelled; look at that very simple movement of the
heart. This is where our habitual emotions are really arising from.
If you can know that movement and learn to not follow or react to it, then you
begin not to suffer. For example, your own psyche, the things you don't like
about yourself, the emotions you think should not be there; all these come up
as very unpleasant. So ask, 'What does an unpleasant emotion feel like?' Or
in meditation you might sometimes experience tranquillity, bliss or bright lights,
or notice how beautiful silence is, how really attractive that is... but then
comes the coarseness of the sound of the JCB! So we attach to the pleasant and
the refined, and we try to get rid of the ugly. But what is it that knows pleasant
and unpleasant?
Sometimes when you are sitting, the mind is bored, the eyes look around, and
you find yourself attracted to someone... ah!... and then you start to create.
Romance. There is the creation of 'me' and 'that person', and what 'we' are
going to do, what is going to happen to 'us' - sometimes it's called a 'vipassana
marriage' - and then suddenly the bell rings! It can happen with hatred too,
for example when there is something unappealing about someone. Rather than just
noticing our desire to pull away from them, sitting with that until it reaches
neutrality - we become very critical, caught in aversion, and try to push them
away. But in contemplation of feelings, we can simply bring up an image of a
person, and be mindful of the attraction or aversion. That takes us to peace
of the mind - to neutrality, rather than identification with the feeling itself.
Quite often we are so caught up with the craving for pleasure that we don't
even notice neutrality, which we find boring. As Luang Por Chah said, the neutral,
the ordinary is like the space between the end of the out-breath and the beginning
of the in-breath. It is very calming but we don't tend to notice it, because
we want excitement - we seek to react to difficult or frightening things.
The practice of vedanupassana requires refined attention; taking this theme
for contemplation to break down the whole self-structure. So no matter what
you may be as a self, as a person, suggest to yourself that today you are going
to simply try to notice attraction and repulsion in the mind. That way you are
contemplating Dhamma, instead of just being a person. Then ask, 'What is it
that knows that which you are noticing?' That knowing is where we find our freedom.
You have a body with senses; you live in an environment with which you have
contact; that contact produces pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feelings. Right
there is where you work. Then you have tanha: wanting the pleasant, not wanting
the unpleasant, and the sleepiness and delusion around the neutrality. When
that wanting arises, there might be grasping of it, believing in it; you really
think that if you follow it you will be truly happy, or that to get rid of it
will be the right thing to do. So there is belief in the wanting, and the grasping
(upadana). From the grasping comes the sense of becoming; one gets involved
in this whole process and is reborn into the new situation. From there emerges
the sense of dissatisfaction, and you get lost in that: 'Oh, here I go again!'
Notice how birth and death work. You are bored with meditation, your knees are
hurting, you want to get up and do something interesting. Then we get a pleasant,
beautiful, creative idea that is really going to help the world. Rather than
simply noticing this as a pleasant idea, craving develops to keep it going.
We start to think, we grasp the craving and then we create something. This is
where we seek rebirth; we go on from one to the next to another. It is important
to notice this, because at that point we have a choice. If we can see craving
clearly and not grasp it, we save ourselves a rebirth, and experience the silence
of the mind. If, on the other hand we choose to be reborn then our next option
will be a death. Death is when the dancing will not stop; it continues on and
on in the mind. That is the decline, the kamma of attachment; rather than face
that decline into despair and boredom, we seek an alternative rebirth. That
is why boredom and disillusionment are so very important. If we can simply bear
to be with the ending of a cycle, that acceptance can take us beyond rebirth.
So we choose. Sometimes we will be able to notice that movement towards the
pleasant, and we will say, 'No, I don't really need that'. At other times we
will get caught up with the pleasure. Then we will experience its decline, and
have to bear with that. Remember that if you are reborn, you will need to die
again!
Nibbana, liberation, is that which is not born and does not die, it carries
us beyond the cycle - not in terms of whether we will be a rabbit in the next
life - but right now. If you get that principle right, it will always work for
us in this way.