A Home for the Mind
by
Phra
Ajaan Suwat Suvaco
Translated from the Thai by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Copyright
© 2002 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free distribution only.
You may reprint
this work for free distribution.
You may re-format and redistribute this work
for use on computers and computer networks
provided that you charge no fees
for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights reserved.
..."Knowing
the Dhamma" means knowing the truth. Where does the Dhamma lie? Not far off
at all. Where are rupa-dhammas (physical phenomena)? Are there any physical phenomena
within us? Are any nama-dhammas (mental phenomena) within us? They're both within
us, but we don't know how to read them, to decipher them, because we haven't yet
studied them. Or even when we have tried to study them, we still can't decipher
them in line with the standards set by the Buddha. So let's try to decipher our
body, our actions in thought, word, and deed. Our actions don't lie anywhere else.
They show themselves in the activity of the body. So we use the body in line with
the Dhamma, abstaining from the activities that defile it: killing, stealing,
engaging in illicit sex. When we abstain from these things, we've begun practicing
the Dhamma. We abstain from telling lies, from divisive speech, from abusive speech,
from idle chatter. When we're mindful to show restraint in what we say, we won't
encounter any dangers coming from our speech. There are no dangers when we practice
in line with the Buddha's way.
As for the mind, we cleanse it by meditating.
We use mindfulness to look after the heart, to make sure it doesn't get involved
in anything defiling or unclean. We keep it cheerful, blooming and bright in its
meditation, in investigating the Dhamma, knowing the Dhamma, seeing the Dhamma,
until it settles down in the stillness that we've developed and kept composed.
We keep it blooming and bright. Wherever you go, this is how you should practice.
Make your composure continuous. The mind will then gain strength, so that it can
let go of its external preoccupations and stay focused exclusively within: at
peace and at ease, bright and clear, staying right here.
Then when you want
to gain discernment, you can investigate. Focus mindfulness on keeping the body
in mind, and then investigate it. This is called dhamma-vicaya, investigating
phenomena. You investigate the physical phenomena in the body to see them in line
with the four noble truths. You look at the arising of physical phenomena right
here. You look at the aging, the illness, the death of phenomena right here within
you. If you really look for it, you'll see that the body is full of death.
How
do we see death when the body is still breathing and able to walk around? We can
see it if our discernment is subtle and precise. The Buddha saw death with every
in-and-out breath, so why can't we? He once asked Ven. Ananda how often he paid
attention to death in the course of a day, and Ananda answered, "One hundred
times." The Buddha's response was: "You're still too complacent. You
should pay attention to death with every in-and-out breath." What kind of
death can you look at with every in-and-out breath? Whatever fades away, ends,
and disappears: that's death. As for the death of the whole body, that comes closer
every day, closer with each in-and-out breath. This runs down, that wears out.
We have to keep creating things to replace what gets worn out. And whatever we
create keeps wearing out, too.
So we should keep track of the wearing out
-- what's called vaya-dhamma, degeneration. The Buddha saw this with every moment.
This is the sort of seeing that allows us to see the noble truth that birth is
stressful, aging is stressful. There's no ease in aging. Look so that you see
this clearly. Pain and illness are stressful, death is stressful, all the affairs
that come with birth create hardships, turmoil, and stress.
When you investigate
in line with the Buddha's Dhamma, you'll see the truth for yourself in every way
just as the Buddha did. For it's all right here. You'll gain discernment and intelligence,
no longer deluded into grasping hold of suffering and making it your self, no
longer grasping hold of inconstant things and making them your self. Whatever's
inconstant, leave it as inconstant and don't make it you. Whatever's stressful,
leave it as stressful and don't make it you. There's no you in any of those things.
When you aim your investigation in the direction of seeing this clearly, the mind
will let go and attain peace, inner solitude, free from clinging.
It's as
when we carry something heavy on our shoulder. We know it's heavy because it's
weighing on our shoulder. But when we put it down, it's no longer heavy on us.
In the same way, when we see that birth is stressful, aging is stressful, illness
is stressful, death is stressful, then we should examine those things as they
arise to see that they're not us. Then we'll be able to let them go. We should
look after our mind to make sure that it doesn't give rise to the assumption that
any of those things are us or ours, or that they lie within us. Those things are
just objects, elements, and we leave them at that. Stress then has no owner on
the receiving end. It's just like when you put down a burden: there's nothing
heavy about it at all.
So stress is nothing more than things coming together
to make contact. Suppose that we have a big hunk of limestone. When we lift it
up, it's heavy. But if we burn it in a fire, pound it into dust, and the wind
blows it away, then where's the heaviness? It's nowhere at all. Before, when the
limestone was still in the ground, they had to use explosives to get it out. It
was so heavy that they needed cranes to lift it up. But now that it's pulverized,
the heaviness is gone.
It's the same with suffering and stress. If we investigate
them down to the details, so that we can see them clearly for what they truly
are, there's no self there at all. We get down to the basic elements of experience,
and we see that they're not our self in the least little bit. If we look at the
hair of the head, it's not self. Fingernails and toenails are not self. Look at
every part of the body in detail. Or look at its elementary properties. Exactly
where are you in any of those things? There's no you in there at all.
The
same is true when you look at feelings. There's no you in there at all. There's
simply contact, the contact of objects against the senses, that's all. If you
let go so the mind can come to rest, none of these things will touch it in a way
that weighs on it. Only deluded people grab hold of these things, which is why
they feel weighed down. If we let them go, we don't feel weighed down at all.
When we let go of the aggregates (khandhas), they're not stressful. But we
don't know how to let them go because of birth. Like the mental state you've given
rise to here: you've created it so that it will take birth. Once you've given
rise to it, then -- unless you're given a good reason -- there's no way you'll
be willing to let it go. It's the same as when someone suddenly comes to chase
us out of our home. Who would be willing to go? We'd go only if we were offered
a better place to stay -- a safer, more comfortable place to stay. If we were
offered such a place, who would be willing to stay? If we had a better place to
go, we could abandon our old home with no problem. In the same way, if we're going
to let go of the blatant aggregates, we need a better place to stay, a home for
the mind: a state of concentration. Just like the Buddha and his noble disciples:
when they let go of the blatant aggregates, they entered cessation, they entered
jhana. When they fully let go of all aggregates, they entered nibbana.
We,
however, don't yet have anything else to depend on, which is why we can't let
go. We first have to create a refuge for ourselves. At the very least, we should
try to keep buddho, buddho, in mind. When we really reach buddho -- when the mind
is really a mind awake -- then we can depend on it.
At the moment, though,
we haven't reached the mind awake. We've reached nothing but the demons of defilement,
and they keep haunting us. We're embroiled with nothing but demons; we lie under
their power. For instance, maccu-mara: the demon of death, whose followers --
aging and illness -- we fear so much. Kilesa-mara: delusions and defilements.
These are all demons. Khandha-mara: our attachments to the five aggregates are
all demons. Abhisankhara-mara: the thoughts we create, good or bad, are all demons
if we fall for them -- meritorious creations, demeritorious creations, imperturbable
creations. These are the subtle demons, the demons that bedeviled the Buddha on
the way to Awakening, dressing themselves up as this and that. If we're going
to let go of these things, we first need something better to hold onto. At the
very least we need jhana, levels of mental stillness more refined than what we
have at present.
So we should all try to give rise to the refined levels of
peace and ease I've mentioned here. When we get disenchanted with turmoil, we
can enter a state of stillness. When we get disenchanted with defilement, we can
cleanse the heart and make it bright with the Dhamma. We'll have our home in the
Dhamma, in concentration. The heart can then delight, with rapture and ease as
its food. We'll have no desire for coarse food. When we let go of the blatant
aggregates, we enter the Brahma level of refined rapture and ease.
Even the
sensual devas don't eat coarse food like ours. As for the Brahmas, they're even
clearer than that, more radiant within themselves. Their jhana is pure, and their
concentration radiant. The food of this concentration is the rapture and ease
they experience. Even here on the human level, when we gain rapture from concentration,
we feel full and happy. If we abandon the blatant aggregates, leaving just the
mind in its attainment of concentration, imagine how much pleasure and ease there
will be. We'll no longer have to be involved in these heavy burdens of ours. We
won't have to worry about the five or the eight precepts because we'll be in a
pure state of jhana with no thought of getting stuck on anything defiling. The
mind will be bright.
When you understand this, focus back on your heart. Examine
it carefully. Be intent on practicing heedfully, and you'll meet with prosperity
and ease.
Revised: Mon 20 May 2002
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/suwat/homeformind.html
*********************
All
About Change
by
Thanissaro
Bhikkhu
Copyright © 2004 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free distribution
only.
You may print copies of this work for your personal use.
You may re-format
and redistribute this work for use on computers and computer networks,
provided
that you charge no fees for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights
reserved.
Change is the focal point for Buddhist insight -- a fact so
well known that it has spawned a familiar sound bite: "Isn't change what
Buddhism is all about?" What's less well known is that this focus has a frame,
that change is neither where insight begins nor where it ends. Insight begins
with a question that evaluates change in light of the desire for true happiness.
It ends with a happiness that lies beyond change. When this frame is forgotten,
people create their own contexts for the teaching and often assume that the Buddha
was operating within those same contexts. Two of the contexts commonly attributed
to the Buddha at present are these:
Insight into change teaches us to embrace
our experiences without clinging to them -- to get the most out of them in the
present moment by fully appreciating their intensity, in full knowledge that we
will soon have to let them go to embrace whatever comes next.
Insight into
change teaches us hope. Because change is built into the nature of things, nothing
is inherently fixed, not even our own identity. No matter how bad the situation,
anything is possible. We can do whatever we want to do, create whatever world
we want to live in, and become whatever we want to be.
The first of these
interpretations offers wisdom on how to consume the pleasures of immediate, personal
experience when you'd rather they not change; the second, on how to produce change
when you want it. Although sometimes presented as complementary insights, these
interpretations contain a practical conflict: If experiences are so fleeting and
changeable, are they worth the effort needed to produce them? How can we find
genuine hope in the prospect of positive change if we can't fully rest in the
results when they arrive? Aren't we just setting ourselves up for disappointment?
Or is this just one of the unavoidable paradoxes of life? Ancient folk wisdom
from many cultures would suggest so, advising us that we should approach change
with cautious joy and stoic equanimity: training ourselves to not to get attached
to the results of our actions, and accepting without question the need to keep
on producing fleeting pleasures as best we can, for the only alternative would
be inaction and despair. This advice, too, is often attributed to the Buddha.
But the Buddha was not the sort of person to accept things without question.
His wisdom lay in realizing that the effort that goes into the production of happiness
is worthwhile only if the processes of change can be skillfully managed to arrive
at a happiness resistant to change. Otherwise, we're life-long prisoners in a
forced-labor camp, compelled to keep on producing pleasurable experiences to assuage
our hunger, and yet finding them so empty of any real essence that they can never
leave us full.
These realizations are implicit in the question that, according
to the Buddha, lies at the beginning of insight:
"What, when I do it,
will lead to my long-term well-being and happiness?"
This is a heartfelt
question, motivated by the desire behind all conscious action: to attain levels
of pleasure worthy of the effort that goes into them. It springs from the realization
that life requires effort, and that if we aren't careful whole lifetimes can be
lived in vain. This question, together with the realizations and desires behind
it, provides the context for the Buddha's perspective on change. If we examine
it closely, we find the seeds for all his insights into the production and consumption
of change.
The first phrase in the question -- "What, when I do it, will
lead to ...." -- focuses on the issues of production, on the potential effects
of human action. Prior to his Awakening, the Buddha had left home and gone into
the wilderness to explore precisely this issue: to see how far human action could
go, and whether it could lead to a dimension beyond the reach of change. His Awakening
was confirmation that it could -- if developed to the appropriate level of skillfulness.
He thus taught that there are four types of action, corresponding to four levels
of skill: three that produce pleasant, unpleasant, and mixed experiences within
the cycles of space and time; and a fourth that leads beyond action to a level
of happiness transcending the dimensions of space and time, thus eliminating the
need to produce any further happiness.
Because the activities of producing
and consuming require space and time, a happiness transcending space and time,
by its very nature, is neither produced nor consumed. Thus, when the Buddha reached
that happiness and stepped outside the modes of producing and consuming, he was
able to turn back and see exactly how pervasive a role these activities play in
ordinary experience, and how imprisoning they normally are. He saw that our experience
of the present is an activity -- something fabricated or produced, moment to moment,
from the raw material provided by past actions. We even fabricate our identity,
our sense of who we are. At the same time, we try to consume any pleasure that
can be found in what we've produced -- although in our desire to consume pleasure,
we often gobble down pain. With every moment, production and consumption are intertwined:
We consume experiences as we produce them, and produce them as we consume. The
way we consume our pleasures or pains can produce further pleasures or pains,
now and into the future, depending on how skillful we are.
The three parts
of the latter phrase in the Buddha's question -- "my / long-term / well-being
and happiness" -- provide standards for gauging the level of our skill in
approaching true pleasure or happiness. (The Pali word, here -- sukha -- can be
translated as pleasure, happiness, ease, or bliss.) We apply these standards to
the experiences we consume: if they aren't long-term, then no matter how pleasant
they might be, they aren't true happiness. If they're not true happiness, there's
no reason to claim them as "mine."
This insight forms the basis
for the Three Characteristics that the Buddha taught for inducing a sense of dispassion
for normal time- and space-bound experience. Anicca, the first of the three, is
pivotal. Anicca applies to everything that changes. Often translated as "impermanent,"
it's actually the negative of nicca, which means constant or dependable. Everything
that changes is inconstant. Now, the difference between "impermanent"
and "inconstant" may seem semantic, but it's crucial to the way anicca
functions in the Buddha's teachings. As the early texts state repeatedly, if something
is anicca then the other two characteristics automatically follow: it's dukkha
(stressful) and anatta (not-self), i.e., not worthy to be claimed as me or mine.
If we translate anicca as impermanent, the connection among these Three Characteristics
might seem debatable. But if we translate it as inconstant, and consider the Three
Characteristics in light of the Buddha's original question, the connection is
clear. If you're seeking a dependable basis for long-term happiness and ease,
anything inconstant is obviously a stressful place to pin your hopes -- like trying
to relax in an unstable chair whose legs are liable to break at any time. If you
understand that your sense of self is something willed and fabricated -- that
you choose to create it -- there's no compelling reason to keep creating a "me"
or "mine" around any experience that's inconstant and stressful. You
want something better. You don't want to make that experience the goal of your
practice.
So what do you do with experiences that are inconstant and stressful?
You could treat them as worthless and throw them away, but that would be wasteful.
After all, you went to the trouble to fabricate them in the first place; and,
as it turns out, the only way you can reach the goal is by utilizing experiences
of just this sort. So you can learn how to use them as means to the goal; and
the role they can play in serving that purpose is determined by the type of activity
that went into producing them: the type that produces a pleasure conducive to
the goal, or the type that doesn't. Those that do, the Buddha labeled the "path."
These activities include acts of generosity, acts of virtue, and the practice
of mental absorption, or concentration. Even though they fall under the Three
Characteristics, these activities produce a sense of pleasure relatively stable
and secure, more deeply gratifying and nourishing than the act of producing and
consuming ordinary sensual pleasures. So if you're aiming at happiness within
the cycles of change, you should look to generosity, virtue, and mental absorption
to produce that happiness. But if you'd rather aim for a happiness going beyond
change, these same activities can still help you by fostering the clarity of mind
needed for Awakening. Either way, they're worth mastering as skills. They're your
basic set of tools, so you want to keep them in good shape and ready to hand.
As for other pleasures and pains -- such as those involved in sensual pursuits
and in simply having a body and mind -- these can serve as the objects you fashion
with your tools, as raw materials for the discernment leading to Awakening. By
carefully examining them in light of their Three Characteristics -- to see exactly
how they're inconstant, stressful, and not-self -- you become less inclined to
keep on producing and consuming them. You see that your addictive compulsion to
fabricate them comes entirely from the hunger and ignorance embodied in states
of passion, aversion, and delusion. When these realizations give rise to dispassion
both for fabricated experiences and for the processes of fabrication, you enter
the path of the fourth kind of kamma, leading to the Deathless.
This path
contains two important turns. The first comes when all passion and aversion for
sensual pleasures and pains has been abandoned, and your only remaining attachment
is to the pleasure of concentration. At this point, you turn and examine the pleasure
of concentration in terms of the same Three Characteristics you used to contemplate
sensual experiences. The difficulty here is that you've come to rely so strongly
on the solidity of your concentration that you'd rather not look for its drawbacks.
At the same time, the inconstancy of a concentrated mind is much more subtle than
that of sensual experiences. But once you overcome your unwillingness to look
for that inconstancy, the day is sure to come when you detect it. And then the
mind can be inclined to the Deathless.
That's where the second turn occurs.
As the texts point out, when the mind encounters the Deathless it can treat it
as a mind-object -- a dhamma -- and then produce a feeling of passion and delight
for it. The fabricated sense of the self that's producing and consuming this passion
and delight thus gets in the way of full Awakening. So at this point the logic
of the Three Characteristics has to take a new turn. Their original logic -- "Whatever
is inconstant is stressful; whatever is stressful is not-self" -- leaves
open the possibility that whatever is constant could be (1) easeful and (2) self.
The first possibility is in fact the case: whatever is constant is easeful; the
Deathless is actually the ultimate ease. But the second possibility isn't a skillful
way of regarding what's constant: if you latch onto what's constant as self, you're
stuck on your attachment. To go beyond space and time, you have to go beyond fabricating
the producing and consuming self, which is why the concluding insight of the path
is: "All dhammas" -- constant or not -- "are not-self."
When
this insight has done its work in overcoming any passion or delight for the Deathless,
full Awakening occurs. And at that point, even the path is relinquished, and the
Deathless remains, although no longer as an object of the mind. It's simply there,
radically prior to and separate from the fabrication of space and time. All consuming
and producing for the sake of your own happiness comes to an end, for a timeless
well-being has been found. And because all mind-objects are abandoned in this
happiness, questions of constant or inconstant, stress or ease, self or not-self
are no longer an issue.
This, then, is the context of Buddhist insight into
change: an approach that takes seriously both the potential effects of human effort
and the basic human desire that effort not go to waste, that change have the potential
to lead to a happiness beyond the reach of change. This insight is focused on
developing the skills that lead to the production of genuine happiness. It employs
the Three Characteristics -- of inconstancy, stress, and not-self -- not as abstract
statements about existence, but as inducement for mastering those skills and as
guidelines for measuring your progress along the way. When used in this way, the
Three Characteristics lead to a happiness transcending the Three Characteristics,
the activities of producing and consuming, and space and time as a whole.
When
we understand this context for the Three Characteristics, we can clearly see the
half-truths contained in the insights on the production and consumption of change
that are commonly misattributed to the Buddha. With regard to production: Although
it may be true that, with enough patience and persistence, we can produce just
about anything, including an amazing array of self-identities, from the raw material
of the present moment, the question is: what's worth producing? We've imprisoned
ourselves with our obsession for producing and consuming changeable pleasures
and changeable selves, and yet there's the possibility of using change to escape
from this prison to the freedom of a happiness transcending time and space. Do
we want to take advantage of that possibility, or would we rather spend our spare
time blowing bubbles in the sunlight coming through our prison windows and trying
to derive happiness from their swirling patterns before they burst?
This question
ties in with wisdom on consumption: Getting the most out of our changing experiences
doesn't mean embracing them or milking them of their intensity. Instead it means
learning to approach the pleasures and pains they offer, not as fleeting ends
in themselves, but as tools for Awakening. With every moment we're supplied with
raw materials -- some of them attractive, some of them not. Instead of embracing
them in delight or throwing them away in disgust, we can learn how to use them
to produce the keys that will unlock our prison doors.
And as for the wisdom
of non-attachment to the results of our actions: in the Buddha's context, this
notion can make sense only if we care deeply about the results of our actions
and want to master the processes of cause and effect that lead to genuine freedom.
In other words, we don't demand childishly that our actions -- skillful or not
-- always result in immediate happiness, that everything we stick into the lock
will automatically unlatch the door. If what we have done has been unskillful
and led to undesirable results, we want to admit our mistakes and find out why
they were mistakes so that we can learn how to correct them the next time around.
Only when we have the patience to look objectively at the results of our actions
will we be able to learn, by studying the keys that don't unlock the doors, how
finally to make the right keys that do.
With this attitude we can make the
most of the processes of change to develop the skill that releases us from the
prison of endless producing and consuming. With release, we plunge into the freedom
of a happiness so true that it transcends the terms of the original question that
led us there. There's nothing further we have to do; our sense of "my"
and "mine" is discarded; and even the "long-term," which implies
time, is erased by the timeless. The happiness remaining lies radically beyond
the range of our time- and space-bound conceptions of happiness. Totally independent
of mind-objects, it's unadulterated and unalterable, unlimited and pure. As the
texts tell us, it even lies beyond the range of "totality" and "the
All."
And that's what Buddhist practice is all about.
Revised:
Sat 22-May-2004
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/modern/thanissaro/change.html
*********************
Association
with the Wise
Bhikkhu Bodhi
The Maha-Mangala
Sutta, the Great Discourse on Blessings, is one of the most
popular Buddhist
suttas, included in all the standard repertories of Pali
devotional chants.
The sutta begins when a deity of stunning beauty, having
descended to earth
in the stillness of the night, approaches the Blessed One
in the Jeta Grove
and asks about the way to the highest blessings. In the
very first stanza of
his reply the Buddha states that the highest blessing
comes from avoiding fools
and associating with the wise (asevana ca balanam,
panditanan ca sevana). Since
the rest of the sutta goes on to sketch all the
different aspects of human
felicity, both mundane and spiritual, the
assignment of association with the
wise to the opening stanza serves to
emphasize a key point: that progress along
the path of the Dhamma hinges on
making the right choices in our friendships.
Contrary to certain psychological theories, the human mind is not a
hermetically
sealed chamber enclosing a personality unalterably shaped by
biology and infantile
experience. Rather, throughout life it remains a
highly malleable entity continually
remolding itself in response to its
social interactions. Far from coming to
our personal relationships with a
fixed and immutable character, our regular
and repeated social contacts
implicate us in a constant process of psychological
osmosis that offers
precious opportunities for growth and transformation. Like
living cells
engaged in a chemical dialogue with their colleagues, our minds
transmit and
receive a steady barrage of messages and suggestions that may
work profound
changes even at levels below the threshold of awareness.
Particularly critical to our spiritual progress is our selection of friends
and
companions, who can have the most decisive impact upon our personal
destiny.
It is because he perceived how susceptible our minds can be to the
influence
of our companions that the Buddha repeatedly stressed the value of
good friendship
(kalyanamittata) in the spiritual life. The Buddha states
that he sees no other
thing that is so much responsible for the arising of
unwholesome qualities
in a person as bad friendship, nothing so helpful for
the arising of wholesome
qualities as good friendship (AN I.vii,10;
I.viii,1). Again, he says that he
sees no other external factor that leads
to so much harm as bad friendship,
and no other external factor that leads
to so much benefit as good friendship
(AN I.x,13,14). It is through the
influence of a good friend that a disciple
is led along the Noble Eightfold
Path to release from all suffering (SN 45:2).
Good friendship, in Buddhism, means considerably more than associating with
people
that one finds amenable and who share one's interests. It means in
effect seeking
out wise companions to whom one can look for guidance and
instruction. The
task of the noble friend is not only to provide
companionship in the treading
of the way. The truly wise and compassionate
friend is one who, with understanding
and sympathy of heart, is ready to
criticize and admonish, to point out one's
faults, to exhort and encourage,
perceiving that the final end of such friendship
is growth in the Dhamma.
The Buddha succinctly expresses the proper response
of a disciple to such a
good friend in a verse of the Dhammapada: "If
one finds a person who points
out one's faults and who reproves one, one should
follow such a wise and
sagacious counselor as one would a guide to hidden treasure"
(Dhp. 76).
Association with the wise becomes so crucial to spiritual development
because
the example and advice of a noble-minded counselor is often the
decisive factor
that awakens and nurtures the unfolding of our own untapped
spiritual potential.
The uncultivated mind harbors a vast diversity of
unrealized possibilities,
ranging from the depths of selfishness, egotism
and aggressivity to the heights
of wisdom, self-sacrifice and compassion.
The task confronting us, as followers
of the Dhamma, is to keep the
unwholesome tendencies in check and to foster
the growth of the wholesome
tendencies, the qualities that lead to awakening,
to freedom and
purification. However, our internal tendencies do not mature
and decline in
a vacuum. They are subject to the constant impact of the broader
environment,
and among the most powerful of these influences is the company
we keep, the
people we look upon as teachers, advisors and friends. Such
people silently
speak to the hidden potentials of our own being, potentials
that will either
unfold or wither under their influence.
In our pursuit of the Dhamma it
therefore becomes essential for us to choose
as our guides and companions those
who represent, at least in part, the
noble qualities we seek to internalize
by the practice of the Dhamma. This
is especially necessary in the early stages
of our spiritual development,
when our virtuous aspirations are still fresh
and tender, vulnerable to
being undermined by inward irresolution or by discouragement
from
acquaintances who do not share our ideals. In this early phase our mind
resembles
a chameleon, which alters its color according to its background.
Just as this
remarkable lizard turns green when in the grass and brown when
on the ground,
so we become fools when we associate with fools and sages
when we associate
with sages. Internal changes do not generally occur
suddenly; but slowly, by
increments so slight that we ourselves may not be
aware of them, our characters
undergo a metamorphosis that in the end may
prove to be dramatically significant.
If we associate closely with those who are addicted to the pursuit of sense
pleasures,
power, riches and fame, we should not imagine that we will remain
immune from
those addictions: in time our own minds will gradually incline
to these same
ends. If we associate closely with those who, while not given
up to moral recklessness,
live their lives comfortably adjusted to mundane
routines, we too will remain
stuck in the ruts of the commonplace. If we
aspire for the highest -- for the
peaks of transcendent wisdom and
liberation -- then we must enter into association
with those who represent
the highest. Even if we are not so fortunate as to
find companions who have
already scaled the heights, we can well count ourselves
blessed if we cross
paths with a few spiritual friends who share our ideals
and who make earnest
efforts to nurture the noble qualities of the Dhamma in
their hearts.
When we raise the question how to recognize good friends,
how to distinguish
good advisors from bad advisors, the Buddha offers us crystal-clear
advice.
In the Shorter Discourse on a Full-Moon Night (MN 110) he explains
the
difference between the companionship of the bad person and the companionship
of
the good person. The bad person chooses as friends and companions those
who
are without faith, whose conduct is marked by an absence of shame and
moral
dread, who have no knowledge of spiritual teachings, who are lazy and
unmindful,
and who are devoid of wisdom. As a consequence of choosing such
bad friends
as his advisors, the bad person plans and acts for his own harm,
for the harm
of others, and the harm of both, and he meets with sorrow and
misery.
In
contrast, the Buddha continues, the good person chooses as friends and
companions
those who have faith, who exhibit a sense of shame and moral
dread, who are
learned in the Dhamma, energetic in cultivation of the mind,
mindful, and possessed
of wisdom. Resorting to such good friends, looking to
them as mentors and guides,
the good person pursues these same qualities as
his own ideals and absorbs
them into his character. Thus, while drawing ever
closer to deliverance himself,
he becomes in turn a beacon light for others.
Such a one is able to offer those
who still wander in the dark an inspiring
model to emulate, and a wise friend
to turn to for guidance and advice.
Buddhist Publication Society
Newsletter cover essay #26 (1st mailing, 1994)
Copyright © 1994 Buddhist
Publication Society
For free distribution only
Revised: Fri 3 December 1999
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/bps/news/essay26.html
********************
A
Buddhist Response to Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence
by
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Copyright © 1994 Bhikkhu Bodhi
c/o Buddhist
Publication Society
PO Box 61
54, Sangharaja Mawatha
Kandy, Sri Lanka
A Sinhaputhra publication
For free distribution only.
You may print
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provided that you charge
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Buddhist
Publication Society
P.O. Box 61
54, Sangharaja Mawatha
Kandy, Sri Lanka
This paper was originally presented at a conference entitled "Buddhism
and Christianity: Interactions between East and West," organized by the Goethe-Institute,
Colombo, and held at the Institute of Fundamental Studies, Kandy, 18-20 December
1993.
About The Author
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi is a Buddhist monk of American
nationality, born in New York City in 1944. He came to Sri Lanka in 1972 and the
same year entered the Buddhist Order as a pupil of Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya
Mahanayaka Thera. He is presently the President and Editor-in-chief of the Buddhist
Publication Society.
Since my presentation is entitled "A Buddhist
Response to Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence," I should begin by
spelling out what I mean by the expression "contemporary dilemmas of human
existence." By this phrase I do not refer explicitly to the momentous social
and political problems of our time -- global poverty, ethnic hostility, overpopulation,
the spread of AIDS, the suppression of human rights, environmental despoliation,
etc. I recognize fully well that these problems are of major concern to contemporary
religion, which has the solemn responsibility of serving as the voice of conscience
to the world which is only too prone to forsake all sense of conscience in blind
pursuit of self-interest. However, I see many of these particular problems as
symptoms or offshoots of a more fundamental dilemma which is essentially spiritual
in nature, and it is this I am particularly concerned to address.
Our root
problem, it seems to me, is at its core a problem of consciousness. I would characterize
this problem briefly as a fundamental existential dislocation, a dislocation having
both cognitive and ethical dimensions. That is, it involves both a disorientation
in our understanding of reality, and a distortion or inversion of the proper scale
of values, the scale that would follow from a correct understanding of reality.
Because our root problem is one of consciousness, this means that any viable solution
must be framed in terms of a transformation of consciousness. It requires an attempt
to arrive at a more accurate grasp of the human situation in its full depth and
breadth, and a turning of the mind and heart in a new direction, a direction commensurate
with the new understanding, one that brings light and peace rather than strife
and distress.
Before I discuss some of the responses that religion might make
to the outstanding dilemmas of our age, I propose to offer a critique of the existential
dislocation that has spread among such significant portion of humankind today.
Through most of this century, the religious point of view has been defensive.
It may now be the time to take the offensive, by scrutinizing closely the dominant
modes of thought that lie at the base of our spiritual malaise.
I see the
problem of existential dislocation to be integrally tied to the ascendancy, world
wide, of a type of mentality that originates in the West, but which today has
become typical of human civilization as a whole. It would be too simple to describe
this frame of mind as materialism: first, because those who adopt it do not invariably
subscribe to materialism as a philosophical thesis; and second, because obsession
with material progress is not the defining characteristic of this outlook, but
a secondary manifestation. If I were to coin a single a single expression to convey
its distinctive essence, I would call it the radical secularization of human life.
The Historical Background
The
underlying historical cause of this phenomenon seems to lie in an unbalanced development
of the human mind in the West, beginning around the time of the European Renaissance.
This development gave increasing importance to the rational, manipulative and
dominative capacities of the mind at the expense of its intuitive, comprehensive,
sympathetic and integrative capacities. The rise to dominance of the rational,
manipulative facets of human consciousness led to a fixation upon those aspects
of the world that are amenable to control by this type of consciousness -- the
world that could be conquered, comprehended and exploited in terms of fixed quantitative
units. This fixation did not stop merely with the pragmatic efficiency of such
a point of view, but became converted into a theoretical standpoint, a standpoint
claiming validity. In effect, this means that the material world, as defined by
modern science, became the founding stratum of reality, while mechanistic physics,
its methodological counterpart, became a paradigm for understanding all other
types of natural phenomena, biological, psychological and social.
The early
founders of the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century -- such as Galileo,
Boyle, Descartes and Newton -- were deeply religious men, for whom the belief
in the wise and benign Creator was the premise behind their investigations into
lawfulness of nature. However, while they remained loyal to the theistic premises
of Christian faith, the drift of their thought severely attenuated the organic
connection between the divine and the natural order, a connection so central to
the premodern world view. They retained God only as the remote Creator and law-giver
of Nature and sanctioned moral values as the expression of the Divine Will, the
laws decreed for man by his Maker. In their thought a sharp dualism emerged between
the transcendent sphere and the empirical world. The realm of "hard facts"
ultimately consisted of units of senseless matter governed by mechanical laws,
while ethics, values and ideals were removed from the realm of facts and assigned
to the sphere of an interior subjectivity.
It was only a matter of time until,
in the trail of the so-called Enlightenment, a wave of thinkers appeared who overturned
the dualistic thesis central to this world view in favor of the straightforward
materialism. This development was not a following through of the reductionistic
methodology to its final logical consequences. Once sense perception was hailed
as the key to knowledge and quantification came to be regarded as the criterion
of actuality, the logical next step was to suspend entirely the belief in a supernatural
order and all it implied. Hence finally an uncompromising version of mechanistic
materialism prevailed, whose axioms became the pillars of the new world view.
Matter is now the only ultimate reality, and divine principle of any sort dismissed
as sheer imagination.
The triumph of materialism in the sphere of cosmology
and metaphysics had the profoundest impact on human self-understanding. The message
it conveyed was that the inward dimensions of our existence, with its vast profusion
of spiritual and ethical concerns, is mere adventitious superstructure. The inward
is reducible to the external, the invisible to the visible, the personal to the
impersonal. Mind becomes a higher order function of the brain, the individual
a node in a social order governed by statistical laws. All humankind's ideals
and values are relegated to the status of illusions: they are projections of biological
drives, sublimated wish-fulfillment. Even ethics, the philosophy of moral conduct,
comes to be explained away as a flowery way of expressing personal preferences.
Its claim to any objective foundation is untenable, and all ethical judgments
become equally valid. The ascendancy of relativism is complete.
The
Secularization of Life
I have sketched the intellectual background to our existential
dislocation in a fair degree of detail because I think that any attempt to comprehend
the contemporary dilemmas of human existence in isolation from this powerful cognitive
underpinning would be incomplete and unsatisfactory. The cognitive should not
be equated with the merely theoretical, abstract and ineffectual. For the cognitive
can, in subtle ways that defy easy analysis, exercise a tremendous influence upon
the affective and practical dimensions of our lives, doing so "behind the
back," as it were, of our outwardly directed consciousness. Thus, once the
world view which extols the primacy of the external dimension of reality over
the internal gained widespread acceptance on the cognitive front, it infiltrated
the entire culture, entailing consequences that are intensely practical and personal.
Perhaps the most characteristic of these might be summed up in the phrase I used
at the outset of this paper: the radical secularization of life. The dominance
of materialism in science and philosophical thought penetrated into the religious
sphere and sapped religious beliefs and values of their binding claims on the
individual in public affairs. These beliefs and values were relegated to the private
sphere, as matters of purely personal conscience, while those spheres of life
that transcend the narrowly personal were divested of religious significance.
Thus in an early stage the evolution of modern society replicated the dualism
of philosophical theory: the external sphere becomes entirely secular, while ethical
value and spirituality are confined to the internal.
In certain respects this
was without doubt a major step in the direction of human liberation, for it freed
individuals to follow the dictates of personal conscience and reduced considerably
the pressures placed upon them to conform to the prevailing system of religious
beliefs. But while this advantage cannot be underestimated, the triumph of secularism
in the domain of public life eventually came to throw into question the cogency
of any form of religious belief or commitment to a transcendent guarantor of ethical
values, and this left the door open for widespread moral deterioration, often
in the name of personal freedom.
While a dualistic division of the social
order characterized the early phase of the modern period, as in the case of philosophy
dualism does not have the last word. For the process of secularization does not
respect even the boundaries of the private and personal. Once a secular agenda
engulfs the social order, the entire focus of human life shifts from the inward
to the outward, and from the Eternal to the Here and Now. Secularization invades
the most sensitively private arenas of our lives, spurred on by a social order
driven by the urge for power, profits and uniformity. Our lives become devoured
by temporal, mundane preoccupations even to the extent that such notions as redemption,
enlightenment and deliverance -- the watchwords of spirituality -- at best serve
as evokers of a sentimental piety. The dominant ends of secular society create
a situation in which any boundary line of inward privacy comes to be treated as
a barrier that must be surmounted. Hence we find that commercial interests and
political organizations are prepared to explore and exploit the most personal
frontiers of desire and fantasy in order to secure their advantage and enhance
their wealth and power.
The ascendancy of secularization in human life in
no way means that most people in secular society openly reject religion and acknowledge
the finality of this-worldly aims. Far from it. The human mind displays an astounding
ability to operate simultaneously on different levels, even when those levels
are sustained by opposing principles. Thus in a given culture the vast majority
will still pay homage to God or to the Dhamma; they will attend church or the
temple; they will express admiration of religious ideals; they will conform to
the routine observances expected of them by their ancestral faith. Appeals to
religious sentiment will be a powerful means of stirring up waves of emotion and
declarations of loyalty, even of mobilizing whole sections of the population in
support of sectarian stands on volatile issues. This affirmation of allegiance
to religious ideals is not done out of sheer hypocrisy, but from a capacity for
inward ambivalence that allows us to live in a state of self-contradiction. People
in secular society will genuinely profess reverence for religion, will vigorously
affirm religious beliefs. But their real interests lie elsewhere, riveted tightly
to the temporal. The ruling motives of human life are no longer purification but
production, no longer the cultivation of character but the consumption of commodities
and the enjoyment of sense pleasures. Religion may be permitted to linger at the
margins of the mind, indeed may even be invited into the inward chamber, so long
as it does not rudely demand of us that we take up any crosses.
This existential
dislocation has major repercussions on a variety of fronts. Most alarming, in
its immediate impact on our lives, is the decline in the efficacy of time-honored
moral principles as guides to conduct. I do not propose painting our picture of
the past in rosy colors. Human nature has never been especially sweet, and the
books of history speak too loudly of man's greed, blindness and brutality. Often,
I must sadly add, organized religion has been among the worst offenders. However,
while aware of this, I would also say that at least during certain past epochs
our ancestors esteemed ethical ideals as worthy of emulation and sanctioned moral
codes as the proper guidelines of life. For all its historical shortcomings, religion
did provide countless people in any given culture with a sense of meaning to their
existence, a sense that their lives were rooted in the Ultimate Reality and were
directed towards that Reality as their final goal. Now, however, that we have
made the radical turn away from the Transcendent, we have lost the polestar that
guided our daily choices and decisions. The result is evident in the moral degeneration
that proliferates at a frightening rate through every so-called civilized part
of the world. In the self-styled Developed World the cities have become urban
jungles; the use of liquor and drugs spreads as an easy escape route from anxiety
and despair; sexually provocative entertainment takes on more and more degrading
forms; the culture of the gun hooks even middle-class youths itching to break
the tedium of their lives with murder and mayhem. Most lamentably, the family
has lost its crucial function of serving as the training ground where children
learn decency and personal responsibility. Instead it has become merely a convenient
and fragile arrangement for the personal gratification of its members, who too
often seek their gratification at the expense of each other. While such trends
have not yet widely inundated Sri Lanka, we can already see their germs beginning
to sprout, and as modernization spreads extraordinary vigilance will be required
to withstand them.
The Religious
Dimension
As humanity moves ever closer to the 21st century, the existential
rift at the heart of our inner life remains. Its pain is exacerbated by our repeated
failures to solve so many of the social, political and economic problems that
seem on the surface as though they should be easily manageable by our sophisticated
technological capabilities. The stubborn persistence of these problems -- and
the constant emergence of new problems as soon as the old ones recede -- seems
to make a mockery of all our well-intentioned attempts to establish a utopian
paradise on utterly secular premises.
I certainly do not think that the rediscovery
of the religious consciousness is in itself a sufficient remedy for these problems
which spring from a wide multiplicity of causes far too complex to be reduced
to any simplistic explanation. But I do believe that the religious crisis of modern
humanity is intimately connected to these diverse social and political tragedies
at many levels. Some of these levels, I would add, lie far beyond the range of
rational comprehension and defy analysis in terms of linear causality. I would
see the connection as that of co-arisen manifestations of a corrosive sickness
in the human soul -- the sickness of selfishness and craving -- or as karmic backlashes
of the three root defilements pinpointed by Buddhism -- greed, hatred and delusion
-- which have become so rampant today. I therefore think that any hopes we may
cherish towards healing our community, our planet and our world must involve us
in a deep level process of healing ourselves. And since this healing, in my view,
can only be successfully accomplished by re-orienting our lives towards the Ultimate
Reality and Supreme Good, the process of healing necessarily takes on a religious
dimension.
It is hardly within my capacity as a very limited individual to
delineate, in this paper, all the elements that would be required to restore the
religious dimension to its proper role in human life. But I will first briefly
mention two religious approaches that have sprung up in response to our existential
dislocation, but which I consider to be inadequate, even false by-paths. Then
I will sketch, in a tentative and exploratory manner, several responses religion
must make if it is to answer the deep yearnings that stir in the hearts of present-day
humanity.
The two religious phenomena that in my view are false detours which
must finally be rejected are fundamentalism and spiritual eclecticism. Both have
arisen as reactions to the pervasive secularism of our time; both speak to the
widespread hunger for more authentic spiritual values than our commercial, sensualist
culture can offer. Yet neither, I would argue, provides a satisfactory solution
to our needs.
Fundamentalism no doubt bears the character of a religious revival.
However, in my opinion it fails to qualify as a genuinely spiritual type of religiosity
because it does not meet the criterion of true spirituality. This criterion I
would describe, in broad terms, as the quest to transcend the limitations of the
ego-consciousness. As I understand fundamentalism, it draws its strength from
its appeal to human weakness, by provoking the ego-consciousness and the narrow,
volatile interests the small self. Its psychological mood is that of dogmatism;
it polarizes the human community into the opposed camps of insiders and outsiders;
it dictates a policy of aggression that entails either violence against the outsiders
or attempts to proselytize them. It does not point us in the direction of selflessness,
understanding, acceptance of others based on love, the ingredients of true spirituality.
Spiritual eclecticism -- omnipresent in the West today -- is governed by the
opposite logic. It aims to amalgamate, to draw into a whole a sundry variety of
quasi-religious disciplines: yoga, spiritualism, channeling, astrology, faith
healing, meditation, I Ching, special diets, Cabbala, etc. These are all offered
to the seeker on a pick-and-choose basis; everything is valid, anything goes.
This eclecticism often reveals a longing for genuine spiritual experience, for
a vision of reality more encompassing than pragmatic materialism. It fails because
it tears profound disciplines out from their context in a living faith and blends
them together into a shapeless mixture without spine or substance. Its psychological
mood is that of a romantic, promiscuous yearning for easy gratification rather
than that of serious commitment. Owing to its lack of discrimination it often
shades off into the narcissistic and the occult, occasionally into the diabolical.
I believe that a viable solution to humanity's spiritual hunger can arise
only from within the fold of the great classical religious traditions. I must
also state frankly that I am convinced that the religious tradition that best
addresses the crucial existential problems of our time is Buddhism, especially
in its early form based on the Pali Canon. However, to speak in terms of a more
general application, I would maintain that if any great religion is to acquire
a new relevance it must negotiate some very delicate, very difficult balances.
It must strike a happy balance between remaining faithful to the seminal insights
of its Founder and ancient masters and acquiring the skill and flexibility to
formulate these insights in ways that directly link up with the pressing existential
demands of old-age. It is only too easy to veer towards one of these extremes
at the expense of the other: either to adhere tenaciously to ancient formulas
at the expense of present relevance, or to bend fundamental principles so freely
that one drains them of their deep spiritual vitality. The middle way, which fuses
fidelity to tradition and relevance to contemporary concerns, is always the most
difficult. Above all, I think any religion today must bear in mind an important
lesson impressed on us so painfully by past history: the task of religion is to
liberate, not to enslave. Its purpose should be to enable its adherents to move
towards the realization of the Ultimate Good and to bring the power of this realization
to bear upon life in the world. The purpose is not to subordinate the individual
to the institution, to multiply the numbers of the faithful, and to sacrifice
the individual conscience upon the altar of the Establishment.
Despite the
vast differences between the belief systems of the major religions, I think there
are vitally important areas of common concern which unite them in this Age of
Confusion. With the world torn between senseless violence and vulgar frivolity,
it is critically necessary that representatives of the great religions meet to
exchange insights and to seek to understand each other more deeply. Cooperation
between the great religions is certainly necessary if they are to contribute a
meaningful voice towards the solution of the momentous spiritual dilemmas that
confront us.
The Tasks of Religion
Today
Here I will mention several challenges that confront the major religious
traditions today, and I will also sketch, very briefly, the ways such challenges
may be met from within the horizons of the religion which I follow, Theravada
Buddhism. I leave it to the Christian scholars involved in this dialogue to decide
for themselves whether these points are of sufficient gravity to merit their own
attention and to work out solutions from the perspective of their own faith.
(1)
The Philosophical Bridge
The first challenge I will discuss is primarily philosophical
in scope, though with profound and far-reaching practical implications. This is
the task of overcoming the fundamental dichotomy which scientific materialism
has posited between the realm of "real fact," i.e., impersonal physical
processes, and the realm of value. By assigning value and spiritual ideals to
private subjectivity, the materialistic world view, as I mentioned earlier, threatens
to undermine any secure objective foundation for morality. The result is the widespread
moral degeneration that we witness today. To counter this tendency, I do not think
mere moral exhortation is sufficient. If morality is to function as an efficient
guide to conduct, it cannot be propounded as a self-justifying scheme but must
be embedded in a more comprehensive spiritual system which grounds morality in
a transpersonal order. Religion must affirm, in the clearest terms, that morality
and ethical values are not mere decorative frills of personal opinion, not subjective
superstructure, but intrinsic laws of the cosmos built into the heart of reality.
In the Buddha's teaching, the objective foundation for morality is the law
of kamma, and its corollary, the teaching of rebirth. According to the principle
of kamma, our intentional actions have a built-in potential for generating consequences
for ourselves that correspond to the moral quality of the deeds. Our deeds come
to fruition, sometimes in this life, sometimes in future lives, but in either
case an inescapable, impersonal law connects our actions to their fruits, which
rebound upon us exactly in the way we deserve. Thus our morally determinate actions
are the building blocks of our destiny: we must ultimately reap the fruits of
our own deeds, and by our moral choices and values we construct our happiness
and suffering in this life and in future lives.
In the Buddha's teaching,
the law of kamma is integral to the very dynamics of the universe. The Buddhist
texts speak of five systems of cosmic law, each perfectly valid within its own
domain: the laws of inorganic matter (utuniyama), the laws of living organisms
(bijaniyama), the laws of consciousness (cittaniyama), the laws of kamma or moral
deeds and their fruits (kammaniyama), and the laws of spiritual development (dhammataniyama).
The science that dominates the West has flourished through its exclusive attention
to the first two systems of law. As a Buddhist, I would argue that a complete
picture of actuality must take account of all five orders, and that by arriving
at such a complete picture, we can restore moral and spiritual values to their
proper place within the whole.
(2)
Guidelines to Conduct
A second challenge, closely related to the first, is
to propose concrete guidelines to right conduct capable of lifting us from our
morass of moral confusion. While the first project I mentioned operates on the
theoretical front, this one is more immediately practical in scope. Here we are
not so much concerned with establishing a valid foundation for morality as with
determining exactly what guidelines to conduct are capable of promoting harmonious
and peaceful relations between people. On this front I think that the unsurpassed
guide to the ethical good is still the Five Precepts (pancasila) taught by Buddhism.
According to the Buddhist texts, these precepts are not unique to the Buddha Sasana
but constitute the universal principles of morality upheld in every culture dedicated
to virtue. The Five Precepts can be considered in terms of both the actions they
prohibit and the virtues they inculcate. At the present time I think it is necessary
to place equal stress on both aspects of the precepts, as the Buddha himself has
done in the Suttas.
These precepts are:
1. The rule to abstain from taking
life, which implies the virtue of treating all beings with kindness and compassion.
2. The rule to abstain from stealing, which implies honesty, respect for the
possessions of others, and concern for the natural environment.
3. The rule
to abstain from sexual misconduct, which implies responsibility and commitment
in one's marital and other interpersonal relationships.
4. The rule to abstain
from lying, which implies a commitment to truth in dealing with others.
5.
The rule to abstain from alcoholic drinks, drugs and intoxicants, which implies
the virtues of sobriety and heedfulness.
In presenting the case for these
precepts, it should be shown that quite apart from their long-term karmic effect,
which is a matter of faith, they conduce to peace and happiness for oneself right
here and now, as well as towards the welfare of those whom one's actions affect.
(3) Diagnosis of the Human Condition
A
third project for religion is to formulate, on the basis of its fundamental doctrinal
traditions, an incisive diagnosis of the contemporary human condition. From the
Buddhist perspective I think the analysis that the Buddha offered in his Four
Noble Truths still remains perfectly valid. Not only does it need not the least
revision or reinterpretation, but the course of twenty-five centuries of world
history and the present-day human situation only underscores its astuteness and
relevance.
The core problem of human existence, the First Truth announces,
is suffering. The canonical texts enumerate different types of suffering -- physical,
psychological and spiritual; in the present age, we should also highlight the
enormous volume of social suffering that plagues vulnerable humanity. The cause
of suffering, according to the Second Truth, lies nowhere else than in our own
minds -- in our craving and ignorance, in the defilements of greed, hatred and
delusion. The solution to the problem is the subject of the Third Noble Truth,
which states that liberation from suffering must also be effected by the mind,
through the eradication of the defilements responsible for suffering. And the
Fourth Truth gives us the method to eradicate the defilements, the Noble Eightfold
Path, with its three stages of training in moral discipline, meditation and wisdom.
(4) A Practical Method of Training
The
next point is a practical extension of the third. Once a religion has offered
us a diagnosis of the human condition which reveals the source of suffering in
the mind, it must offer us concrete guidance in the task of training and mastering
the mind. Thus I think that a major focus of present-day religion must be the
understanding and transformation of the mind. This requires experiential disciplines
by which we can arrive at deeper insight into ourselves and gradually effect very
fundamental inward changes. Buddhism provides a vast arsenal of time-tested teachings
and methods for meeting this challenge. It contains comprehensive systems of psychological
analysis and potent techniques of meditation that can generate experiential confirmation
of its principles.
In the present age access to these teachings and practices
will cease to remain the exclusive preserve of the monastic order, but will spread
to the lay community as well, as has already been occurring throughout the Buddhist
world both in the East and in the West. The spirit of democracy and the triumph
of the experimental method demand that the means of mind-development be available
to anyone who is willing to make the effort. The experiential dimension of religion
is an area where Christianity can learn a great deal from Buddhism, and I believe
that Christianity must rediscover its own contemplative heritage and make available
deeper transformative disciplines to both its clergy and its lay followers if
it is to retain its relevance to humanity in the future.
(5)
The Preservation of the Human Community
The last challenge I will discuss is
the need for religions to re-affirm and to actively demonstrate those values that
are particularly critical for the human race to attain the status of an integrative,
harmonious community. They must translate into concrete programs of action the
great virtues of love and compassion. Because the world has become more closely
knit than ever before, we have to recognize the enormous responsibility that we
each bear for the welfare of the whole. What all religions need to stress, in
the face of so much cruelty and violence, is the development of a sense of global
responsibility, a concern for the welfare and happiness of all living beings as
well as for the protection of our natural environment. Love and compassion must
issue forth in active endeavor to alleviate the sufferings of others and to ensure
that the oppressed and afflicted are granted all the opportunities that have hitherto
been denied them.
This is an area where Christianity, with its Social Gospel,
has shown far greater initiative than Buddhism, which too often has subscribed
to a false, fatalistic interpretation of the karma doctrine that stifles social
action. But the foundation for a socially oriented expression of Buddhism is already
found in the Dhamma, especially in its formula of the four Brahma Viharas, or
"Divine Abodes," as the ideal social virtues: loving kindness towards
all beings, compassion for those who suffer, altruistic joy for those who are
well, and equanimity as freedom from arbitrary discrimination. Already a socially
engaged form of Buddhism has emerged and no doubt it will become an important
development in the future of the religion.
I
wish to conclude this talk by drawing attention to the fact that religion today
has two crucial tasks to accomplish in responding to the vital problems of our
time. One is to help the individual fathom the ultimate truth about his or her
own personal existence, to move in the direction of the Ultimate Good, the Unconditioned
Reality, wherein true liberation is to be found. The other task is to address
the problem of the Manifest Good: the problem of the human community, of promoting
peace, harmony and fellowship. The urgency of combining these two tasks was beautifully
summed up by the Buddha in a short discourse in the Satipatthana Samyutta. There
the Blessed One said:
"Protecting oneself, one protects others,
Protecting
others, one protects oneself"
He then explains that the expression "protecting
oneself, one protects others" refers to the practice of meditation, which
purifies the mind of its defilements and gives insight into the real nature of
the world. By "protecting others, one protects oneself" he means the
development of the virtues of patience, loving kindness and compassion, by which
one safeguards others from harm and suffering. I believe that a commitment to
these two great principles -- pañña and karuna in Buddhist terms,
gnosis and love in Christian terms -- is essential if religion today is to guide
humanity from the brink of darkness and despair to the realm of spiritual light
and freedom.
*********************
Blatantly
Clear in the Heart
by
Phra
Ajaan Suwat Suvaco
Translated from the Thai by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Copyright
© 2001 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free distribution only.
You may reprint
this work for free distribution.
You may re-format and redistribute this work
for use on computers and computer networks
provided that you charge no fees
for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights reserved.
We've
all come with a sense of conviction, intent on studying and practicing the Dhamma
so as to train our minds, so that the Dhamma will appear within our minds and
give them refuge. Even though the Dhamma is always present, it hasn't yet become
the property of the heart and mind. As long as the Dhamma is simply the property
of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body, it's a Dhamma that isn't genuine, a Dhamma
that isn't pure, a Dhamma that isn't polished, a Dhamma that can get in the way
of our seeing the truth. It can let us get deceived by the preoccupations created
by the process of fabrication from things the eye sees, the ear hears, and so
on. After all, the knowledge that comes from what the eye sees or the ear hears:
almost everyone has eyes and ears. If the knowledge that comes just from these
things were enough to give rise to the most significant benefit of the Dhamma,
then everyone would have already experienced that significant wellbeing. They
would have experienced a happiness that's genuine, certain, and complete. This
is because all living beings with eyes can see, all those with ears can hear,
all those with a nose, tongue, and body can know through these things. But to
know the skillful Dhamma taught by the Buddha requires more than just eyes and
ears. It requires mindfulness -- the ability to keep something in mind -- along
with a mind equipped with the right views that have come from training in the
right principles of the Buddha's teachings.
This is because the Buddha's teachings
are the well-taught Dhamma that people throughout the world have acknowledged
as right and complete, leading to peace, leading to happiness, leading to mental,
verbal, and physical actions that are masterful, seamless, with nothing lacking.
Even the devas have acknowledged that the Buddha's Dhamma is well taught. Countless
people with confidence in the Dhamma, practicing it earnestly, have attained the
paths and fruitions leading to nibbana. They've gained release from suffering
through the principles of the Dhamma that they've studied and trained themselves
in. All of us here are people of discernment just like them, so we should take
hold of these things and make them our heart's possession in a full and complete
way, just like them. We shouldn't content ourselves simply with hearing about
or learning about the Dhamma, for our knowledge on that level can still be deceived,
can still change, so that our hearts can become uncertain and unsure, so that
we can make mistakes, putting the heart in a position where it suffers from the
impact of the things it sees or hears, or from the wrong decisions it makes.
We've
made these mistakes and suffered from these things countless times already. This
is a fact we can't deny. This is why we can't win out over our moods and preoccupations
as we would like to. We see the defects in our hearts -- in our thoughts, words,
and deeds -- which is why we can't maintain our peace of mind as consistently
as we'd like to.
So try to make use of the mind's skillful qualities. What
are those qualities? You already know them: virtue, concentration, and discernment.
Maintain them so that they become clear and blatant in the heart. Come to see
clearly what sufferings virtue can drive out of the heart, what obstacles to happiness
and peace it can drive out of the heart -- to see what sorts of benefits it can
bring.
Ask yourself: if you didn't observe this or that precept, what would
appear in your physical or verbal actions? A life composed of those actions: in
what direction would it pull you? This is something you have to see clearly, you
know. If you're a Buddhist meditator, you're a student of the Buddha, one who
knows -- not one who is stupid! The Buddha was never heedless or careless with
life. He never let time go to waste. You should make up your mind that, aside
from when you sleep, you want your every movement to serve a purpose you can depend
on. You should live with awareness, with right views. You shouldn't get infatuated
with things coming in by way of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, or body. We've all
been using these things for the purpose of delusion for a long time -- it's not
that we've just started using them for that purpose recently. So are we going
to follow along in the same way forever? This is an area where we should take
responsibility and come to our senses, to straighten ourselves out.
We have
to look after our words and deeds so that they're perfectly blatant to us. This
is called keeping the precepts in line with the principle, silena sugatim yanti:
it's through virtue that beings go to the good destinations. The Buddha didn't
say this without firm evidence, or simply as propaganda for people to believe
or put into practice in a deluded way. He said this through right discernment.
Those who practice have to understand with right discernment in just the same
way so as to conform to the principle of uju-patipanno, those who practice straight
in line with the Dhamma. If you're the sort of person who simply believes what
people say, right when they're right, wrong when they're wrong, then you can still
be deceived. You need to develop the mind to a solid level, seeing the Dhamma
in a way that's blatant, clear, and informed. That's when you'll be undeceivable.
That's virtue.
As for concentration, you have to see clearly what suffering
it drives out of the heart, what benefits it brings. This is something you have
to learn and understand so that you'll really know. If you understand concentration,
it'll bring its benefits to you. It'll make the mind genuinely clear, bright,
and pure, because mindfulness will remember to choose only good preoccupations
for the mind. Discernment will contemplate them and drive out from the mind any
lack of stillness or peace.
Discernment on the level of concentration practice
-- when concentration has fostered a sense of wellbeing and seclusion in the mind
-- will drive out any disturbance that used to cause stress for the mind. It will
see the dangers and drawbacks of those disturbances. This sort of discernment
will arise when we've practiced concentration correctly to the point of giving
rise to peace and wellbeing.
Conviction will arise when we see these results
clearly in the mind. We won't have any doubts. We won't have to ask anyone what
concentration is like, what a still mind is like, what the rewards of concentration
are. We won't have to ask, for the mind knows. It has entered into these things.
This is what happens when we really practice, using our mindfulness and persistence,
using our discernment correctly, so as to serve a true purpose.
Meditation
is simply a matter of looking at what's in the heart and mind, for all good and
evil come from the mind. They're fabricated by the mind. When we use right views
to look at the mind, when we keep right mindfulness right at the mind, when we
apply right effort continually in our mindfulness without lapse, the mind will
have to be firmly established in right concentration and won't go anywhere else.
That's when we'll see how much rightness is arising right there. When we don't
lose focus or look anywhere else, when we keep on trying to be continuous in our
gaze -- in the same way we read a book -- we'll be able to see the entire story
of what's going on. If we forget and go looking elsewhere, we'll lose whole chunks
of the story. We won't be able to connect the beginning with the end. It won't
have any shape.
But when the mind stays firmly in place, it'll enter concentration.
The word "concentration" means the firm stillness that comes from training
the mind with our Dhamma theme. For example, buddho: we have to stay right with
the word buddho. Our effort is devoted to keeping buddho in mind. Don't let it
slip away to other things. Keep your efforts focused right there. Keep your mindfulness
gathered right there. Don't let it forget and go elsewhere. When you keep trying
to do this, the counterfeit things in the mind -- the defilements that deceive
us -- won't be able to arise, for mindfulness is all there, so the defilements
can't establish themselves, can't deceive us. This is because of the power of
the mindfulness, concentration, and discernment that our mind has gathered together
to chase away the enemies of our stillness, the enemies of our happiness and wellbeing.
We used to see these enemies as our friends and benefactors. But once we've studied
the Buddha's teachings, we realize that they're nothing but defilements.
Defilements
don't have any substance to them. What do they come from? From the mind. They're
shadows of the mind that dwell in the mind. When in any mental moment there's
a thought that goes contrary to the Dhamma, that gives rise to no true knowledge
or intelligence, that brings us danger and suffering: that thought is called a
defilement. Thoughts of this sort don't come from anywhere else. Of course, there
are aspects of defilement that take their inspiration from outside the mind, but
we shouldn't trace them back in that direction, or send attention outside in that
direction. We're here simply for the sake of stillness, for the sake of concentration.
We have to focus right here in front of us. We don't have to want to know anything
else -- for example, where the defilements come from, how they can arise, or where
they stay. It's the same as when we come down with a sudden lethal disease. If
we waste time asking the doctor where his medicine comes from or what it contains,
we could easily die first. We have to trust the doctor and take the medicine as
he prescribes it, in line with the principles he has used with good results in
the past.
In the same way, when we're training the mind to be still, we don't
have to track down where things come from. We have to abstain from our desire
to track things down, to know in ways that will distract us from our stillness.
When you want to center the mind on buddho, you only have to be aware of buddho.
Don't let your awareness slip away. Have the mind hold onto buddho as its refuge
at all times. That's your task, the task you have to do. The same holds true when
you're focusing on the breath, or whatever the focus of your meditation. They're
all Dhamma themes. How is the breath a Dhamma theme? It's a physical dhamma --
the breath or wind element here in the body. Without the breath, the body wouldn't
last.
This isn't something we have to explain, because we're already aware
of it. We understand it rightly. We don't have to contemplate the ways in which
the breath is important. We simply use the breath to train the mind. We're not
here to train the breath. We use the breath to make the mind still, which is why
we don't have to analyze the body in any other way. When we want the mind to be
still, to settle down and rest, or when we want mindfulness to work with full
agility in overcoming delusion, we have to exercise mindfulness fully in the duty
at hand. When our effort is right, our mindfulness is right, and our concentration
is right, then they give crucial strength to the skillfulness of the mind, so
that it has the power and authority it needs to drive away the demons of defilement:
i.e., its own lack of skill and intelligence, its delusions, its tendency to float
along after the preoccupations that deceive it, thinking that it gains true happiness
through the help of things outside. Actually, those things endanger the mind.
Why? Because they're nothing but fabrications that are inconstant. There's nothing
constant about them at all. Visual forms are inconstant, sounds are inconstant,
all those phenomena are inconstant. They're the Dhamma of Mara, come to deceive
us.
But even when we understand this, we shouldn't yet go thinking about them.
Only when we've developed enough strength of mind to contend with them should
we go out and fight with them. When our mindfulness isn't yet firmly based in
concentration, we can't fight them off. We're sure to get demolished by them.
We've been demolished by them many, many times before, because our base of operations
-- our concentration -- isn't solid enough. We keep losing out to the enemy. Do
you want to keep on losing out? When are you going to gather your forces? In other
words, when are you going to make your conviction solid, your persistence solid,
your mindfulness, concentration, and discernment all solid? These are the forces
that will overcome the things that have been deceiving the mind as they like.
So I ask that we all be earnest in watching over this mind of ours. As we're
taught, cittam dantam sukhavaham: the mind when trained brings happiness. The
Buddha has already done this, has already succeeded in gaining this happiness.
His many noble disciples have succeeded in the same way, providing evidence for
the truth of what he has taught.
When we train ourselves so that our foundation
is solid, we'll have our own evidence, the Dhamma that appears blatantly in our
heart. We'll gain confidence, accepting the fact that the Buddha's Dhamma is well
taught. We'll no longer have any doubts, because it will have become blatant in
the heart. It's not simply that we've heard other people teach it or seen it in
books. The evidence has appeared clearly in the heart that has accepted the truth
within it. The mind will become solid in a way that no defilement will be able
to deceive.
So I ask that we all practice truly. When we practice truly, the
truth will truly appear to us. Practice so that these things appear clearly. When
we've made virtue blatantly clear, concentration blatantly clear, and discernment
blatantly clear, where will any ignorance or craving be able to fabricate more
states of being or birth for us? We'll have had enough. We won't want anything
more. There won't be any more craving, because we've gained a sense of the word,
"enough." This is how we reach enough -- not by struggling to amass
material things. The world has tried to reach "enough" in that way for
a long time now, but there's never been enough of those things. So turn around
and watch over your mind so that it all becomes blatantly clear.
Now that
you've heard this, try to remember it. You can always put it to use, from this
day forward. The Buddha's teachings have never grown old or worn. They're always
brand new, which is why we can put them to use at all times, in all places. When
we always keep them in mind, we'll have a safe and secure refuge, an auspicious
refuge. Whoever attains this refuge will gain release from all suffering and stress.
Revised: Mon 20 May 2002
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/suwat/blatant.html
*********************
Buddhism
in Modern Life
by Ananda W.P.
Guruge
The topic as it stands has
several parts to it: What is modern life? What is Buddhism? And what role has
Buddhism to play in modem life? Modem life in itself is very difficult to define.
One might say that modem life is characterized by the fact that the world is getting
smaller; that people are having greater access to each other; that communication
barriers are fast disappearing; that it is possible for one to know what happens
everywhere in the world within a short time, and thereby pen-nits participation
in the life of a larger cross-section of the world than one could have ever imagined.
That would be one aspect of modern life. Related to that would be modern life
understood in terms of science and technology. Man in his attempt to conquer nature,
disease, natural barriers, has performed certain feats of a technological complexity
which are quite mind boggling. That is another aspect of modem life. A third,
perhaps a more disturbing aspect of modern life, is that with the world getting
closer, communication barriers breaking away, and scientific and technological
advance becoming so rapid, we have come face to face with several problems in
terms of economic and political rivalry, pollution, population explosion, scarcity
of resources and the indiscriminate use of resources that might not be replaced.
With these come a host of other issues which can be plainly labelled as "survival."
Can Modem Civilization Survive?
To this one may add also a moral dimension
- an ethical question - and ask: "To what extent, in the process of modernization
and conquering nature, have we deviated from the ability to conquer ourselves?
Has the struggle for survival meant that the modem man has become a slave to selfishness,
bound by his own desires and his whims? Have we lost all the things of very special
value to human beings such as inter-personal relations, the anxiety to look after
the well-being of others, the spirit of being of selfless service to others? Have
we lost these?"
So when one thinks of modern life one can think in terms
of a great degree of optimism and, at the same time, an equal degree of pessimism.
One can be so pleased that we live today at a time when there seems to be nothing
that man cannot conquer. Maybe, there are still some diseases that challenge him.
Maybe, there are still certain places in the universe where man would like to
be, and still he has not developed his technology to be there. But it appears
as if all these are within reach of man. With this optimism about man's capacity,
comes the pessimistic aspect that we have, in the process, lost something. Let
us keep both of these in mind.
Buddhism
Then let us look at what Buddhism
is. What do we understand by Buddhism? It can mean many things to many people.
To someone it can be only life of the Buddha; the example that the Buddha and
his immediate disciples set -that glorious feat of a man, who stood before men
as a man and declared a path of deliverance. This is one kind of Buddhism. To
another, Buddhism would mean the massive doctrine as recorded in the Buddhist
literature, which indeed is voluminous and contains several thousand pages recording
the words of the Buddha. And in it is described a very lofty, abstruse, complex
and learned philosophy of life. Then based on whatever the Buddha taught, whatever
the practices current at the time of the Buddha, there has grown a very rich culture,
a culture which has extended to all ' parts of Asia for over 2500 years, and to
which people from various walks of life with various backgrounds from all these
countries have made a lasting contribution. A large number of sects or schools
or philosophical systems have evolved and all of them, quite rightly, go under
the name of Buddhism. Then comes another definition of Buddhism and that is the
kind of ritual that has grown around the doctrine of the Buddha as a result of
his teachings and the way of life preached by him, becoming a religion. Whether
the Buddha intended it or not, his teachings became a religion, a religion to
which people were prepared to hold allegiance and which has its own ritual, organization,
and ways or criteria for deciding what is properly done or what is improperly
done. Now that is another kind of Buddhism. If one were to take each of these
aspects separately, and try to examine the impact of what he would call Buddhism
on modern life, it would certainly be an enormous task.
To me Buddhism is
all these. It is the Buddha and his life, the doctrine, the culture that evolves
around it, and the ritual that is connected with it. Once we take this to be one
large body of human experiences, distilled in the finest form and presented to
us in such a manner that each one of us could select that part which appeals to
us, we begin to see the remarkable uniqueness of Buddhism. During the days of
the Buddha himself he used to emphasize this point. One need not be a scholar
and learn everything. Buddhism is not like studying a subject like mathematics
where you have to learn all your theorems and different methods of working out
the various types of problems. If you know the fundamentals, the basis, a scholarly
detailed study is not an important precursor to practice. So out of this vast
Buddhist culture, religion, or literature, or the vast body of experiences that
come to us as Buddhism, each one of us would find that which is relevant to our
life, to our type of problems.
A Timeless Doctrine
I have often wondered
how Buddhism came to be called 'Akalika" which means "timeless"
- that it exists for all time. The more I see the changes that have taken place
in Buddhist culture or religion, the more I see how it keeps on adjusting to the
needs of different eras, populations, individuals, the more I see that it has
been possible for the Buddha to evolve a message that would remain eternally fresh.
So if Buddhism has an application today and if Buddhism has a place in modem fife,
it is because of that timeless relevance, emanating from a set of eternal values.
To talk of a characteristic of being eternal is a very paradoxical way of presenting
or describing a religion which has the principle doctrine of impermanence at the
bottom of it. the characteristic of timelessness comes from the fact that it had
understood that everything continues, but continues in a flux, in a process of
continuing change and evolution. Thus Buddhism was able to adjust to different
times and civilizations. We can therefore without any hesitation approach any
aspect of Buddhism as something relevant and applicable to us today.
What
are these elements that make Buddhism timeless? Let me take just a few of them.
First of these would be the recognition of the responsibility of the individual.
the Buddha is one of the most remarkable religious teachers who emancipated man
from all bonds - bonds of supernatural ties, a Godhead, a creation, sin Of- any
other characteristic inherited from anyone else (rather than what you yourself
have done). So when the Buddha says that each person is his own master, he promulgates
a principle whose applicability becomes stronger as man begins to get more and
more confidence in the control of himself and the environment. So if, today, with
scientific and technological development, man feels that he has come to a point
where his own intellect makes him superior to anybody else or allows him able
to solve any problem that he has, whether physical or ethical or political or
whatever, would not the principle that man is the master of himself - that he
has to be responsible to himself because whatever he does he inherits - become
one of the most important ways of looking at himself?
So this fundamental
approach to making man free from all bondages, spiritual and otherwise, is one
of those very important doctrines of Buddhism that have contributed to its timelessness.
As we advance, as greater progress is made by man, there will be the greater need
for him to assert that he is the master of himself. The more he asserts himself
to be the master of himself, the more is he reiterating the Buddha's own statement:
'Atta hi attano natho."
Freedom of Thought
Then comes another equally
important doctrine. The doctrine of open-mindedness - the liberty of thinking.
Buddhism not only frees us from a Godhead or super natural tie but also liberates
mankind from dogma. Let us visualize the time when the Buddha was preaching. It
was a time when various religious teachings were in a ferment and India of the
6th century B. C. was one of the most interesting places to be. Religious teachers
propounding various types of doctrines were vying with each other to have more
and more converts. Besides these new teachings, there were religious systems that
were deep rooted. In all these religious systems, the theory was: "We have
found a way." This is the correct path." "You come, you will be
saved." Into their midst comes the Buddha who says: "Do not believe
what your book says. Do not believe what your teachers would say. Do not believe
what your tradition says. Do not take anything merely because it comes to you
with the authority of somebody else. Make it a personal experience. Think for
yourself. Be convinced. And once you are convinced act accordingly." Now
this was a very refreshing manner in which man was given one of the greatest freedoms
that he is fighting for, the freedom to think for himself. If under feudalism,
before the present advances were made, we were not able to assert so much of our
light to think for ourselves, as these advances take place we will be asserting
that right more and more. We will be wanting to feel that we are convinced, after
our own investigations, after we have been able to go through the principles,
the facts, the pros and cons. This we consider an inviolable right This is the
second doctrine, whose applicability to modern times, and future times, would
continue.
Role of Buddhism
Then comes the most important question - apart
from supporting what man will want to assert for himself today and in the future,
has Buddhism a corrective role to play? With this question comes the most important
aspect to which all of us should pay a fair amount of attention today. While man
is making all these advances, we also find that the pressure of modern life -
the rivalry for survival, the rivalry for doing better than the other, the desire
to live a life of competition economically, politically, culturally, or in whatever
form - has brought tensions. In order to relieve these tensions man has evolved
more and more recreations and relaxations. They apparently result in slight relaxation
of the tensions but seem to take people more and more into a vicious circle. Because
of the tensions one engages oneself in a variety of escapist activities, and because
these escapist activities take too much time, one has to catch up with the process
of survival, only to oneself in a worse period of tremendous tension. The greater
the economic progress, the greater the political enlightenment, the more the people
need sedatives and tranquilizers to keep themselves doing their normal duties.
You have to take one pill to keep awake, one pill to sleep, one pill to relax
and so on. This kind of modernization that has come in, wherein man's tensions
have mounted to a point where he finds that all that he has gained is of no use,
is a very serious situation. In addition to these tensions comes another facet
wherein, with the greater amount of leisure that man gets today as a result of
freedom from work drudgery, he has another problem to cope with - that is, boredom.
So with tension on one side, boredom on the other, comes a variety of other complications
which make many people really unhappy. Today one may ask the question: Are we
in a situation where people are really happy or are we in a situation where people
at last have realized that in spite of all that they could gain, they have lost
something in the form of some fundamental aspects of life? Who is to be blamed?
Are we to blame science? Are we to blame technology? Are we to blame the political
systems? Are we to blame the economic system that we have inherited or we have
developed? Or are we to blame ourselves?
You are your own Master
Going
back to the Buddha's own way of looking at the problem you will say, you hold
the reins of life in your hands. Because whatever has gone wrong you are responsible,
you are your own master. You have let it go - allowed it away out of your hands.
It is easy to blame a person, saying "You have let an opportunity pass. It
has slipped away from your hands!" But does that help? The greatness of Buddhism
lies in the fact that it does not stop after placing the responsibility on you,
it does not say "Now that is it. We have now found the culprit." It
proceeds to the next stage of saying: "Here are a few things that could be
done."
If one were to go around looking at the various types of religious,
psychiatric, psychological measures that have been evolved in order to save man
or to cure man from tension on one side and boredom on the other side, you would
find that there are many but not one as inexpensive and as practical as some of
the very simple directions that Buddhism offers. One would ask the question -
does this mean that once you become a Buddhist you would be freed from the tension
and boredom of modern life? To answer that question is very difficult because
no one becomes a Buddhist. There is no one who is to be labelled as a Buddhist.
Because Buddhism is not one of those philosophies or ways of life or religions
- I use the word religion because there is no other classification to which it
can be put squarely - wherein there is a need to have a label. During the days
of the Buddha, people went to him, listened to him and if they were pleased with
him they would say, I take refuge in you, I take refuge in your teachings, I take
refuge in the Sangha, the community, the disciples who are following this way
of life." Even today that is all that is needed for anybody to call himself
a Buddhist. Having been convinced that what the Buddha has taught has some relevance
to one's life problems, one feels that it is a way of life that could be followed
with profit, by taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. With this
inner conviction he becomes a Buddhist with absolutely no ceremony, no ritual
of any kind, no registration, no other legal requirements. It is what F.L. Woodword,
one of the finest translators of the words of Buddha, calls "a do-it-yourself
religion."
What is very significant today is that there may be thousands
of people who have never gone into a Buddhist temple, never got into the ritualistic
set-up which has evolved in the Buddhist countries, but who in their own heart
have seen the validity of the message of the Buddha and who are leading a life
according to the tenets of Buddhism. In fact, we are finding that a vast majority
of the world's population hold allegiance to the Buddha for one reason or another.
This is one of the most remarkable things that one would regard as almost a miracle.
A Way of Life
The way of life the Buddha preached was very simple. To
the layman it consisted of just five simple precepts: do not kill, do not steal,
do not engage in sexual pleasures through wrong means, do not lie, do not take
intoxicants - a very simple set of precepts indeed. But the Buddhist way of life,
the way the Buddha described does not end with this kind of precepts. Simplified
in a manner that anyone could understand, there are three things that each person
is expected to do, namely (using the Pali words because most of you are familiar
with them) Dana, Sila and Bhavana. Dana would mean liberality, generosity - the
act of giving. It is very important that Buddhism begins with Dana as the first
virtuous act which one should engage in, in order to put himself on the correct
path, because giving is an act of sacrifice. To be able to give something is to
prepare your mind fully to give up something that you have, something you treasure,
something to which you are attached. Thereby you counter one of the biggest causes
of all the problems which, again in Pali, is called Lobha or desire or greed.
It is very interesting to see how the way of life is presented to us in a manner
that in following it step by step we get rid of some of the human weaknesses and
characteristics that cause tension, and the boredom that is bothering most of
us today. Liberality is to counteract desires, the greediness, the clinging nature.
Then Sila is adherence to certain precepts, or ethical or moral conduct. Buddha
was fully aware of the fact that one could not set rules and regulations for everybody
in the same manner. So there are a few rules for the lay people. There are a few
more for those who want to enter into a committed religious life, and still more
for monks, who have committed themselves to adhere to a very strict path of discipline
and purification. So the Sila is a graduated thing, so that each person picks
up that which he is able to follow for the present.
In Sila, or moral conduct
or the ethical teachings of the Buddha, we come back to this original doctrine:
they are not commandments, they are not prescribed from above, they are not prescribed
by the Buddha as commandments to obey. Each one of the precepts, which we, as
Buddhists, take, is a promise unto ourselves of our own freewill. And the way
they are worded is I take upon myself the discipline of not killing", I take
upon myself the discipline of not stealing" and so on, because I am the master
of my own destiny and it is I who should decide which kind of life I should lead.
The Buddha as a guide had shown certain fundamental weaknesses, or faults, that
one should try to avoid. The second cause of most of the problems we have is our
animosity, or hatred to others. In Pali we say Dosa. Sila is one of those antidotes
for this second cause of all our weaknesses. When we follow Sila we control, or
rather we completely eliminate the cause of hatred. The Buddha was one of those
who were very conscious of the many effects of hatred. He had seen people ruining
themselves as a result of hatred. That is what made it possible for him to state
very categorically that hatred never ceases by hatred, that the more you hate,
the worse it becomes. You hate me, I hate you: I hate you more, you hate me more
and the hatred keeps on increasing to a point where both you and I burn ourselves
in our mutual hatred, and to the Buddha the only way to solve it is that one party
must stop. Because without one party, or better still both parties, trying to
conquer hatred with friendship, hatred with non-hatred, this sequence of hatred
would never cease. One way of dealing with it is based on the entire doctrine
of the virtuous life of Buddhism. Because a virtuous life is attacking the second
cause of our weaknesses, namely hatred, we have in Buddhism a most interesting,
and again a timeless doctrine, of loving kindness. Loving kindness, which is the
cornerstone of Buddhism, (the foundation on which the Buddhist doctrine is built)
has not been taken by the Buddha as merely a simple ethical principle. He had
analysed the principle of loving kindness into sublime life.
Then comes Karuna
- compassion. Compassion is more easily generated. You see somebody in trouble,
you see somebody who needs your help, your heart moves towards that person and
you rush to help him. That quality of rushing to somebody's help ~ feeling sorry
for the other who is suffering, that is another aspect of loving kindness.
Then
comes a third aspect of it which is more difficult to practise, and that requires
tremendous love and pains, that is called Mudita that is, to share in others'
happiness - to wipe out from your mind all traces of jealousy and envy, so that
you enjoy the well-being of the other person, your neighbour, even your enemy.
Last of all comes the fourth aspect of loving kindness and that is total equanimity,
Upekkha. You have no friends, no enemies, no one higher, no one lower. You have
absolutely no distinctions between one person and another, and you are totally
merged in a kind of unity with all beings, all things, all situations. So once
you are able to live a life in which all these four characteristics govern your
actions, there is no place for hatred, there is no place for rivalry, there is
no place for competition. So this second principle of Sila looks after this set
of troubles that we would have.
Last of all comes the most significant, and
the one to which you will be preparing to proceed immediately after this, that
is Bhavana - meditation. Bhavana means the training of the mind. The word itself
etymologically means development - a further development of the mind. The Buddha
believed, and he is one of the earliest to state it in that manner, that everything
emanates from the man's mind. The organization that I represent has as the preamble
to its Constitution "As wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds
of men that the defences of peace must be constructed." And that reflects
the first line of the first verse of the Dhammapada. A pure mind, a trained mind,
a well-developed mind, a mind that can be controlled at will, a mind that does
not go on to subjects that are conducive to tension and boredom, but keeps alert,
keeps on developing itself, discovering itself and within itself the secret of
life, the problems of life and the reality of life, is man's greatest treasure.
I am not surprised today that there is almost a craze, in the highly technologically
developed part of the world, for all types of meditation. It makes no difference
who preaches what, or what philosophy or technique is adopted. But the fact remains
that the people are beginning to realize that a moment of quiet contemplation,
a moment of deep penetrative thinking, a moment of well-directed properly controlled
functioning of the mind, is an essential thing for the well-being of Man.
Two
thousand five hundred years ago the Buddha taught exactly the same way. And if
there is nothing else that the man of today needs, he needs peace of mind. He
wants to get away from his tensions and battle against boredom. And I see the
answer in Buddhism, particularly in the three-fold path of Dana, Sila, Bhavana.
Look at the Buddha's own principle as the basis or beginning of his religious
life. We hear of so many people who go from rags to riches but here was the case
of a man who went from riches to rags, in search of, we may say, peace of mind
- that greatest of blessings. As a result, he saw for himself, then taught to
others, that the great handicap, the source of all trouble, is attachment.
So,
if somebody were to come today and say: I can take you straight to Nibbana this
very minute," I think most of us will have lots of excuses to give. Someone
will say, can't I wait till my daughter gets married?" Another might say,
can't I wait till this World Fellowship of Buddhists General Conference is over?"
can't I wait till I have finished my assignment in Bangkok?" We have our
own preferred times when it comes to the ultimate goal.
Whatever be our decision
as to reaching this goal, there is a point at which we have no escape. We cannot
deny the fact that all modern developments have nothing to offer but insecurity
and competitiveness as well as tensions and boredom associated with them. Buddhism
offers a few very simple and very efficacious methods to combat that. And with
this I feel that Buddhism has a role to play in our life and a role in which we,
from the Buddhist countries, have an important part to play. It is our responsibility
to share our thinking, our knowledge, and our experience, with as many as possible,
so that ultimately we all see that the message of the Buddha, which is meant for
the good of mankind, continues to reach mankind in every nook and corner of the
world.
********************
Cutting
Through to Ultimate Reality
by
Sharpening the Controlling Faculties
Vipassana meditation can be seen as
a process of developing certain positive mental factors until they are powerful
enough to dominate the state of the mind quite continuously. These factors are
called "the controlling faculties," and they are five in number: faith,
effort or energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. Especially in an intensive
retreat setting, proper practice develops strong and durable faith, powerful effort,
deep concentration, penetrative mindfulness, and the unfolding of more and more
profound insight or wisdom. This final product, intuitive wisdom or pañña;,
is the force in the mind which cuts through into the deepest truth about reality,
and thus liberates us from ignorance and its results: suffering, delusion, and
all the forms of unhappiness.
For this development to occur, however, the appropriate
causes must be present. Nine causes lead to the growth of the controlling faculties;
they are listed here, and will be discussed in more detail below. The first cause
is attention directed toward the impermanence of all objects of consciousness.
The second is an attitude of care and respect in meditation practice. The third
is maintaining an unbroken continuity of awareness. The fourth cause is an environment
that supports meditation. The fifth is remembering circumstances or behavior that
have been helpful in one's past meditation practice so that one can maintain or
recreate those conditions, especially when difficulties may arise. The sixth is
cultivating the qualities of mind which lead toward enlightenment. The seventh
is willingness to work intensely in meditation practice. The eighth is patience
and perseverance in the face of pain or other obstacles. The ninth and last cause
for the development of the controlling faculties is a determination to continue
practicing until one reaches the goal of liberation.
A yogi can travel far
in this practice if he or she fulfills even just the first three causes for the
controlling faculties to arise. That is, the yogi's mental state will come to
be characterized by faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom if she
or he is aware of the passing away of mental and physical phenomena meticulously,
respectfully, and with persistent continuity. Under these conditions, the inner
hindrances to meditation will soon be removed. The controlling faculties will
calm the mind and clear it of disturbances. If you are such a yogi, you will experience
a tranquillity you may never have felt before. You may be filled with awe. "Fantastic,
it's really true! All those teachers talk about peace and calm and now I'm really
experiencing it!" Thus faith, the first of the controlling faculties, will
have arisen out of your practice.
This particular kind of faith is called "preliminary
verified faith." Your own experience leads you to feel that the further promises
of the Dhamma may actually be true.
With faith comes a natural inspiration,
an upsurge of energy. When energy is present, effort follows. You will say to
yourself, "This is just the beginning. If I work a little harder, I'll have
experiences even better than this." A renewed effort guides the mind to hit
its target of observation in each moment. Thus mindfulness consolidates and deepens.
Mindfulness
has the uncanny ability to bring about concentration, one-pointedness of mind.
When mindfulness penetrates into the object of observation moment by moment, the
mind gains the capacity to remain stable and undistracted, content within the
object. In this natural fashion, concentration becomes well-established and strong.
In general, the stronger one's mindfulness, the stronger one's concentration will
be.
With faith, effort, mindfulness and concentration, four of the five controlling
faculties have been assembled. Wisdom, the fifth, needs no special introduction.
If the first four factors are present, wisdom or insight unfolds of itself. One
begins to see very clearly, intuitively, how mind and matter are separate entities,
and begins also to understand in a very special way how mind and matter are connected
by cause and effect. Upon each insight, one's verified faith deepens.
A yogi
who has seen objects arising and passing away from moment to moment feels very
fulfilled. "It's fabulous. Just moment after moment of these phenomena with
no self behind them. No one at home." This discovery brings a sense of great
relief and ease of mind. Subsequent insights into impermanence, suffering and
absence of self have a particularly strong capacity to stimulate faith. They fill
us with powerful conviction that the Dhamma as it has been told to us is authentic.
Vipassana
practice can be compared to sharpening a knife against a whetstone. One must hold
the blade at just the right angle, not too high or too low, and apply just the
right amount of pressure. Moving the knife blade consistently against the stone,
one works continuously and until the first edge has been developed. Then one flips
the knife over to sharpen the other edge, applying the same pressure at the same
angle. This image is given in the Buddhist scriptures. Precision of angle is like
meticulousness in practice, and pressure and movement are like continuity of mindfulness.
If meticulousness and continuity are really present in your practice, rest assured
that in a short time your mind will be sharp enough to cut through to the truth
about existence.
ONE: ATTENTION TO IMPERMANENCE
The first cause for development
of the controlling faculties is to notice that everything which arises will also
dissolve and pass away. During meditation one observes mind and matter at all
the six sense doors. One should approach this process of observation with the
intention to notice that everything which appears will, in turn, dissolve. As
you are no doubt aware, this idea can only be confirmed by actual observation.
This attitude is a very important preparation for practice. A preliminary
acceptance that things are impermanent and transitory prevents the reactions that
might occur when you discover these facts - sometimes painfully - through your
own experience. Without this acceptance, moreover, a student might spend considerable
time with the contrary assumption, that the objects of this world might be permanent,
an assumption that can block the development of insight. In the beginning you
can take impermanence on faith. As practice deepens, this faith will be verified
by personal experience.
TWO: CARE AND RESPECT
The second basis for strengthening
the controlling faculties is an attitude of great care in pursuing the meditation
practice. It is essential to treat the practice with the utmost reverence and
meticulousness. To develop this attitude it may be helpful to reflect on the benefits
you are likely to enjoy through practice. Properly practiced, mindfulness of body,
feelings, mind and mind objects leads to the purification of the mind, the overcoming
of sorrow and lamentation, the complete destruction of physical pain and mental
distress, and the attainment of nibbana. The Buddha called it satipa??hana meditation,
meaning meditation on the four foundations of mindfulness. Truly it is priceless!
Remembering
this, you may be inspired to be very careful and attentive toward the objects
of awareness that arise at the six sense doors. On a meditation retreat, you should
also try to slow down your movements as much as possible, appreciating the fact
that your mindfulness is at an infant stage. Slowing down gives mindfulness the
chance to keep pace with the movements of the body, noting each one in detail.
The
scriptures illustrate this quality of care and meticulousness with the image of
a person crossing a river on a very narrow footbridge. There is no railing, and
swift water runs below. Obviously, this person cannot skip and run across the
bridge. He or she must go step by step, with care.
A meditator can also be
compared to a person carrying a bowl brimful of oil. You can imagine the degree
of care that is required not to spill it. This same degree of mindfulness should
be present in your practice.
This second example was given by the Buddha himself.
It seems there was a group of monks residing in a forest, ostensibly practicing
meditation. They were sloppy, though. At the end of a sitting, they would leap
up suddenly and unmindfully. Walking from place to place, they were careless;
they looked at the birds in the trees and the clouds in the sky, not restraining
their minds at all. Naturally they made no progress in practice.
When the
Buddha came to know of this, his investigation showed that the fault lay in the
monks' lack of respect and reverence for the Dhamma, for the teaching, and for
meditation. The Buddha then approached the monks and spoke to them about the image
of carrying a bowl of oil. Inspired by his sutta, or discourse, the monks resolved
thereafter to be meticulous and careful in all that they did. As a result they
were enlightened in a short time.
You can verify this result in your own experience
on a retreat. Slowing down, moving with great care, you will be able to apply
a quality of reverence in noting your experience. The slower you move, the faster
you will progress in your meditation.
Of course, in this world one must adapt
to the prevailing circumstances. Some situations require speed. If you cruise
the highway at a snail's pace, you might end up dead or in jail. At a hospital,
in contrast, patients must be treated with great gentleness and allowed to move
slowly. If doctors and nurses hurry them along so that the hospital's work can
be finished more efficiently, the patients will suffer and perhaps end up on a
mortuary slab.
Yogis must comprehend their situation, wherever they are, and
adapt to it. On retreat, or in any other situation, it is good to be considerate
and to move at a normal speed if others are waiting behind you. However, you must
also understand that one's primary goal is to develop mindfulness, and so when
you are alone it is appropriate to revert to creeping about. You can eat slowly,
you can wash your face, brush your teeth and bathe with great mindfulness - as
long as no one is waiting in line for the shower or tub.
THREE: UNBROKEN CONTINUITY
Persevering
continuity of mindfulness is the third essential factor in developing the controlling
faculties. One should try to be with the moment as much as possible, moment after
moment, without any breaks in between. In this way mindfulness can be established,
and its momentum can increase. Defending our mindfulness prevents the kilesas,
the harmful and painful qualities of greed, hatred and delusion, from infiltrating
and carrying us off into oblivion. It is a fact of life that the kilesas cannot
arise in the presence of strong mindfulness. When the mind is free of kilesas,
it becomes unburdened, light and happy.
Do whatever is necessary to maintain
continuity. Do one action at a time. When you change postures, break down the
movement into single units and note each unit with the utmost care. When you arise
from sitting, note the intention to open the eyelids, and then the sensations
that occur when the lids begin to move. Note lifting the hand from the knee, shifting
the leg, and so on. Throughout the day, be fully aware of even the tiniest actions
- not just sitting, standing, walking and lying, but also closing your eyes, turning
your head, turning doorknobs and so forth.
Apart from the hours of sleeping,
yogis on retreat should be continuously mindful. Continuity should be so strong,
in fact, that there is no time at all for reflection, no hesitation, no thinking,
no reasoning, no comparing of one's experiences with the things one has read about
meditation - just time enough to apply this bare awareness.
The scriptures
compare practicing the Dhamma to starting a fire. In the days before the invention
of matches or magnifying glasses, fire had to be started by the primitive means
of friction. People used an instrument like a bow, held horizontally. In its looped
string they entwined a vertical stick whose point was inserted into a slight depression
in a board, which was in turn filled with shavings or leaves. As people moved
the bow back and forth, the stick's point twirled, eventually igniting the leaves
or shavings. Another method was simply to roll that same stick between the palms
of the hands. In either case, people rubbed and rubbed until sufficient friction
accumulated to ignite the shavings. Imagine what would happen if they rubbed for
ten seconds and then rested for five seconds to think about it. Do you think a
fire would start? In just this way, a continuous effort is necessary to start
the fire of wisdom.
Have you ever studied the behavior of a chameleon? The
scriptures use this lizard to illustrate discontinuous practice. Chameleons approach
their goals in an interesting way. Catching sight of a delicious fly or a potential
mate, a chameleon rushes suddenly forward, but does not arrive all at once. It
scurries a short distance, then stops and gazes at the sky, tilting its head this
way and that. Then it rushes ahead a bit more and stops again to gaze. It never
reaches its destination in the first rush.
People who practice in fits and
starts, being mindful for a stretch and then stopping to daydream, are chameleon
yogis. Chameleons manage to survive despite their lack of continuity, but a yogi's
practice may not. Some yogis feel called to reflect and think each time they have
a new experience, wondering which stage of insight they have reached. Others do
not need novelty, they think and worry about familiar things.
"I feel
tired today. Maybe I didn't sleep enough. Maybe I ate too much. A little nap might
be just the ticket. My foot hurts. I wonder if a blister is developing. That would
affect my whole meditation! Maybe I should just open my eyes and check."
Such are the hesitations of chameleon yogis.
FOUR: SUPPORTIVE CONDITIONS
The
fourth cause for developing the controlling faculties is to make sure that suitable
conditions are met for insights to unfold. Proper, suitable and appropriate activities
can bring about insight knowledge. Seven types of suitability should be met in
order to create an environment that is supportive of meditation practice.
The
first suitability is that of place. A meditative environment should be well-furnished,
well-supported, a place where it is possible to gain insight.
Second is what
is known as suitability of resort. This refers to the ancient practice of daily
alms rounds. A monk's place of meditation should be far enough from a village
to avoid distraction, but near enough so that he can depend on the villagers for
daily alms food. For lay yogis, food must be easily and consistently available,
yet perhaps not distractingly so. Under this heading, one should avoid places
which ruin one's concentration. This means busy, active places where the mind
is likely to be distracted from its meditation object. In short, a certain amount
of quiet is important, but one must not go so far from the noises of civilization
that one cannot obtain what one needs to survive.
The third suitability is
that of speech. During a retreat, suitable speech is of a very limited kind and
quantity. The commentaries define it as listening to Dhamma talks. We can add
participating in Dhamma discussions with the teacher - that is, interviews. It
is essential at times to engage in discussions of the practice, especially when
one is confused or unsure about how to proceed.
But remember that anything
in excess is harmful. I once taught in a place where there was a potted plant
which my attendant was overzealous in watering. All its leaves fell off. A similar
thing could happen to your samadhi if you get involved in too many Dhamma discussions.
And one should carefully evaluate even the discourses of one's teacher. The general
rule is to exercise discretion as to whether what one is hearing will develop
the concentration that has already arisen, or cause to arise concentration that
has not yet arisen. If the answer is negative, one should avoid the situation,
perhaps even choosing not to attend the teacher's discourses or not requesting
extra interviews.
Yogis on intensive retreat should of course avoid any kind
of conversation as much as possible, especially chatting about worldly affairs.
Even serious discussion of the Dhamma is not always appropriate during intensive
practice. One should avoid debating points of dogma with fellow yogis on retreat.
Thoroughly unsuitable during retreats are conversations about food, place, business,
the economy, politics and so forth; these are called "animal speech."
The
purpose of having this kind of prohibition is to prevent distractions from arising
in the yogi's mind. Lord Buddha, out of deep compassion for meditating yogis,
said, "For an ardent meditator, speech should not be indulged. If indeed
speech is resorted to frequently, it will cause much distraction."
Of
course it may become really necessary to talk during a retreat. If so, you should
be careful not to exceed what is absolutely necessary to communicate. You should
also be mindful of the process of speaking. First there will be a desire to speak.
Thoughts will arise in the mind as to what to say and how to say it. You should
note and carefully label all such thoughts, the mental preparation for speaking;
and then the actual act of speaking itself, the physical movements involved. The
movements of your lips and face, and any accompanying gestures, should be made
the objects of mindfulness.
Some years ago in Burma there was a high-ranking
government official who had just retired. He was a very ardent Buddhist. He had
read a lot of Buddhist scriptures and literature in the fine translations available
in Burmese and had also spent some time meditating. His practice was not strong,
but he had a lot of general knowledge and he wanted to teach, so he became a teacher.
One
day he came to the center in Rangoon to meditate. When I give instructions to
yogis, usually I explain the practice and then compare my instructions to the
scriptural texts, trying to reconcile any apparent differences. This gentleman
immediately began to ask me, "From where did this quotation come and what
is its reference?" I advised him politely to forget about this concern and
to continue his meditation, but he could not. For three days in a row, he did
the same thing at each interview.
Finally I asked him, "Why are you here?
Did you come here to be my student, or to try to teach me?" It seemed to
me he had only come to show off his general knowledge, not because he wished to
meditate.
The man said airily, "Oh, I'm the student and you're the teacher."
I
said, "I've been trying to let you know this in a subtle way for three days,
but I must now be more direct with you. You are like the minister whose job it
was to marry off brides and bridegrooms. On the day it was his turn to get married,
instead of standing where the bridegroom should stand, he went up to the altar
and conducted the ceremony. The congregation was very surprised." Well, the
gentleman got the point; he admitted his error and there after became an obedient
student.
Yogis who truly want to understand the Dhamma will not seek to imitate
this gentleman. In fact it is said in the texts that no matter how learned or
experienced one may be, during a period of meditation one should behave like a
person who is incapable of doing things out of his or her own initiative, but
is also very meek and obedient. In this regard, I'd like to share with you an
attitude I developed in my youth. When I am not skilled, competent or experienced
in a particular field, I do not intrude in a situation. Even if I am skilled,
competent and experienced in a field, I do not intrude unless someone asks for
my advice.
The fourth suitability is that of person, which chiefly relates
to the meditation teacher. If the instruction given by one's teacher helps one
to progress, developing concentration that has already arisen, or bringing about
concentration that has not yet arisen, then one can say that this teacher is suitable.
Two
more aspects of suitability of person have to do with the community that supports
one's practice, and one's own relationship with the community of other people.
In an intensive retreat, yogis require a great deal of support. In order to develop
their mindfulness and concentration, they abandon worldly activities. Thus, they
need friends who can perform certain tasks that would be distracting for a yogi
in intensive practice, such as shopping for and preparing food, repairing the
shelter, and so on. For those engaged in group practice, it is important to consider
one's own effect on the community. Delicate consideration for other yogis is quite
helpful. Abrupt or noisy movements can be very disruptive to others. Bearing this
in mind, one can become a suitable person with respect to other yogis.
The
fifth area of suitability, of food, means that the diet one finds personally appropriate
is also supportive to progress in meditation. However, one must bear in mind that
it is not always possible to fill one's every preference. Group retreats can be
quite large, and meals are cooked for every one at once. At such times, it is
best to adopt an attitude of accepting whatever is served. If one's meditation
is disturbed by feelings of lack or distaste, it is all right to try to rectify
this if convenient.
The Story of Matikamata
Once sixty monks were meditating
in the forest. They had a laywoman supporter named Matikamata, who was very devout.
She tried to figure out what they might like, and every day she cooked enough
food for all of them. One day Matikamata approached the monks and asked whether
a lay person could meditate as they did. "Of course," she was told,
and they gave her instructions. Happily she went back and began to practice. She
kept up her meditation even while she was cooking for the monks and carrying out
her household chores. Eventually she reached the third stage of enlightenment,
anagami or nonreturner; and because of the great merit she had accumulated in
the past, she also had psychic powers such as the deva eye and deva ear - i.e.
the abilities to see and hear distant things - and the ability to read people's
minds.
Filled with joy and gratitude, Matikamata said to herself, "The
Dhamma I've realized is very special. I'm such a busy person, though, looking
after my household chores as well as feeding the monks every day, I'm sure those
monks have progressed much further than I." With her psychic powers she investigated
the meditation progress of the sixty monks, and saw to her shock that none of
them had had even the vaguest ghost of a vipassana insight.
"What's wrong
here?" Matikamata wondered. Psychically, she looked into the monks' situation
to determine where the unsuitability lay. It was not in the place they were meditating.
It was not because they weren't getting along - but it was that they were not
getting the right food! Some of the monks liked sour tastes, others preferred
the salty. Some liked hot peppers and others liked cakes, and still others preferred
vegetables. Out of great gratitude for the meditation instructions she had received
from them, which had led her to profound enlightenment, Matikamata began to cater
to each monk's preference. As a result, all of the monks soon became arahants,
fully enlightened ones.
This woman's rapid and deep attainments, as well as
her intelligence and dedication, provide a good model for people like parents
and other caretakers, who serve the needs of others, but who do not need to relinquish
aspirations for deep insights.
While on this subject I would like to talk about
vegetarianism. Some hold the view that it is moral to eat only vegetables. In
Theravada Buddhism there is no notion that this practice leads to an exceptional
perception of the truth.
The Buddha did not totally prohibit the eating of
meat. He only lay down certain conditions for it. For example, an animal must
not be killed expressly for one's personal consumption. The monk Devadatta asked
him to lay down a rule expressly forbidding the eating of meat, but the Buddha,
after thorough consideration, refused to do so.
In those days as now, the majority
of people ate a mixture of animal and vegetable food. Only Brahmins, or the upper
caste, were vegetarian. When monks went begging for their livelihood, they had
to take whatever was offered by donors of any caste. To distinguish between vegetarian
and carnivorous donors would have affected the spirit of this activity. Furthermore,
both Brabmins and members of other castes were able to join the order of monks
and nuns. The Buddha took this fact into consideration as welt with all of its
implications.
Thus, one needn't restrict oneself to vegetarianism to practice
the Dhamma. Of course, it is healthy to eat a balanced vegetarian diet, and if
your motivation for not eating meat is compassion, this impulse is certainly wholesome.
If, on the other hand, your metabolism is adjusted to eating meat, or if for some
other reason of health it is necessary for you to eat meat this should not be
considered sinful or in any way detrimental to the practice. A law that cannot
be obeyed by the majority is ineffective.
The sixth type of suitability is
that of weather. Human beings have a fantastic ability to adapt to weather. No
matter how hot or cold it may be, we devise methods of making ourselves comfortable.
When these methods are limited or unavailable, one's practice can be disrupted.
At such times it may be better to practice in a temperate climate, if possible.
The
seventh and last kind of suitability is that of posture. Posture here refers to
the traditional four postures: sitting, standing, walking and lying down. Sitting
is best for samatha or tranquillity meditation. In the tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw,
vipassana practice is based on sitting and walking. For any type of meditation,
once momentum builds, posture does not really matter; any of the four is suitable.
Beginning
yogis should avoid the lying and the standing postures. The standing posture can
bring about pain in a short while: tightness and pressure in the legs, which can
disrupt the practice. The lying posture is problematic because it brings on drowsiness.
In it there is not much effort being made to maintain the posture, and there is
too much comfort.
Investigate your own situation to find out whether the seven
types of suitability are present. If they are not, perhaps you should take steps
to ensure they are fulfilled, so that your practice can develop. If this is done
with the aim of making progress in your practice, it will not be self-centered.
FIVE: REAPPLYING HELPFUL CONDITIONS FROM THE PAST
The fifth way of sharpening
the controlling faculties is to bring about the completion of meditative insight
using what is called "the sign of samadhi." This refers to circumstances
in which good practice has occurred before: good mindfulness and concentration.
As we all know, practice is an up and down affair. At times we are high up in
the clouds of samadhi-land; at other times, we're really depressed, assaulted
by kilesas, not mindful of anything. Using the sign of samadhi means that when
you are up in those clouds, when mindfulness is strong, you should try to notice
what circumstances led to this good practice. How are you working with the mind?
What are the specific circumstances in which this good practice is occurring?
The next time you get into a difficult situation, you may be able to remember
the causes of good mindfulness and establish them again.
SIX: CULTIVATING THE
FACTORS THAT LEAD TO ENLIGHTENMENT
The sixth way of sharpening the controlling
faculties is cultivating the factors of enlightenment: mindfulness, investigation,
energy, rapture or joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. These qualifies
of mind, or mental factors, are actually the causes which bring about enlightenment.
When they are present and alive in one's mind, the moment of enlightenment is
being encouraged, and may be said to be drawing nearer. Furthermore, the seven
factors of enlightenment belong to what is known as "noble path and fruition
consciousness." In Buddhism, we speak of "consciousnesses" when
we mean specific, momentary types of consciousness - particular mental events,
with recognizable characteristics. Path and fruition consciousness are the linked
mental events that constitute an enlightenment experience. They are what is occurring
when the mind shifts its attention from the conditioned realm to nibbana, or unconditioned
reality. The result of such a shift is that certain defilements are uprooted,
so that the mind is never the same afterwards.
While working to create the
conditions for path and fruition consciousness, a yogi who understands the factors
of enlightenment can use them to balance her or his meditation practice. The enlightenment
factors of effort, joy, and investigation uplift the mind when it becomes depressed,
while the factors of tranquility, concentration, and equanimity calm the mind
when it becomes hyperactive.
Many times a yogi may feel depressed and discouraged,
having no mindfulness, thinking that his or her practice is going terribly badly.
Mindfulness may not be able to pick up objects as it has in the past. At such
a time it is essential for a yogi to pull out of this state, brighten the mind.
He or she should go in search of encouragement and inspiration. One way to do
this is by listening to a good Dhamma talk. A talk can bring about the enlightenment
factor of joy or rapture; or it can inspire greater effort, or it can deepen the
enlightenment factor of investigation by providing knowledge about practice. These
three factors of enlightenment - rapture, effort and investigation - are most
helpful in facing depression and discouragement.
Once an inspiring talk has
brought up rapture, energy or investigation, you should use this opportunity to
try to focus the mind very clearly on objects of observation, so that the objects
appear very clearly to the mind's eye.
At other times, yogis may have an unusual
experience, or for some other reason may find themselves flooded with exhilaration,
rapture and joy. The mind becomes active and overenthusiastic. On a retreat you
can spot such yogis beaming, walking around as if they were six feet above the
ground. Due to excess energy, the mind slips; it refuses to concentrate on what
is happening in the present moment. If attention touches the target object at
all, it immediately goes off on a tangent.
If you find yourself excessively
exhilarated, you should restore your equilibrium by developing the three enlightenment
factors of tranquility, concentration and equanimity. A good way to start is by
realizing that your energy is indeed excessive; and then reflecting. "There's
no point in hurrying. The Dhamma will unfold by itself. I should just sit back
coolly and watch with gentle awareness." This stimulates the factor of tranquility.
Then, once the energy is cooled, one can begin to apply concentration. The pactical
method of doing this is to narrow down the meditation. Instead of noting many
objects, cut down to concentrate more fully on a few. The mind will soon renew
its normal, slower pace. Lastly, one can adopt a stance of equanimity, cajoling
and soothing the mind with reflections like, "A yogi has no preferences.
There's no point in hurrying. The only thing that matters is for me to watch whatever
is happening, good or bad."
If you can keep your mind in balance, soothing
excitement and lightening up depression, you can be sure that wisdom will shortly
unfold on its own.
Actually, the person best qualified to rectify imbalances
in practice is a competent meditation teacher. If he or she keeps steady track
of students through interviews, a teacher can recognize and remedy the many kinds
of excesses that yogis are susceptible to.
I would like to remind all yogis
never to feel discouraged when they think something is wrong with their meditation.
Yogis are like babies or young children. As you know, babies go through various
stages of development. When babies are in a transition from one stage of development
to another, they tend to go though a lot of psychological and physical upheaval.
They seem to get irritated very easily and are difficult to care for. They cry
and wail at odd times. An inexperienced mother may worry about her baby during
periods like this. But truly, if infants don't go through this suffering they
will never mature and grow up. Babies' distress is often a sign of developmental
progress. So if you feel your practice is falling apart, do not worry. You may
be just like that little child who is in a transition between stages of growth.
SEVEN:
COURAGEOUS EFFORT
The seventh way of developing the controlling faculties is
to practice with courageous effort so much so that you are willing to sacrifice
your body and life in order to continue the practice uninterrupted. This means
giving rather less consideration toward the body than we tend to be accustomed
to give to it. Rather than spending time beautifying ourselves or catering to
our wishes for greater comfort, we devote as much energy as possible to going
forward in meditation.
Although it may feel very youthful right now, our body
becomes completely useless when we die. What use can one make of a corpse? The
body is like a very fragile container which can be used as long as it is intact,
but the moment it drops on the floor, it is of no further help to us.
While
we are alive and in reasonably good health, we have the good fortune to be able
to practice. Let us try to extract the precious essence from our bodies before
it is too late, before our bodies become useless corpses! Of course, it is not
our aim to hasten this event. We should also try to be sensible, and to maintain
this body's health, if only for our practice to continue.
You might ask what
essence one can extract from the body. A scientific study was once made to determine
the market value of the substances composing the human body: iron, calcium and
so on. I believe it came to less than one American dollar, and the cost of extracting
all those components was many times greater than this total value. Without such
a process of extraction, a corpse is valueless, beyond providing compost for the
soil. If a dead person's organs can be used for transplants into living bodies,
this is good; but in this case, progress toward becoming an entirely lifeless
and valueless corpse has only been delayed.
The body can be looked at as a
rubbish dump, disgusting and full of impurities. Uncreative people have no use
for things they might find in such a dump, but an innovative person understands
the value of recycling. He or she may take a dirty, smelly thing off the rubbish
heap and clean it and be able to use it again. There are many stories of people
who have made millions from the recycling business.
From this rubbish heap
we call our body, we can nonetheless extract gold through the practice of the
Dhamma. One form of gold is sila, purity of conduct, the ability to tame and civilize
one's actions. After further extraction, the body yields up the controlling faculties
of faith, mindfulness, effort, concentration and wisdom. These are priceless jewels
which can be extracted from the body through meditation. When the controlling
faculties are well-developed, the mind resists domination by greed, hatred and
delusion. A person whose mind is free of these painful oppressive qualities experiences
an exquisite happiness and peace that cannot be bought with money. His or her
presence becomes calm and sweet so that others feel uplifted. This inner freedom
is independent of all circumstances and conditions, and it is only available as
a result of ardent meditation practice.
Anyone can understand that painful
mental states do not vanish just because we wish them to do so. Who has not wrestled
with a desire they knew would hurt someone if they indulged it? Is there anyone
who has never been in an irritable, grumpy mood and wished they were feeling happy
and contented instead? Has anyone failed to experience the pain of being confused?
It is possible to uproot the tendencies which create pain and dissatisfaction
in our lives, but for most of us it is not easy. Spiritual work is as demanding
as it is rewarding. Yet we should not be discouraged. The goal and result of vipassana
meditation is to be free from all kinds, all shades and all levels of mental and
physical suffering. If you desire this kind of freedom, you should rejoice that
you have an opportunity to strive to achieve it.
The best time to strive is
right now. If you are young, you should appreciate your good situation, for young
people have the most energy to carry out the meditation practice. If you are older
you may have less physical energy, but perhaps you have seen enough of life to
have gained wise consideration, such as a personal understanding of life's fleetingness
and unpredictability.
"Urgency Seized Me"
During the Buddha's
time there was a young bhikkhu, or monk, who had come from a wealthy family. Young
and robust, he'd had the chance to enjoy a wide variety of sense pleasures before
his ordination. He was wealthy, he had many friends and relatives, and his wealth
made available to him the full panoply of indulgences. Yet he renounced all this
to seek liberation.
One day when the king of that country was riding through
the forest, he came across this monk. The king said, "Venerable sir, you
are young and robust; you are in the prime of youth. You come from a wealthy family
and have lots of opportunities to enjoy yourself. Why did you leave your home
and family to wear robes and live in solitude? Don't you feel lonely? Aren't you
bored?"
The monk answered, "O great king, when I was listening to
the Buddha's discourse that leads to arousing spiritual urgency, a great sense
of urgency seized me. I want to extract the optimum utility from this body of
mine in time before I die. That is why I gave up the worldly life and took these
robes."
If you still are not convinced of the need to practice with great
urgency, without attachment to body or life, the Buddha's words may also be helpful
for you.
One should reflect, he said, on the fact that the whole world of beings
is made up of nothing but mind and matter which have arisen but do not stay. Mind
and matter do not remain still for one single moment; they are in constant flux.
Once we find ourselves in this body and mind, there is nothing we can do to prevent
growth from taking place. When we are young we like to grow, but when we are old
we are stuck in an irreversible process of decline.
We like to be healthy,
but our wishes can never be guaranteed. We are plagued by sickness and illness,
by pain and discomfort, throughout our existence. Immortal life is beyond our
reach. All of us will die. Death is contrary to what we would wish for ourselves,
yet we cannot prevent it. The only question is whether death will come sooner
or later.
Not a single person on earth can guarantee our wishes regarding growth,
health or immortality. People refuse to accept these facts. The old try to look
young. Scientists develop all manner of cures and contraptions to delay the process
of human decay. They even try to revive the dead! When we are sick we take medicines
to feel better. But even if we get well, we will get sick again. Nature cannot
be deceived. We cannot escape old age and death.
This is the main weakness
of beings: beings are devoid of security. There is no safe refuge from old age,
disease and death. Look at other beings, look at animals, and most of all, look
at yourself.
If you have practiced deeply, these facts will come as no surprise
to you. If you can see with intuitive insight how mental and physical phenomena
arise endlessly from moment to moment, you know there is no refuge anywhere that
you can run to. There is no security. Yet, if your insight has not reached this
point, perhaps reflecting on the precariousness of life will cause some urgency
to arise in you, and give you a strong impulse to practice. Vipassana meditation
can lead to a place beyond all these fearsome things.
Beings have another great
weakness: lack of possessions. This may sound strange. We are born. We begin procuring
knowledge right away. We obtain credentials. Most of us get a job, and buy many
items with the resulting wages. We call these our possessions, and on a relative
level, that is what they are - no doubt about it. If possessions really belonged
to us, though, we would never be separated from them. Would they break, or get
lost, or stolen the way they do if we owned them in some ultimate sense? When
human beings die there is nothing we can take with us. Everything gained, amassed,
stored up and hoarded is left behind. Therefore it is said that all beings are
possession-less.
All of our property must be left behind at the moment of death.
Property is of three types, the first of which is immovable property: buildings,
land, estates, and so forth. Conventionally these belong to you, but you must
leave them behind when you die. The second type of property is moveable property:
chairs, toothbrushes and clothing - all the things you carry along as you travel
about during your existence on this planet. Then there is knowledge: arts and
sciences, the skills you use to sustain your life and that of others. As long
as we have a body in good working order, this property of knowledge is essential.
However, there is no insurance against losing that either. You may forget what
you know, or you may be prevented from practicing your specialty by a government
decree or some other unfortunate event. If you are a surgeon you could badly break
your arm, or you could meet with some other kind of attack on your well-being
which leaves you too neurotic to continue your livelihood.
None of these kinds
of possessions can bring any security during existence on earth, let alone during
the afterlife. If one can understand that we possess nothing, and that life is
extremely transitory, then we will feel much more peaceful when the inevitable
comes to pass.
Our Only True Possession
However, there are certain things
that follow human beings through the doors of death. This is kamma (Sanskrit:
karma), the results of our actions. Our good and bad kammas follow us wherever
we are; we cannot get away from them even if we want to.
Believing that kamma
is your only true possession brings a strong wish to practice the Dhamma with
ardor and thoroughness. You will understand that wholesome and beneficial deeds
are an investment in your own future happiness, and harmful deeds will rebound
upon you. Thus, you will do many things based on noble considerations of benevolence,
generosity, and kindness. You will try to make donations to hospitals, to people
suffering from calamity. You will support members of your family, the aged, the
handicapped and underprivileged, your friends, and others who need help. You will
want to create a better society by maintaining purity of conduct, taming your
speech and actions. You will bring about a peaceful environment as you strive
to meditate and tame the obsessive kilesas that arise in the heart. You will go
through the stages of insight and eventually realize the ultimate goal. All of
these meritorious deeds of dana, of giving; of sila, morality; and of bhavana,
mental development or meditation - they will follow you after death, just as your
shadow follows you wherever you go. Do not cease to cultivate the wholesome!
All
of us are slaves of craving. It is ignoble, but it is true. Desire is insatiable.
As soon as we get something, we find it is not as satisfying as we thought it
would be, and we try something else. It is the nature of life, like trying to
scoop up water in a butterfly net. Beings cannot become contented by following
the dictates of desire, chasing after objects. Desire can never satisfy desire.
If we understand this truth correctly, we will not seek satisfaction in this self-defeating
way. This is why the Buddha said that contentment is the greatest wealth.
There
is a story of a man who worked as a basket weaver. He was a simple man who enjoyed
weaving his baskets. He whistled and sang and passed the day happily as he worked.
At night he retired to his little hut and slept well. One day a wealthy man passed
by and saw this poor wretched basket weaver. He was filled with compassion and
gave him a thousand dollars. "Take this," he said, and go enjoy yourself."
The
basket weaver took the money with much appreciation. He had never seen a thousand
dollars in his life. He took it back to his ramshackle hut and was wondering where
he could keep it. But his hut was not very secure.
He could not sleep all night
because he was worrying about robbers, or even rats nibbling at his cash.
The
next day he took his thousand dollars to work, but he did not sing or whistle
because he was worrying so much about his money again. Once more, that night he
did not sleep, and in the morning he returned the thousand dollars to the wealthy
man, saying, "Give me back my happiness."
You may think that Buddhism
discourages you from seeking knowledge or credentials, or from working hard to
earn money so you can support yourself and family and friends and contribute to
worthy causes and institutions. No. By all means, make use of your life and your
intelligence, and obtain all these things legally and honestly. The point is to
be contented with what you have. Do not become a slave of craving: that is the
message. Reflect on the weaknesses of beings so that you can get the most from
your body and life before you are too sick and old to practice and can only depart
from this useless corpse.
EIGHT: PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE
If you practice
with heroic effort, entertaining no considerate attachment to body or life, you
can develop the liberating energy which will carry you through the higher stages
of practice. Such a courageous attitude contains within itself not only the seventh,
but also the eighth means of developing the controlling faculties. This eighth
quality is patience and perseverance in dealing with pain, especially painful
sensations in the body.
All yogis are familiar with the unpleasant sensations
that can come up during the course of a single sitting, the suffering of the mind
in reaction to these sensations, and on top of that, the mind's resistance to
being controlled as it must be in the practice.
An hour's sitting requires
a lot of work. First, you try to keep your mind on the primary object as much
as possible. This restraint and control can be very threatening to the mind, accustomed
as it is to running wild. The process of maintaining attention becomes a strain.
This strain of the mind, resisting control, is one form of suffering.
When
the mind fills with resistance, often the body reacts also. Tension arises. In
a short time you are besieged by painful sensations. What with the initial resistance
and this pain on top of it, you've got quite a task on your hands. Your mind is
constricted, your body is tight, you lose the patience to look directly at the
physical pain. Now your mind goes completely bonkers. It may fill with aversion
and rage. Your suffering is now threefold: the mind's initial resistance; the
actual physical pain; and the mental suffering that results from physical suffering.
This
would be a good time to apply the eighth cause for strengthening the controlling
faculties, patience and perseverance, and try to look at the pain directly. If
you are not prepared to confront pain in a patient way, you only leave open the
door to the kilesas, like greed and anger. "Oh, I hate this pain. If only
I could get back the wonderful comfort I had five minutes ago." In the presence
of anger and greed, and in the absence of patience, the mind becomes confused
and deluded as well. No object is clear, and you are unable to see the true nature
of pain.
At such a time you will believe that pain is a thorn, a hindrance
in your practice. You may decide to shift position in order to "concentrate
better." If such movement becomes a habit, you will lose the chance to deepen
your meditation practice. Calmness and tranquility of mind have their foundation
in stillness of body.
Constant movement is actually a good way to conceal the
true nature of pain. Pain may be right under your nose, the most predominant element
of your experience, but you move your body so as not to look at it. You lose a
wonderful opportunity to understand what pain really is.
In fact we have been
living with pain ever since we were born on this planet. It has been close to
us all our lives. Why do we run from it? If pain arises, look on it as a precious
opportunity really to understand something familiar in a new and deeper way.
At
times when you are not meditating, you can exercise patience toward painful sensations,
especially if you are concentrating on something you are interested in. Say you
are a person who really loves the game of chess. You sit in your chair and look
very intently at the chessboard, where your opponent has just made a fantastic
move, putting you in check. You may have been sitting on that chair for two hours,
yet you will not feel your cramped position as you try to work out the strategy
to escape from your predicament. Your mind is totally lost in thought. If you
do feel the pain, you may very well ignore it until you have achieved your goal.
It
is even more important to exercise patience in the practice of meditation, which
develops a much higher level of wisdom than does chess, and which gets us out
of a more fundamental kind of predicament.
Strategies for Dealing with Pain
The
degree of penetration into the true nature of phenomena depends very much on the
level of concentration we can develop. The more one-pointed the mind, the more
deeply it can penetrate and understand reality. This is particularly true when
one is being aware of painful sensations. If concentration is weak, we will not
really feel the discomfort which is always present in our bodies. When concentration
begins to deepen, even the slightest discomfort becomes so very clear that it
appears to be magnified and exaggerated. Most human beings are myopic in this
sense. Without the eyeglasses of concentration, the world appears hazy, blurry
and indistinct. But when we put them on, all is bright and clear. It is not the
objects that have changed; it is the acuity of our sight.
When you look with
the naked eye at a drop of water, you do not see much. If you put a sample under
the microscope, however, you begin to see many things happening there. Many things
are dancing and moving, fascinating to watch. If in meditation you are able to
put on your glasses of concentration, you will be surprised at the variety of
changes taking place in what would appear to be a stagnant and uninteresting spot
of pain. The deeper the concentration, the deeper your understanding of pain.
You will be more and more enthralled the more clearly you can see that these painful
sensations are in a constant state of flux, from one sensation to another, changing,
diminishing, growing stronger, fluctuating and dancing. Concentration and mindfulness
will deepen and sharpen. At times when the show becomes utterly fascinating, there
is a sudden and unexpected end to it, as though the curtain is dropped and the
pain just disappears miraculously.
One who is unable to arouse enough courage
or energy to look at pain will never understand the potential that lies in it.
We have to develop courage of mind, heroic effort, to look at pain. Let's learn
not to run from pain, but rather to go right in.
When pain arises, the first
strategy is to send your attention straight toward it, right to the center of
it. You try to penetrate its core. Seeing pain as pain, note it persistently,
trying to get under its surface so that you do not react.
Perhaps you try very
hard, but you still become fatigued. Pain can exhaust the mind. If you cannot
maintain a reasonable level of energy, mindfulness and concentration, it is time
to gracefully withdraw. The second strategy for dealing with pain is to play with
it. You go into it and then you relax a bit. You keep your attention on the pain,
but you loosen the intensity of mindfulness and concentration. This gives your
mind a rest. Then you go in again as closely as you can; and if you are not successful
you retreat again. You go in and out, back and forth, two or three times.
If
the pain is still strong and you find your mind be coming tight and constricted
despite these tactics, it is time for a graceful surrender. This does not mean
shifting your physical position just yet. It means shifting the position of your
mindfulness. Completely ignore the pain and put your mind on the rising and falling
or whatever primary object you are using. Try to concentrate so strongly on this
that the pain is blocked out of your awareness.
Healing Body and Mind
We
must try to overcome any timidity of mind. Only if you have the strength of mind
of a hero will you be able to overcome pain by understanding it for what it really
is. In meditation many kinds of unbearable physical sensations can arise. Nearly
all yogis see clearly the discomfort that has always existed in their bodies,
but magnified by concentration. During intensive practice pain also frequently
resurfaces from old wounds, childhood mishaps, or chronic illnesses of the past.
A current or recent illness can suddenly get worse. If these last two happen to
you, you can say that Lady Luck is on your side. You have the chance to overcome
an illness or chronic pain through your own heroic effort, without taking a drop
of medicine. Many yogis have totally overcome and transcended their health problems
through meditation practice alone.
About fifteen years ago there was a man
who had been suffering from gastric troubles for many years. When he went to his
checkup, the doctor said he had a tumor and needed surgery. The man was afraid
that the operation would be unsuccessful and he might die.
So he decided to
play it safe in case he did die. "I had better go meditate," he said
to himself. He came to practice under my guidance. Soon he began to feel a lot
of pain. At first it was not bad, but as he made progress in practice and reached
the level of insight connected with pain, he had a severe, unbearable, torturous
attack. He told me about it and I said, "Of course you are free to go home
to see your doctor. However, why don't you stay a few more days?"
He thought
about it and decided there still was no guarantee he would survive the operation.
So he decided to stay and meditate. He took a teaspoon of medicine every two hours.
At times the pain got the better of him; at times he overcame the pain. It was
a long battle, with losses on both sides. But this man had enormous courage.
During
one sitting the pain was so excruciating that his whole body shook and his clothes
were soaked in sweat. The tumor in his stomach was getting harder and harder,
more and more constricted. Suddenly his idea of his stomach disappeared as he
was looking at it. Now there was just his consciousness and a painful object.
It was very painful but it was very interesting. He kept on watching and there
was just the noting mind and the pain, which got more and more excruciating.
Then
there was a big explosion like a bomb. The yogi said he could even hear a loud
sound. After that it was all over. He got up from his sitting drenched in sweat.
He touched his belly, but in the place where his tumor once protruded, there was
nothing. He was completely cured. Moreover, he had completed his meditation practice,
having had an insight into nibbana.
Soon afterwards this man left the center
and I asked him to let me know what the doctor said about the gastric problem.
The doctor was shocked to see that the tumor was gone. The man could forget the
strict diet he had followed for twenty years, and to this day he is alive and
in good health. Even the doctor became a vipassana yogi!
I have come across
innumerable people who have recovered from chronic headaches, heart trouble, tuberculosis,
even cancer and severe injuries sustained at an early age. Some of them had been
declared incurable by doctors. All of these people had to go through tremendous
pain. But they exercised enormous perseverance and courageous effort, and they
healed themselves. More important, many also came to understand far more deeply
the truth about reality by observing pain with tenacious courage and then breaking
through to insight.
You should not be discouraged by painful sensations. Rather,
have faith and patience. Persevere until you understand your own true nature.
NINE: UNWAVERING COMMITMENT
The ninth and last factor leading to the development
of the controlling faculties is the quality of mind that keeps you walking straight
to the end of the path without becoming sidetracked, without giving up your task.
What
is your objective in practicing meditation? Why do you undergo the threefold training
of sila, samadhi and pañña? It is important to appreciate the goal
of meditation practice. It is even more important to be honest with yourself,
so that you can know the extent of your commitment to that goal.
Good Deeds
and Our Highest Potential
Let us reflect on sila. Having this amazing opportunity
to be born on this planet as human beings, understanding that our wondrous existence
in this world comes about as a result of good deeds, we should endeavor to live
up to the highest potential of humanity. The positive connotations of the word
"humanity" are great loving-kindness and compassion. Would it not be
proper for every human being on this planet to aspire to perfect these qualities?
If one is able to cultivate a mind filled with compassion and loving-kindness,
it is easy to live in a harmonious and wholesome way. Morality is based on consideration
for the feelings of all beings, others as well as oneself. One behaves in a moral
way not only to be harmless toward others, but also to prevent one's own future
sorrow. We all should avoid actions that will lead to unfavorable consequences,
and walk the path of wholesome actions, which can free us forever from states
of misery.
Kamma is our only true property. It will be very helpful if you
can take this view as a basic foundation for your behavior, for your practice,
for your life as a whole. Whether good or bad, kamma follows us everywhere, in
this life and the next. If we perform skillful, harmonious actions, we will be
held in high esteem in this very life. Wise persons will praise us and hold us
in affection, and we will also be able to look forward to good circumstances in
our future lives, until we attain final nibbana.
Committing bad or unskillful
actions brings about dishonor and notoriety even in this life. Wise people will
blame us and look down upon us. Nor in the future will we be able to escape the
consequences of our deeds.
In its powerful potential to bring good and bad
results, kamma can be compared to food. Some foods are suitable and healthy, while
others are poisonous to the body. If we understand which foods are nutritious,
eating them at the proper time and in proper amounts, we can enjoy a long and
healthy life. If, on the other hand, we are tempted by foods which are unhealthy
and poisonous, we must suffer the consequences. We may fall sick and suffer a
great deal. We may even die.
Beautiful Acts
Practicing dana or generosity
can lessen the greed that arises in the heart. The five basic sila precepts help
control the emotions and very gross defilements of greed and hatred. Observing
the precepts, the mind is controlled to the extent that it does not manifest through
the body and perhaps not even through speech.
If you can be perfect in precepts,
you may appear to be a very holy person, but inside you may still be tortured
by eruptions of impatience, hatred, covetousness and scheming. Therefore, the
next step is bhavana; which means in Pali; the cultivation of exceptionally wholesome
mental states." The first part of bhavana is to prevent unwholesome states
from arising. The second part is the development of wisdom in the absence of these
states.
Blissful Concentration and its Flaws
Samatha bhavana or concentration
meditation, has the power to make the mind calm and tranquil and to pull it far
away from the kilesas. It suppresses the kilesas, making it impossible for them
to attack. Samatha bhavana is not unique to Buddhism. It can be found in many
other religious systems, particularly in Hindu practices. It is a commendable
undertaking in which the practitioner achieves purity of mind during the time
he or she is absorbed in the object of meditation. Profound bliss, happiness and
tranquillity are achieved. At times even psychic powers can be cultivated through
these states. However, success in samatha bhavana does not at all mean that one
gains an insight into the true nature of reality in terms of mind and matter.
The kilesas have been suppressed but not uprooted; the mind has not yet penetrated
the true nature of reality. Thus, practitioners are not freed from the net of
sa?sara, and may even fall into states of misery in the future. One can attain
a great deal through concentration and yet still be a loser.
After the Buddha's
supreme enlightenment he spent forty-nine days in Bodh Gaya enjoying the bliss
of his liberation. Then he started to think about how he could communicate this
profound and subtle truth to other beings. He looked around and saw that most
of the world was covered by a thick layer of dust, of kilesas. People were wallowing
in deepest darkness. The immensity of his task dawned on him.
Then it occurred
to him that there were two-people who would be quite receptive to his teaching,
whose minds were quite pure and clear of the kilesas. In fact, they were two of
his former teachers, the hermits A?ara the Kalama and Uddaka the Ramaputta. Each
of them had a large number of followers due to their attainments in concentration.
The Buddha had mastered each of their teachings in turn, but had realized that
he was seeking something beyond what they taught.
Yet both of these hermits'
minds were very pure. A?ara the Kalama had mastered the seventh level of concentration,
and Uddaka the Ramaputta the eighth, or highest, level of absorption. The kilesas
were kept far from them, even during the times when they were not actually practicing
their absorptions. The Buddha felt certain they would become completely enlightened
if only he would speak a few significant words of Dhamma to them.
Even as
the Buddha considered in this way, an invisible deva, a being from a celestial
realm, announced to him that both of the hermits had died. A?ara the Kalama had
passed away seven days before, and Uddaka the Ramaputta only the previous night.
Both had been reborn in the formless world of the brahmas, where mind exists but
matter does not. Therefore the hermits no longer had ears for hearing nor eyes
for seeing. It was impossible for them to see the Buddha or to listen to the Dhamma;
and, since meeting with a teacher and listening to the Dhamma are the only two
ways to discover the right way of practice, the two hermits had missed their chance
to become fully enlightened.
The Buddha was moved. "They have suffered
a great loss," he said.
Liberating Intuition
What exactly is missing
from concentration meditation? It simply cannot bring the understanding of truth.
For this we need Vipassana meditation. Only intuitive insight into the true nature
of mind and matter can free one from the concept of ego, of a person, of self
or "I." Without this insight which comes about through the process of
bare awareness, one cannot be free from these concepts.
Only an intuitive understanding
of the mechanism of cause and effect - that is, seeing the link of recurrence
of mind and matter - can free one from the delusion that things happen without
a cause. Only by seeing the rapid arising and disappearance of phenomena can one
be released from the delusion that things are permanent, solid and continuous.
Only by experiencing suffering in the same intuitive way can one deeply learn
that samsaric existence is not worth clinging to. Only the knowledge that mind
and matter just flow by according to their own natural laws with no one, and nothing,
behind them, can impress upon one's mind that there is no atta, or self essence.
Unless
you go through the various levels of insight and eventually realize nibbana, you
will not understand true happiness. With nibbana as the ultimate goal of your
practice, you should try to maintain a high level of energy, not stopping or surrendering,
never retreating until you reach your final destination.
First you will make
the effort needed to establish your meditation practice. You focus your mind on
the primary object of meditation, and you return to this object again and again.
You set up a routine of sitting and walking practice. This is called "Launching
Energy;" it puts you on the path and gets you moving forward.
Even if
obstacles arise, you will stick with your practice, overcoming all obstacles with
perseverance. If you are bored and lethargic, you summon up ardent energy. If
you feel pain, you overcome the timid mind that prefers to withdraw and is unwilling
to face what is happening. This is called "Liberating Energy," the energy
necessary to liberate you from indolence. You will not retreat. You know you will
just keep walking until you reach your goal.
After that, when you have overcome
the intermediate difficulties and perhaps have found yourself in a smooth and
subtle space, you will not become complacent. You will go into the next gear,
putting in the effort to lift your mind higher and higher. This is an effort which
neither decreases nor stagnates, but is in constant progress. This is called "Progressive
Effort," and it leads to the goal you desire.
Therefore, the ninth factor
conducive to sharpening the controlling faculties actually means applying successive
levels of energy so that you neither stop nor hesitate, surrender nor retreat,
until you reach your final goal and destination.
As you go along in this way,
making use of all of the nine qualities of mind described above, the five controlling
faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom will sharpen
and deepen. Eventually they will take over your mind and lead you on to freedom.
I
hope you can examine your own practice. If you see that it is lacking in some
element, make use of the above information to your own benefit.
Please walk
straight on until you reach your desired goal!
© Saddhamma Foundation
1993
*********************
De-perception
Thanissaro
Bhikkhu
Copyright © 2002 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free distribution
only.
You may reprint this work for free distribution.
You may re-format
and redistribute this work for use on computers and computer networks
provided
that you charge no fees for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights
reserved.
Meditation teaches you the power of your perceptions. You come
to see how the labels you apply to things, the images with which you visualize
things, have a huge influence over what you see, how they can weigh you down with
suffering and stress. As the meditation develops, though, it gives you the tools
you need to gain freedom from that influence.
In the beginning, when you first
notice the power of perception, you can easily feel overwhelmed by how pervasive
it is. Suppose you're focusing on the breath. There comes a point when you begin
to wonder whether you're focusing on the breath itself or on your idea of the
breath. Once this question arises, the normal reaction is to try to get around
the idea to the raw sensation behind it. But if you're really sensitive as you
do this, you'll notice that you're simply replacing one caricature of the breath
with another, more subtle one. Even the raw sensation of breathing is shaped by
how you conceptualize raw sensation. No matter how hard you try to pin down an
unfiltered experience of breathing, you still find it shaped by your idea of what
breathing actually is. The more you pursue the reality of the breath, the more
it recedes like a mirage.
The trick here is to turn this fact to your advantage.
After all, you're not meditating to get to the breath. You're meditating to understand
the processes leading to suffering so that you can put an end to them. The way
your relate to your perceptions is part of these processes, so that's what you
want to see. You have to treat your experience of the breath, not as an end in
itself, but as a tool for understanding the role of perception in creating suffering
and stress.
You do this by de-perception: questioning your assumptions about
breathing, deliberately changing those assumptions, and observing what happens
as a result. Now, without the proper context, de-perception could easily wander
off into random abstractions. So you take the practice of concentration as your
context, providing de-perception both with a general direction and with particular
tasks that force it to bump up against the operative assumptions that actually
shape your experience of the present.
The general direction lies in trying
to bring the mind to deeper and more long-lasting levels of stillness so as to
eliminate more and more subtle levels of stress. You're not trying to prove which
perceptions of the breath depict it most truly, but simply which ones work best
in which situations for eliminating stress. The objectivity you're looking for
is not the objectivity of the breath, but the objectivity of cause and effect.
The particular tasks that teach you these lessons begin with the task of trying
to get the mind to stay comfortably focused for long periods of time on the breath
-- and right there you run into two operative assumptions: What does it mean to
breathe? What does it mean to be focused?
It's common to think of the breath
as the air passing in and out through the nose, and this can be a useful perception
to start with. Use whatever blatant sensations you associate with that perception
as a means of establishing mindfulness, developing alertness, and getting the
mind to grow still. But as your attention gets more refined, you may find that
level of breath becoming too faint to detect. So try thinking of the breath instead
as the energy flow in the body, as a full body process.
Then make that experience
as comfortable as possible. If you feel any blockage or obstruction in the breathing,
see what you can do to dissolve those feelings. Are you doing anything to create
them? If you can catch yourself creating them, then it's easy to let them dissolve.
And what would make you create them aside from your preconceived notions of how
the mechanics of breathing have to work? So question those notions: Where does
the breath come into the body? Does it come in only through the nose and mouth?
Does the body have to pull the breath in? If so, which sensations do the pulling?
Which sensations get pulled? Where does the pulling begin? And where is the breath
pulled from? Which parts have the breath, and which ones don't? When you feel
a sensation of blockage, which side of the sensation are you on?
These questions
may sound strange, but many times your pre-verbal assumptions about the body are
strange as well. Only when you confront them head-on with strange questions can
you bring them to light. And only when you see them clearly can you replace them
with alternative concepts.
So once you catch yourself breathing uncomfortably
in line with a particular assumption, turn it around to see what sensations the
new assumption highlights. Try staying with those sensations as long as you can,
to test them. If, compared to your earlier sensations associated with the breath,
they're easier to stay with, if they provide a more solid and spacious grounding
for concentration, the assumption that drew them to your attention is a useful
new tool in your meditation. If the new sensations aren't helpful in that way,
you can throw the new tool aside.
For example, if you have a sense of being
on one side of a blockage, try thinking of being on the other side. Try being
on both. Think of the breath as coming into the body, not through the nose or
mouth, but through the middle of the chest, the back of the neck, every pore of
your skin, any spot that helps reduce the felt need to push and pull.
Or start
questioning the need to push and pull at all. Do you feel that your immediate
experience of the body is of the solid parts, and that they have to manage the
mechanics of breathing, which is secondary? What happens if you conceive your
immediate experience of the body in a different way, as a field of primary breath
energy, with the solidity simply a label attached to certain aspects of the breath?
Whatever you experience as a primary body sensation, think of it as already breath,
without your having to do anything more to it. How does that affect the level
of stress and strain in the breathing?
And what about the act of staying focused?
How do you conceive that? Is it behind the breath? Surrounded by breath? To what
extent does your mental picture of focusing help or hinder the ease and solidity
of your concentration? For instance, you may find that you think of the mind as
being in one part of the body and not in others. What do you do when you focus
attention on another part? Does the mind leave its home base -- say, in the head
-- to go there, or does the other part have to be brought into the head? What
kind of tension does this create? What happens if you think of awareness already
being in that other part? What happens when you turn things around entirely: instead
of the mind's being in the body, see what stress is eliminated when you think
of the body as surrounded by a pre-existing field of awareness.
When you ask
questions like this and gain favorable results, the mind can settle down into
deeper and deeper levels of solidity. You eliminate unnecessary tension and stress
in your focus, finding ways of feeling more and more at home, at ease, in the
experience of the present.
Once the mind is settled down, give it time to
stay there. Don't be in too great a hurry to move on. Here the questions are,
"Which parts of the process were necessary to focus in? Which can now be
let go? Which do you have to hold onto in order to maintain this focus?"
Tuning into the right level of awareness is one process; staying there is another.
When you learn how to maintain your sense of stillness, try to keep it going in
all situations. What do you discover gets in the way? Is it your own resistance
to disturbances? Can you make your stillness so porous that disturbances can go
through without running into anything, without knocking your center off balance?
As you get more and more absorbed in exploring these issues, concentration
becomes less a battle against disturbance and more an opportunity for inner exploration.
And without even thinking about them, you're developing the four bases of success:
the desire to understand things, the persistence that keeps after your exploration,
the close attention you're paying to cause and effect, and the ingenuity you're
putting into framing the questions you ask. All these qualities contribute to
concentration, help it get settled, get solid, get clear.
At the same time,
they foster discernment. The Buddha once said that the test for a person's discernment
is how he or she frames a question and tries to answer it. Thus to foster discernment,
you can't simply stick to pre-set directions in your meditation. You have to give
yourself practice in framing questions and testing the karma of those questions
by looking for their results.
Ultimately, when you reach a perception of the
breath that allows the sensations of in-and-out breathing to grow still, you can
start questioning more subtle perceptions of the body. It's like tuning into a
radio station. If your receiver isn't precisely tuned to the frequency of the
signal, the static interferes with the subtleties of whatever is being transmitted.
But when you're precisely tuned, every nuance comes through. The same with your
sensation of the body: when the movements of the breath grow still, the more subtle
nuances of how perception interacts with physical sensation come to the fore.
The body seems like a mist of atomic sensations, and you can begin to see how
your perceptions interact with that mist. To what extent is the shape of the body
inherent in the mist? To what extent is it intentional -- something added? What
happens when you drop the intention to create that shape? Can you focus on the
space between the droplets in the mist? What happens then? Can you stay there?
What happens when you drop the perception of space and focus on the knowing? Can
you stay there? What happens when you drop the oneness of the knowing? Can you
stay there? What happens when you try to stop labeling anything at all?
As
you settle into these more formless states, it's important that you not lose sight
of your purpose in tuning into them. You're here to understand suffering, not
to over-interpret what you experience. Say, for instance, that you settle into
an enveloping sense of space or consciousness. From there, it's easy to assume
that you've reached the primordial awareness, the ground of being, from which
all things emerge, to which they all return, and which is essentially untouched
by the whole process of emerging and returning. You might take descriptions of
the Unconditioned and apply them to what you're experiencing. If you're abiding
in a state of neither perception nor non-perception, it's easy to see it as a
non-abiding, devoid of distinctions between perceiver and perceived, for mental
activity is so attenuated as to be virtually imperceptible. Struck with the apparent
effortlessness of the state, you may feel that you've gone beyond passion, aversion,
and delusion simply by regarding them as unreal. If you latch onto an assumption
like this, you can easily think that you've reached the end of the path before
your work is really done.
Your only protection here is to regard these assumptions
as forms of perception, and to dismantle them as well. And here is where the four
noble truths prove their worth, as tools for dismantling any assumption by detecting
the stress that accompanies it. Ask if there's still some subtle stress in the
concentration that has become your dwelling place. What goes along with that stress?
What vagrant movements in the mind are creating it? What persistent movements
in the mind are creating it? You have to watch for both.
In this way you come
face to face with the perceptions that keep even the most subtle states of concentration
going. And you see that even they are stressful. If you replace them with other
perceptions, though, you'll simply exchange one type of stress for another. It's
as if your ascending levels of concentration have brought you to the top of a
flag pole. You look down and see aging, illness, and death coming up the pole,
in pursuit. You've exhausted all the options that perception can offer, so what
are you going to do? You can't just stay where you are. Your only option is to
release your grip. And if you're letting go fully, you let go of gravity, too.
Revised: Thu 5 December 2002
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/modern/thanissaro/deperception.html
*********************
Disenchantment
by
Phra
Ajaan Suwat Suvaco
Translated from the Thai by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Copyright
© 2001 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free distribution only.
You may reprint
this work for free distribution.
You may re-format and redistribute this work
for use on computers and computer networks
provided that you charge no fees
for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights reserved.
We'll
now start meditating, just as we've been doing every day. We have to look at this
as an important opportunity. Even though our practice hasn't yet reached the Dhamma
to our satisfaction, at the very least it's a beginning, an important beginning,
in gathering the strength of the mind so that our mindfulness, concentration,
and discernment will become healthy and mature. We should try to gather these
qualities together so that they can reinforce one another in washing away the
stains, the defilements, in our minds -- for when defilements arise, they don't
lead to peace, purity, or respite for the mind. Just the opposite: they lead to
suffering, unrest, and disturbance. They block any discernment that would know
or see the Dhamma. There's no defilement that encourages us to practice the Dhamma,
to know or see the Dhamma. They simply get in the way of our practice.
So
whatever mental state gets in the way of our practice we should regard as a defilement
-- for defilements don't come floating along on their own. They have to depend
on the mind. Any mental state that's sleepy or lazy, any mental state that's restless,
angry, or irritable: these are all defilements. They're mental states under the
influence of defilement, overcome by defilement.
If any of these mental states
arise within us, we should be aware of them. When the mind is sleepy, we should
get it to keep buddho in mind so that it will wake up and shake off its sleepiness.
When the mind is restless and irritable, we should use our discernment to reflect
on things to see that these states of mind serve no purpose. Then we should quickly
turn back to our concentration practice, planting the mind firmly in our meditation
theme, not letting the mind get restless and distracted again.
We focus the
mind on being aware of its meditation word, buddho -- what's aware, what's awake.
We keep it in mind as if it were a post planted firmly in the ground. Don't let
the mind wander from the foundation post on which you've focused. But whatever
your focus, don't let your focus be tense. You have to keep the mind in a good
mood while it's focused. Do this with an attitude of mindfulness and discernment,
not one of delusion, wanting to know this or to see that or to force things to
fall in line with your thoughts. If that's the way you meditate, your mood will
grow tense and you won't be able to meditate for long. In no time at all you'll
start getting irritable.
So if you want to meditate for a long time, you have
to be neutral, with equanimity as your foundation. If you want knowledge, focus
firmly on what you're already aware of. Keep your mind firmly in place. Find an
approach that will help you stay focused without slipping away. For example, make
an effort to keep your mind firmly intent and apply your powers of observation
and evaluation to the basis of your buddho. All of these things have to be brought
together at the same spot, along with whatever thinking you need to do so that
mindfulness won't lapse, letting unskillful outside issues come barging in, or
leaving an opening for internal preoccupations to arise in the heart, or letting
yourself get disturbed by thoughts of the past -- things you knew or saw or said
or did earlier today, or many days, many months, many years ago. You have to focus
exclusively on the present.
If you've taken buddho as your meditation theme,
keep coming back to it over and over again. Buddho stands for awareness. If you
can maintain awareness without lapse, this will make an important difference.
If you've taken the breath as your theme, you have to be aware each time the breath
comes in and out. You can't let yourself wander off. You have to take nothing
but the breath as the focal point for mindfulness. The same principles hold in
either case. You do the same things, the only difference is the theme of your
awareness.
Why does the Buddha teach us to focus on the breath? Because we
don't have to look for it, don't have to guess about it, don't have to think it
into being. It's a present phenomenon. There's no such thing as a past breath
or a future breath. There's simply the breath coming in and out in the present.
That's why it's appropriate for exercising our mindfulness, for gathering our
mindfulness and awareness in a single place, for firmly establishing concentration.
So you can focus on either theme -- whichever one you've already meditated
on and found that mindfulness can quickly get established without lapsing and
can quickly produce a sense of stillness and peace. Set that theme up as your
foundation. When you're starting out, focus on keeping that theme in mind.
Once
the mind has had enough stillness, if you simply want it to become more still,
the mind will get into a state where it isn't doing any work because it's not
distracted in any way. If this happens, you have to start contemplating. In the
foundations of mindfulness we're taught to contemplate the various aspects of
the body in and of themselves. We don't have to contemplate anything else. If
you want to contemplate from the angle of inconstancy, it's here in this body.
If you want to contemplate from the angle of stress, it's here in this body. You
can contemplate it from any angle at all. If you want to contemplate from the
angle of eliminating passion and craving, you can look at things that are dirty
and disgusting -- and you find that they fill the body. This is something requiring
you to use your own intelligence. Whatever angle you use, you have to look into
things so that they get more subtle and refined. Contemplate them again and again
until you see things clearly in a way that gives rise to nibbida, or disenchantment,
so that you aren't deluded into latching onto things and giving them meanings
the way you used to.
Turn over a new mind, turning your views into new views.
You no longer want your old mistaken views. Turning from your old views, give
rise to right views. Turning from your old ways of thinking, give rise to right
resolves -- to see the body as repulsive and unattractive. This is nekkhama-sankappa,
the resolve for renunciation, the resolve to escape from sensual passion. We don't
go thinking in other directions or roaming off in other directions. We try to
go in the direction of escaping from the view that the body is beautiful. What
the eye sees of the body is just the outer skin. It's never seen the filthy things
inside. Even though it may have seen them from time to time, as when someone dies
in an accident or when a patient is opened for surgery, there's something in the
mind that keeps us from taking it to heart and giving rise to discernment. There's
something that keeps us from contemplating things down to a level more subtle
than what the eye sees. We see these things and then pass right over them. We
don't get to a level profound enough to give rise to disenchantment.
So contemplate
the body. If the mind has developed a strong enough foundation, it shouldn't stay
stuck just at the level of stillness. But if you haven't yet reached that level
of stillness, you can't skip over it. You first have to make the mind still, because
a firm foundation of stillness is absolutely essential. If you try to contemplate
before the mind has grown still, you'll give rise to knowledge that lasts only
as long as you're in meditation. When you leave meditation and the mind is no
longer firm, your new understandings will disappear. Your old understandings will
come back, just as if you had never meditated. Whatever way you've been deluded
in the past, that's how you'll be deluded again. Whatever views you've had before
won't change into anything else. Whatever ways you've thought, you'll end up deluded
just as before as long as your new ways of thinking aren't based on a foundation
of stillness.
This is why stillness is so essential. We have to get the mind
to gain strength from stillness and then let it contemplate the body in and of
itself in terms of its 32 parts. You can choose any one of the parts, focusing
on it until it's clear. Or you can focus on the parts in sets of five. When you
reach the liquid parts, you can focus on them in sets of six, for there are 12
of them in all. You can contemplate them back and forth -- if your mindfulness
hasn't yet been exercised to the point were it's firm, contemplate these things
back and forth just as a preceptor teaches a new ordinand: kesa, loma, nakha,
danta, taco (hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin), and the
turning them around to taco, danta, nakha, loma, kesa. Then you can go onto the
next set of five -- mansam, nharu, atthi, atthimiñjam, vakkam (muscle,
tendons, bones, bone marrow, spleen). This is called contemplating them in sets
of five.
This is how we start out exercising mindfulness. If, while you're
practicing mindfulness in this way, a visual image of any of these five parts
appears, catch hold of it and contemplate it so that it grows deeper and more
refined. Contemplate it until you can divide the body into its parts, seeing that
each part is just like this. Get so that you know the body inside and out, realizing
that other living beings are just like this, too. If you're looking to see what's
unclean, you'll find it here. If you're looking to see what's not-self, you'll
find it here. Turn these things over in your mind and question yourself as to
whether they're constant. What kind of pleasure is there in these things? Is it
worthwhile or not? Focus on these issues often, look at them often until you're
adept, and the mind will finally be willing to accept the truth, changing from
its old wrong ways of seeing things, and seeing them instead in line with the
Dhamma as taught by the Buddha.
When your views change often in this way,
the mind will experience a new kind of stillness and peace. It will turn away
from the fevers of the fires of passion, aversion, and delusion; and turn into
mindfulness, concentration, and discernment instead. Its knowledge and views will
become clear. It will no longer waver. It will become brave and no longer afraid
in the way it used to be -- for it has come to know the truth: that nothing gets
pained aside from the aggregates; nothing dies aside from the elements. The mind
gets firmly planted. It can meditate with a snug sense of confidence, with no
fear of pain or illness or anything at all. You can separate things out all the
way down. Even if death were to come at that point, you'd be content, for even
though death hasn't yet come, these things have separated out of their own accord.
You've contemplated them and seen them for what they are, each and every one.
So I ask that we all have firm principles in our contemplation. Be genuine
in doing it -- don't just go through the motions -- for all these things are genuine.
If we don't meditate, defilements will inhabit our thoughts, deceiving us so that
we don't see things as they genuinely are. If we depend just on our eyes, they
can fool us. The eye can see only the outside of things. It sees skin, and the
skin can be made up to deceive us. It sees hair of the head, and hair can be made
up to deceive us. It sees hair of the body -- things like eyebrows and beards,
which can be dressed to deceive us. It sees fingernails and toenails, which can
be made up to deceive us. It sees teeth, which can be treated to deceive us, so
that we make all sorts of assumptions about them. The eye has no discernment.
It lets us get deceived -- but it isn't what does the deceiving. The mind is what
deceives itself. Once it deceives itself, it makes all sorts of assumptions about
itself and falls for itself. When it makes itself suffer in this way, there's
no help for it. This is the genuine truth. Know clearly that the mind is what
deceives itself. When it doesn't have a refuge, it can deceive itself all the
time.
So we have to develop qualities that the mind can hold to and take refuge
in, so that defilements won't be able to keep on deceiving it. Look so that you
can see more deeply through things. Try to analyze things to see what's not genuine,
what's dressed and disguised. Then as soon as you look at anything, you'll see
what's fake and made up. You'll know: "The real thing doesn't have this color,
this smell, this shape." You'll see how things are always changing. This
is called having the qualities of the Dhamma as your refuge, as something to hold
to as you look, hear, smell, taste, and make contact with things. You'll have
the qualities that know and see things as they actually are -- so they won't be
able to deceive you. You won't be able to deceive yourself, for you'd be ashamed
to. The heart grows disenchanted with itself, with its old ways -- and why would
it want to deceive itself any more? It's seen that it doesn't gain any benefit
from that kind of behavior.
Instead, you'll see how it really benefits from
its new views. They make the mind still. Clear. Set free with a sense of wellbeing.
All its heavy old burdens fall away. It has no greed for gaining a lot of things,
for there's no more indulging. It doesn't use anything to indulge itself. All
it needs is the four necessities to keep life going -- that's enough. It doesn't
have to invest in anything. It finds its happiness and wellbeing in the stillness
that comes from meditating. The things around it that it used to fall for and
build up into ignorance without realizing it: when it focuses on really knowing
these things, its delusions disband. Ignorance disappears. The mind gains knowledge
from these things in line with what they actually are. It wises up and doesn't
fall for these things as it used to, doesn't misunderstand them as it used to.
And that's the end of its problems.
Revised: Mon 20 May 2002
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/suwat/disenchantment.html
*********************
Emptiness
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free
distribution only.
You may reprint this work for free distribution.
You
may re-format and redistribute this work for use on computers and computer networks
provided
that you charge no fees for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights
reserved.
Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience.
It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental
events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether
there's anything lying behind them.
This mode is called emptiness because
it's empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of
it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world
we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found
that some of the more abstract questions they raise -- of our true identity and
the reality of the world outside -- pull attention away from a direct experience
of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in
the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.
Say
for instance, that you're meditating, and a feeling of anger toward your mother
appears. Immediately, the mind's reaction is to identify the anger as "my"
anger, or to say that "I'm" angry. It then elaborates on the feeling,
either working it into the story of your relationship to your mother, or to your
general views about when and where anger toward one's mother can be justified.
The problem with all this, from the Buddha's perspective, is that these stories
and views entail a lot of suffering. The more you get involved in them, the more
you get distracted from seeing the actual cause of the suffering: the labels of
"I" and "mine" that set the whole process in motion. As a
result, you can't find the way to unravel that cause and bring the suffering to
an end.
If, however, you can adopt the emptiness mode -- by not acting on
or reacting to the anger, but simply watching it as a series of events, in and
of themselves -- you can see that the anger is empty of anything worth identifying
with or possessing. As you master the emptiness mode more consistently, you see
that this truth holds not only for such gross emotions as anger, but also for
even the most subtle events in the realm of experience. This is the sense in which
all things are empty. When you see this, you realize that labels of "I"
and "mine" are inappropriate, unnecessary, and cause nothing but stress
and pain. You can then drop them. When you drop them totally, you discover a mode
of experience that lies deeper still, one that's totally free.
To master the
emptiness mode of perception requires training in firm virtue, concentration,
and discernment. Without this training, the mind tends to stay in the mode that
keeps creating stories and world views. And from the perspective of that mode,
the teaching of emptiness sounds simply like another story or world view with
new ground rules. In terms of the story of your relationship with your mother,
it seems to be saying that there's really no mother, no you. In terms of your
views about the world, it seems to be saying either that the world doesn't really
exist, or else that emptiness is the great undifferentiated ground of being from
which we all came to which someday we'll all return.
These interpretations
not only miss the meaning of emptiness but also keep the mind from getting into
the proper mode. If the world and the people in the story of your life don't really
exist, then all the actions and reactions in that story seem like a mathematics
of zeros, and you wonder why there's any point in practicing virtue at all. If,
on the other hand, you see emptiness as the ground of being to which we're all
going to return, then what need is there to train the mind in concentration and
discernment, since we're all going to get there anyway? And even if we need training
to get back to our ground of being, what's to keep us from coming out of it and
suffering all over again? So in all these scenarios, the whole idea of training
the mind seems futile and pointless. By focusing on the question of whether or
not there really is something behind experience, they entangle the mind in issues
that keep it from getting into the present mode.
Now, stories and world views
do serve a purpose. The Buddha employed them when teaching people, but he never
used the word emptiness when speaking in these modes. He recounted the stories
of people's lives to show how suffering comes from the unskillful perceptions
behind their actions, and how freedom from suffering can come from being more
perceptive. And he described the basic principles that underlie the round of rebirth
to show how bad intentional actions lead to pain within that round, good ones
lead to pleasure, while really skillful actions can take you beyond the round
altogether. In all these cases, these teachings were aimed at getting people to
focus on the quality of the perceptions and intentions in their minds in the present
-- in other words, to get them into the emptiness mode. Once there, they can use
the teachings on emptiness for their intended purpose: to loosen all attachments
to views, stories, and assumptions, leaving the mind empty of all greed, anger,
and delusion, and thus empty of suffering and stress. And when you come right
down to it, that's the emptiness that really counts.
Revised: Wed 16
May 2001
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/modern/thanissaro/emptiness.html
*********************
Ethics
for good living / Where do religions come in?
Bhikkhu
Professor Dhammavihari
People today, particularly those in the world of
youth, choose to challenge and reject those areas of religion which stand on myth,
legens and speculation. But why should we let the baby be thrown away with the
bath-water? I ask you.These new modes of thinking are stirrings of the age which
are not to be brushed aside. These are areas wherein the youth as much as the
older ones, the men as much as the women, clergy as much as the laity, insist
that much of the awe and the mysterious elements in religion can be left behind,
together with their fading out time segments which give them veneration of antiquity.
They need no redecoration and no re-introductions on the windows. Religions need
stronger foundations to stand firm on their own feet.
Whatever glorification
we seek to bring upon religion in the eyes of the world depends on what the religions
have done to improve the lot of man in the areas of family life, interpersonal
relationships and in the wider segment of inter-ethnic and inter-religious co-existence.
Before we go elsewhere, to a life beyond the present, we like to see here and
now the benefits of the religions we so ardently follow. Religions often have
a deadening way of making their adherents believe in many areas of their so-called
benefits. We have very little doubt that it is after careful analysis and study
that religions have come to be called the opium of mankind. Let us face up to
these charges with honesty and endeavour to put things right. But whether we like
it or not, we have to admit that religions of the world today, the major ones
at that, do not always have a very flattering record of their performance in these
areas to their credit.
It is to be admitted that by all realistic reckonings,
men and women go through life in the world under many handicaps and hardships.
Science and technology are developing at such a rate that we find ourselves out
of step to keep track of their progress. Organ transplant is now a thing of the
distant past. We should today be talking of cloning of sheep, more precisely,
of humans. You would recollect having read in the news papers how a young sheep
by the name of Dolly,and another by the name Polly were produced recently. Starting
with Dr. Bernard Christian, the surgeons of the world have made it possible for
old and mal-functioning human hearts to be replaced with new ones. Due to non-availability
and inadequacy of replacements, they hit upon the bright idea of using hearts
of pigs for this purpose. They even went so far as having pig farms set up to
ensure adequate supplies of hearts. But they discovered early enough, to their
utter dismay, the danger of those pigs carrying dangerous viruses like the HIV,
with the possibility of accelerated development of Aids and infecting many more
humans, without any danger to themselves. With all the so-called scientific development,
the basic inherent defects and weaknesses of human life, of its very physical
basis, are no better than when we started.
With a global situation of this
magnitude, it makes much sense for man to face up to it with courage and wisdom.
If one does so, then one knows what makes these situations better or worse. Buddhism
teaches that with all those born into this world, aging is a reality. Disease
and decay are well and truly dear companions of life, whether we like them or
not. What any sensible person would do in these circumstances is to safeguard
oneself against such situations. Not make vows and prayers at every wayside shrine.
Nor make more and more halting places for visiting healers, human or believed
to be divine. It is the fashion of the day for these claimants to healing to move
noisily from one continent to another. Where poverty and ignorance prevail, they
believe they can gather bumper harvests. But this, truly is not the way to combat
disease. It is far better then to prevail upon these divine agents to operate
more in the area of prevention, if they have any power at all to do so. It will
save mankind a great deal more of physical and mental pain, and even a greater
deal more of money and time. Let those powers whom we supplicate and to whom we
address our prayers prevent those calamitous disasters and accidents in the worlds
which cost the humans their lives. It would be much more profitable and much less
painful than rushing around ambulances after the calamitous has happened.
On
the question of life security, whether in terms of the health of oneself or family
members, or in terms of employment security, or financial escalation, personal
confidence or self-reliance of humans seems to be at a very low ebb, everywhere
in the world. Law enforcement in the country is perhaps at its lowest by any world
standards. It is at such lower-than-slum levels of thinking that people who are
helplessly sunk in miserably wretched conditions or who believe themselves to
be so, run in search of relief and assistance from a wide range of newly appointed
divinities. They claim to be getting ahead of latest in medical research. While
many are disappointed at the end of such appeals and such contracts, and nobody
ever produces their statistics, a few who claim they have been rewarded do a great
deal of propaganda on behalf of these divinities and a far greater deal of canvassing.
Perhaps it serves both parties well.
Take a further look at ourselves in society
today. No man, woman or child is safe in any other's hands, even whatever be the
family relationships to one another. It is so today, whether it be in the city
or the village. Incest, rape and adultery and similar aberrant sex behaviour are
as bad as in the days of Sodom and Gommorah of Biblical records. What of the more
trendy and publicly attractive, and at times even very much championed and tourism-wise
attractive homosexuals and paedophiles? In all these adventures, better we term
them misadventures, sometimes looked upon as romantic by quite a few, the material
we deal with are humans. Not mere pithecanthropus erectus. Perhaps the gorillas
and the chimpanzees, as Jane Goodall has demonstrated in her monumental research
on the chimpanzees, have among them a much higher culture than we imagine.
All the world over we read today about the life disasters of now-grown-up men
and women who in their younger years have been victims of rape and paedophile
like crimes. The criminality of these offenses committed by the older upon the
younger of our own flock are intolerably shameful and offensive. If an animal
turned upon any one of us or any one near and dear to us then, no mistake, we
look around and reach for the nearest gun. Why then do we humans connive with
humans in this type of gang villainy. We know what happened in Belgium recently.
A string of horrendous crimes on innocent young girls which made the whole world
weep. Not to protest and not to raise an alarm in this kind of highly anti-social
activity, and at least gather ourselves for collective action, would be no less
than actual gang villainy, though passive. Shall we be accused of this?
It
is in such a world context like the present, anywhere and everywhere, that we
have to generate within us such a concept like good living. The much spoken of
religious identities or ethnic garnishing, should not stand in the way of such
a magnanimous move. We are fully aware that tidal waves of global evangelization
and trans-continental ethnic inundations are menacingly overrunning every continent
and sub-continent. We know quite well that even smaller-size island countries
are not spared. Most of us have seen and sensed this as something that is now
happening in our very presence. But there is a definite dullness and density in
our reacting to this situation. We are being indoctrinated from numerous sources
to react so, in this manner.
What really is the reason for this apathy? Whether
one really senses it or not, human life seems to count for nothing these days.
What happened in the battle fields of World War II, both in victory and in defeat,
came to be glorified as noble acts of sacrifice and patriotism. Dulce et honestun
pro patria mori runs this slogan-like utterance in Latin. It means ' It is sweet
and honourable to die for the sake of one's motheland.' Who achieved what at the
end of it all remains the unanswered question, beautifully locked up in the black
box. Then come the tribal battles of warring groups. These are colossal and wasteful
massacres of human lives. While they are classed as genocide on the one side,
they are much eulogized as wars of liberation on the other. Religious groups gleefully
compete with one another to dispatch the war-dead to heaven or to liberation.
Though not necessarily disparagingly, we were used to refer to those who were
victims of such stupified thinking as cannon fodder. So with very little clear
thinking, we gradually learnt to pray for the repose of the souls of those dead,
perhaps once a year on a war veterans' day. This is apparently no less than allowing
ourselves to be brainwashed.
The very bottom of this degradation of the worth
of human life, in consequence of contemporary militant thinking, has been reached
today where men and women are being freely hired or harnessed to serve as human
bombs. A few of this type were known in World War II where, in the Eastern theater
of war, the Japanese used what they called frogmen for under water attack on ships
lying in harbours. That disappeared, more or less, with the end of the war. But
suicide bombers are now the order of the day. That they are being used, both men
and women, in a big way seems to be nobody's concern. If those who do it can afford
it, why should it be anybody else's concern would be the challenging question.
Brainwashed or otherwise, does this not make talk of human rights, as they are
being discussed even in legal parlours over various issues, look utterly stupid.
Who then would or should have a right to talk about slave labour, child abuse
etc. ? Are the legal telescopes placed on international blind eyes? International
eyes are quite often seen to pass off as blind. This is the honest impression
one gets as one scans the international horizons from time to time, east or west.
It is the reality and the seriousness of this reality which makes us pick
up a subject like good living and ethics for good living. Experience of humanity,
living on this planet over several millennia, has produced a vast fabric yielding
good samples for closer scrutiny. It is now agreed that it is the frantic search
for the glory of the so-called material culture of mankind, with the like of Roman
amphitheaters, that catapulted the collapse of those vast civilizations. Men and
women sitting comfortably with wine and song, to gratify their sense pleasures
at the expense of a few other helpless humans put into encounters of life and
death in the midst of ferocious beasts. Today's sense of entertainment and enjoyment
has crossed over to yet another area much more perilous than this. Not only is
the entertainer in peril today.
Those who seek entertainment through these
corrosive channels, not only expose themselves to enormous areas of ruin, but
also expose others who are near and dear to them to similar or far greater destruction.
Today's addiction to alcohol, from teenagers of both sexes to alcoholics of ripe
old age, and proneness to tobacco and other drugs are inestimable in the destruction
they cause to human lives. They know the destruction and damage smoke and dust
causes to structures like the London Bridge. They also know of the destruction
passive smoking does to the women and children who live in a smoker's home. But
the positive damage to iron perhaps is more physically visible and therefore more
convincing.
The same is equally true of the pursuit of sex. Whether one calls
sex a primary instinct or not, now the world is reaching a stage, when the need
is felt to set limits to its pursuit and enjoyment. The social disruptiveness
of the wild chase for sex gratification as well as the equally disastrous damage
it does to the health of humans, even across generations, as in the case of AIDS,
is all too well known. Abortion, together with problems of unmarried mothers and
single parent homes, not only call for comment but for serious study at all levels
of religion and society. We are proud indeed that teenage girls of the United
States of America, backed by the Methodist Church in that country, are genuinely
and adequately vociferous in their protest against teenage sex and sex exploitation.
It is they in America, specially their psychologists and psychiatrists who now
tell the world about such concepts like aging and sageing, about the need to instruct
children about delaying gratification. Beneath these new trends in thinking which
show themselves up in the western world, we discern a new ray of hope for the
future of the world, i.e. for the survival humanity on this earth.It is here that
we wish to invoke the religions of the world to step in to fulfill honourably
the role which devolves upon them by virtue of what they claim they stand for.
We have to believe that they are not down here on earth to serve a God above at
the expense of man. We must understand our prime duty to be to make life of men
and women down here on earth to be divinely acceptable for the benefit of one
another. A kingdom of man amongst us has to be our first priority. This is the
way the Buddhists are taught to look at this problem. It is the goodness of humans
as humans, achieved through a clearly laid down process of self-correction, that
elevates them to higher levels of divine living here and now.
These are what
the Buddhists refer to as Brahma-vihàra or divine modes of living. Universal
loving kindness, in a spirit of amity, is our starting point. It is a two-way
love of direct friendship, without a mediating third party. That directness is
explicitly contained in the word maitri or mettà. It is love that knows
no bounds. The Metta Sutta refers to it as asambàdhaü averaü
asapattaü. This is followed by loving thoughts of compassion to relieve those
in pain and misery and in less fortunate circumstances. Friendship of loving kindness
has already preceded it. In such a loving, well-wishing amicable community, Buddhist
thinking leaves no room for jealousies and competitive rivalries. So we have the
third virtue that grows up in this series in mudità which we would choose
to translate as appreciative joy. We are not very happy with its current translation
as sympathetic joy.
A frame of mind of this sort, with a deep-seated sense
of love for amity [ metta ], of compassion for sympathy [ karuõà
] and a joyous appreciation of the success of others [ mudità ] will very
naturally promote the growth of a social ethic which will successfully handle
multiple areas of human relationships. These will invariably lead to harmonious
community living, with a real and serious concern for the weal and welfare of
every other person in whose midst we live, and have to live, as social beings.
The Buddhist teachings refer to the absence of such a robust ethic as a state
of anarchy in society where dread and fear [ that is bhaya ] as well as enmity
and hostility [ vera ] reign supreme. Buddhist teachings, both in the interests
of their transcendental aspirations as well as in their interests of social well
being, insist on the elimination of these out of the human community. They speak
of the våpasamana of these pa¤ca- bhayàni and pa¤na-veràni.
The way to achieving this is given as the social restraint achieved via the moral
rectitude of the pa¤casãla.
Let me wind up my appeal to you
today with a very brief introduction to this area of Buddhist ethics. Buddhism
offers it to the world in a very magnanimous way, very gently and respectfully
via the concept of the Universal Monarch or Cakkavatti King. What is meaningfully
interesting and seriously applicable about it is its relevance to the world situation
today. It reckons with humanity as a totality, a global community at that, without
any regional differences on the basis of ethnicity, political ideology or religious
creeds followed. All manner of rulers from the east and the west, the north and
the south come to the Cakkavatti and invite him to instruct them as to how each
one of them should rule their land.
What is amazing in this context is that
what goes out from this one central authority of the Cakkavatti has one unmistakable
dominant note. It insists : Never mind the political pattern you have followed
so far. Carry on as you have done before. But guarantee that social justice and
moral order prevail within your kingdoms. Buddhist teachings attempt to achieve
this through the propagation of what is known as the pa¤casãla.
We have already referred to the need in society of these fivefold restraints of
1. respect for life of all sorts, 2. respect for the other's ownership of his
legitimate property, 3. respect for the gender roles of men and women and the
consequent regulation of sex behaviour in society, 4. respect for decency in honesty
of word or deed, and 5. respect for maintenance of sanity of judgement by avoidance
of drugs and alcohol. This we bravely call the Fundamental Human Rights Charter
of the Buddhists, issued to the world as a whole well over twenty-five centuries
ago. Until we are clever enough to evolve anything acceptably better, why not
give it a decent trial? Make up your mind, right now.
May all beings be well
and happy. May there be peace on earth and good will among men.
*********************
Excerpt
from Breath by Breath
From the Introduction
Every
student's practice is peculiarly his or her own and comes together in its own
way. My practice has unfolded over many years, and it focuses on a particular
discourse of the Buddha. But it was some time before I saw the real value of this
teaching.
My first teachers were from India, J. Krishnamurti and Vimala Thaker.
They were nonsectarian and placed a strong emphasis on maintaining awareness at
all times. By the early 1970s I had studied meditation for a number of years,
including four years with Vedanta master Swami Chinmayanda. I had worked with
the Korean Zen master Seung Sahn for five years and had lived in that country
for a year. More recently I had studied Soto Zen with the Japanese master Katagiri
Roshi. Gradually I came to see that the Theravada tradition of vipassana meditation
was a better match for me. All of these practices are closely related, of course,
and can enrich one another.
I was practicing at one of this country's prominent
centers of vipassana meditation, the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts,
when I encountered a monk named Bhikkhu Vimalo, a German national who had studied
for twenty years in Burma, Thailand, and India.
At that point my practice
was samatha/vipassana; I focused on the breathing in order to calm the mind, then-dropping
the breath as an object-opened the attention to a wider focus, noticing the arising
and passing away of whatever aspect of body or mind presented itself most vividly.
Bhikkhu Vimalo argued that I was seriously limiting my work with the breath, that
in fact the breath could take me all the way to the deepest realizations.
He
told me of a particular sutra of the Buddha's, the Anapanasati Sutra, which outlined
how the awareness of breathing could be used systematically to embrace both samatha
and vipassana. I was impressed by what Bhikku Vimalo told me and eventually led
some retreats with him, but it would be years before I was fully convinced of
the importance of breath awareness teaching as a complete practice.
My conversion
came during an intense two-hour meeting with the great Thai teacher Ajahn Buddhadasa,
an encounter that had a profound impact on my practice and changed my teaching
forever. Buddhadasa was nearly eighty when I saw him, and not particularly well,
but tireless in his teaching. He often taught informally, sitting in front of
his hut in the forest with students-and wild chickens, and a dog-gathered around
him. He was convinced that the Anapanasati Sutra was a key document for practice
and an ideal vehicle for teaching. He took me through the entire sutra step-by-step,
in a detailed and painstaking way, part lecture, part meditation instruction.
By the time he had finished, I was exhausted and soaking wet. It was one of the
most powerful periods of learning I have ever experienced.
To summarize very
briefly: the Anapanasati Sutra is composed of sixteen contemplations, which divide
rather neatly into four sets of four. The first four contemplations concern the
awareness of breathing as it manifests in the body. The next four focus on feelings-not
what we mean by that word in our culture, but everything that we perceive by means
of our sense organs. The third set of four focuses on the mind, the mental formations
and emotions that we concoct when we add ideas to our feelings. And the last four
move on to pure vipassana, seeing into the lawfulness underlying all phenomena.
Basic to all of these contemplations is the breath, which is used in them as an
anchor, a reminder, to keep the practitioner in the present moment.
Buddhadasa's
approach was rational and systematic but also beautifully timed to open me up
emotionally. He knew something of my history, and I had told him of my particular
interest in the Zen concept of emptiness. When we got to the thirteenth contemplation-which
concerns impermanence, and where real vipassana begins-he said that anapanasati
was one of the simplest and most effective means for realizing emptiness. We could
move from the vantage point of the thirteenth back through the twelve previous
contemplations and see impermanence and emptiness in all of them.
I remember
in particular the moment when we focused on the first contemplation, on the breath
itself. I was sitting and listening meditatively as he instructed me. "There
is no question," he said, "that breathing is taking place. Can you see
that there is no breather to be found anywhere? The body is empty, the breath
is empty, and you are empty."
He meant that all these phenomena are empty
of self or anything belonging to the self; they are impermanent. They arise by
given conditions, and when those conditions change, they pass away. The concept
of impermanence in this contemplation actually encompasses the other laws of wisdom,
that all phenomena are unsatisfactory and lack an abiding self. The simple vehicle
of the breath takes the practitioner from calming the mind all the way to the
deepest wisdom, to nirvana.
To say so much, of course, is to get way ahead
of my story, but it is necessary to give some idea of what happened to me on that
day. It wasn't just what Ajahn Buddhadasa said but also the way he said it, his
insistence and his conviction. He let me see that because the breath is so unassuming,
I had been undervaluing it. I was looking for a complicated path to enlightenment,
when this simple one was right before me.
He argued that the breath was an
ideal vehicle for teaching Buddhism in the West; it didn't carry the cultural
baggage that mantras, koans, and other methods do. He also argued that this sutra
was directly related to the Satipatthana Sutra, considered in the Theravada tradition
to be the core of the Buddha's meditation teaching. The Anapanasati Sutra covers
the same material in a more streamlined way, he said, and examines it with the
help of conscious breathing. I left Thailand on that occasion with a new and clearer
focus to my practice.
That was one of those moments in my life when many things
came together. For years I had been a natural foods enthusiast and had practiced
and was still practicing yoga, an ancient discipline that gives great attention
to the breathing. I began to see that one thing that had always attracted me about
the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh was his recognition of the special nature of
breathing. Time that I later spent with him on three long retreats was equally
important in helping me grasp the full implications of the Buddha's teaching on
breath awareness.
Thich Nhat Hanh's lineage draws on both Theravada and Mahayana
teachings, and he is quietly and gently on fire with enthusiasm for this practice.
He more than anyone else demonstrates the importance of bringing breath awareness
into daily life, of staying awake in the midst of all our activities. He is unrelenting
in his teaching, and it took such a strong message to get through to me.
This
intense focus on the breathing connected with Soto Zen, with the work I had done
with Katagiri Roshi and through him Suzuki Roshi, author of the seminal text Zen
Mind, Beginner's Mind. Soto Zen emphasizes full attention to breathing and posture;
all the wisdom one needs will be a natural outcome of such complete presence.
The Anapanasati Sutra -though it can be used as a systematic course of contemplations-is
also a blueprint of the way in which that wisdom can arise.
I have always
been interested in Dharma study-I believe that, put in proper perspective, study
and practice become one-and have always loved the classic texts of Buddhism. It
gives me great satisfaction to teach from a sutra that is more than twenty-five
hundred years old, as vital and alive and important as when it was originally
spoken. For nearly ten years, it has been the basis of my personal practice and
my teaching, and it has proven inexhaustible as a means to examine the message
of the Buddha.
But I need to say a few things about the text before we begin.
Seen in one way, it is a program to follow, one that takes the meditator from
the observation of a simple process in the body-the in-and-out breathing-all the
way to full awakening and realization. That is the way some teachers use it, most
notably, in my experience, Ajahn Buddhadasa.
But it is also true that much
of what the sutra describes will turn up naturally if you just sit and follow
the breathing, if you persist in that practice over the course of days and months
and years. It is natural for your attention to deepen until it includes the whole
body, and for that process gradually to calm the body. Once your attention is
in the body, you begin to notice feelings and your mental reactions to them, which
lead you into the mind as a vast realm to explore. Finally, if you're paying attention,
you can't help noticing that all the phenomena you're observing arise and pass
away, that they are impermanent and lack an essential core.
The sixteen contemplations,
then, represent a natural process. They might not unfold in exactly that order,
and some of them might stand out more than others. But most of these aspects of
body and mind eventually, and quite naturally, show up if you sit and look into
yourself over a period of time.
That isn't the same thing as training in each
contemplation, where you persistently come back to the object of the contemplation
and confine your attention to it no matter what else is going on. So you can use
the sutra as a training program or as the description of a process, but, however
you use it, you can't force these steps. They will happen in their own time; you
can't bring them about. You can prepare the ground, certainly, and make a sincere
effort, but ultimately your body and mind do what they want, and you won't have
much say about it.
*********************
Five
Piles of Bricks
The Khandhas as Burden &
Path
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Copyright © 2002 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For
free distribution only.
You may reprint this work for free distribution.
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may re-format and redistribute this work for use on computers and computer networks
provided
that you charge no fees for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights
reserved.
The Buddha's Awakening gave him, among other things, a new
perspective on the uses and limitations of words. He had discovered a reality
-- the Deathless -- that no words could describe. At the same time, he discovered
that the path to Awakening could be described, although it involved a new way
of seeing and conceptualizing the problem of suffering and stress. Because ordinary
concepts were often poor tools for teaching the path, he had to invent new concepts
and to stretch pre-existing words to encompass those concepts so that others could
taste Awakening themselves.
One of the new concepts most central to his teaching
was that of the khandhas, which are most frequently translated into English as
"aggregates." Prior to the Buddha, the Pali word khandha had very ordinary
meanings: A khandha could be a pile, a bundle, a heap, a mass. It could also be
the trunk of a tree. In his first sermon, though, the Buddha gave it a new, psychological
meaning, introducing the term "clinging-khandhas" to summarize his analysis
of the truth of stress and suffering. Throughout the remainder of his teaching
career, he referred to these psychological khandhas time and again. Their importance
in his teachings has thus been obvious to every generation of Buddhists ever since.
Less obvious, though, has been the issue of how they are important: How should
a meditator make use of the concept of the psychological khandhas? What questions
are they meant to answer?
The most common response to these questions is best
exemplified by two recent scholarly books devoted to the subject. Both treat the
khandhas as the Buddha's answer to the question, "What is a person?"
To quote from the jacket of the first:
"If Buddhism denies a permanent
self, how does it perceive identity?... What we conventionally call a 'person'
can be understood in terms of five aggregates, the sum of which must not be taken
for a permanent entity, since beings are nothing but an amalgam of ever-changing
phenomena... [W]ithout a thorough understanding of the five aggregates, we cannot
grasp the liberation process at work within the individual, who is, after all,
simply an amalgam of the five aggregates."
From the introduction of the
other:
"The third key teaching is given by the Buddha in contexts when
he is asked about individual identity: when people want to know 'what am I?',
'what is my real self?'. The Buddha says that individuality should be understood
in terms of a combination of phenomena which appear to form the physical and mental
continuum of an individual life. In such contexts, the human being is analysed
into five constituents -- the pañcakkhandha [five aggregates]."
This
understanding of the khandhas isn't confined to scholars. Almost any modern Buddhist
meditation teacher would explain the khandhas in a similar way. And it isn't a
modern innovation. It was first proposed at the beginning of the common era in
the commentaries to the early Buddhist canons -- both the Theravadin and the Sarvastivadin,
which formed the basis for Mahayana scholasticism.
However, once the commentaries
used the khandhas to define what a person is, they spawned many of the controversies
that have plagued Buddhist thinking ever since: "If a person is just khandhas,
then what gets reborn?" "If a person is just khandhas, and the khandhas
are annihilated on reaching total nibbana, then isn't total nibbana the annihilation
of the person?" "If a person is khandhas, and khandhas are interrelated
with other khandhas, how can one person enter nibbana without dragging everyone
else along?"
A large part of the history of Buddhist thought has been
the story of ingenious but unsuccessful attempts to settle these questions. It's
instructive to note, though, that the Pali canon never quotes the Buddha as trying
to answer them. In fact, it never quotes him as trying to define what a person
is at all. Instead, it quotes him as saying that to define yourself in any way
is to limit yourself, and that the question, "What am I?" is best ignored.
This suggests that he formulated the concept of the khandhas to answer other,
different questions. If, as meditators, we want to make the best use of this concept,
we should look at what those original questions were, and determine how they apply
to our practice.
The canon depicts the Buddha as saying that he taught only
two topics: suffering and the end of suffering (SN XXII.86). A survey of the Pali
discourses shows him using the concept of the khandhas to answer the primary questions
related to those topics: What is suffering? How is it caused? What can be done
to bring those causes to an end?
The Buddha introduced the concept of the
khandhas in his first sermon in response to the first of these questions. His
short definition of suffering was "the five clinging-khandhas." This
fairly cryptic phrase can be fleshed out by drawing on other passages in the canon.
The five khandhas are bundles or piles of form, feeling, perception, fabrications,
and consciousness. None of the texts explain why the Buddha used the word khandha
to describe these things. The meaning of "tree trunk" may be relevant
to the pervasive fire imagery in the canon -- nibbana being extinguishing of the
fires of passion, aversion, and delusion -- but none of the texts explicitly make
this connection. The common and explicit image is of the khandhas as burdensome
(SN XXII.22). We can think of them as piles of bricks we carry on our shoulders.
However, these piles are best understood, not as objects, but as activities, for
an important passage (SN XXII.79) defines them in terms of their functions. Form
-- which covers physical phenomena of all sorts, both within and without the body
-- wears down or "de-forms." Feeling feels pleasure, pain, and neither
pleasure nor pain. Perception labels or identifies objects. Consciousness cognizes
the six senses (counting the intellect as the sixth) along with their objects.
Of the five khandhas, fabrication is the most complex. Passages in the canon define
it as intention, but it includes a wide variety of activities, such as attention,
evaluation, and all the active processes of the mind. It is also the most fundamental
khandha, for its primary activity is to take the potential for the experience
of form, feeling, etc. -- coming from past actions -- and turn it into the actual
experience of those things in the present moment.
Thus intention is an integral
part of our experience of all the khandhas -- an important point, for this means
that there is an element of intention in all suffering. This opens the possibility
that suffering can be ended by changing our intentions -- or abandoning them entirely
-- which is precisely the point of the Buddha's teachings.
To understand how
this happens, we have to look more closely at how suffering arises -- or, in other
words, how khandhas become clinging-khandhas.
When khandhas are experienced,
the process of fabrication normally doesn't simply stop there. If attention focuses
on the khandhas' attractive features -- beautiful forms, pleasant feelings, etc.
-- it can give rise to passion and delight. This passion and delight can take
many forms, but the most tenacious is the habitual act of fabricating a sense
of me or mine, identifying with a particular khandha (or set of khandhas) or claiming
possession of it.
This sense of me and mine is rarely static. It roams like
an amoeba, changing its contours as it changes location. Sometimes expansive,
sometimes contracted, it can view itself as identical with a khandha, as possessing
a khandha, as existing within a khandha, or as having a khandha existing within
itself (see SN XXII.85). At times feeling finite, at other times infinite, whatever
shape it takes it's always unstable and insecure, for the khandhas providing its
food are simply activities and functions, inconstant and insubstantial. In the
words of the canon, the khandhas are like foam, like a mirage, like the bubbles
formed when rain falls on water (SN XXII.95). They're heavy only because the iron
grip of trying to cling to them is burdensome. As long as we're addicted to passion
and delight for these activities -- as long as we cling to them -- we're bound
to suffer.
The Buddhist approach to ending this clinging, however, is not
simply to drop it. As with any addiction, the mind has to be gradually weaned
away. Before we can reach the point of no intention, where we're totally freed
from the fabrication of khandhas, we have to change our intentions toward the
khandhas so as to change their functions. Instead of using them for the purpose
of constructing a self, we use them for the purpose of creating a path to the
end of suffering. Instead of carrying piles of bricks on our shoulders, we take
them off and lay them along the ground as pavement.
The first step in this
process is to use the khandhas to construct the factors of the noble eightfold
path. For example, Right Concentration: we maintain a steady perception focused
on an aspect of form, such as the breath, and used directed thought and evaluation
-- which count as fabrications -- to create feelings of pleasure and refreshment,
which we spread through the body. In the beginning, it's normal that we experience
passion and delight for these feelings, and that consciousness follows along in
line with them. This helps get us absorbed in mastering the skills of concentration.
Once we've gained the sense of strength and wellbeing that comes from mastering
these skills, we can proceed to the second step: attending to the drawbacks of
even the refined khandhas we experience in concentration, so as to undercut the
passion and delight we might feel for them:
"Suppose that an archer or
archer's apprentice were to practice on a straw man or mound of clay, so that
after a while he would become able to shoot long distances, to fire accurate shots
in rapid succession, and to pierce great masses. In the same way, there is the
case where a monk... enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure
born of withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. He regards
whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perceptions, fabrications,
& consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow,
painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, a void, not-self. [Similarly
with the other levels of jhana]" (AN IX.36).
The various ways of fostering
dispassion are also khandhas, khandhas of perception. A standard list includes
the following: the perception of inconstancy, the perception of not-self, the
perception of unattractiveness, the perception of drawbacks (the diseases to which
the body is subject), the perception of abandoning, the perception of distaste
for every world, the perception of the undesirability of all fabrications (AN
X.60). One of the most important of these perceptions is that of not-self. When
the Buddha first introduced the concept of not-self in his second sermon (SN XXII.59),
he also introduced a way of strengthening its impact with a series of questions
based around the khandhas. Taking each khandha in turn, he asked: "Is it
constant or inconstant?" Inconstant. "And is what is inconstant stressful
or pleasurable?" Stressful. "And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant,
stressful, subject to change as: 'This is mine. This is my self. This is what
I am'?" No.
These questions show the complex role the khandhas play in
this second step of the path. The questions themselves are khandhas -- of fabrication
-- and they use the concept of the khandhas to deconstruct any passion and delight
that might center on the khandhas and create suffering. Thus, in this step, we
use khandhas that point out the drawbacks of the khandhas.
If used unskillfully,
though, these perceptions and fabrications can simply replace passion with its
mirror image, aversion. This is why they have to be based on the first step --
the wellbeing constructed in jhana -- and coupled with the third step, the perceptions
of dispassion and cessation that incline the mind to the deathless: "This
is peace, this is exquisite -- the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment
of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding"
(AN IX.76). In effect, these are perception-khandhas that point the mind beyond
all khandhas.
The texts say that this three-step process can lead to one of
two results. If, after undercutting passion and delight for the khandhas, the
mind contains any residual passion for the perception of the deathless, it will
attain the third level of Awakening, called non-return. If passion and delight
are entirely eradicated, though, all clinging is entirely abandoned, the intentions
that fabricate khandhas are dropped, and the mind totally released. The bricks
of the pavement have turned into a runway, and the mind has taken off.
Into
what? The authors of the discourses seem unwilling to say, even to the extent
of describing it as a state of existence, non-existence, neither, or both. As
one of the discourses states, the freedom lying beyond the khandhas also lies
beyond the realm to which language properly applies (DN 15; see also AN IV.174).
There is also the very real practical problem that any preconceived notions of
that freedom, if clung to as a perception-khandha, could easily act as an obstacle
to its attainment. Still, there is also the possibility that, if properly used,
such a perception-khandha might act as an aid on the path. So the discourses provide
hints in the form of similes, referring to total freedom as:
The unfashioned,
the end,
the effluent-less, the true, the beyond,
the subtle, the very-hard-to-see,
the
ageless, permanence, the undecaying,
the featureless, non-elaboration,
peace,
the deathless,
the exquisite, bliss, solace,
the exhaustion of craving,
the wonderful, the marvelous,
the secure, security,
unbinding,
the
unafflicted, the passionless, the pure,
release, non-attachment,
the island,
shelter, harbor, refuge,
the ultimate.
[SN XLIII.1-44]
Other passages
mention a consciousness in this freedom -- "without feature or surface, without
end, luminous all around" -- lying outside of time and space, experienced
when the six sense spheres stop functioning (MN 49). In this it differs from the
consciousness-khandha, which depends on the six sense spheres and can be described
in such terms as near or far, past, present, or future. Consciousness without
feature is thus the awareness of Awakening. And the freedom of this awareness
carries over even when the awakened person returns to ordinary consciousness.
As the Buddha said of himself:
"Freed, dissociated, & released from
form, the Tathagata dwells with unrestricted awareness. Freed, dissociated, &
released from feeling... perception... fabrications... consciousness... birth...
aging... death... suffering & stress... defilement, the Tathagata dwells with
unrestricted awareness" (AN X.81).
This shows again the importance of
bringing the right questions to the teachings on the khandhas. If you use them
to define what you are as a person, you tie yourself down to no purpose. The questions
keep piling on. But if you use them to put an end to suffering, your questions
fall away and you're free. You never again cling to the khandhas and no longer
need to use them to end your self-created suffering. As long as you're still alive,
you can employ the khandhas as needed for whatever skillful uses you see fit.
After that, you're liberated from all uses and needs, including the need to find
words to describe that freedom to yourself or to anyone else.
Revised:
Mon 9 June 2003
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/modern/thanissaro/khandha.html
*********************
Four
Noble Truths
Note for student
by
Nagasena Bhikkhu
Two months after his enlightenment, the Buddha
first started teaching the four noble truths to his former friends with whom he
used to practice austerity. For the remaining forty-five years of the Buddha's
life he explained these four noble truths to his audience in accordance with their
ability.
What are they?
1. Dukkha - suffering.
2. Samudaya - the cause
of suffering
3. Nirodha - the end of suffering
4. Magga - the path leading
to the end of suffering
Dukkha -Suffering
Suffering is a negative side of
life. We don't want it to happen but we cannot avoid it. It is because our life
is not permanent. See the history of Kissagotami. Though we enjoy so much our
material possessions and even though we feel so happy throughout our life to the
present, one day we have to get old, become sick and die. Before death, we get
a great deal of pain and fear. Thus life ends up with suffering.
We don't
need to wait for our own death to experience the suffering. There are many forms
of suffering that arise in our life. For example, we suffer when our loved ones
go sick or beloved possessions go wrong; or when we don't get what we want. Furthermore,
we suffer when we have to live with someone we don't like or we cannot live with
whom we love so much. If something does not happen as we wish is suffering or
what is gained is changed and become discontented. Truly speaking, the unsatisfactory
mind is suffering. It is profound to understand. Therefore Vipassana meditation
is required to see it.
The application: If suffering arises, the best healing
is to comprehend, to feel, and to experience instead of avoiding it. This is called
(Parinññatabba). If we comprehend it through meditation, as it really
is, the negative aspect of life will transform into a positive way of thinking.
We will then be able to accept whatever happens to us as it is.
Samudaya-
the cause of suffering
The cause of suffering is our own desire and craving
(Tanha). That is our own mind, which is never satisfied with what we have. This
dissatisfied mind generates more desire and more action. If we have achieved something,
we have the worry of losing it. This is very subtle suffering. If you achieve
something that you wanted, the desire turns into something else. Because of desire
and craving, we can harm other beings, we can lie or we can cheat. As a result,
consequence is inevitable. Suffering arises after Kamma and the Kamma generates
out of desire and craving. See kamma section.
Can we stop desire?
It is
not at all easy. That is why the four noble truths are not easy to practice; because
we cannot stop desire. The Buddha does not teach us to stop it without wisdom.
You will learn the way of wisdom in the noble eightfold path bellow. The Buddha
only advises us not to practice excessive desire. To stop the practice of excessive
desire, you should practice through the noble eightfold path. If we stop our desire,
for example, if we even don't want to eat an appropriate food, what will happen?
We will suffer greatly because of that. This is called austerity practice. The
Buddha used to practice it but later he learnt that he could die without realising
the truth. The Buddha avoided both austerity practice and the practice of excessive
desire.
Without desire, we cannot perform good things such as helping other
beings. You come to this class because you desire to learn. This desire is therefore
associated with understanding. We may not be able to achieve enlightenment in
this life but we have a desire to achieve it one day in a subsequent life. Therefore,
as a layman or as a monk, we can practice Párami of morality, of patience,
of loving-kindness, of meditation, of wisdom or of generosity whenever we get
the opportunity and then we can transform it to the achievement of enlightenment
and peace. When our mind has matured, one day in a future life, we will be able
to stop the practice of excessive desire and we can purify the mind with wisdom
and meditation. We can do it even in this life, maybe at least before we die,
the mind can transform into the state of ultimate peace. We can gradually develop
our life into perfection and purity. It is good that you learn how to practice
it.
The application of the second noble truth is let go (excessive) desire,
which make us uneasy, discontented and dissatisfied. Presume you are a businessman.
Two different clients wanted to see you at 2pm but you cannot see them together
because they want to see you for different issues. You decided to see first person
therefore you have to cancel for the second person. Due to some reasons, the first
person did not turn up to see you. You felt very disappointed and upset. According
to your understanding, the second person was more important to you. You then thought
if you were to see the second person, you could get more benefit. The greater
disappointment occurs to you if you think of the meeting of second person. In
this case, the disappointment is dependent on how much you give importance of
the meeting and its outcome. The treatment to such situation is to let go the
desire.
Nirodha- the end of suffering
The end of suffering is called the
end of desire. The mind then transforms into a state of peace instead of desire.
The nature of desire is related to the reaction part of the mind. However, when
we transform it into contentment and peace through practice, we don't react any
more out of desire. So Kamma is not produced. Such people do not need to come
back to suffer again. The peace remains forever in perfect contentment. This is
the state of enlightenment. The application of this truth is to realise the peace
through meditation. That is the realisation of the absence of suffering.
Magga
-the path leading to the end of suffering
The final part of four noble truths
is to practice and develop the mind. They are the noble eightfold path.
1.
Practice of wisdom or understanding
2. Practice of right thought
3. Practice
of right speech
4. Practice of right action
5. Practice of right livelihood
6.
Practice of right effort
7. Practice of right mindfulness
8. Practice of
right concentration
With these practices we can gradually overcome the suffering.
Application of these noble eightfold path is to practice gradually.
How can
we practice right wisdom?
There are number of methods to practice it. The
first practice is to understand what is suffering, what is the cause of suffering,
what is the cessation of suffering and what is the path leading to the cessation
of suffering. Take this example; you are too tired today, as you did not sleep
well last night. When you investigated the cause you found that it was the affect
of drinking coffee or you are suffering from heart disease because you eat too
much fatty food. If you don't eat fatty food, you can overcome from the risk of
heart disease. So, both cases of tiring and heart disease have their cause. The
explanation looks rather a study of science than that of a religious teaching.
That is right because Buddhism is a spiritualism started on the ground of law
of the nature and their cause and effect. Similarly, the investigation of fear,
anxiety and discontentment is part of the practice of wisdom. The practice of
wisdom is therefore to investigate both mental and physical cause of suffering.
The second practice is to accept the cause and effect of our action. This means
that we accept our Kamma, whatever it may be. We don't run away from the action
(Kamma) that we have done. If we have done something wrong, we don't throw to
somebody or we don't seek external being for overcoming of our wrong action but
we accept the outcome calmly. The former practice is the wisdom of investigation
and the latter is the wisdom of accepting the outcome. Finally, the third practice
is to develop the mind and accept that which is impermanent as impermanence, suffering
as suffering and lack of self as lack of self without fear. There is nothing permanent
in the world. When we are young, we don't notice the law of impermanence. In actual
fact, because of impermanence we become old, sick, suffering and death. We cannot
change our feeling, emotion, as we want to. This is because we don't really possess
of a self to control them. Therefore we are lack of self. We should practice to
accept their nature through meditation. According to Buddhism, the real practice
of wisdom starts from meditation.
How can we practice the right thought?
We
should train to avoid thinking with
1. Ill will,
2. Unnecessary desire
and
3. Cruelty.
That means that whatever we think should be free from ill
will, excessive desire and cruelty. Instead, we generate loving kindness, compassion
and generosity to all beings. This is practice of right thought.
How can we
practice right speech?
Whatever words we speak, the language should be free
from four types of speech;
1. Lying,
2. Being abusive
3. Divisive
and
4. Idle gossip.
We practice to speak truth, polite and gentle words
in our daily lives.
How can we practice right action?
Whatever action we
do in daily life should not be any of the four wrong actions. These are:
1.
Harming other beings
2. Stealing
3. Sexual misconduct and
4. Drinking
alcohol or taking drugs that are harmful to our mind.
Instead we practice to
save other lives, giving donations or helping other beings and so on.
How
can we practice right livelihood?
By whatever livelihood we live, it should
not run by a business which can result in harm to other beings such as the business
of killing living beings for food, or making weapons or poison.
For the practice
of right effort,
of right mindfulness,
and of right concentration,
please
look in Four Satipathana and Four Padhana. These three practices are required
in meditation practice.
Four Satipathana - Mindfulness Meditation Practice:
1.
Kayanupassana - contemplation of the body
2. Vedananupassana - contemplation
of feeling
3. Cittanupassana - contemplation of the mind
4. Dhammanupassana
- contemplation of the Dhamma
The four foundations of mindfulness are a primary
requisite for meditation practice. Every practitioner is required to have sound
experience of meditative awareness so as to practice in the right way. All human
beings consist of mind, feeling and body. The theory of Satipathana offers a precise
method of how to observe these three phenomena in order to know ourselves, who
we are and how we can achieve a peaceful or meaningful life.
1. Kayanupassana
- contemplation of the body:
Contemplation of the body starts from our breath.
There are two breaths constantly operating but we don't notice them - in-breath
and out-breath. Through these two breaths, our heart beats, blood flows and our
body functions. First the meditator has to have the proper preparation. Determination
is very important to start with. After the proper preparation, the meditator should
start noting the process of the breath as it comes in and as it goes out. The
tip of the nostril is the best place to focus the attention so as to feel the
air or the force of the breath passing over the upper lip. In the beginning, the
meditator may find it difficult to note the sensation of breath on the upper lip.
If such a difficulty arises, a long breath or holding the breath for a couple
of seconds is suggested, and during this time one should make especial effort
to bring the mind to the breathing process. This practice however should not be
kept up for more than one or two minutes. When the meditator develops full awareness
of the breathing process, s/he should keep such awareness as long as possible,
keeping alert to the in and out breaths. However, when you are used to it, you
often make less effort and finally end up with drowsiness or a wandering mind.
Constant effort is vital to keep concentration. This breathing exercise must be
performed consciously, mindfully and with full care and full attention. Moreover,
when you hear, feel, taste or smell anything, note it objectively and without
reaction. For example, hearing is just note hearing, touching is just touching
without analysis. This is a brief outline of breathing meditation. But we cannot
keep doing the breathing exercise forever, as we have to eat, move or work. So
the second part of the contemplation is to watch our physical movement. If you
do anything, you are fully aware of what you are doing. For example, when you
drink, you note 'I am drinking'. During a meditation retreat, you will be requested
to note the whole process of drinking i.e. holding the cup, putting the water
into it, lifting it, taking water into the mouth and noting the taste of the water
and whether it is hot or cold etc. However, during the course of daily life, you
may not have time for complete awareness. However, you can, note at least drinking
as drinking quite easily as a process. Such activity of awareness can apply when
you are washing, eating, walking sitting and so on, whenever you move your body.
You are just aware of what you are doing. It is possible to develop a certain
amount of awareness during our daily life. But many times, while we are drinking
a cup of tea, we are not aware of drinking; instead our mind is wandering; thinking,
worrying or busy with something. Due to lack of mindfulness, sometimes we drop
the teacup and break it.
2.Cittanupassana - contemplation of the mind
If
you cannot be aware of physical movement or action, you can be aware of your mind
and what is going on while you are drinking. Awareness of your mind is called
cittanupassana. There are uncountable mental processes that arise and disappear.
We don't notice or we don't know them. Cittanupassana is to contemplate our thoughts,
concepts, thinking, and ideas or even to know when we get happy or angry. Try
to be mindful and see how it works. Think of this example: when you drink a cup
of tea but don't know it because your mind is not with the action, then that moment
of thought, no matter what, is said to be a lack of awareness of the mind. This
is called a wandering mind. When you do meditation, you can understand it better.
Thought and feeling are similar types of mind but we can categorize them separately.
Firstly you should develop it through meditation.
3. Vedananupassana - contemplation
of feeling
Feeling is a much stronger type of mind, which is more noticeable
than thinking. Contemplation of feeling is therefore easier. Anger, fear or anxiety
are all types of feeling, which are associated with the negative side of mind.
There are many times we get angry, upset or annoyed but we don't know how to control
such states of mind though the feelings are powerful.
We cannot hire someone
to remind us when we get angry. Suppose someone hires you to watch his anger;
when you remind him, you will be the first person who gets blamed because at that
moment he is very angry. In fact the first victim is the person who gets angry.
You have no peace at that moment at all. You can harm and even kill others. Similarly,
when you are happy or joyous, you don't know or reflect on the state of happiness
or joy.
There are three types of feeling:
1. sukkha vedana - happy feeling,
2.
dukkha vedana -unhappy feeling and
3. upekkha vedana - neutral feeling
When
you are happy, contemplate or reflect on it as it is. When you are unhappy due
to this or that reason, just note it or reflect on it. When you get angry or upset,
you should be mindful of that too.
4. Dhammanupassana - contemplation of mind-objects
The
definition of Dhamma is very wide and profound; it covers all physical and mental
objects. In the Maha Satipathana Sutta the Dhammanupassana means to comprehend
objects of mind insofar as they are responsible for our own peace and its absence
or problems. So, by the practice of Dhamm?nupassan? we can explain the real nature
of mind and its objects. However, it is ineffective without investigating the
other three objects of mindfulness (K?ya, Vedan? and Citta), which make the mind
calm and alert. According to Maha Satipath?na Sutta, there are six mind objects
(Dhamm?nupassana?). They are 1. Five hindrances,
2. Five aggregates,
3.
Six sense bases,
4. Six sense objects,
5. Seven enlightenment factors
6.
Four noble truths.
All the mental objects mentioned under the name of Dhammanupassana
are necessary for the progress of purification. We can easily understand about
the five hindrances in intellectual terms but that alone cannot give rise to wisdom.
I will only explain here how to practice meditation with five hindrances. The
five hindrances are:
1. - Attachment (kamachanda)
2. - Aversion (byapada)
3.
- Sloth and torpor (thina-mida)
4. - Remorse and restless mind (udacca-kukkucca)
5.
- Uncertainty (vicikiccha)
Different meditators experience different sorts
of hindrances. For example, when you hear something during meditation, such as
opening the door, someone snoring behind you, moving or talking etc, your mind
is likely to get disturbed; you may even react with aversion to such objects,
whereas others may not be disturbed. This reaction is a hindrance. There are also
many times when we don't have any difficulty at all during meditation. As a result
we feel pleased, calm and peaceful and don't want to come out from meditation.
We attach to the object of calmness. This is another hindrance since, if such
calmness does not arise next time, we easily get disturbed, agitated, depressed
or disappointed. But the common hindrances come in the form of drowsiness, sloth
and torpor or a wandering and restless mind and we should be aware beforehand
that they might arise. Overcoming such hindrances is not easy and the awareness
of mental objects (Dhamm?nupassan?) is an important tool to cope with them. We
should be ready to accept unwanted guests and make them meditation objects. The
way of practice is to penetrate the inner meaning of such hindrances as they really
are without reaction. The key point of the practice of Dhamm?nupassan? is to accept
them calmly and peacefully. Of course, the outcome depends upon the energy we
put into it. Intellectual understanding is not helpful here. The real meaning
of problems is to be experienced through their undisturbed observation. As a result,
we can reduce our reaction, ignorance and ego. This is the motivation of Dhamm?nupassan?.
The Five aggregates, six sense bases and their corresponding six objects are named
as ultimate reality (see two truths). These phenomena operate under the law of
Dhamma, which is to be understood through practice. It is because they are common
to everybody, regardless of race, gender or identity. However, the practice of
ultimate reality is not possible without understanding the application of four
noble truths. (See four noble truths). We define ourselves; we accept through
meditation and wisdom that such is the conventional level of reality and subject
to decay. To understand better, we can take two aspects of Dhamma. The first is
the quality of mind, which is mainly the combination of negative and positive
mental states. The second aspect is the reality of mind, where such states are
not considered to be a permanent. For example, calmness is a positive state of
mind we can achieve when our meditation is good; similarly, agitation is a negative
state that arises when hindrances are involved. The nature of reality manifests
wherever change takes place and this can only effectively be known through the
meditation experience rather than intellectually. As was pointed out, we can easily
attach to the calmness of our meditation. In fact, such calmness is not permanent
even though it is a positive quality. Similarly, we should not react when we get
agitated or disappointed. Both states of mind change subject to contact, action
and circumstance. When we get calm due to meditation, we should be aware of calmness.
When we get agitated or disappointed, the meditator is just mindful of that agitation
without analysis. Awareness of calmness perceives three stages: arising of calmness,
staying with calmness and changing of calmness. The awareness of changing is very
important so as to catch another state of mind. When such calmness is about to
change into another state, one should be aware of changing to the new state. Awareness
of the new state of mind, whatever it may be, is then continued. This is called
bare attention to every state of mind. It is not easy to observe this process
but it is possible by well-trained and regular practice of meditation. By perceiving
through direct experience, we can achieve wisdom. The same applies to when we
get agitated or feel ill will. Negative states of mind are more difficult to see
or control, since they are mostly associated with ego. However, regular practice
can reduce their power. This practice is also called insight meditation.
The
key to success in meditation depends on three factors:
1. Atapi -Constant effort
given to meditation
2. Satima - awareness of any of the four objects as they
arise.
3. Sampajano - clear awareness of what is happening in the present.
2.
Four efforts (Catta Padhana)
1. Effort to avoid unwholesome thought or action,
which has not yet arisen. (samvara padhana) Suppose some time ago you caught a
very harmful disease that fortunately got cured. You are now aware of the danger
you were in. You don?t want such a disease to reoccur. You are therefore cautious
in eating, in working and sleeping; you will make effort to protect your health
in every possible way. If disease is likely to happen again, you remain alert
to the danger and do not forget to take your medicine. The same sort of effort
should be made to protect yourself from mental disease which can be harmful to
your peace and harmony: from unwholesome thoughts involving greed, anger, ill
will or jealousy. You should watch whenever these arise and strive to stop them
from arising. Meditation practice helps us do this.
2. To abandon unwholesome
thought or action that has already arisen (pahana padhana) Continuing the analogy,
if you are now suffering from disease, your immediate task is to overcome it.
You will see the doctor regularly; if the medicine is not helpful, you look for
a new doctor or a new medicine. You put all your effort and determination to end
your state of suffering. This is the type of effort we should make in order to
overcome the arising of unwholesome thoughts.
3. To develop wholesome thought
or action that has not yet developed (bhavana padhana) Every one wants to be prosperous.
If you have money, you can buy a beautiful house and a luxurious car. You can
decorate your house, develop the garden. You can eat delicious food. You don?t
have problems paying bills. You can afford the best treatment if you are ill.
If you are poor, you cannot enjoy those things. Understanding the benefit
of prosperity, you want to find a good job or a better one, you make continual
effort to improve your life style. Similar effort should be made through meditation
for wholesome thoughts, harmony or peace to arise.
4. To maintain wholesome
thought or right action that has already developed (anurakkhana padhana) When
you have achieved what you want, your next action is to protect it from danger.
For instance, if you have earned a large amount of money, you should not fritter
it away. You should not mistreat or harm someone using your money. Instead, you
share with your friends, relatives and others. Whatever you do should be the right
way for you to maintain your status. That is the way of material development.
For a wholesome mind, such as compassion, wisdom and peace, if you have begun
to develop such qualities, you should make effort to maintain them. You come to
class to learn something that you don?t understand. If you have understood, you
should not lose it. If you have developed a good state of mind, it should not
be allowed to fade away. We should keep that aim in mind and make the effort to
remind ourselves of it from time to time.
3. Four Idhipada - Four great bases
of power
1. Chandadhipada - unbroken desire to concentrate
2. Cittadhipada
- unbroken intention to concentrate
3. Viriyadhipada - unbroken effort while
concentrating
4. Vimansadhipada - unbroken investigation of concentration.
These
four bases of power are said to have been developed by the Buddha or anyone who
has achieved miraclulous power. If someone practices with such unbroken effort,
intention and determined will, miraclulous power is possible including levitation,
walking on water or through a wall, reading the mind of others and so on. The
first three powers are especially required for Jhana meditation. The last power
is required for Vipassana meditation. To achieve enlightenment, we may not need
to achieve Jhana, although we require concentration. These four powers can be
predominant only one at a time. The Buddha when he was a bodhisattva is said to
have possessed such power of mind. Achieving the ten perfections is not easy without
it. It is said that not only in one life, but life after life, the Buddha nourished,
generated and developed such unbroken desire, will and effort for the sake of
beings.
(vi)Bala- the power of spiritual attainment.
There are five spiritual
powers (Bala). They are:
1. Saddha Bala - the power of faithfulness
2.
Viriya Bala- the power of energy
3. Sati Bala - the power of mindfulness
4.
Samadhi Bala- the power of concentration
5. Panna Bala- the power of wisdom
If
these five powers have not been developed, is not easy to make progress in meditation.
Each of these powers plays a key role in successful meditation. For instance,
you cannot effectively meditate harbouring doubt or uncertainty. If you want to
achieve the real peace as the Buddha offers, you have to have a faith in the quality
of the triple gems to make further progress. You may achieve some stages of tranquillity
or calmness through meditation, but if you don't have any confidence or faith
in the teaching, you may not be able to reach the stage that the Buddha wants
us to. That does not mean that you can achieve the goal by mere faith, but it
means that if you concentrate on the power of faithfulness you might not make
use of the other four spiritual powers for overcoming of suffering. You will fall
into the same group of religions that offer salvation by faith and prayer.
For
some meditators, faith only arises after experience of their practice. According
to the theory of spiritual power, faith must come from wisdom, for example, Vakkhali
who had a great faith to the Buddha's complexion, skill and excellent quality.
He does not practice for himself but he respects so much and wants to follow wherever
he goes. When the Buddha notices his foolish practice, he leaves behind and prohibits
him from following. He gets upset and emotional. He eventually decides to suicide
jumping from Vulture Peak. Knowing his mind, the Buddha saves him and he then
teaches impermanent nature of complexion and life, thereby he realises wisdom.
This is the example of faith without wisdom. On the one hand, wisdom alone cannot
achieve the Buddhist spiritual goal. For example, there are many scholars who
are capable of explaining the Dhamma in terms of their intellect but they don't
have faith in the quality of the triple of gems. It is because they don't practice
these spiritual powers together. So the faith in the triple gems or spiritual
practice should start with wisdom and on the other hand wisdom alone cannot enable
progress towards the Buddhist spiritual goal. They both should be balanced.
An
energetic mind is one of the most important factors for the success of meditation.
Before we achieve it we have to make a steady effort. We have already learnt the
four types of effort. We can say that the alertness of mind arises only after
the mind has reached a state of complete energy or we can also say that when the
mind is completely alert to the object of meditation, we then achieve the energy
of mind, an energetic mind. However, the energetic mind with an absence of concentration
cannot give rise to a peaceful mind. For example, Venerable Ananda was practicing
whole night with un-tired energy but he did not achieve his goal until he achieved
concentration. You might have experienced times when your effort is steady and
your mind is very alert during meditation but you cannot concentrate deeply, or
maybe your mind is not very calm. There are times when the mind gets concentrated
quickly, but when mental energy is not properly supported we easily get drowsy.
So concentration and an energetic mind should be of equal power or equal strength
to achieve a successful meditation.
There is no counterpart for mindfulness
because it goes with all meditation objects. The theory of the four foundations
of mindfulness is essential to practice it. We have learnt it in four Satipathana.
For example, if you concentrate, you are mindful of the point of concentration
as it really is. If your mind is not concentrated, or you get distracted or agitated,
you are mindful at that point of the state of mind as it really is. So you know
that you are distracted, or you are agitated, or your mind is wandering and so
on. If you make effort to overcome from these states, you are mindful that you
are making effort. If you experience something through meditation, you are mindful
that I am experiencing something. If faith arises due to practice, you are mindful
that 'faith arises in me'. If wisdom arises, you are mindful that 'wisdom is arising
in me'. The same applies to all mental objects. However, the combination of mindfulness,
of awareness and of knowingness, has a similar strength. Meditators can develop
any of these three qualities of mind or all three together, as they prefer. If,
for example, wisdom arises to you, you know that 'wisdom arises in me', or you
are mindful that 'wisdom arises in me' or you are aware that 'wisdom arises in
me'. For me knowingness is much easier to control. These are the powers that are
to be achieved from Buddhist spiritual practice.
These five spiritual powers
have a special characteristic, overcoming their opponents. For example, when faith
has developed, disbelief will be removed. When energy has arisen in the mind,
laziness of meditation will be disappeared. When mindfulness is established, lack
of mindfulness will not arise. If wisdom arises, ignorance cannot arise. These
spiritual powers are just theory but you have to develop them through practice.
Five Indriya - the spiritual faculty
There are five faculties. They are
below.
1. Saddhi Indriya - faculty of faith
2. Viriya Indriya - faculty
of energy
3. Sati Indriya - faculty of mindfulness
4. Samadhi Indriya -
faculty of concentration
5. Pañña Indryia - faculty of wisdom
These
are also called spiritual faculties. They are identical with the five spiritual
powers in terms of their name but the practice and attainment is different. The
Buddha used these two different ways of practices and attainments to these five
factors because they are very important for the progress of spiritual life. The
use of the five spiritual powers has an advantage, as they are a natural way of
making progress.
For the case of Indriya, I would say, the practice of the
five spiritual powers is required to transform the mind to attain the spiritual
faculties. We have physical faculties, such as the faculty of eyes to see forms,
ears to hear sounds or the tongue to test a flavour and so on. In a similar way,
the Buddha would have compared sensations with his newly discovered spiritual-faculties
in order to see the spiritual attainment. Although they are called faculties,
the functions of physical faculties and spiritual faculties are different. The
physical faculties are to see or to hear the physical elements whereas the spiritual
faculties are to see as well as to experience the real nature of the mind. The
spiritual faculties are only attainable after the practice of spiritual powers.
The practice then purifies the mind to the way of looking things in a spiritual
way. After achievement of spiritual faculties, the mundane nature of physical
faculties transform into the nature of spiritual faculties. For example, when
you see something through your faculty of eyes, your mind is uncontrolled, as
is the case with ordinary faculties. You then generate liking or disliking and
so on. However after the achievement of spiritual faculties, you are controlled
and the way of using physical faculties changes into a spiritual one. You would
not see the thing as before, but you see them in a spiritual way.
The transformation
takes place naturally and gradually as you practice through these five factors.
The five powers are like a magnetic cable, which can travel electric charge whereas
the five faculties are like a bulb that gives light. The power transforms to see
the real light through bulb and controlling the switch. Each of these faculties,
such as the faculty of concentration, the faculty of mindfulness, or wisdom etc.,
needs to be established. Then meditator can switch off and on through their faculties.
A meditator reported to me that his concentration is easily obtained and maintained
in every meditation. For him, the faculty of concentration is established, at
least for the time being, but he still requires the remaining faculties to be
established in a steady way. If you find it difficult to develop them altogether
now, you should practice the Param? (ten perfections) in a gradual way and then
transform it into spiritual achievement.
Bojhanga
- the seven factors of enlightenment
There are seven factors of enlightenment.
They are:
1. Sati - mindfulness
2. Dhammavijaya - investigation of the Dhamma
3.
Viriya - energy
4. Piti - joy
5. Passadhi - tranquillity
6. Samadhi -
concentration
7. Upekkha - equanimity
According to the Maha Satipathana
Sutta, enlightenment is only attainable by the practice of the four foundations
of mindfulness. The exactitude of this teaching is further proved in the seven
factors of enlightenment, as the first of these factors is the mindfulness practice
(Sati). So, the practice of mindfulness in the first Bojhanga derived from the
practice of the four foundations of mindfulness in Maha Satipthana Sutta. When
mindfulness is developed, the remaining factors of enlightenment will gradually
develop as well.
Although the seven factors can be said to have a succeeding
sequence- for example, mindfulness (sati) gives rise to investigation of the Dhamma
(dhammavijaya) and from investigation of the Dhamma to energy (viriya) and so
on, the development process cannot always be considered in a single way of understanding
because each of the seven factors has its own function to support the others,
either in a successive or in a reversed way. If any one of these factors is too
weak, the steadiness of the remaining factors can be affected but they can also
give support to regain the strength, especially to the weaker factor. He who has
attained enlightenment has established these seven factors firmly and equally.
When one factor is predominant, the remaining factors will stay supportive. For
example, when tranquillity is predominant, concentration and other factors will
be supportive to that tranquillity. Thus the enlightened person keeps their mind
calm and controlled.
However, since we are unenlightened, our ability to elucidate
the real role of these seven factors is limited, but we do know that these seven
factors are theoretically analysable. The theory of how to gain the enlightenment
factors are varied, such as the four foundation of mindfulness, the five powers,
the five faculties or the noble eightfold path and so on. We have to practice
through these theories precisely. However, none of the seven factors of enlightenment
is assumed to be the primary cause for enlightenment, but are rather the energy
or the power that is gained after enlightenment. In other word, we may call them
'unwholesome free' state of mind or the pure state of mind.
1. Sati: the practice
of mindfulness is systematically explained in the Mahasatipathana sutta. When
the four foundations of mindfulness are developed, the other six factors of enlightenment
don't fade away. The meditator is fully aware of bodily actions, of mind, of feelings
and of mind-objects. We are easily affected by the outside world, but if we are
aware of inner things such as feelings or mind, we can transform them into peace,
at least we can control the affected mind or feeling from further worsening. I
have explained this in the Satipathana notes. Please read and understand them
better.
2. Dhammavijaya: Without the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness
(sati), the second factor of enlightenment (Dhammavijaya) cannot develop. The
characteristic of the second factor of enlightenment is to investigate the Dhamma,
the objects of the mind. The technique of practice has already been explained
in Dhammanupassana because the practice of Dhammavijaya has a direct relation
with the practice of Dhammanupassana. So I don't need to explain it again here.
When the practice of Dhammavijaya is established, wisdom is naturally established
as well since the practice penetrates the mind and it's associated objects. The
practice of Sati gives rise to the meditation part of the enlightened life, whereas
the practice of Dhammavijaya gives rise to the wisdom to see things as they really
are. The accomplishment of these two practices signifies the realisation of the
four noble truths in the enlightened person. See four noble truths
3. Viriya:
energy is the third factor of enlightenment process. Energy is life since without
it we cannot survive. There are many sorts of energy in the world, such as light
energy, microwave and wave energy or sound energy. Likewise, there are different
types of energy in our minds such as the mental energy of excitement, the mental
energy of anger, the mental energy of hatred, the mental energy of calmness and
so on. These energies arise upon the experience of corporal reaction, mostly between
the external and internal objects of sense organs. However, in the case of the
enlightenment factor, the energy (viriya) is different from that of material energy.
This is the energy of wisdom, which is actively maintained through the practice
of meditation and wisdom.
If we are too lazy to meditate even once in a day,
how can we keep mindfulness in every moment? If you are in a retreat, you will
understand how much energy you need to keep mindfulness throughout the course.
Without mental energy, you cannot do meditation at all. Actually, most of our
energy is consumed by entertainment, excitement, anger or when we are happy. To
stop anger, anxiety or mental defilement we require their opponent energy to overcome
them, such as love in the case of anger, calmness in the case of anxiety and concentration
and wisdom in the case of defilements. Therefore we have to practice love, compassion
frequently in order to stop their enemies. The primary element to overcome the
negative energy is self-control, which is observing the mind and wisdom. You can
then transform the negative energy into the energy of peace. The energy in the
enlightenment process is pure self-control, which cannot be influenced by their
opponent energies such as excitement, entertainment or external stimuli. The energy
is pure like pure gold. Purified energy preserves the mindfulness (Sati) and investigation
of the Dhamma (Dhammavijaya) in a pristine way.
4. Piti: joy is a state of
mind that comes after the result of meditation. Almost every meditator can experience
joy in their practice. Some meditators even feel lack of something if they miss
their practice and some do not want to come out from meditation. Some meditators
inspire others to experience it.
All ordinary beings need material sources
of energy, such as food to survive. Likewise, the enlightened person too needs
energy to maintain their purity. One source is a joyous state of mind. Even an
enlightened person will not be able to maintain their peace if they don't get
joy-piti, tranquillity -passadhi. The joy and tranquillity of mind are key elements
for the continuity of the enlightened life. They are like a primary food for the
enlightened mind. If there is no joy or tranquillity, he will not be happy in
his enlightenment. Without the prospect of joy, we don't want to do anything.
For example, when I ask you to do a job, you would be happy to do it if I give
you something you want; it may be money, materials or anything that you want.
Otherwise, you don't want to do it or you may pretend busy and so on. The same
way the enlightened person has joy to support their enlightened mind.
5. Passadhi:
tranquillity is a spiritual state of mind, which arises after the joyous state.
Joy still has a tendency towards excitement, which can appear through the physical
body whereas tranquillity is the unexcited mind, which manifests itself in calmness,
being controlled and peaceful. In the enlightenment process, joy transforms into
the peaceful state of tranquillity, rather than transforming into the state of
an excited mind. Thus, both joy and tranquillity support each other.
6. Samadhi:
concentration can be used an alternative word of meditation. This meditation leads
to the tranquillisation of our mind. According to the noble eightfold path, the
last three paths, which are right effort, right concentration and right mindfulness,
explain the technique of meditation practice.
When our minds are so excited,
nervous or anxious, what should we do? We need to calm down. Mindfulness meditation
is very helpful to cope with such situations. However, if our minds have already
been tranquillised, there is no room for such problems to arise. So, the enlightened
person is fully aware of that and therefore leaves no gap for such things to arise.
Due to the energy of tranquillity, concentration is easily attained, and concentration
in turn supports stable tranquillity. In this process, both tranquillity and concentration
are working together. It is just like a flame causing wood to burn and the wood
on the other hand keeping the flame alive.
7.Upekkha: The final part of the
enlightenment factors is equanimity. Equanimity is the ultimate achievement of
enlightenment. The enlightened mind has become completely stable and steady, with
perfect wisdom and peace. You can investigate the object of the mind if you are
mindful. For example, when you see a man who is suffering badly, you will feel
sad or emotional in a disliking sense, but in the case of enlightened person,
the mind will be stable and steady in a compassionate sense. He will not be shaken
by external objects. He has no prejudice or discrimination.
There are different
states of enlightenment. Some people attain enlightenment together with a miraculous
power such as reading another's mind, walking on water or being capable of appearing
and disappearing and so on. However, you do not have to achieve these powers in
order to achieve enlightenment. Everyone can attain enlightenment without such
powers if they practice accordingly. These seven factors are purely mental states,
which probably have the power of transformation from the state of mind to physical
elements, stopping further deterioration from physical disease. When Ven.Cunda
was ill, the Buddha asked Ananda to chant these seven factors. Although the power
of these seven factors can heal physical disease, it is not the purpose of enlightenment.
However, when the mind is calm or tranquil and in the state of equanimity,
our physical elements can transform into a state of hygiene that frees the body
from germs. There is evidence of the healing of diseases such as hypertension,
heart disease and even cancer and so on by meditation. The purpose of enlightenment
is to free us from ignorance, fear, the suffering of ego and mind. It is just
a state of real peace and contentment, which is realisable here.
Although
we can analyse each function, these seven factors are inseparable. All factors
are working together and helping each other in order to maintain the enlightened
mind.
*********************
Freedom
from Fear
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Copyright
© 2002 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
For free distribution only.
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Otherwise, all rights reserved.
An anthropologist
once questioned an Alaskan shaman about his tribe's belief system. After putting
up with the anthropologist's questions for a while, the shaman finally told him:
"Look. We don't believe. We fear."
His words have intrigued me ever
since I first heard them. I've also been intrigued by the responses I get when
I share his words with my friends. Some say that the shaman unconsciously put
his finger on the line separating primitive religion from civilized religion:
primitive religion is founded on childish fear; civilized religion, on love, trust,
and joy. Others maintain that the shaman cut through the pretensions and denials
of civilized religion and pointed to the true source of all serious religious
life.
If we dig down to the assumptions underlying these two responses, we
find that the first response views fear itself as our greatest weakness. If we
can simply overcome fear, we put ourselves in a position of strength. The second
sees fear as the most honest response to our greater weakness in the face of aging,
illness, and death -- a weakness that can't be overcome with a simple change in
attitude. If we're not in touch with our honest fears, we won't feel motivated
to do what's needed to protect ourselves from genuine dangers.
So -- which
attitude toward fear is childish, and which is mature? Is there an element of
truth in both? If so, how can those elements best be combined? These questions
are best answered by rephrasing them: To what extent is fear a useful emotion?
To what extent is it not? Does it have a role in the practice that puts an end
to fear?
The Buddhist answer to these questions is complex. This is due partly
to Buddhism's dual roots -- both as a civilized and as a wilderness tradition
-- and also to the complexity of fear itself, even in its most primal forms. Think
of a deer at night suddenly caught in a hunter's headlights. It's confused. Angry.
It senses danger, and that it's weak in the face of the danger. It wants to escape.
These five elements -- confusion, aversion, a sense of danger, a sense of weakness,
and a desire to escape -- are present, to a greater or lesser extent, in every
fear. The confusion and aversion are the unskillful elements. Even if the deer
has many openings to escape from the hunter, its confusion and aversion might
cause it to miss them. The same holds true for human beings. The mistakes and
evils we commit when finding ourselves weak in the face of danger come from confusion
and aversion.
Maddeningly, however, there are also evils that we commit out
of complacency, when oblivious to actual dangers: the callous things we do when
we feel we can get away with them. Thus the last three elements of fear -- the
perception of weakness, the perception of danger, and the desire to escape it
-- are needed to avoid the evils coming from complacency. If stripped of confusion
and aversion, these three elements become a positive quality, heedfulness -- something
so essential to the practice that the Buddha devoted his last words to it. The
dangers of life are real. Our weaknesses are real. If we don't see them clearly,
don't take them to heart, and don't try to find a way out, there's no way we can
put an end to the causes of our fears. Just like the deer: if it's complacent
about the hunter's headlights, it's going to end up strapped to the fender for
sure.
So to genuinely free the mind from fear, we can't simply deny that there's
any reason for fear. We have to overcome the cause of fear: the mind's weaknesses
in the face of very real dangers. The elegance of the Buddha's approach to this
problem, though, lies in his insight into the confusion -- or to use the standard
Buddhist term, the delusion -- that makes fear unskillful. Despite the complexity
of fear, delusion is the single factor that, in itself, is both the mind's prime
weakness and its greatest danger. Thus the Buddha approaches the problem of fear
by focusing on delusion, and he attacks delusion in two ways: getting us to think
about its dangerous role in making fear unskillful, and getting us to develop
inner strengths leading to the insights that free the mind from the delusions
that make it weak. In this way we not only overcome the factor that makes fear
unskillful. We ultimately put the mind in a position where it has no need for
fear.
When we think about how delusion infects fear and incites us to do unskillful
things, we see that it can act in two ways. First, the delusions surrounding our
fears can cause us to misapprehend the dangers we face, seeing danger where there
is none, and no danger where there is. If we obsess over non-existent or trivial
dangers, we'll squander time and energy building up useless defenses, diverting
our attention from genuine threats. If, on the other hand, we put the genuine
dangers of aging, illness, and death out of our minds, we grow complacent in our
actions. We let ourselves cling to things -- our bodies, our loved ones, our possessions,
our views -- that leave us exposed to aging, illness, separation, and death in
the first place. We allow our cravings to take charge of the mind, sometimes to
the point of doing evil with impunity, thinking we're immune to the results of
our evil, that those results will never return to harm us.
The more complacent
we are about the genuine dangers lying in wait all around us, the more shocked
and confused we become when they actually hit. This leads to the second way in
which the delusions surrounding our fears promote unskillful actions: we react
to genuine dangers in ways that, instead of ending the dangers, actually create
new ones. We amass wealth to provide security, but wealth creates a high profile
that excites jealousy in others. We build walls to keep out dangerous people,
but those walls become our prisons. We stockpile weapons, but they can easily
be turned against us.
The most unskillful response to fear is when, perceiving
dangers to our own life or property, we believe that we can gain strength and
security by destroying the lives and property of others. The delusion pervading
our fear makes us lose perspective. If other people were to act in this way, we
would know they were wrong. But somehow, when we feel threatened, our standards
change, our perspective warps, so that wrong seems right as long as we're the
ones doing it.
This is probably the most disconcerting human weakness of all:
our inability to trust ourselves to do the right thing when the chips are down.
If standards of right and wrong are meaningful only when we find them convenient,
they have no real meaning at all.
Fortunately, though, the area of life posing
the most danger and insecurity is the area where, through training, we can make
the most changes and exercise the most control. Although aging, illness, and death
follow inevitably on birth, delusion doesn't. It can be prevented. If, through
thought and contemplation, we become heedful of the dangers it poses, we can feel
motivated to overcome it. However, the insights coming from simple thought and
contemplation aren't enough to fully understand and overthrow delusion. It's the
same as with any revolution: no matter how much you may think about the matter,
you don't really know the tricks and strengths of entrenched powers until you
amass your own troops and do battle with them. And only when your own troops develop
their own tricks and strengths can they come out on top. So it is with delusion:
only when you develop mental strengths can you see through the delusions that
give fear its power. Beyond that, these strengths can put you in a position where
you are no longer exposed to dangers ever again.
The Canon lists these mental
strengths at five: conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment.
It also emphasizes the role that heedfulness plays in developing each, for heedfulness
is what enables each strength to counteract a particular delusion that makes fear
unskillful, and the mind weak in the face of its fears. What this means is that
none of these strengths are mere brute forces. Each contains an element of wisdom
and discernment, which gets more penetrating as you progress along the list.
Of
the five strengths, conviction requires the longest explanation, both because
it's one of the most misunderstood and under-appreciated factors in the Buddhist
path, and because of the multiple delusions it has to counteract.
The conviction
here is conviction in the principle of karma: that the pleasure and pain we experience
depends on the quality of the intentions on which we act. This conviction counteracts
the delusion that "It's not in my best interest to stick to moral principles
in the face of danger," and it attacks this delusion in three ways.
First,
it insists on what might be called the "boomerang" or "spitting
into the wind" principle of karmic cause and effect. If you act on harmful
intentions, regardless of the situation, the harm will come back to you. Even
if unskillful actions such as killing, stealing, or lying might bring short-term
advantages, these are more than offset by the long-term harm to which they leave
you exposed.
Conversely, this same principle can make us brave in doing good.
If we're convinced that the results of skillful intentions will have to return
to us even if death intervenes, we can more easily make the sacrifices demanded
by long-term endeavors for our own good and that of others. Whether or not we
live to see the results in this lifetime, we're convinced that the good we do
is never lost. In this way, we develop the courage needed to build a store of
skillful actions -- generous and virtuous -- that forms our first line of defense
against dangers and fear.
Second, conviction insists on giving priority to
your state of mind above all else, for that's what shapes your intentions. This
counteracts the corollary to the first delusion: "What if sticking to my
principles makes it easier for people to do me harm?" This question is based
ultimately on the delusion that life is our most precious possession. If that
were true, it would be a pretty miserable possession, for it heads inexorably
to death. Conviction views our life as precious only to the extent that it's used
to develop the mind, for the mind -- when developed -- is something that no one,
not even death, can harm. "Quality of life" is measured by the quality
and integrity of the intentions on which we act, just as "quality time"
is time devoted to the practice. Or, in the Buddha's words:
Better than a
hundred years
lived without virtue, uncentered, is
one day
lived by
a virtuous person
absorbed in jhana. [Dhp 110]
Third, conviction insists
that the need for integrity is unconditional. Even though other people may throw
away their most valuable possession -- their integrity -- it's no excuse for us
to throw away ours. The principle of karma isn't a traffic ordinance in effect
only on certain hours of the day or certain days of the week. It's a law operating
around the clock, around the cycles of the cosmos.
Some people have argued
that, because the Buddha recognized the principle of conditionality, he would
have no problem with the idea that our virtues should depend on conditions as
well. This is a misunderstanding of the principle. To begin with, conditionality
doesn't simply mean that everything is changeable and contingent. It's like the
theory of relativity. Relativity doesn't mean that all things are relative. It
simply replaces mass and time -- which long were considered constants -- with
another, unexpected constant: the speed of light. Mass and time may be relative
to a particular inertial frame, as the frame relates to the speed of light, but
the laws of physics are constant for all inertial frames, regardless of speed.
In the same way, conditionality means that there are certain unchanging patterns
to contingency and change -- one of those patterns being that unskillful intentions,
based on craving and delusion, invariably lead to unpleasant results.
If we
learn to accept this pattern, rather than our feelings and opinions, as absolute,
it requires us to become more ingenious in dealing with danger. Instead of following
our unskillful knee-jerk reactions, we learn to think outside the box to find
responses that best prevent harm of any kind. This gives our actions added precision
and grace.
At the same time, we have to note that the Buddha didn't teach
conditionality simply to encourage acceptance for the inevitability of change.
He taught it to show how the patterns underlying change can be mastered to create
an opening that leads beyond conditionality and change. If we want to reach the
unconditioned -- the truest security -- our integrity has to be unconditional,
a gift of temporal security not only to those who treat us well, but to everyone,
without exception. As the texts say, when you abstain absolutely from doing harm,
you give a great gift -- freedom from danger to limitless beings -- and you yourself
find a share in that limitless freedom as well.
Conviction and integrity of
this sort make great demands on us. Until we gain our first taste of the unconditioned,
they can easily be shaken. This is why they have to be augmented with other mental
strengths. The three middle strengths -- persistence, mindfulness, and concentration
-- act in concert. Persistence, in the form of right effort, counteracts the delusion
that we're no match for our fears, that once they arise we have to give into them.
Right effort gives us practice in eliminating milder unskillful qualities and
developing skillful ones in their place, so that when stronger unskillful qualities
arise, we can use our skillful qualities as allies in fending them off. The strength
of mindfulness assists this process in two ways. (1) It reminds us of the danger
of giving into fear. (2) It teaches us to focus our attention, not on the object
of our fear, but on the fear in and of itself as a mental event, something we
can watch from the outside rather jumping in and going along for a ride. The strength
of concentration, in providing the mind with a still center of wellbeing, puts
us in a solid position where we don't feel compelled to identify with fears as
they come, and where the comings and goings of internal and external dangers are
less and less threatening to the mind.
Even then, though, the mind can't reach
ultimate security until it uproots the causes of these comings and goings, which
is why the first four strengths require the strength of discernment to make them
fully secure. Discernment is what sees that these comings and goings are ultimately
rooted in our sense of "I" and "mine," and that "I"
and "mine" are not built into experience. They come from the repeated
processes of I-making and my-making, in which we impose these notions on experience
and identify with things subject to aging, illness, and death. Furthermore, discernment
sees through our inner traitors and weaknesses: the cravings that want us to make
an "I" and "mine"; the delusions that make us believe in them
once they're made. It realizes that this level of delusion is precisely the factor
that makes aging, illness, and death dangerous to begin with. If we didn't identify
with things that age, grow ill, and die, their aging, illness, and death wouldn't
threaten the mind. Totally unthreatened, the mind would have no reason to do anything
unskillful ever again.
When this level of discernment matures and bears the
fruit of release, our greatest insecurity -- our inability to trust ourselves
-- has been eliminated. Freed from the attachments of "I" and "mine,"
we find that the component factors of fear -- both skillful and unskillful --
are gone. There's no remaining confusion or aversion; the mind is no longer weak
in the face of danger; and so there's nothing from which we need to escape.
This
is where the questions raised by the shaman's remarks find their answers. We fear
because we believe in "we." We believe in "we" because of
the delusion in our fear. Paradoxically, though, if we love ourselves enough to
fear the suffering that comes from unskillful actions and attachments, and learn
to believe in the way out, we'll develop the strengths that allow us to cut through
our cravings, delusions, and attachments. That way, the entire complex -- the
"we," the fear, the beliefs, the attachments -- dissolves away. The
freedom remaining is the only true security there is.
This teaching may offer
cold comfort to anyone who wants the impossible: security for his or her attachments.
But in trading away the hope for an impossible security, you gain the reality
of a happiness totally independent and condition-free. Once you've made this trade,
you know that the pay-off is more than worth the price. As one of the Buddha's
students once reported, "Before, when I has a householder, maintaining the
bliss of kingship, I had guards posted within and without the royal apartments,
within and without the city, within and without the countryside. But even though
I was thus guarded, thus protected, I dwelled in fear -- agitated, distrustful,
and afraid. But now, on going alone to a forest, to the foot of a tree, or to
an empty dwelling, I dwell without fear, unagitated, confident, and unafraid --
unconcerned, unruffled, my wants satisfied, with my mind like a wild deer. This
is the meaning I have in mind that I repeatedly exclaim, 'What bliss! What bliss!'"
His deer is obviously not the deer in the headlights. It's a deer safe in
the wilderness, at its ease wherever it goes. What makes it more than a deer is
that, free from attachment, it's called a "consciousness without surface."
Light goes right through it. The hunter can't shoot it, for it can't be seen.
Revised: Wed 4 December 2002
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/modern/thanissaro/fear.html
*********************
From
Views to Vision
by
Bhikkhu
Bodhi
Buddhist Publication Society Newsletter cover essay #25 (Winter 1993-94)
Copyright
© 1994 Buddhist Publication Society
For free distribution only
The
Buddha's teaching repeatedly cautions us about the dangers in clinging -- in clinging
to possessions, clinging to pleasures, clinging to people, clinging to views.
The Buddha sounds such words of warning because he discerns in clinging a potent
cause of suffering, and he thus advises us that the price we must pay to arrive
at the "far shore" of liberation is the relinquishment of every type
of clinging. In a move that at first glance may even seem self-destructive on
the part of a religious founder, the Buddha says that we should not cling even
to his teachings, that even the wholesome principles of the Dhamma have to be
treated like the makeshift raft used to carry us across the stream.
Such astringent
words of advice can easily be misconstrued, and if misconstrued the consequences
may be even more bitter than if we simply disregard them. One particular misinterpretation
into which newcomers to the Dhamma (and some veterans too!) are especially prone
to fall is to hold that the Buddha's counsel to transcend all views means that
even the doctrines of Buddhism are ultimately of no vital importance. For these
doctrines too, it is said, are merely views, intellectual constructs, filaments
of thought, which may have been meaningful in the context of ancient Indian cosmology
but have no binding claims on us today. After all, aren't the words and phrases
of the Buddhist texts simply that -- words and phrases -- and aren't we admonished
to get beyond words and phrases in order to arrive at direct experience, the only
thing that really counts? And doesn't the Buddha enjoin us in the Kalama Sutta
to judge things for ourselves and to let our own experience be the criterion for
deciding what we will accept?
Such an approach to the Dhamma may be sweet
to chew upon and easy to digest, but we also need to beware of its effect upon
our total spiritual organism. Too often this kind of slippery reasoning provides
simply a convenient excuse for adhering, at a subtle level of the mind, to ideas
which are fundamentally antithetical to the Dhamma. We hang on to such ideas,
not because they are truly edifying, but in order to protect ourselves from the
radical challenge with which the Buddha's message confronts us. In effect, such
claims, though apparently aimed at safeguarding living experience from the encroachment
of stodgy intellectualism, may be in reality a clever intellectual ploy for refusing
to examine cherished assumptions -- assumptions we cherish primarily because they
shield deep-rooted desires we do not want to expose to the tonic influence of
the Dhamma.
When we approach the Buddha's teachings, we should bear in mind
that its vast array of doctrines have not been devised as elaborate exercises
in philosophical sleight of hand. They are propounded because they constitute
right view, and right view stands at the head of the Noble Eightfold Path, the
chisel to be used to cut away the dross of wrong views and confused thoughts that
impede the light of wisdom from illumining our minds. In the present-day world,
far more than in the ancient Ganges Valley, wrong views have gained widespread
currency and assumed more baneful forms than earlier epochs ever could have imagined.
Today they are no longer the province of a few eccentric philosophers and their
cliques. They have become, rather, a major determinant of cultural and social
attitudes, a molder of the moral spirit of the age, a driving force behind economic
empires and international relations. Under such circumstances, right view is our
candle against the dark, our compass in the desert, our isle above the flood.
Without a clear understanding of the truths enunciated by right view, and without
a keen awareness of the areas where these truths collide with popular opinion,
it is only too easy to stumble in the dark, to get stranded among the sand dunes,
to be swept away from one's position above the deluge.
Both right view and
wrong view, though cognitive in character, do not remain locked up in a purely
cognitive space of their own. Our views exercise an enormously potent influence
upon all areas of our lives, and the Buddha, in his genius, recognized this when
he placed right view and wrong view respectively at the beginning of the good
and evil pathways of life. Views flow out and interlock with the practical dimension
of our lives at many levels: they determine our values, they give birth to our
goals and aspirations, they guide our choices in morally difficult dilemmas. Wrong
view promotes wrong intentions, wrong modes of conduct, leads us in pursuit of
a deceptive type of freedom. It draws us towards the freedom of license, by which
we feel justified in casting off moral restraint for the sake of satisfying transient
but harmful impulses. Though we may then pride ourselves on our spontaneity and
creativity, may convince ourselves that we have discovered our true individuality,
one with clear sight will see that this freedom is only a more subtle bondage
to the chains of craving and delusion.
Right view, even in its elementary
form, as a recognition of the moral law of kamma, the capacity of our deeds to
bring results, becomes our gentle guide towards true freedom. And when it matures
into an accurate grasp of the three signs of existence, of dependent arising,
of the Four Noble Truths, it then becomes our navigator up the mountain slope
of final deliverance. It will lead us to right intentions, to virtuous conduct,
to mental purification, and to the cloudless peak of unobstructed vision. Although
we must eventually learn to let go of this guide in order to stand confidently
on our own feet, without its astute eye and willing hand we would only meander
in the foothills oblivious to the peak.
The attainment of right view is not
simply a matter of assenting to a particular roster of doctrinal formulas or of
skill in juggling an impressive array of cryptic Pali terms. The attainment of
right view is at its core essentially a matter of understanding -- of understanding
in a deeply personal way the vital truths of existence upon which our lives devolve.
Right view aims at the big picture. It seeks to comprehend our place in the total
scheme of things and to discern the laws that govern the unfolding of our lives
for better or for worse. The ground of right view is the Perfect Enlightenment
of the Buddha, and by striving to rectify our view we seek nothing less than to
align our own understanding of the nature of existence with that of the Buddha's
Enlightenment. Right view may begin with concepts and propositional knowledge
but it does not end with them. Through study, deep reflection and meditative development
it gradually becomes transmuted into wisdom, the wisdom of insight that can cut
asunder the beginningless fetters of the mind.
Revised: Thu 17 May 2001
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/bps/news/essay25.html
*********************
Giving
Dignity to Life
Bhikkhu Bodhi
To ask what it means to live with dignity may sound strange in an
age like
our own, when our frantic struggle to make ends meet hardly allows
us the
leisure to ponder such weighty matters. But if we do pause a moment
to give
this question a little thought, we would realize soon enough that it
is not
merely the idle musing of someone with too much time on his hands. The
question
not only touches on the very meaning of our lives, but goes even
beyond our
personal quest for meaning to bore into the very springs of
contemporary culture.
For if it isn't possible to live with dignity then
life has no transcendent
purpose, and in such a case our only aim in the
brief time allotted to us should
be to snatch whatever thrills we can before
the lights go off for good. But
if we can give sense to the idea of living
with dignity, then we need to consider
whether we are actually ordering our
lives in the way we should and, even more
broadly, whether our culture
encourages a dignified lifestyle.
Though
the idea of dignity seems simple enough at first sight, it is
actually fairly
complex. My Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (1936!) defines
dignity as "elevation
of character, intrinsic worth, excellence, ...
nobleness of manner, aspect,
or style." My Roget's Thesaurus (1977) groups
it with "prestige,
esteem, repute, honor, glory, renown, fame" -- evidence
that over the
last forty years the word's epicenter of meaning has undergone
a shift. When
we inquire about living with dignity, our focus should be on
the word's older
nuance. What I have in mind is living with the conviction
that one's life has
intrinsic worth, that we possess a potential for moral
excellence that resonates
with the rhythm of the seasons and the silent hymn
of the galaxies.
The
conscious pursuit of dignity does not enjoy much popularity these days,
having
been crowded out by such stiff competitors as wealth and power,
success and
fame. Behind this devaluation of dignity lies a series of
developments in Western
thought that emerged in reaction to the dogmatic
certainties of Christian theology.
The Darwinian theory of evolution,
Freud's thesis of the Id, economic determinism,
the computer model of the
mind: all these trends, arisen more or less independently,
have worked
together to undermine the notion that our lives have any more worth
than the
value of our bank accounts. When so many self-assured voices speak
to the
contrary, we no longer feel justified in viewing ourselves as the crowning
glory
of creation. Instead we have become convinced we are nothing but
packets of
protoplasm governed by selfish genes, clever monkeys with college
degrees and
business cards plying across highways rather than trees.
Such ideas, in
however distorted a form, have seeped down from the halls of
academia into
popular culture, eroding our sense of human dignity on many
fronts. The free-market
economy, the task master of the modern social order,
leads the way. For this
system the primary form of human interaction is the
investment and the sale,
with people themselves reckoned simply as producers
and consumers, sometimes
even as commodities. Our vast impersonal
democracies reduce the individual
to a nameless face in the crowd, to be
manipulated by slogans, images, and
promises into voting this way or that.
Cities have expanded into sprawling
urban jungles, dirty and dangerous,
whose dazed occupants seek an easy escape
with the help of drugs and
loveless sex. Escalation in crime, political corruption,
upheavals in family
life, the despoliation of the environment: these all speak
to us as much of
a deterioration in how we regard ourselves as in how we relate
to others.
Amidst these pangs of forlorn hope, can the Dhamma help us
recover our lost
sense of dignity and thereby give new meaning to our lives?
The answer to
this question is yes, and in two ways: first, by justifying our
claim to
innate dignity, and second, by showing us what we must do to actualize
our
potential dignity.
For Buddhism the innate dignity of human beings
does not stem from our
relationship to an all-mighty God or our endowment with
an immortal soul. It
stems, rather, from the exalted place of human life in
the broad expanse of
sentient existence. Far from reducing human beings to
children of chance,
the Buddha teaches that the human realm is a very special
realm standing
squarely at the spiritual centre of the cosmos. What makes human
life so
special is that human beings have a capacity for moral choice that
is not
shared by other types of beings. Though this capacity is inevitably
subject
to limiting conditions, we always possess, in the immediate present,
a
margin of inner freedom that allows us to change ourselves and hereby to
change
the world.
But life in the human realm is far from cozy. To the contrary,
it is
inconceivably difficult and complex, rife with conflicts and moral
ambiguities
offering enormous potential for both good and evil. This moral
complexity can
make of human life a painful struggle indeed, but it also
renders the human
realm the most fertile ground for sowing the seeds of
enlightenment. It is
at this tauntingly ambiguous crossroads in the long
journey of being that we
can either rise to the heights of spiritual
greatness or fall to degrading
depths. The two alternatives branch out from
each present moment, and which
one we take depends on ourselves.
While this unique capacity for moral
choice and spiritual awakening confers
intrinsic dignity on human life, the
Buddha does not emphasize this so much
as he does our ability to acquire active
dignity. This ability is summed up
by a word that lends its flavor to the entire
teaching, ariya or noble. The
Buddha's teaching is the ariyadhamma, the noble
doctrine, and its purpose is
to change human beings from "ignorant worldlings"
into noble disciples
resplendent with noble wisdom. The change does not come
about through mere
faith and devotion but by treading the Buddhist path, which
transmutes our
frailties into invincible strengths and our ignorance into knowledge.
The notion of acquired dignity is closely connected with the idea of
autonomy.
Autonomy means self-control and self-mastery, freedom from the
sway of passion
and prejudice, the ability to actively determine oneself. To
live with dignity
means to be one's own master: to conduct one's affairs on
the basis of one's
own free choices instead of being pushed around by forces
beyond one's control.
The autonomous individual draws his or her strength
from within, free from
the dictates of craving and bias, guided by a thirst
for righteousness and
an inner perception of truth.
The person who represents the apex of dignity
for Buddhism is the arahant,
the liberated one, who has reached the pinnacle
of spiritual autonomy:
release from the dictates of greed, hatred, and delusion.
The very word
arahant suggests this sense of dignity: the word means "worthy
one," one who
deserves the offerings of gods and humans. Although in our
present condition
we might still be far from the stature of an arahant, this
does not mean we
are utterly lost, for the means of reaching the highest goal
is already
within our reach. The means is the Noble Eightfold Path with its
twin
pillars of right view and right conduct. Right view is the first factor
of
the path and the guide for all the others. To live with right view is to
see
that our decisions count, that our volitional actions have consequences
that
extend beyond themselves and conduce to our long-term happiness or
suffering.
The active counterpart of right view is right conduct, action
guided by the
ideal of moral and spiritual excellence. Right conduct in
body, speech, and
mind brings to fulfillment the other seven factors of the
eightfold path, culminating
in true knowledge and deliverance.
In today's hectic world humankind is
veering recklessly in two destructive
directions. One is the path of violent
struggle and confrontation, the other
that of frivolous self-indulgence. Beneath
their apparent contrasts, what
unites these two extremes is a shared disregard
for human dignity: the
former violates the dignity of other people, the latter
undermines one's own
dignity. The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path is a middle
way that avoids all
harmful extremes. To follow this path not only brings a
quiet dignity into
one's own lile but also answers the cynicism of our age
with a note of
wholesome affirmation.
Buddhist Publication Society Newsletter cover essay #38 (1st mailing, 1998)
Copyright © 1998 Buddhist Publication Society
For free distribution only
Revised: Sun 3 October 1999
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/bps/news/essay38.html
*********************
Going
for Refuge
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The act of going for refuge marks the point where one commits
oneself
to taking the Dhamma, or the Buddha's teaching, as the
primary guide to the
conduct of one's life. To understand why this
commitment is called a "refuge",
it is helpful to look at the
history of the custom.
In pre-Buddhist
India, going for refuge meant proclaiming one's
allegiance to a patron-a powerful
person or god-submitting to the
patron's directives in hopes of receiving
protection from danger
in return. In the early years of the Buddha's teaching
career, his
new followers adopted this custom to express their allegiance
to
the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, but in the Buddhist context this
custom
took on a new meaning.
Buddhism is not a theistic religion -- the Buddha
is not a god-and
so a person taking refuge in the Buddhist sense is not asking
for
the Buddha personally to intervene to provide protection. Still,
the
Buddha's teachings center on the realization that human life
is fraught with
dangers-from greed, anger, and delusion -- and so
the concept of refuge is
a central part of the path of practice,
in that the practice is aimed at gaining
release from those
dangers. Because both the dangers and the release from
them come
ultimately from the mind, there is a need for two levels of
refuge: external refuges, which provide models and guidelines so
that we can
identify which qualities in the mind lead to danger
and which to release;
and internal refuges, i.e., the qualities
leading to release that we develop
in our own mind in imitation of
our external models. The internal level is
where true refuge is
found.
Although the tradition of going to refuge
is an ancient practice,
it is still relevant for our own practice today, for
we are faced
with the same internal dangers that faced people in the Buddha's
time. We still need the same protection as they. When a Buddhist
takes refuge,
it is essentially an act of taking refuge in the
doctrine of karma: It is
an act of submission in that one is
committed to living in line with the belief
that actions based on
skillful intentions lead to happiness, while actions
based on
unskillful intentions lead to suffering; it is an act of claiming
protection in that one trusts that by following the teaching one
will not
fall into the misfortunes that bad karma engenders. To
take refuge in this
way ultimately means to take refuge in the
quality of our own intentions,
for that's where the essence of
karma lies.
The refuges in Buddhism
-- both on the internal and on the
external levels -- are the Buddha, Dhamma,
and Sangha, also known
as the Triple Gem. They are called gems both because
they are
valuable and because, in ancient times, gems were believed to have
protective powers. The Triple Gem outdoes other gems in this
respect because
its protective powers can be put to the test and
can lead further than those
of any physical gem, all the way to
absolute freedom from the uncertainties
of the realm of aging,
illness, and death.
The Buddha, on the external
level, refers to Siddhattha Gotama,
the Indian prince who renounced his royal
titles and went into the
forest, meditating until he ultimately gained Awakening.
To take
refuge in the Buddha means, not taking refuge in him as a person,
but taking refuge in the fact of his Awakening: placing trust in
the belief
that he did awaken to the truth, that he did so by
developing qualities that
we too can develop, and that the truths
to which he awoke provide the best
perspective for the conduct of
our life.
The Dhamma, on the external
level, refers to the path of practice
the Buddha taught to his followers.
This, in turn, is divided into
three levels: the words of his teachings, the
act of putting those
teachings into practice, and the attainment of Awakening
as the
result of that practice. This three-way division of the word
"Dhamma"
is essentially a map showing how to take the external
refuges and make them
internal: learning about the teachings,
using them to develop the qualities
that the Buddha himself used
to attain Awakening, and then realizing the same
release from
danger that he found in the quality of Deathlessness that we
can
touch within.
The word Sangha, on the external level, has two
senses:
conventional and ideal. In its ideal sense, the Sangha consists of
all people, lay or ordained, who have practiced the Dhamma to the
point of
gaining at least a glimpse of the Deathless. In a
conventional sense, Sangha
denotes the communities of ordained
monks and nuns. The two meanings overlap
but are not necessarily
identical. Some members of the ideal Sangha are not
ordained; some
monks and nuns have yet to touch the Deathless. All those who
take
refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha become members of the
Buddha's
four-fold assembly (parisa) of followers: monks, nuns,
male lay devotees,
and female lay devotees. Although it is widely
believed that all Buddhist
followers are members of the Sangha,
this is not the case. Only those who
are ordained are members of
the conventional Sangha; only those who have glimpsed
the
Deathless are members of the ideal Sangha. Nevertheless, those
followers
who do not belong to the Sangha in either sense of the
word still count as
genuine Buddhists in that they are members of
the Buddha's parisa.
When taking refuge in the external Sangha, one takes refuge in
both senses
of the Sangha, but the two senses provide different
levels of refuge. The
conventional Sangha has helped keep the
teaching alive for more than 2,500
years. Without them, we would
never have learned what the Buddha taught. However,
not all
members of the conventional Sangha are reliable models of
behavior.
So when looking for guidance in the conduct of one's
life, one must look to
the living or recorded examples provided by
the ideal Sangha. Without their
example, we would not know (1)
that Awakening is available to all, and not
just to the Buddha;
and (2) how Awakening expresses itself in the varied aspects
of
everyday life.
On the internal level, the Buddha, Dhamma, and
Sangha are the
skillful qualities that we develop in our own minds in imitation
of our external models. For instance, the Buddha was a person of
wisdom, purity,
and compassion. When we develop wisdom, purity,
and compassion in our own
minds, they form our refuge on an
internal level. The Buddha tasted Awakening
by developing
conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and
discernment. When we develop these same qualities to the point of
attaining
Awakening too, that Awakening is our ultimate refuge.
This is the point where
the three aspects of the Triple Gem become
one: beyond the reach of greed,
anger, and delusion, and thus
totally secure.
Bhikkhu Thanissaro,
"Refuge: an Introduction to the Buddha, Dhamma &
Sangha",
Metta Monastery, California, 1996
*********************
Healing
Justice - A Buddhist Perspective
By
David Loy
"The history of punishment is in some respects like the
history of war; it seems to accompany the human condition almost universally,
to enjoy periods of glorification, to be commonly regarded as justified in many
instances, and yet to run counter to our ultimate vision of what human society
should be." [1]
Why do we punish? It seems a silly question, but only
until we try to answer it. To punish is to harm, and harming must be justified.
Three types of justification are usually offered: the harm of punishment is outweighed
by some greater good (e.g., it deters others); punishment does not really harm
offenders (because it reforms them); and harming offenders is good in itself (because
retribution "annuls the crime"). However, each of these reasons becomes
problematical when we examine it.
The first argument is a utilitarian one,
but it seems immoral to harm someone because we want to influence others' behavior;
such a principle could also be used to justify scapegoating innocents. This is
not just an abstract point, for there is the uncomfortable possibility that offenders
today have become scapegoats for our social problems. And if punishment warns
other would-be offenders, why does the United States, which punishes a larger
percentage of its population than any other Western country, continue to have
the highest crime rate?
The second argument, that punishment reforms rather
than harms the offender, obviously is not true now. The Quakers may have intended
the penitentiary to be a place of penitence, yet there is little doubt that today
incarceration makes most offenders worse. A RAND study found that recidivism is
actually higher for offenders sent to prison than for similar offenders put on
probation. That should not surprise us, for the predatory societies found in most
prisons make them more like hell than places to repent and reform. Prison settings
dehumanize, divert offenders' attention from victims, and reinforce their low
self-esteem. As often happens, an institution which does not fulfill its original
purpose continues to exist for other reasons -- in this case because, to tell
the truth, we have not known what else to do with most offenders.
The third
argument, that harming offenders somehow annuls the crime, incorporates several
types of justifications. The most common is the desire for vengeance, which is
understandable but morally dubious and socially destructive. Another version sees
punishment as God's retribution; the Buddhist equivalent understands punishment
more impersonally, as an effect of one's karma. Neither is a good argument for
human punishment: neither God nor an objective moral law needs our help, especially
since it is inevitable that humans will occasionally make mistakes (e.g., execute
innocents).
The important point is that all versions of this third justification
build upon the intuitive belief that something must be done to "make right"
the harm that offenses cause to victims and the social fabric. What motivates
the restorative justice movement is the increasing recognition that our present
judicial system is not doing this well enough. The problem, we are beginning to
realize, is a deep one: we sense that there may be something wrong with our atomistic
understanding of the social contract and its presumptions about "the good
life", but we are not sure which way to look for an alternative paradigm
-- which is why it is essential to get perspectives on this paradigm that can
only be provided by the worldviews and values of other cultures.
The Buddhist
approach to punishment, like any other approach, cannot really be separated from
its understanding of human psychology and its vision of human possibility. This
suggests that criminal justice is not solely a secular issue, for questions of
fairness and justice cannot be completely separated from the religious perspectives
they historically derive from: for the vast majority of humankind, crime, punishment
and reform are still inextricably bound up with religious views about sin, judgement
and forgiveness. Justice is one of those ultimate issues that bridge whatever
distinction we try to make between sacred and secular, and our criminal justice
system will always be subordinate to our larger vision of how people should relate
to each other. Then is penal failure a barometer of our social failure in this
larger respect -- of our inadequate vision of what personal and social possibilities
there are? This would explain our discomforting suspicion that criminals have
become scapegoats, readily exploited by ambitious politicians (a fourth justification
for punishment, unfortunately).
It is difficult to generalize about crime,
because there are different types, committed by different types of people, which
require different responses. The same is true for Buddhism: there is no such thing
as the Buddhist tradition, for Buddhism has been extraordinarily adaptable in
its spread to different places and cultures. Thailand, Tibet, China and Japan
have had very different political and judicial systems, although some similar
threads have been used in weaving their various patterns: especially the beliefs
that all of us, offenders and victims alike, have the same Buddha-nature, which
is not to be confused with our usual sense of self, an ever-changing collection
of wholesome and unwholesome mental tendencies; that we are usually dominated
by our greed, ill-will and delusion, but it is possible to change and outgrow
them; and therefore the only reason to punish is education for reformation. [2]
We begin with two Pali (early) suttas which exemplify these threads: the Angulimala
Sutta, the best-known Buddhist text on crime and punishment, about the reform
of a serial killer; and the Lion's Roar Sutta, on the responsibility of a ruler
to prevent crime and violence. Although the first may be based upon a true incident,
both suttas are obviously mythic, which does not reduce their interest for us,
since our concern is Buddhist attitudes. Then we will look at the Buddhist vinaya,
which supplies the rules and corrective measures that regulate the lives of Buddhist
bhikkhus (monks) and bhikkunis (nuns); these have many implications for our psychological
understanding of motivation, education and reform. Finally, we look to traditional
Tibet to see how its judicial system embodied these Buddhist perspectives. Tibet's
lack of church/state separation means it is not a model that a modern secular
and pluralistic society can duplicate -- or are we already duplicating it? Does
our usual distinction between the religious and civil spheres merely obscure the
fact that the state has become a "secular god" for us?
The Angulimala
Sutta [3]
Angulimala was a merciless bandit, who murdered many people and
wore their fingers as a garland (hence his name, literally "finger-garland").
Although warned about him, the Blessed One (Sakyamuni Buddha) walks silently into
his area. When Angulimala tries to catch him, however, the Buddha performs a supernatural
feat: Angulimala, walking as fast as he can, cannot catch up with him, even though
the Buddha is walking at his normal pace. Astonished, Angulimala calls out "Stop,
recluse!"
Still walking, the Buddha answers: "I have stopped, Angulimala;
you stop too." In response to Angulimala's puzzlement, he explains: "I
have stopped forever, abstaining from violence towards living beings; but you
show no such restraint." This impresses Angulimala so much that he renounces
evil forever and asks to join the sangha; and the Buddha accepts him as a bhikkhu.
Meanwhile, people had gathered at the gates of King Pasenadi's palace, demanding
that Angulimala be stopped. King Pasenadi goes forth with five hundred men to
capture him. When he meets the Buddha and explains his quest, the Buddha responds:
if you were to see that he is now a good bhikkhu, who abstains from killing, etc.,
how would you treat him?
The king replies that he would pay homage to him
as a good bhikkhu, and is surprised when the Buddha points out Angulimala seated
nearby. The king marvels that the Buddha was able to tame the untamed and bring
peace to the unpeaceful. "Venerable sir, we ourselves could not tame him
with force or weapons, yet the Blessed One has tamed him without force or weapons."
Then he departs.
Soon after, the venerable Angulimala realizes the supreme
goal of the holy life and attains nirvana, Later, however, during an almsround,
he is beaten by townspeople, but the Buddha tells him to bear it, for it is a
result of his past karma. The sutta concludes with some verses by Angulimala,
for example: "Who checks the evil deeds he did/ By doing wholesome deeds
instead,/ He illuminates the world/ Like the moon freed from a cloud."
The point of this sutta is not difficult to see: we need only contrast Angulimala's
fate with what our retributive justice system would do to him. The importance
of this story within the Buddhist tradition highlights the only reason Buddhism
accepts for punishing an offender: to help re-form his or her character. Then
there is no reason to punish someone who has already reformed himself. There is
no mention of punishment as a deterrent; on the contrary, the case of Angulimala
may be seen as setting a negative example, implying that one can escape punishment
by becoming a bhikkhu, as if the sangha were something like the French foreign
legion. There is also no hint that punishment is needed to "annul the crime",
although Angulimala does suffer karmic consequences which even his nirvana (spiritual
perfection) cannot escape. More generally, determining what judicial response
is right or wrong -- what is just -- cannot be abstracted from the particular
situation of the offender.
Nevertheless, this story is unsatisfactory from
a restorative viewpoint. The sutta says nothing about the families of Angulimala's
victims, or the larger social consequences of his crimes, except for the crowds
at King Pasenadi's gate. That the humble monk Angulimala is stoned by villagers
indicates more than bad karma; it implies that there has been no attempt at restorative
justice which takes account of his effects on society. The social fabric of the
community has been rent, yet there is no effort to "make things right".
The particular situation of the offender is addressed by abstracting him from
his social context. It would be unfair to take this as indicating a Buddhist indifference
to society, yet it does exemplify the early Buddhist attitude to spiritual salvation:
liberation is an individual matter, and the path to achieving it involves leaving
society, not transforming it.
The Lion's Roar Sutta [4]
The Cakkavatti-sihanada
Sutta addresses the relationship between criminal justice and social justice,
especially the connection between poverty and violence. The Buddha often summarized
his teachings into four noble truths: life is duhkha (unsatisfactory); the cause
of duhkha; the end of duhkha; and the way to end duhkha. According to this Buddhist
approach, the way to control crime naturally follows from correctly understanding
the causes of crime. In this sutta the Buddha tells the story of a monarch in
the distant past who initially venerated and relied upon the dhamma, doing as
his sage advised: "Let no crime prevail in your kingdom, and to those who
are in need, give property." Later, however, he began to rule according to
his own ideas and did not give property to the needy, with the result that poverty
became rife. Due to poverty one man took what was not given and was arrested;
when the king asked him why, the man said he had nothing to live on. So the king
gave him some property, saying that it would be enough to carry on a business
and support his family.
Exactly the same thing happened to another man; and
when other people heard about this they too decided to steal so they would be
treated the same way. Then the king realized that if he continued to give property
to such men, theft would continue to increase. So he decided to get tough on the
next thief: "I had better make an end of him, finish him off once for all,
and cut his head off." And he did.
At this point in the story, one might
expect a moralistic parable about the importance of deterring crime, but it turns
in exactly the opposite direction:
"Hearing about this, people thought:
'Now let us get sharp swords made for us, and then we can take from anybody what
is not given, we will make an end of them, finish them off once and for all and
cut off their heads.' So, having procured some sharp swords, they launched murderous
assaults on villages, towns and cities, and went in for highway-robbery, killing
their victims by cutting off their heads.
"Thus, from the not giving
of property to the needy, poverty became rife, from the growth of poverty, the
taking of what was not given increased, from the increase of theft, the use of
weapons increased, from the increased use of weapons, the taking of life increased..."
Despite some fanciful elements, this myth has important implications for our understanding
of crime and punishment. The first point is that poverty is presented as the root
cause of immoral behavior such as theft, violence, falsehood, etc. Unlike what
we might expect from a supposedly world-denying religion, the Buddhist solution
has nothing to do with accepting our poverty karma. The problem begins when the
king does not give property to the needy -- that is, when the state neglects its
responsibility to maintain distributive justice. According to this influential
sutta, crime, violence and immorality cannot be separated from broader questions
about the justice or injustice of the social order. The solution is not to "crack
down" harshly with severe punishments but to provide for people's basic needs.
"The aim would be, not to create a society in which people in general were
afraid to break the law, but one in which they could live sufficiently rewarding
lives without doing so" (Wright 7). Today we prefer to throw our money at
"wars on crime", but social indications suggest what the king belatedly
realized, that such wars no one wins.
That brings us to the second point of
the Lion's Roar Sutta, its understanding of violence. Instead of solving the problem,
the king's violent attempt at deterrence sets off an explosion of violence that
leads to social collapse. If punishment is sometimes a mirror-image of the crime,
in this case the crimes are a mirror-image of the punishment. The state's violence
reinforces the belief that violence works. When the state uses violence against
those who do things it does not permit, we should not be surprised when some of
its citizens feel entitled to do the same (Pepinsky 301). Such retributive violence
"tends to confirm the outlook and life experiences of many offenders. Wrongs
must be repaid by wrong and those who offend deserve vengeance. Many crimes are
committed by people 'punishing' their family, the neighbors, their acquaintances"
(Zehr 77). The emphasis on nonviolence within so much of the Buddhist tradition
is not because of some otherworldly preoccupations; it is based upon the psychological
insight that violence breeds violence. This is a clear example, if anything is,
of the maxim that our means cannot be divorced from our ends. If there is no way
to peace, peace itself must be the way. Since the state is not exempt from this
truth, we must find some way to incorporate it into our judicial systems.
The Vinaya [5]
The Vinaya Pitaka is, in effect, a canonical compendium
of the rules that bhikkhus and bhikkunis are expected to follow. The vinaya is
based upon sila morality, which, although only one part of the three-part path
(the others are samadhi concentration and prajna wisdom), provides the ethical
foundation essential for all Buddhists. The five basic sila precepts are to abstain
from killing, stealing, improper sexual behaviour, lying, and intoxicants. These
precepts help us eradicate the three roots of evil: "As lust, malice and
delusion are the basis of all undesirable volitional activity done by means of
thoughts, word and body, the disciplinary code or Buddhist Laws are regarded as
a means established for the rise of detached actions which finally result in pure
expressions of body, speech and thought" (Ratnapala 42).
Although now
rigidly codified, the vinaya approach is quite practical. Almost all rules originate
from actual events (what we would call case law) rather than from hypothetical
possibilities of wrong-doing. "The spirit of the law suggests that the laws
act more or less as sign-posts or 'danger zones' indicating that one should be
careful here, keeping in mind the example or examples of individuals who fell
into trouble by this or that strategem" (Ratnapala 42). Since not derived
from God or any other absolute authority, these rules are always open to revision,
except for the four parajikas (sexual intercourse, stealing, killing a human being,
and lying about one's spiritual attainment) which constitute automatic self-expulsion.
Following the rules well is not in itself the goal; the reason for rules is that
they promote personal and spiritual development.
The vinaya approach is very
practical in another way too: in its realistic attitude towards human weakness.
It is the nature of unenlightened human beings to be afflicted by greed, ill-will
and delusion; that is, all of us are somewhat mad. As long as human beings are
unenlightened, then, there will be crime. The extent of crime can be reduced by
improving social and economic conditions, but no human society will ever be able
to eradicate crime completely. This is consistent with the Buddhist attitude towards
self-perfection: we improve only gradually, step by step, which implies that offences
should be evaluated with tolerance and compassion.
If we are all somewhat
insane, the insanity defense is always somewhat applicable, for there can be no
presumption of free will or simple self-determination. Freedom is not a matter
of liberating individual self-will (often motivated by greed, etc.) but overcoming
such willfulness; not gained by removing external restraints, but by self-control
and spiritual awakening. This denies the distinction we are usually quick to make
between an offender and the rest of us. The rehabilitative model of secular therapy
denies the offender's dignity and responsibility, as Conrad Brunk points out,
but Buddhism avoids this problem by emphasizing the continuity between offenders
and us: the difference is only a matter of degree -- at most. According to Buddhism,
the issue is not punishment but correction, and the best antidote to crime is
to help people realize the full consequences of their actions (Ratnapala12-13).
In determining the nature of an offence against the vinaya, everything about an
offender's situation is taken into consideration in order to make the best possible
judgement about what should be done: one's past, character and intelligence, the
nature and conduct of one's associates, as well as whether or not one has confessed.
This may be contrasted to our own judicial preoccupation with the black-or-white
question of guilty/not guilty. "Degrees of severity of the offense may vary,
but in the end there are no degrees of guilt", which teaches "the hidden
message that people can be evaluated in simple dichotomies." From a perspective
that takes the offender's self-reformation (and is there any other type?) seriously,
such an approach is seriously flawed:
"Much evidence suggests that offenders
often do not act freely or at least do not perceive themselves as capable of free
action... Ideas of human freedom and thus responsibility necessarily take on a
different hue in such a context." (Zehr 70)
The vinaya supports the notion
that our preoccupation with guilt is based on an erroneous understanding of human
nature and how it changes. "Guilt says something about the quality of the
person who did this and has a 'sticky,' indelible quality." (Zehr 69). Buddhist
emphasis on the transience of everything means there is nothing indelible about
our unwholesome mental tendencies; deep-rooted ones may be difficult to eradicate,
but that is because they are an engrained result of past habits, not an "essential"
part of us.
The main concern of the vinaya is not ruling on guilt but determining
the intention, because one's intention decides the nature of the offence. If there
is no consent to commit an act one is not guilty of it; and the lighter the intention,
the less grave the offence (Ratnapala 5, 93, 192).
Intention is also the most
important factor in the operation of the law of karma, which according to Buddhism
is created by volitional action: "I am the result of my own deed ... whatever
deed I do, whether good or bad, I shall become heir to it." [6] A modern
approach is to understand karma in terms of what Buddhism calls sankharas, our
"mental formations" especially our habitual tendencies. These are very
important for Buddhism because they are not tendencies we have but tendencies
we are. Instead of being "my" habits, their interaction is what constructs
my sense of "me". Then we are punished not for our sins but by them.
People suffer or benefit not for what they have done but for what they have become,
and what we intentionally do is what makes us what we are. My actions and my intentions
build/rebuild my character just as food is assimilated to build/rebuild my physical
body. If karma is this psychological truth about how we construct ourselves, or
about how our selves are constructed by "our" greed, ill-will and delusion,
then we can no longer accept the juridical presupposition of a self-determined
subject wholly responsible for its own actions. Once we understand the mental
tendencies that afflict all of us, desire for vengeance must be replaced with
compassion that emphasizes reformation.
The system of punishments used within
the sangha shows how these principles work in practice. The emphasis is on creating
a situation that will help an offender to remember and reflect upon the offence,
in order to overcome the mental tendencies that produced it. Most penalties involve
what we now call probation. Probation is usually regarded as a modern method of
treatment derived from English common law, but it has been widely used in Buddhism
for 2500 years, because consistent with the Buddhist concern not to punish but
to reform. Once the probation was successfully finished, the bhikkhu returned
to his previous position and status, so "the social image of the offender
was not harmed. After the penalty, he was received back and he enjoyed the identical
position he had earlier without stigma or contempt. Human dignity thus was always
regarded as important in the court and in the society, while under a penalty or
after rehabilitation" (Ratnapala 77). This contrasts with the humiliation
built into our present retributive approach. A major factor in many offences is
low self-esteem, and a restorative system must address this explicitly by focusing
on ways to help offenders build self-esteem in the act of accepting responsibility
for their actions.
This does not contradict the Buddhist teaching that there
is no separate self. "Reintegration requires that we view ourselves (and
others) as a complex measure of good and evil, injuries and strengths, and that
while we resist and disparage the evil and compensate for our weaknesses, we also
recognize and welcome the good and utilize our strengths" (Van Ness and Strong
on reintegrative shaming, 118). This is precisely the Buddhist view of human nature,
which does not presuppose a unitary soul or self-determining subject, but understands
the self to be a composite of unwholesome and wholesome tendencies.
To sum
up, the vinaya approach suggests that, if we are serious in our desire for a judicial
system that truly heals, we must find a way to shift our focus from punishing
guilt to reforming intention.
Tibetan justice [7]
Traditional Tibet
provides an opportunity to observe how well the above principles can operate in
lay society. The presupposition of its legal system was that conflict is created
by our incorrect vision of situations, itself caused by our mental afflictions.
In Tibetan Buddhist teachings there are six root afflictions (desire, anger, pride,
ignorance, doubt, and incorrect view) and twenty secondary ones (including belligerence,
resentment, spite, jealousy, and deceit) that cause us to perceive the world in
an illusory way and engage in disputes. Again, we notice a Socratic-like understanding
of human conflict: our immoral behavior is ultimately due to our wrong understanding,
which only a spiritual awakening can wholly purify.
As long as our minds are
afflicted, there is no question of free will, and Tibet's judicial system did
not presuppose it:
"The goal of a legal proceeding was to calm the minds
and relieve the anger of the disputants and then -- through catharsis, expiation,
restitution, and appeasement -- to rebalance the natural order... A primary purpose
of trial procedure was to uncover mental states if possible, and punishment was
understood in terms of its effect upon the mind of the defendant" (French
74-76).
This included the disputants attempting to reharmonize their relations
after a court settlement. For example, the law codes specified a "getting
together payment" to finance a meeting where all the parties would drink
and eat together, to promote a reconciliation. In general, coercion was considered
ineffective, for no one could be forced to follow a moral path. The disputants
had to work out their own difficulties to find a true solution. Therefore even
a decision accepted by all parties would lose its finality whenever they no longer
agreed to it, and cases could be reopened at any later date (French 138).
This emphasis on reharmonizing was embodied both in legal philosophy and in the
different types of judicial process used to settle problems. Legal analysis employed
two basic forms of causation, immediate and root, both derived from Buddhist scriptures;
the root cause was usually considered more important, because the source of animosity
had to be addressed to finally resolve the strife. The most common type of judicial
process was internal settlement by the parties themselves. If that did not work,
private and unofficial conciliators could be tried; this was usually preferred
because it was informal, saved reputations, allowed flexible compromises, and
was much less expensive. A third process involved visiting judges at home to get
their informal opinion of the best way to proceed. Official court proceedings
were a last resort.
This emphasis on consensus and calming the mind presupposed
something generally accepted in Tibet but less acceptable to us: a belief that
it is only the mind, not material possessions or status relations, that can bring
us happiness; in more conventional Buddhist terms, it is my state of mind that
determines whether I attain nirvana or burn in one of the hells. This helps us
to see the more individualistic assumptions operative in our own judicial system,
which emphasizes the personal pursuit of happiness, freedom of restraint by others,
and the right to enjoy one's property without interference.
Tibetan officials
were careful to distinguish religious beliefs from secular legal views when it
came to settling a case. Nonetheless, Tibetan culture was permeated with a spiritual
mentality, and the moral standards of the Buddha and his vinaya influenced every
part of the legal system:
"Each Tibetan knew that the moral Buddhist
cared more for the welfare of others than for his or her own welfare, gave to
others rather than amasses a fortune, rigorously tried to prevent harm to others,
never engaged in any of the nonvirtuous acts, had complete devotion to the Buddha
and his path, worked to eliminate anger and desire for material goods, accepted
problems with patience and endurance, and remained an enthusiastic perseverer
in the quest for truth and enlightenment. As their was no confusion about this
ideal, there was little ambiguity about how the moral actor would deal with a
particular daily situation. Even though the average Tibetan may not have been
any more likely to follow the moral path than a person in any other society, his
or her understanding of that ideal path remained strong" (French 77).
Since all societies require norms as well as sanctions, we may ask what comparable
standards prevail in Western cultures. Generally, ours are more competitive and
atomistic. In U.S. law, for example, "the question becomes 'Would a reasonable
person leave ice on the sidewalk and foresee harm to a passerby?' The court and
the individuals are not expected to know or to ask the moral question 'What would
a correctly acting moral human have done under the same circumstances?'"
In Tibet the accepted standard was not "a reasonable man" but the moral
person exercising self-control; the members of a Tibetan village or neighborhood
recognized that they had responsibility for other members. Unless there are special
circumstances, a U.S. adult has no legal duty or responsibility to help others.
"Tibetans find such an attitude repulsive and inhuman" (French 77, 142).
This emphasis on ending strife and calming the mind implied different attitudes
towards determining legal truth and using precedents. "Whereas the American
view is that legal truth emerges from the clash of opposing forces asserting their
interests, Tibetans saw little value in weathering such a process with all its
extremity, anger, and passion. Truth was understood in one of two ways: as an
ideal and separate standard [hence normally unattainable], or as consensus --
that is, the result when disagreeing parties reach a similar view of what happened
and what should be done" (French 137). The necessity of consent so permeated
the decision-making process that if the disputants could not agree, truth could
not be reached.
This also reduced reliance on previous legal decisions as
precedents. The need to work out the best way to end conflict meant that emphasis
was on decisions harmonizing the group, rather than on decisions harmonizing with
abstract legal principles. As a result, Tibetan jurisprudence eventually formulated
a core of five factors to be considered: the uniqueness of each case (requiring
a sensitivity to its particular features); what is suitable for punishment (no
statutory guidelines for sentencing); considerations of karma (punishment should
be oriented towards improving the offender's future life); the correct purposes
of punishment (to reharmonize with the community and make offenders mindful of
the seriousness of their offenses); and the correct types of punishment (incarceration
was rare because of lack of facilities). Economic sanctions such as fines and
damages were the most common, followed by physical punishment and forced labor;
others included ostracism, publishing the offence, and reduction of official rank
or loss of occupational status; capital punishment was also used occasionally.
In general, local and nongovernmental decisionmakers were believed to be more
likely to find solutions that would actually rectify behavior and restore community
harmony.
In summary, Tibet provides an example of a country whose judicial
system was organized according to very different principles. However, any attempt
we might make to incorporate those principles into Western criminal justice would
seem to be vitiated by one obvious problem: Buddhist Tibet was not a secular society.
Its judicial system was not autonomous, for its framework of "legal cosmology"
was derived from the Tibetan worldview, itself imbedded in a Buddhist cultural
base. For a Tibetan, then, there was no clear division betwen religion and the
state (French 346, 100). Such a judicial system is difficult to harmonize with
our Western legal systems, which have evolved to fit secular and pluralistic societies.
For the West, a distinction between religious and civil authority is basic.
Or is it? Is our judicial system an Enlightened secular alternative to such a
religiously-based legal cosmology, or is it merely unaware of its own religious
origins and assumptions? There is nothing unique about Tibet's legal system being
derived from its worldview; that is true of any legal system. Ours too is embedded
in a worldview which we take for granted just as much as Tibetans took for granted
a Buddhist cosmology. I conclude by suggesting that, for us, the role of the Buddha
has been assumed, in large part, by the state. This implies a rather different
understanding of what is wrong with our criminal justice systems.
A Genealogy
of Justice
Our understanding of justice, like every understanding of justice,
is historically constructed. If we want to reconstruct justice, then, it is important
to understand how we got where we are. But there is no perspectiveless perspective.
It is our concern for restorative justice that enables us to see the history of
jurisprudence in a new way.
In premodern Anglo-Saxon and Germanic law, the
notion of a wrong to a person or his family was primary, that of an offense against
the "common weal" secondary. Our distinction between civil and criminal
law hardly existed, even for the most grave offenses. As monarchies grew more
powerful, private settlements of crimes regarded as public wrongs were not permitted,
because they were understood to undermine the Crown's authority.
This development
intersected with another in the religious sphere. Initially, Christian practice
had emphasized forgiving wrongdoing; like Buddhism, it was focused on reconciliation
and spiritual salvation. Beginning in the eleventh century, however, theology
and common law began to redefine crime as an offense against the metaphysical
order, which causes a moral imbalance that needs to be righted. Crime became a
sin against God, and it was the responsibility of the Church to purge such transgressions
(Zehr 116).
These developments intersected in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, when the Reformation initiated a social crisis that culminated in the
birth of the nation-state as we know it today. The religious schism increased
the leverage of civil rulers and the balance of power between Church and state
shifted to the latter. This allowed some rulers to appropriate the Church's mantle
of spiritual charisma. Their power could become absolute because they filled the
new vacuum of spiritual authority by becoming, in effect, "secular gods"
accountable only to God. Thanks to reformers such as Luther and Calvin, who postulated
a vast gap between corrupt humanity and God's righteousness, the deity was now
too far away to supervise their power. Luther and Calvin endorsed the punitive
role of the state, which took over God's role in administering punishment. The
eventual overthrow of absolute rulers freed state institutions from responsibility
to anything outside themselves, since now they "embodied the people".
This gives us a different perspective on the state's new role as the legal victim
of all crimes, with a monopoly on justice. Instead of viewing the nation-state
as a solely secular institution, we should understand that our historically-conditioned
allegiance to it is due to the fact that it took over some of the authority of
schismatic and therefore somewhat discredited Christianity. Yet the objectivity
and impersonality of state justice led to an emphasis on formal law and due process,
with little regard for the effects of this process on its participants (Wright
112). Such "law can be viewed as being inversely related to personal trust.
With respect to trust, bureaucracy can be viewed as the antithesis of community"
(Cordella 35).
The Anabaptists understood that such a state is inherently
coercive and refused to engage in its civil affairs, because state authority was
antithetical to their own mutualist vision of community. In short, they saw the
basic problem that the rest of us are just beginning to understand: if the nation-state
is a god, it is a false one -- an idol.
What does all this have to do with
restorative justice? The all-important issue is the social context of justice.
In a wonderful passage, Zehr discusses the relationship between Biblical justice
and love:
"We tend to assume that love and mercy are different from or
opposite to justice. A judge pronounces a sentence. Then as an act of mercy, she
may mitigate the penalty. Biblical justice, however, grows out of love. Such justice
is in fact an act of love which seeks to make things right. Love and justice are
not opposites, nor are they in conflict. Instead, love provides for a justice
which seeks first to make things right" (139).
I hope to have shown that
the same is true for Buddhism: Buddhist justice grows out of a compassion for
everyone involved when someone hurts another.
Logically, the opposite of love
is hatred; but Jung and others have pointed out that the psychological opposite
to love is fear. By no coincidence, Hobbes' theory of a social contract makes
fear the origin of the state, for the absolute authority of the state is the only
thing that can protect my self-interest from yours. True or not, that has become
our myth: we legitimize the state's justice insofar as we accept that it is needed
to protect us from each other.
This implies a sharp conflict between Biblical/Buddhist
justice and state justice. The usual understanding of justice and mercy separates
them; Zehr's Biblical understanding, and my Buddhist one, see justice growing
out of mercy; but our myth about the social contract implies that the state's
justice grows out of fear. If fear is indeed the opposite of love, we are faced
with two contradictory paradigms about the origins and role of justice. Then the
issue becomes which kind of society we want to live in.
Notes
1. Deirdre
Golash, "Punishment", 11-12. This provocative paper presents the three
main justifications for punishment, argues that each is flawed, and concludes
that we should abolish our institutions of punishment.
2. There are many excellent
works in English that provide an introduction of Buddhist teachings. For early
Buddhism, see Rahula 1959; for Mahayana Buddhism, see Williams 1989.
3. Majjhima
Nikaya ii 98ff, in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 710-717.
4.
Digha Nikaya iii 65 ff, in The Long Discourses of the Buddha, 395-405.
5. This
section draws heavily on Ratnapala's Crime and Punishment in the Buddhist Tradition.
6.
Anguttara Nikaya iii, 59.
7. This section draws heavily on French's The Golden
Yoke.
Bibliography
Camilleri, Joseph, "Human Rights, Cultural
Diversity and Conflict Resolution", Pacifica Review, Vol. 6 no. 2 (1994).
Chakravarti,
Uma, The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1987).
Cordella, J. Peter, "Reconciliation and the Mutualist Model of
Community", in Harold Pepinsky and Richard Quinney, Criminology as Peacemaking
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991).
French, Rebecca Redwood, The
Golden Yoke: The Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1995).
Golash, Deirdre, "Punishment: an insitutition in search
of a moral grounding", in Christine Sistare, ed., Punishment: Social Control
and Coercion (Center for Semiotic Research, 1994), pp. 11 -- 28. Gombrich, Richard,
Theravada Buddhism (London: Routledge, 1988).
Liechty, Daniel, Abstracts of
the Complete Writings of Ernest Becker (unpublished, distributed privately).
The
Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha Nikaya, trans. Maurice
Walshe (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995).
The Middle Length Discourses of
the Buddha, trans. Nanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom, 1995).
Pepinsky,
Harold, "Peacemaking in Criminology and Criminal Justice", in Harold
Pepinsky and Richard Quinney, Criminology as Peacemaking (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1991).
Rahula, Walpola, What the Buddha Taught (New York:
Grove Press, 1959).
Ratnapala, Nandasena, Crime and Punishment in the Buddhist
Tradition (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1993).
Van Ness, Daniel, and Karen
H. Strong, Restoring Justice (Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing Company, 1997).
Williams,
Paul, Mahayana Buddhism (London: Routledge, 1989).
Wright, Martin, Justice
for Victims and Offenders (Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1991).
Zehr,
Howard, Changing Lenses: a new focus for crime and justice (Scottsdale, Penn:
Herald Press, 1990, 1996).
*********************
Instructions
for Entering Jhana
...Leigh
Brasington / www.Dharma.org
[These
instructions have been taken from a nine-day retreat offered by Leigh Brasington
at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in April of 2002. The Pali word jhana
(Sanskrit dhyana) is sometimes simply translated as "meditation," but
more accurately refers to an "absorption" into a very focused, very
stable state of concentration. In the classical tradition there are several stages
of jhana, each one more focused than the previous.]
Some people will experience
some of the jhanas on this retreat; some people will not. The likelihood of you
experiencing a jhana is inversely proportional to the amount of desire that you
have for it. After all, the instructions given by the Buddha in the early texts
for practicing jhana begin with "Secluded from sense desire, secluded from
unwholesome states of mind, one approaches and abides in the first jhana."
In order to experience a jhana, it is necessary to temporarily abandon the five
hindrances [sense desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry,
doubt]. However, if you are craving a jhana, you've got sense desire and an unwholesome
state of mind. You have to set those aside to be able to enter the jhana.
The
method for entering jhana begins with generating access concentration. You begin
by sitting in a comfortable, upright position. It needs to be comfortable, because
if there is too much pain, aversion will naturally develop in the mind. You may
be able to sit in a way that looks really good, but if your knees are killing
you there will be pain and you will not experience any jhanas. So you need to
find some way to sit that is comfortable. But it also needs to be upright and
alert, because that tends to get your energy going in a beneficial way that keeps
you awake. If you are too comfortable you will be overcome with sloth and torpor,
which is an unwholesome state of mind that is totally useless for entering the
jhanas.
So the first prerequisite for entering the jhanas is to put the body
in a position that you can just leave it in for the length of the sitting without
having to move. If you have back problems or some other obstacle that prevents
you from sitting upright, then you need to find some other alert position that
you can maintain comfortably.
Now this is not to say that you cannot move.
It may be that you have taken a position and you discover that "My knee is
killing me; I have to move because there is too much aversion." If you have
to move, you have to move. Okay, be mindful of moving. The intention to move will
be there before the movement. Notice that intention, then move very mindfully,
and then re-settle yourself into the new position, and notice how long it takes
for the mind to get back to that place of calm that it had before you moved. It
is very important that you not move unmindfully.
This process encourages you
to find a position where you don't have to move, because you'll notice the amount
of disturbance that even a slight movement generates. And in order to get concentrated
enough to have the jhanas manifest, you need a very calm mind.
Generating access
concentration can be done in a number of ways. Today I will mostly talk about
generating it using the breath, a practice known as anapana-sati. The first word,
anapana, means "in-breath and out-breath," while the word sati means
"mindfulness." The practice is therefore "mindfulness of breathing."
When practicing anapana-sati, you put your attention on the breath. It is probably
better if you can observe the physical sensations of the breath at the nostrils
or on the upper lip, rather than at the abdomen or elsewhere. It is better because
it is more difficult to do; therefore you have to concentrate more. Since we are
trying to generate access concentration we take something that is do-able, though
not terribly easy to do-and then we do it. When watching the breath at the nose,
you have to pay attention very carefully.
In doing so you will watch the sensations,
and then your mind will wander off. Then you'll bring it back and it will wander
off, then you'll bring it back and it will wander off. Eventually though-maybe
not in the next sitting, maybe not even in the next day-but eventually, you'll
find that the mind sort of locks into the breath. You've been going first to one
side and then the other, and finally you're there, and you know that you're there.
You're really with the breath and the mind is not wandering off. Any thoughts
that you have are wispy and in the background. The thoughts might be something
like "Wow, I'm really with the breath now," as opposed to, "When
I get to Hawaii, the first thing I'm going to do is
"
When the thoughts
are just slight, and they're not really pulling you away, you're with the sensations
of the breath. This is the sign that you've gotten to access concentration. Whatever
method you use to generate access concentration, the sign that you've gotten to
access concentration is that you are fully present with the object of meditation.
So if you are doing metta [loving-kindness meditation], you're just fully there
with the feelings of metta; you're not getting distracted. If you're doing the
body sweeping practice, you're fully there with the sensations in the body as
you sweep your attention through the body. You're not thinking extraneous thoughts,
you're not planning, you're not worrying, you're not angry, you're not wanting
something. You are just fully there with whatever the object is.
If your practice
is anapana-sati, there are additional signs to indicate you have arrived at access
concentration. You may discover that the breath becomes very subtle; instead of
a normal breath, you notice you are breathing very shallow. It may even seem that
you've stopped breathing altogether. These are signs that you've arrived at access
concentration. If the breath gets very shallow, and particularly if it feels like
you've stopped breathing, the natural thing to do is to take a nice, deep breath
and get it going again. Wrong! This will tend to weaken your concentration. By
taking that nice deep breath, you drop down the level of concentration. Just stay
with that shallow breathing. It's okay. You don't need a lot of oxygen, because
you are very quiet.
If the breath gets very, very subtle, or if it disappears
entirely, instead of taking a deep breath, shift your attention away from the
breath to a pleasant sensation. This is the key thing. You watch the breath until
you arrive at access concentration, and then you let go of the breath and shift
your attention to a pleasant sensation. There is not much point in watching the
breath that has gotten extremely subtle or has disappeared completely. There's
nothing left to watch. Shift your attention to a pleasant sensation, preferably
a pleasant physical sensation. You will need a good bit of concentration to watch
a pleasant physical sensation, because a mildly pleasant feeling somewhere in
your body is not nearly as exciting as the breath coming in and the breath going
out. You've got this mildly pleasant sensation that's just sitting there; you
need to be well-concentrated to stay with it.
The first question that may arise
when I say "Shift your attention to a pleasant sensation" is "What
pleasant sensation?" Well, it turns out that when you get to access concentration,
the odds are quite strong that some place in your physical being there will be
a pleasant sensation. Look at this statue of the Buddha: he has a smile on his
face. That is not just for artistic purposes; it is there as a teaching mechanism.
Smile when you meditate, because when you reach access concentration, you only
have to shift your attention one inch to find the pleasant sensation.
Now when
I tell you "Smile when you meditate," your reaction is probably "I
don't feel like smiling when I meditate." I know this because when they told
me to smile when I meditated, my reaction was "I don't feel like smiling."
OK, so you don't feel like smiling. Nonetheless if you put a fake smile on your
face when you start meditating, by the time you arrive at access concentration,
the smile will feel genuine.
If you can smile when you meditate, it works very
well for generating a pleasant sensation to focus upon when you arrive at access
concentration; but actually, smiling seems to only work for about a quarter of
my students. Too many people in this culture have been told "Smile whether
you feel like it or not." And so now when I tell you "Smile whether
you feel like it or not," your reaction is "No, I'm not gonna do that."
OK. So you don't smile when you meditate. You'll have to find some other pleasant
sensation.
Pleasant sensations can occur pretty much anywhere. The most common
place people that find pleasant sensations when they get to access concentration
is in the hands. What you want to do with your hands when you meditate is put
them in a nice position in which you can just leave them. The traditional posture
is one hand holding the other, with the thumbs lightly touching. This is a quite
excellent posture because it has the tendency of moving the shoulders back and
lining up your spine nicely. When the hands are held like this, many people find
that eventually there is a nice, tingly, pleasant sensation that appears in the
hands. You can also put your hands in all sorts of other positions - just place
them however appeals to you. When you get to access concentration, if you notice
that there's a nice pleasant feeling in the hands, drop the attention on the breath
and focus entirely on the pleasantness of that sensation.
Another common place
that people find a pleasant sensation is in the heart center, particularly if
you're using metta as the access method. Just shift your attention to the pleasantness
of that sensation. Other places people find pleasant sensations include the third
eye, the top of the head, the shoulders-actually, you name a body part and I've
had some student find a pleasant sensation there that they were able to focus
upon long enough for the first jhana to arise. It does not matter where the pleasant
sensation manifests; what matters is that there is a pleasant sensation and you're
able to put your attention on it and-now here comes the really hard part-do nothing
else.
You find the pleasant sensation, and shift your attention to the pleasant
sensation. You observe the pleasantness of the pleasant sensation, and do nothing
else. If you can do that, the pleasant sensation will begin to grow in intensity,
it will become stronger. This will not happen in a linear way. It'll sort of grow
a little bit, and then grow a little bit more and then hang out, and grow a little
bit more
and then eventually it will suddenly take off and take you into
what is obviously an altered state of consciousness.
In this altered state
of consciousness, you will be overcome with Rapture ... Euphoria
Ecstasy
Delight. These are all English words that are used to translate the Pali
word pãti. Pãti is this physical sensation that literally takes
you over and takes you into an altered state. It will be accompanied by an emotional
sensation of joy and happiness. The Pali word is sukha, the opposite of dukkha
[pain, suffering]. And, if you remain one-pointed on this experience of pãti
and sukha-that is the first jhana.
So to summarize the method for entering
the first jhana: You sit in a nice comfortable upright position, and generate
access concentration by putting and maintaining your attention on a single meditation
object. When access concentration arrises, then you shift your attention from
the breath (or whatever your method is) to a pleasant sensation, preferably a
pleasant physical sensation. You put your attention on that sensation, and maintain
your attention on that sensation, and do nothing else.
The hard part is the
do nothing else part. You put your attention on the pleasant sensation, and nothing
happens, so you might think to yourself, "He said something was supposed
to happen." No, I did not say to make comments about watching the pleasant
sensation. Or, you might put your attention on the pleasant sensation and it starts
to increase, so you think, "Oh! Oh! Something's happening!" No. Or it
comes up just a little bit and then it stops, and you sort of try and help it.
No. None of this works.
You are to simply observe the pleasant sensation. You
become totally immersed in the pleasantness of the pleasant sensation. And I mean
by this just what I say: the pleasantness of the pleasant sensation. I don't mean
the location of the pleasant sensation; nor its intensity; nor its duration. I
don't mean whether the pleasant sensation is increasing or decreasing or staying
the same. Just focus entirely upon the pleasant aspect of the pleasant sensation,
and the jhana will arise on its own.
All you can do is set up the conditions
for the jhana to arise, by cultivating a calm and quiet mind focused on pleasantness.
And then just let go-be that calm quiet mind focused on pleasantness-and the jhana
will appear. Any attempt to do anything more does not work. You actually have
to become a human being, as opposed to a human doing. You have to become a being
that is simply focused on the pleasant sensation which is existing, and then the
jhana comes all on its own.
So now I have given you the instructions for the
first jhana. It's a little bit foolish for me to be giving it on the first day
of the retreat, because you're not likely to get there any time soon. You're going
to sit down and start rearranging the contents of your refrigerator, or something
equally absurd. That's normal. Since I don't know when you're actually going to
get to that state of access concentration, I give out the instructions on the
first day so you have heard them. And when you realize you've arrived at access
concentration, you will know what to do: shift your attention to a pleasant sensation
and do nothing else.
But don't expect the necessary concentration to show up
any time soon. In fact, don't go expecting anything. Expectations are the absolute
worst things you can bring on a retreat. Simply do the meditation method. And
when access concentration arises, recognize it, and shift your attention to a
pleasant sensation. Don't try to do the jhanas. You can't. All you can do is pay
attention to the object of meditation, and recognize when it's time to pay attention
to another object.
These are the instructions. Are there any questions?
The
Jhana Text:
Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome
states, I entered upon and abided in the first jhana, which is accompanied by
applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion.
With
the stilling of applied and sustained thought, I entered upon and abided in the
second jhana, which has self-confidence and singleness of mind without applied
and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of concentration.
With
the fading away as well of rapture, I abided in equanimity, and mindful and fully
aware, still feeling pleasure with the body, I entered upon and abided in the
third jhana, on account of which noble ones announce: 'He has a pleasant abiding
who has equanimity and is mindful.'
With the abandoning of pleasure and pain,
and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, I entered upon and abided
in the fourth jhana, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness
due to equanimity.
When my concentrated mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished,
rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability,
I directed it to knowledge
[Majjhima Nikaya 4, etc. Middle Length Discourses
of the Buddha. Nanamoli/Bodhi translation. Wisdom Publications 1995.]
*********************
Kamma
on the Social Level
Bhikkhu
P.A. Payutto
1. Kamma moves
outwards
In practical terms it can be said that the human world is the world
of intentional action. Human beings have a very sophisticated level of intention,
which, in conjunction with their thought processes, allows them to achieve things
which would be impossible for other animals. Although the lower animals, too,
possess intention, it is limited to a nominal degree, being largely on the instinctual
level.
Human thinking is guided by intention. Intention is what fashions the
thinking process and, through that, external conditions. Our way of life, whether
on the individual level or on the level of societies, both small and large, is
directed by intention and the thinking process. It would not be wrong to say that
intention, being the essence of kamma, is what decides our fate as human beings.
Now
let us look at an example of how intention affects society. Intention on the negative
side is that which is influenced by defilements. There are many kinds of defilements.
When these defilements enter into our minds they colour the way we think. Here
I will mention three kinds of defilements which play an important role in directing
human behaviour. They are:
a. Tanha: craving for personal gain.
b. Mana:
desire to dominate.
c. Ditthi: clinging to views.
Normally when talking
of defilements we tend to summarize them as greed, hatred and delusion, the roots
of akusala. Greed, hatred and delusion are more or less defilements on the roots
level. Tanha,mana and ditthi are the active forms of defilements, or the roles
they play in human undertakings. They are the form defilements most often take
on the social level.
The way these three defilements direct human activities
can be seen even more clearly on the social scale than on the individual level.
When people's minds are ruled by the selfish desire for personal gain, aspiring
to pleasures of the senses, their actions in society result in contention, deceit
and exploitation. The laws and conventions formulated by society to control human
behaviour are almost entirely necessitated by these things. And in spite of all
efforts these problems seem to be almost impossible to solve.
A simple example
is the drug problem. People have a tendency to be drawn towards addictive things,
and there are a great number of people who are trapped in this problem. And why
is it so hard to deal with? Primarily, because of the drug peddlers.[1] Their
desire for the profit to be gained from the drug trade gives rise to the whole
industry, and thus to the corruption, the gangs and so on. The industry has become
so extensive and complex that any efforts to rectify the situation, including
efforts to broadcast the dangers of drug abuse, are rendered ineffective. This
problem of drug abuse, which is a problem on the social and national scale, arises
from tanha.
Pollution is another case in point. When the indiscriminate dumping
of chemicals and waste products presents a danger to the environment and public
health, the government must create laws for the control of factories and waste
disposal. But those running the industries are not inclined to give up their profits
so easily. They find ways to evade or blatantly break the laws - in which case
we find examples of government officials operating through selfishness. With minds
dominated by greed and guided by selfishness, instead of carrying out the task
expected of them, they take bribes. The law breakers go on unchecked, as does
the pollution, causing strife for the whole of society. Both the presence of pollution,
and the difficulty encountered in preventing and controlling it, arise from craving.
Corruption
is another social problem which seems impossible to eradicate. This condition
fans outwards to cause countless other problems in society, which are all in the
end caused by craving. It is impossible to list all the problems caused by tanha.
Tanha
also works in conjunction with mana, the craving for power and influence. From
ancient times countries have fought and killed each other through this desire
for power; sometimes at the instigation of one individual, sometimes through a
faction, and sometimes collectively as whole countries. Coupled with the craving
for personal gain, the craving for power gives rise to the exploitation, nationalism
and expansionism in the world with all its subsequent chaos. You could say that
the world turns almost entirely at the instigation of tanha, craving, and mana,
pride. Human history is largely the story of these defilements.
2. The importance
of ditthi in the creation of kamma
However, if we look more deeply into the
processes taking place, we will see that the defilement which exerts the most
influence is the third one ditthi. Ditthi is view or belief, the attachment to
a certain way of thinking. The type of personal gain or power and influence aspired
to are decided by ways of thinking. When there is the view that a certain condition
is desirable and will provide true happiness, craving for personal gain is biased
toward that end. Craving and pride generally play a supporting role to one ditthi.
Ditthi is therefore the most important and powerful of these three defilements.
The
direction of society is decided by ditthi. A sense of value of any given thing,
either on an individual or social basis, is ditthi. With this ditthi as a basis,
there follow the attempts to realise the object of desire. People's behaviour
will be influenced accordingly. For example, with the belief that happiness is
to be found in the abundance of material goods, our actions and undertakings will
tend to this end. This is a wrong view, thus the undertakings resulting from it
will also be wrong. All attempts at so-called progress will be misguided and problem-ridden.
Material progress thus brings problems in its wake. It is founded on two basically
wrong and harmful views: 1. That humanity must conquer nature in order to achieve
well-being and find true happiness; 2. That happiness is dependent on material
wealth. These two views are the directors of the modern surge for progress.
Looking
deeply into the kind of civilization which is exerting its influence over the
entire world today, we can see that it is founded on the basic premise that mankind
is separate from nature. Mankind was created to have dominion over nature, free
to exercise his will to manipulate nature as he desired. In the present time it
is becoming obvious that many of the problems arising from material progress,
particularly the environmental ones, are rooted in this basic misconception.
Guided
by wrong view, everything else goes wrong. With right view, actions are guided
in the right direction. Thus, a desire for personal gain can be beneficial. But
with wrong view or wrong belief all actions become harmful. On the individual
level, this expresses itself in the belief in the desirability of certain conditions
and the efforts to obtain them. Such action has ditthi as its foundation. On the
social level, we find the attitudes adhered to by whole societies. When there
is a conviction in the desirability of any given thing, society praises and exalts
it. This collective praise becomes a social value, a quality adhered to by society
as a whole, which in turn pressures the members of the society to perpetuate such
beliefs or preferences. It is easy to see the influence social values have on
people. Sociologists and psychologists are very familiar with the role played
by social values and the effect they have. From social values, beliefs extend
outwards to become belief systems, ideologies, political and economic systems,
such as capitalism, communism and so on, and religions. When theories, beliefs
and political ideologies are blindly adhered to they are products of the defilement
of ditthi.
From one person these ideas fan out to become properties of whole
groups and societies. One individual with wrong view can effect a whole society.
A case in point is the country of Cambodia. One leader, guided by wrong view,
desiring to change the social system of Cambodia, proceeded to try to realize
his aim by authorizing the killing of millions of people and turning the whole
country upside down.[2] Another example is the Nazis, who believed that the Jewish
race was evil and had to be destroyed, and that the Aryan race were to be the
masters of the world. From this belief arose all the atrocities which occurred
during the Holocaust in World War II.
Then there are economic systems and ideologies,
such as Communism and Consumerism: many of the changes that have taken place in
the world over the last century have been based on belief in these ideologies.
And now it seems that it was all somehow some kind of mistake! Eventually we have
to turn around and undo the changes, which is another momentous upheaval for the
population, as can be seen in Russia at the present time.
One of the ways in
which ditthi causes problems on a social level is in the field of religion. When
there is clinging to any view, human beings resort to exploitation and violence
in the name of religion. Wars fought in the name of religion are particularly
violent. This kind of clinging has thus been a great danger to mankind throughout
history. The Buddha recognized the importance of ditthi and greatly emphasised
it in his teaching. Even belief in religion is a form of ditthi which must be
treated with caution in order to prevent it from becoming a blind attachment.
Otherwise it can become a cause of persecution and violence. This is why the Buddha
stressed the importance of ditthi, and urged circumspection in relation to it,
as opposed to blind attachment.[3]
On the negative side, intention works through
the various defilements, such as those mentioned just now. On the positive side
we have the opposite kind of influences. When people's minds are guided by good
qualities, the resulting events within society will take on a different direction.
And so we have the attempts to rectify the problems in society and create good
influences. Human society for this reason does not become completely destroyed.
Sometimes human beings act through metta, kindness, and karuna, compassion, giving
rise to relief movements and human aid organizations. As soon as kindness enters
into human awareness, human beings will undertake all sorts of works for the purpose
of helping others.
International incidents, as well as relief movements, are
motivated by intention, fashioned by either skilful or unskilful qualities, proceeding
from mental kamma into verbal and bodily kamma. These institutions or organizations
then proceed to either create or solve problems on the individual level, the group
level, the social level, the national level, the international level and ultimately
the global level.
The importance of ditthi, whether as a personal view, a social
value or an ideology, cannot be over-emphasised. The reader is invited to consider,
for example, the results on society and the quality of life if even one social
value, that of materialism, were to change into an appreciation of skilful action
and inner well-being as the foundations for true happiness.
3. External influences
and internal reflection
When people live together in any kind of group it is
natural that they will influence each other. People are largely influenced by
their environment. In Buddhism we call this paratoghosa - literally, the sound
from outside, meaning the influence of external factors. Paratoghosa refers to
external influences, or the social environment. These can be either harmful or
beneficial. On the beneficial side, we have the kalya.namitta,[4] the good friend.
The good friend is one kind of external influence. The Buddha greatly stressed
the importance of a kalyaa.namitta, even going so far as to say that association
with a kala.namitta was the whole of the holy life (brahmacariya).
Most people
are primarily influenced by paratoghosa of one kind or another. On the individual
level this refers to contact with others, the influence of which is obvious. Young
children, for example, are readily influenced and guided by adults. On the larger
scale, beliefs, social Values, and the consensus of the majority serve the same
function. People born into society are automatically exposed to and guided by
these influences.
In general we can see that most people simply follow the
influences from the social environment around them. An example is India in the
time of the Buddha. At that time the Brahmanist religion completely controlled
the social system, dividing the whole of society into four castes - the ruling
caste, the intellectual or religious caste (the Brahmins), the merchant caste
and the menial caste. This was the status quo for society at that time. Most people
born into that society would naturally absorb and unquestioningly accept this
state of affairs from the society around them.
But occasionally there arise
those who dare to think for themselves. These are the ones who will initiate action
to correct the problems in society by understanding how they come about. This
is called the arising of yoniso-manasikara, skilful reflection, which sees the
mistaken practices adopted by society and looks for ways to improve them,[5] as
did the Buddha in ancient India, seeing the fault of the caste system. The Buddha
pointed out that a person's real worth cannot be decided by his birth station,
but by his actions, good or evil as the case may be. From the Buddha's skilful
reflection, yoniso-manasikara, a new teaching arose, which became the religion
of Buddhism.
Without skilful reflection humanity would be utterly swamped by
the influence of external factors (paratoghosa) such as religious beliefs, traditions
and social values. We can see how traditions and customs mould human attitudes.
Most people are completely swayed by these things, and this is the kamma that
they accumulate. We could even say that traditions and customs are social kamma
that has been accumulated through the ages, and these things in turn mould the
beliefs and thoughts of the people within that society. These things are all social
kamma.
Every once in a while there will be one who, gauging the social conventions
and institutions of the time with yonisornanasikjira, will instigate efforts to
correct mistaken or detrimental beliefs and traditions. These means for dealing
with problems will become new systems of thought, new social values and ways of
life, which in turn become social currents with their own impetus. In fact these
social currents are originated by individuals, and from there the masses follow.
Thus we can say that society leads the individual, but at the same time, the individual
is the originator of social values and conventions. Thus, in the final analysis,
the individual is the important factor.
4. Personal responsibility in relation
to social kamma
How does a socially accepted view become personal kamma? Personal
kamma here arises at the point where the individual agrees to the values presented
by society. Take, for example, the case of an autocrat who conceives a craving
for power under the influence of maana. This is a condition arising within one
person, but it spreads out to affect a whole society. In this case, what kamma
does the society incur? Here, when the king or despot's advisers agree to and
support his wishes, and when the people allow themselves to be caught up in the
lust for greatness, this becomes kamma for those people also, and thus becomes
kamma on a social scale. It may seem that this chain of events has arisen solely
on account of one person, but this is not so. All are involved and all are kammically
responsible, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the extent of their personal
involvement and their support. The views and desires conceived by the despot become
adopted by the people around him. There is a conscious endorsement of that desire
by the people. The craving for Power and greatness thus spreads throughout the
population and increases in intensity.
This agreement, or endorsement, of social
values, is an intentional act on the level of each individual, which for most
is done without skilful reflection. For instance, the concept of "progress"
so often spoken about in the present time is one based on certain assumptions.
But most people do not enquire into the basic assumptions on which this concept
is based. Thus the concept of "progress" goes unchallenged. This lack
of reflection is also a kind of kamma, as it leads to the submission to the social
value concerned. Here in Thailand, we are accepting the social values introduced
to us by the West. This has a marked influence on Thai society. Being exposed
to this form of belief, the Thai people think that the material progress from
the West is a good thing. Adopting this way of thinking, their whole way of life
is affected, leading to a rejection of religion and a decline in morals.
It
is not difficult to see the lack of reflection present in most people in society.
Even to understand the workings of things on an elementary level, such as in seeing
the cause and effect involved in personal actions, is beyond normal understanding.
Most people follow the crowd. This is the way society usually operates, and this
is social kamma.
All in all, contrary to the widespread image of Buddhism as
a passive religion encouraging inaction, responsible social action is rather encouraged
in the Buddha's teaching. There are numerous teachings given on factors encouraging
social concord, such as the four sa"ngaha vatthu, the Foundations for Social
Unity: dana, generosity: piyavaca, kindly speech; atthacariya, helpful action;
and samanattata, impartiality or equal participation.
However, in Buddhism,
all action should ideally arise from skilful mental qualities. A seemingly well-intentioned
action can be ruined by the influence of unskilful mental states, such as anger
or fear, or it can be tainted through ulterior motives. On the other hand, simply
to cultivate skilful mental states without resultant social action is not very
productive. So we can look at virtue on two levels: on the mental level we have,
for example, the Four Sublime States (Brahmavihara). These are the bases of altruistic
action, or, at the least, of harmonious relations on a social level. On the second
level we have the external manifestations of these skilful qualities, such as
in the four sangaha vatthu, the Foundations of Unity. These two levels of virtue
are interrelated.
The Four Sublime States are metta, goodwill, friendliness;
karuna, compassion, the desire to help other beings; mudita, sympathetic joy,
gladness at the good fortune of others; and upekkha, impartiality or equanimity.
Metta,
goodwill, is a mental stance assumed towards those who are in the normal condition,
or on an equal plane with ourselves; karuna, compassion, is a proper mental attitude
toward those who are in distress; mudita, sympathetic joy, is the attitude toward
those who are experiencing success; upekkha, equanimity or impartiality, is even-mindedness
toward the various situations in which we find ourselves.
Now these four qualities,
when looked at in practical terms, can be seen to manifest as the Four Foundations
of Social Unity. Dana, giving or generosity, is more or less a basic stance towards
others in society, an attitude of generosity, which can be based on metta, giving
through goodwill; karuna, giving through compassion; or mudita, giving as an act
of encouragement . Although this giving usually refers to material things, it
can also be the giving of knowledge, labour and so on.
The second foundation
of unity is piyavaca, kindly speech, which is usually based on the first three
Sublime States. Friendly speech, based on metta, as a basic attitude in everyday
situations; kindly speech, based on karuna, in times of difficulty, as with words
of advice or condolence; and congratulatory speech, based on mudita, as in words
of encouragement in times of happiness and success. However, when confronted with
problems in social situations, piyavaca can be expressed as impartial and just
speech, based on upekkha.
The third factor is atthacariya, useful conduct,
which refers to the volunteering of physical effort to help others. In the first
factor, generosity, we had the giving of material goods. In the second factor,
kindly speech, we have the offering of gentle speech. With this third item we
have the offering of physical effort in the form of helpful conduct. This help
can be on ordinary occasions, such as offering help in a situation where the recipient
is not in any particular difficulty. Help in this instance is more or less a 'friendly
gesture,' thus is based on metta, goodwill. Help can be offered in times of difficulty,
in which case it is help based on karuna, compassion. Help can be offered as an
encouragement in times of success, in which case it is based on mudita, sympathetic
joy or gladness at the good fortune of others. Thus, atthacariya, helpful conduct,
may be based on any of these three Sublime States.
Finally we have samanattata,
literally, 'making oneself accessible or equal.' This is a difficult word to translate.
It means to share with other people's pleasures and pains, to harmonize with them,
to be one with them. It refers to sharing, co-operation and impartiality. We could
say that it means to be humble, such as when helping others in their undertakings
even if it is not one's duty, or to be fair, such as when arbitrating in a dispute.
In
regards to Buddhism, therefore, while social action is encouraged, it should always
stem from skilful mental states rather than idealist impulses. Any social action,
no matter how seemingly worthwhile, will be ruined if it becomes tainted with
unskilful intentions. For this reason, all action, whether individual or socially
oriented, should be done carefully, with an awareness of the real intention behind
it.
Here are some of the Buddha's words on kamma on the social level:
At
that time, the leaders among those beings came together. Having met, they conferred
among themselves thus: 'Sirs! Bad doings have arisen among us, theft has come
to be, slander has come to be, lies have come to be, the taking up of the staff
has come to be. Enough! Let us choose one among us to admonish rightly those who
should be admonished, to rebuke rightly those who should be rebuked, to banish
rightly those who should be banished, and we will apportion some of our wheat
to him.' With that, those beings proceeded to approach one being of fine attributes,
more admirable, more inspiring and more awesome than any of the others, and said
to him, 'Come, Sir, may you rightly admonish those who should be admonished, rightly
rebuke those who should be rebuked, and rightly banish those who should be banished.
We in turn, will apportion some of our wheat to you.' Acknowledging the words
of those other beings, he became their leader ... and there came to be the word
'king'[7]
In this way, bhikkhus, when the ruler of a country fails to apportion
wealth to those in need, poverty becomes prevalent. Poverty being prevalent, theft
becomes prevalent. Theft being prevalent, weapons become prevalent. When weapons
become prevalent, killing and maiming become prevalent, lying becomes prevalent
... slander ... sexual infidelity ... abuse and frivolity ... covetousness and
jealousy ... wrong view becomes prevalent." [D. I. 70].
Notes
[1]
Those who are involved in the industry often try to justify themselves with the
rationalisation that they are merely satisfying a demand, but Buddhism teaches
awareness of Wrong livelihood, the trade in things which will cause harm to other
beings. This includes animals (for slaughter), slaves (which could include prostitutes),
weapons and drugs and alcohol. From the Buddhist perspective, the trader is not
immune from blame for the damage caused by these things.
[2] Of course, that
Pol Pot possessed such views was also largely due to external influences. Thus,
external influences and individual action are intricately enmeshed. The kamma
created in this instance would have been his conscious endorsement and wholehearted
support of these views.
[3] In this context it is notable that religious wars
have never been fought in the name of Buddhism, probably for the reasons given
above.
[4] The'good friend'here is one who will guide one to betterment, who
can teach the Dhamma, rather than a friend as the term is normally understood.
[5]
Yoniso-manasikara must be naturally founded on internal reflection. Thus it is
not simply an intellectual consideration of social problems, but must be incorporated
into the entire stream of Dhamma practice.
[6] The so-called 'silent majority'
is thus not free of ethical responsibility. Such a silence, if accompanied by
the resignation and acquiescence it usually generates, is in itself a condonement
of social values and events, conditioned by the extent of apathy or lack of reflection
involved.
[7] Mahasammata, lit., the Great Elect.
*********************
Living
in the World with Dhamma
by Ajahn Chah
Most people still don't know
the essence of meditation practice. They think that walking meditation, sitting
meditation and listening to Dhamma talks are the practice. That's true too, but
these are only the outer forms of practice. The real practice takes place when
the mind encounters a sense object. That's the place to practice, where sense
contact occurs. When people say things we don't like there is resentment, if they
say things we like we experience pleasure. Now this is the place to practice.
How are we going to practice with these things? This is the crucial point. If
we just run around chasing after happiness and away from suffering all the time
we can practice until the day we die and never see the Dhamma. This is useless.
When pleasure and pain arise how are we going to use the Dhamma to be free of
them? This is the point of practice.
Usually when people encounter something
disagreeable to them they don't open up to it. Such as when people are criticized:
"Don't bother me! Why blame me?" This is someone who's closed himself
off. Right there is the place to practice. When people criticize us we should
listen. Are they speaking the truth? We should be open and consider what they
say. Maybe there is a point to what they say, perhaps there is something blame-worthy
within us. They may be right and yet we immediately take offense. If people point
out our faults we should strive to be rid of them and improve ourselves. This
is how intelligent people will practice.
Where there is confusion is where
peace can arise. When confusion is penetrated with understanding what remains
is peace. Some people can't accept criticism, they're arrogant. Instead they turn
around and argue. This is especially so when adults deal with children. Actually
children may say some intelligent things sometimes but if you happen to be their
mother, for instance, you can't give in to them. If you are a teacher your students
may sometimes tell you something you didn't know, but because you are the teacher
you can't listen. This is not right thinking.
In the Buddha's time there was
one disciple who was very astute. At one time, as the Buddha was expounding the
Dhamma, he turned to this monk and asked, "Sariputta, do you believe this?"
Venerable Sariputta replied, "No, I don't yet believe it." The Buddha
praised his answer. "That's very good, Sariputta, you are one who us endowed
with wisdom. One who is wise doesn't readily believe, he listens with an open
mind and then weighs up the truth of that matter before believing or disbelieving."
Now the Buddha here has set a fine example for a teacher. What Venerable Sariputta
said was true, he simply spoke his true feelings. Some people would think that
to say you didn't believe that teaching would be like questioning the teacher's
authority, they'd be afraid to say such a thing. They'd just go ahead and agree.
This is how the worldly way goes. But the Buddha didn't take offense. He said
that you needn't be ashamed of those things which aren't wrong or bad. It's not
wrong to say that you don't believe if you don't believe. That's why Venerable
Sariputta said, "I don't yet believe it." The Buddha praised him. "This
monk has much wisdom. He carefully considers before believing anything."
The Buddha's actions here are a good example for one who is a teacher of others.
Sometimes you can learn things even from small children; don't cling blindly to
positions of authority.
Whether you are standing, sitting, or walking around
in various places, you can always study the things around you. We study in the
natural way, receptive to all things, be they sights, sounds, smells, tastes,
feelings or thoughts. The wise person considers them all. In the real practice,
we come to the point where there are no longer any concerns weighing on the mind.
If we still don't know like and dislike as they arise, there is still some
concern in our minds. If we know the truth of these things, we reflect, "Oh,
there is nothing to this feeling of liking here. It's just a feeling that arises
and passes away. Dislike is nothing more, just a feeling that arises and passes
away. Why make anything out of them?" If we think that pleasure and pain
are personal possessions, then we're in for trouble, we never get beyond the point
of having some concern or other in an endless chain. This is how things are for
most people.
But these days they don't often talk about the mind when teaching
the Dhamma, they don't talk about the truth. If you talk the truth people even
take exception. They say things like, "He doesn't know time and place, he
doesn't know how to speak nicely." But people should listen to the truth.
A true teacher doesn't just talk from memory, he speaks the truth. People in society
usually speak from memory, he speaks the truth. People in the society usually
speak from memory, and what's more they usually speak in such a way as to exalt
themselves. The true monk doesn't talk like that, he talks the truth, the way
things are.
No matter how much he explains the truth it's difficult for people
to understand. It's hard to understand the Dhamma. If you understand the Dhamma
you should practice accordingly. It may not be necessary to become a monk, although
the monk's life is the ideal form for practice. To really practice, you have to
forsake the confusion of the world, give up family and possessions, and take to
the forests. These are the ideal places to practice.
But if we still have
family and responsibilities how are we to practice? Some people say it's impossible
to practice Dhamma as a layperson. Consider, which group is larger, monks or laypeople?
There are far more laypeople. Now if only the monks practice and laypeople don't,
then that means there's going to be a lot of confusion. This is wrong understanding.
"I can't become a monk..." Becoming a monk isn't the point! Being a
monk doesn't mean anything if you don't practice. If you really understand the
practice of dhamma then no matter what position or profession you hold in life,
be it a teacher, doctor, civil servant or whatever, you can practice the Dhamma
every minute of the day.
To think you can't practice as a layman is to lose
track of the path completely. Why is it people can find the incentive to do other
things? If they feel they are lacking something they make an effort to obtain
it. If there is sufficient desire people can do anything. some say, "I haven't
got time to practice the Dhamma." I say, "Then how come you've got time
to breathe?" Breathing is vital to people's lives. If they saw Dhamma practice
as vital to their lives they would see it as important as their breathing.
The
practice of dhamma isn't something you have to go running around for or exhaust
yourself over. Just look at the feelings which arise in your mind. When the eye
sees form, ear hears sounds, nose smells odors and so on, they all come to this
one mind, "the one who knows." Now when the mind perceives these things
what happens? If we like that object we experience pleasure, if we dislike it
we experience displeasure. That's all there is to it.
So where are you going
to find happiness in this world? Do you expect everybody to say only pleasant
things to you all your life? Is that possible? No, it's not. If it's not possible
then where are you going to go? The world is simply like this, we must know the
world -- Lokavidu -- know the truth of this world. The world is something we should
clearly understand. The Buddha lived in this world, he didn't live anywhere else.
He experienced family life, but he saw its limitations and detached himself from
them. Now how are you as laypeople going to practice? If you want to practice
you must make an effort to follow the path. If you persevere with the practice
you too will see the limitations of this world and be able to let go.
People
who drink alcohol sometimes say, "I just can't give it up." Why can't
they give it up? Because they don't yet see the liability in it. If they clearly
saw the liability of it they wouldn't have to wait to be told to give it up. If
you don't see the liability of something that means you also can't see the benefit
of giving it up. Your practice becomes fruitless, you are just playing at practice.
If you clearly see the liability and the benefit of something you won't have to
wait for others to tell you about it. Consider the story of the fisherman who
finds something in his fish-trap. He knows something is in there, he can hear
it flapping about inside. Thinking it's a fish, he reaches his hand into the trap,
only to find a different kind of animal. He can't yet see it, so he's in two minds
about it. On one hand it could be an eel, [13] but then again it could be a snake.
If he throws it away he may regret it...it could be an eel. On the other hand,
if he keeps holding on to it and it turns out to be a snake it may bite him. He's
caught in a state of doubt. His desire is so strong he holds on, just in case
it's an eel, but the minute he brings it and sees the striped skin he throws it
down straight away. He doesn't have to wait for someone to call out, "It's
a snake, it's a snake, let go!" The sight of the snake tells him what to
do much more clearly than words could do. Why? Because he sees the danger -- snakes
can bite! Who has to tell him about it? In the same way, if we practice till we
see things as they are we won't meddle with things that are harmful.
People
don't usually practice in this way, they usually practice for other things. They
don't contemplate things, they don't reflect on old age, sickness and death. They
only talk about non-aging and non-death, so they never develop the right feeling
for Dhamma practice. They go and listen to Dhamma talks but they don't really
listen. Sometimes I get invited to give talks at important functions, but it's
a nuisance for me to go. Why so? Because when I look at the people gathered there
I can see that they haven't come to listen to the Dhamma. Some are smelling of
alcohol, some are smoking cigarettes, some are chatting... they don't look at
all like people who have come out of faith in the Dhamma. Giving talks at such
places is of little fruit. People who are sunk in heedlessness tend to think things
like, "When he's ever going to stop talking? ... Can't do this, can't do
that ..." and their minds just wander all over the place.
Sometimes they
even invite me to give a talk just for the sake of formality: "Please give
us just a small Dhamma talk, Venerable Sir." They don't want me to talk too
much, it might annoy them! As soon as I hear people say this I know what they're
about. These people don't like listening to Dhamma. It annoys them. If I just
give a small talk they won't understand. If you take only a little food, is it
enough? Of course not.
Sometimes I'm giving a talk, just warming up to the
subject, and some drunkard will call out, "Okay, make way, make way for the
Venerable Sir, he's coming out now!" -- trying to drive me away! If I meet
this kind of person I get a lot of food for reflection, I get an insight into
human nature. It's like a person having a bottle full of water and then asking
for more. There's nowhere to put it. It isn't worth the time and energy to teach
them, because their minds are already full. Pour any more in and it just overflows
uselessly. If their bottle was empty there would be somewhere to put the water,
and both the giver and the receiver would benefit.
In this way, when people
are really interested in Dhamma and sit quietly, listening carefully, I feel more
inspired to teach. If people don't pay attention it's just like the man with the
bottle full of water... there's no room to put anymore. It's hardly worth my while
talking to them. In situations like this I just don't get any energy arising to
teach. You can't put much energy into giving when no-one's putting much energy
into receiving.
These days giving talks tends to be like this, and it's getting
worse all the time. People don't search for truth, they study simply to find the
necessary knowledge to make a living, raise families and look after themselves.
They study for a livelihood. There may be some study of Dhamma, but not much.
Students nowadays have much more knowledge than students of previous times. They
have all the requisites at their disposal, everything is more convenient. But
they also have a lot more confusion and suffering than before. Why is this? Because
they only look for the kind of knowledge used to make a living.
Even the monks
are like this. Sometimes I hear them say, "I didn't become a monk to practice
the Dhamma, I only ordained to study." These are the words of someone who
has completely cut off the path of practice. There's no way ahead, it's a dead
end. When these monks teach it's only from memory. They may teach one thing but
their minds are in completely different place. Such teachings aren't true.
This
is how the world is. If you try to live simply, practicing the Dhamma and living
peacefully, they say you are weird and anti-social. They say you're obstructing
progress in society. They even intimidate you. Eventually you might even start
to believe them and revert to the worldly ways, sinking deeper and deeper into
the world until it's impossible to get out. Some people say, "I can't get
out now, I've gone in to deeply." This is how society tends to be. It doesn't
appreciate the value of Dhamma.
The value of Dhamma isn't to be found in books.
those are just the external appearances of Dhamma, they're not the realization
of Dhamma as a personal experience. If you realize the Dhamma you realize your
own mind, you see the truth there. When the truth becomes apparent it cuts off
the stream of delusion.
The teaching of the Buddha is the unchanging truth,
whether in the present or in any other time. The Buddha revealed this truth 2,500
years ago and it's been the truth ever since. This teaching should not be added
to or taken away from. The Buddha said, "What the Tathagata has laid down
should not be discarded, what has not been laid down by the Tathagata should not
be added on to the teachings." He "sealed off" the Teachings. Why
did the Buddha seal them off? Because these Teachings are the words of one who
has no defilements. No matter how the world may change these Teachings are unaffected,
they don't change with it. If something is wrong, even if people say it's right
doesn't make it any the less wrong. If something is right, it doesn't change any
just because people say it's not. Generation after generation may come and go
but these things don't change, because these Teachings are the truth.
Now
who created this truth? The truth itself created the truth! Did the Buddha create
it? No, he didn't. The Buddha only discovered the truth, the way things are, and
then he set out to declare it. The truth is constantly true, whether a Buddha
arises in the world or not. The Buddha only "owns" the Dhamma in this
sense, he didn't actually create it. It's been here all the time. However, previously
no-one had searched for and found the Deathless, then taught it as the Dhamma.
He didn't invent it, it was already there.
At some point in time the truth
is illuminated and the practice of Dhamma flourishes. As time goes on and generations
pass away the practice degenerates until the Teaching fades away completely. After
a time the Teaching is re-founded and flourishes once more. As time goes on the
adherents of the Dhamma multiply, prosperity sets in, and once more the Teaching
begins to follow the darkness of the world. And so once more it degenerates until
such a time as it can no longer hold ground. Confusion reigns once more. Then
it is time to re-establish the truth. In fact the truth doesn't go anywhere. When
Buddhas pass away the Dhamma doesn't disappear with them.
The world revolves
like this. It's something like a mango tree. The tree matures, blossoms, and fruits
appear and grow to ripeness. They become rotten and the seed goes back into the
ground to become a new mango tree. The cycle starts once more. Eventually there
are more ripe fruits which proceed to fall, rot, sink into the ground as seeds
and grow once more into trees. This is how the world is. It doesn't go very far,
it just revolves around the same old things.
Our lives these days are the
same. Today we are simply doing the same old things we've always done. People
think too much. There are so many things for them to get interested in, but none
of them leads to completion. There are the sciences like mathematics, physics,
psychology and so on. You can delve into any number of them but you can only finalize
things with the truth.
Suppose there was a cart being pulled by an ox. The
wheels aren't long, but the tracks are. As long as the ox pulls the cart the tracks
will follow. The wheels are round yet the tracks are long; the tracks are long
yet the wheels are merely circles. Just looking at a stationary cart you can't
see anything long about it, but once the ox starts moving you see the tracks stretching
out behind you. As long as the ox pulls, the wheels keep on turning...but there
comes a day when the ox tires and throws off its harness. The ox walks off and
leaves the empty cart sitting there. The wheels no longer turn. In time the cart
falls apart, its components go back into the four elements -- earth, water, wind
and fire.
Searching for peace within the world you stretch the cart wheel
tracks endlessly behind you. As long as you follow the world there is no stopping,
no rest. If you simply stop following it, the cart comes to rest, the wheels no
longer turn. Following the world turns the wheels ceaselessly. Creating bad kamma
is like this. As long as you follow the old ways there is no stopping. If you
stop there is stopping. This is how we practice the Dhamma.
*********************
Loyalty
to Your Meditation
by
Ajaan
Lee Dhammadharo
October 22, 1958
Translated from the Thai by
Thanissaro
Bhikkhu
Copyright © 2001 Metta Forest Monastery
For free distribution
only.
You may reprint this work for free distribution.
You may re-format
and redistribute this work for use on computers and computer networks
provided
that you charge no fees for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights
reserved.
While we meditate here on the word buddho, we have to make
up our minds that we're going to stay right here with someone venerable, in the
same way that we'd be a monk's attendant. We'll follow after him and watch out
for him and not run off anywhere else. If we abandon our monk, he's going to abandon
us, and we'll be put to all sorts of hardships. As for the monk, he'll be put
to hardships as well, as in the story they tell:
Once in the time of the Buddha
there was a rich moneylender couple who had been married a long time but without
any children. Both of them really wanted a son who could carry on the family line
and receive their inheritance. So they talked the matter over and decided to invite
a monk to their home to inform him of their predicament, to see if he could use
his meditative powers to help intercede with the devas so that they could have
a child. When they had made their decision, they told one of their male servants
to go into a nearby forest to invite a meditating monk to come have a meal in
their home.
The next morning before dawn, the servant got ready to go into
the forest to a hut where a meditating monk had taken up residence. Now, this
servant had once been a hunter and still had all his old hunting instincts. He
had even kept his crossbow and arrows and other hunting equipment, and maintained
them in good shape. When his master had sent him to invite the monk, which would
require going into the forest, he was happy to go, for it would give him a chance
to do a little hunting on the side. So he snuck his crossbow and arrows out of
the house under his shirt.
When he got halfway to the monk's hut, he realized
that it wouldn't be proper to approach a monk while armed, so he decided to hide
his weapons on the side of the path. On the way back, he'd be able to pick them
up. So he stashed the crossbow and arrows behind a bush near the path. Then he
went on his way empty-handed until he came across an old monk sitting in front
of a hut. After bowing down to the monk, he said to him, "Venerable sir,
my master the moneylender and his wife have asked me to come invite you to a meal
in their house this morning and have told me to take you there. Would you please
be so kind as to accept their invitation."
The old monk, on hearing this,
decided to accept. Now it so happened that he didn't have an attendant of his
own, so he had the servant carry his bowl and shoulder bag. Then he picked up
his cane and headed out in unsteady steps toward the moneylender's house. As they
walked along, he asked the servant, "Where is your master's house? How far
is it from here? How do you get there?" The servant answered all his questions.
After they had walked on a little further, the servant remembered the crossbow
and arrows hidden behind the bush on the side of the path. The thought occurred
to him that he'd like to abandon the old monk, pick up his weapons, and sneak
off to do a little hunting in the forest. After all, he told himself, he had already
given explicit directions to the old monk, so he'd be able to find his way on
his own.
Then he came up with a plan. He told the old monk, "I've got
to go to the bathroom really bad, so let me head into the woods for a moment.
You can walk on ahead. When I'm finished I'll catch up with you."
The
old monk wasn't the least bit suspicious and thought that the servant was telling
the truth, so he let the servant go off while he hurried on ahead, afraid that
it was getting late and that he wouldn't get to the moneylender's house in time
for his meal. As for the servant, he turned off the path and headed for the bush
where he had hidden his crossbow and arrows. But before he got there, one of the
forest devas decided to test his loyalty to the old monk. So the deva metamorphosed
himself into a large golden swan and pretended to have a broken wing, flying an
erratic course under the trees near the path the servant was following.
The
servant heard the sound of a bird flapping its wings -- flip-flap, flip-flap --
and, looking up, saw an enormous golden swan zig-zagging back and forth, looking
like it couldn't get away. Seeing this, he got really excited, thinking that he'd
have to shoot this bird for food for sure. In his excitement he forgot that he
was carrying the monk's bowl and shoulder bag, and thought instead that he had
a quiver strapped to his back and a crossbow on his shoulder. So he reached into
the shoulder bag and pulled out the old monk's betel nut crusher, about two feet
in length, and took aim with it as if it were a crossbow or a rifle. Then he took
his stance and pulled back on the crusher, at the same time making the sound of
a gun firing, byng, byng, byng. But of course he never hit the bird at all.
As
for the old monk, after walking on a ways he began to forget the servant's directions,
so he turned left and right, right and wrong, and couldn't find his way out of
the forest. He looked back over his shoulder to see if the servant was catching
up with him, but the servant never came. All he could hear was the sound -- byng,
byng, byng -- echoing through the forest, but no matter how much he called out,
there was never any answer. The later it got, the hotter the sun, and the more
tired and hungry he got -- for after all, he was very old -- so he made up his
mind to turn around and retrace his steps, staggering back to his hut.
Meanwhile,
the servant -- exhausted from trying to shoot the golden swan without success
-- was ready to give up. So the deva, seeing that he had had enough fun with the
servant, pretended to be shot and fell down panting heavily on the path a little
ways ahead. Thrilled, the servant came running up to pick up the bird, but just
as he bent over to grasp hold of it, it disappeared in a flash. This frightened
the servant, and suddenly it dawned on him that some forest spirit had been deceiving
him. That's when he remembered the old monk. So in his panic he dropped the bowl
and shoulder bag and ran away with his arms flailing, all the while calling out
to the monk, "Help me! Help me!" But the monk was nowhere to be found.
So the servant hurried straight home and told his master everything that had happened.
The moneylender was so furious that he punished the servant by making him sleep
outside the walls of the house compound and go without food for three days. On
top of that, he cut back his daily wage.
This story shows the hardships that
come when a person isn't loyal to his monk, when he runs away from his responsibilities
and abandons his monk. He causes all sorts of problems for himself and for others
as well. The old monk had to go without food for a day. Having lost his bowl,
shoulder bag, and betel nut crusher, he was forced to search for new requisites.
As for the moneylender and his wife, they didn't get the things they had hoped
for.
When you apply this story to the Dhamma, it becomes a lesson worth remembering.
If you're not loyal to your meditation object or to yourself, if you forget the
breath you're meditating on with buddho, buddho, and let your mind go wandering
off in thoughts and concepts, it's as if you've abandoned the monk you're supposed
to look after. You don't follow him; you don't act the role of his student as
you had intended to. The results that you had hoped for will thus get ruined.
In other words, your mind won't get established in concentration. All kinds of
hardships -- the five Hindrances -- will come flowing into the heart, and no peace
will appear. This causes you to suffer and to miss out on the good results that
you should have achieved.
At the same time, you cause hardships to others
-- i.e., the monk sitting up here giving you a Dhamma talk. He wastes his time,
talking for hours until his rear end hurts. Instead of lying around his hut at
his leisure, he has to sit here jabbering away with no results to show for it
at all.
So keep this story in mind as a lesson in teaching yourself to be
intent in doing what's good. Don't be the sort of person who -- like the servant
in the story -- is disloyal to his monk.
There's another story to illustrate
the good things that come from being loyal to your monk, which I'll tell to you
now.
Once there was a moneylender couple who had a large mansion in the city
of Varanasi. Both husband and wife were avid merit-makers. Every year during the
Rains retreat they would invite a monk to have his meal in their home each day
for the entire three months.
Now the moneylender couple had a slave couple
working in their household. The duty of the slave woman was to pound the rice
and separate it into various grades. The highest grade rice was for giving the
monk as alms. The second grade rice was for the moneylender couple to eat. The
third grade rice was for the servants in the household, and the fourth grade --
the lowest grade rice mixed with bran -- was for the slave couple to eat themselves.
As for the slave woman's husband, his primary duty was to cut firewood in the
forest and make the fire for cooking the rice. His secondary duty was to wait
at the mansion gate each morning to welcome the monk who would come for the meal,
and to carry his bowl and shoulder bag up to the house for him. And if I remember
rightly, the monk who was invited for the meal that year was a Private Buddha.
At any rate, when the monk had finished his meal, the slave would carry his bowl
and bag from the front door of the house back out to the mansion gate. As he performed
this duty every day, the slave came to develop a strong affection for the monk.
And the monk felt compassion for the slave. If he had any fruits or other delicacies
left from his meal, he would always share them with the slave. This made the slave
feel an even greater loyalty toward the monk -- to the point where the moneylender
couple allowed him to enter the house as the monk's attendant.
One day the
slave got to follow the monk all the way into the dining room. Before reaching
the dining room, he passed the bedroom, the parlor, and the moneylenders' private
dining room. He got to see all the many beautiful and expensive things decorating
the moneylender couple's home. On the way out, after the meal, he happened to
see the moneylenders' favorite dog -- a male -- eating food from a dish near the
door to the dining room. He couldn't help noticing that the dog's food was fine
rice with curries, and that the dish was made of silver. He thought to himself,
"Look at all the merit this dog has. It gets to live in the house and doesn't
have to run around looking for food on the ground outside like other dogs. When
the time comes, someone fixes food for it to eat, and the food looks so delicious.
The rice is a higher grade than what my wife and I get to eat. And its dish is
a fine one made of silver. If only I could be reborn as a moneylender's dog, just
think of how happy I'd be!"
After he had accompanied the monk to the
mansion gate, he went back to his shack and told his wife about all the things
he had seen in the moneylenders' house, and especially about the dog eating high
grade rice and curries from a silver dish. Then he added, "Neither you nor
I have any really happiness or ease in our lives. You're exhausted every day from
having to pound the rice. As for me, I have to slash through the forest to find
firewood and to make the fire for cooking the rice for everyone in the household.
But all we get to eat is the lowest grade rice mixed with bran. We shouldn't have
been born as human beings. If only we could be reborn like that moneylenders'
dog!"
From that day on, the memory of the moneylenders' dog kept occupying
his thoughts. At the same time, though, he still remained loyal to the monk. But
just a few days later he had an attack of horrible cramps and died. After he stopped
breathing, his spirit didn't go off anywhere, but kept hovering around the moneylenders'
house -- both because it was still fixated on the dog and because it felt attached
to the monk. Every morning it would follow the monk in and out of the house.
One
day, after offering the monk his meal, the moneylender couple presented him with
many additional offerings. When he had finished eating, he carried all the offerings
out the door where the dog was lying on guard. Seeing the monk with his arms all
full of things, the dog thought that he had stolen them from the moneylender couple.
So it rushed at him and started to bark. The spirit of the slave, hovering behind
the monk, slipped right into the dog's open mouth and into its stomach -- and
then couldn't get out.
So now it was stuck. It couldn't follow the monk in
and out of the house as it had every morning. Instead it could only stir around
restlessly in the dog's stomach, which of course had an effect on the dog's behavior.
It couldn't lie still, and kept getting into places it didn't belong. The moneylender
couple noticed it acting abnormally and, mystified, had one of their servants
put it outside in a pen with the other dogs of the household. Before too long,
the dog mated with a female, and the female became pregnant. And so now the slave
was reborn as a puppy in the female's womb. While it was in the womb, it still
wanted to follow the monk in and out of the house, but it couldn't get out. All
it could do was thrash around in its mother's womb, causing her all sorts of misery
and pain.
When her time came, the female finally gave birth to a male puppy
much larger and stronger than normal. This was because the puppy's consciousness
had such a strong desire to get out and see the monk all along. As soon as it
was born, it opened its eyes wide and started to run -- because actually it had
been running ever since its time in the womb. So the next morning, when it saw
the Private Buddha come to the mansion gate, it was overjoyed. It ran up and jumped
all over him, grabbing his shoulder bag from his hand and running after him all
the way into the dining room in the moneylenders' house. This amazed the moneylender
couple and made them feel strong affection for it.
The next morning happened
to be the last day of the Rains retreat, which was the final day of the monk's
invitation to eat in the moneylender couple's home. So before leaving the house
after he had finished his meal, the monk said to the moneylender couple, "Because
today is the last day of your invitation, I would like to give you my blessing
and take my leave to return to the seclusion of my hermitage in the forest."
Then he turned to the puppy, "Tomorrow I won't be coming to your masters'
home any more now, so I want you to stay here and guard your masters with loyalty.
Don't follow me out into the forest, okay?"
When the puppy heard the
Private Buddha say this, it was so heart-broken that it dropped dead on the spot.
Through the power of its love and loyalty for the Private Buddha, it was reborn
as a deva's son in heaven, with a large following and many divine treasures. His
palace was more lovely than that of anyone else's, his looks more handsome than
any other deva's son in heaven. His voice was alluring, his fragrance like that
of flowers. Any female deva who heard his voice or smelled his fragrance wanted
to see him. On seeing him, she would want him as her mate.
All of this was
the result of the goodness of the slave's sincere loyalty to the Private Buddha.
The only bad part of his story was that moment he got fixated on the moneylenders'
dog, which was why he had to spend one lifetime as a puppy. But because the good
kamma of his mind was stronger, it was able to wipe out the kamma of his animal
birth and take him to heaven.
This story is another example that you should
take to heart in your practice of training the mind. You have to be very, very
careful. Don't let any Hindrances come in and take over your mind while you're
practicing concentration. Don't let your monk run away from you, and don't you
abandon your monk to go running after dogs. If your mind doesn't stay with your
monk -- i.e., the factors of your meditation -- all sorts of troubles will result,
as in the stories I've told you here. As for the goodness that comes from keeping
track of your monk, it will send you to good states of becoming and birth, and
will raise your mind ultimately to the level of the transcendent.
* * *
Wrong
concentration is concentration lacking mindfulness and alertness. Wrong release
is when you get beyond distractions by falling asleep.
Another form of wrong
concentration is when you lose track of your breath and your body. Another form
is when you don't lose track of them, but you get deluded -- as when you get fixated
on signs or light, and assume yourself to have gained some special attainment.
You fall for these things and hold onto them as being trustworthy and true. In
this way, they turn into the corruptions of insight (vipassanupakkilesa) and all
sorts of skewed perceptions.
* * *
A pure mind is one that has grown dispassionate
to thoughts of past and future, and has no hankering for any sights, sounds, smells,
tastes, tactile sensations, or ideas at all.
Revised: Fri 25 May 2001
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/loyalty.html
*********************
Meditating
on No-Self
Sister Khema
Sister
Khema was born in Germany, educated in Scotland and China, and later
became
a United States citizen. She now lives at Wat Buddha Dhamma Forest
Monastery
near Sydney Australia, which was established in 1978 on land
purchased and
donated by her. In 1979 she ordained as a Nun in Sri Lanka,
and in 1982 she
established the International Buddhist Women's Center near
Colombo. She spends
most of her time teaching meditation course in different
parts of the world.
Rains Retreat is spent in Sri Lanka.
In Buddhism we use the words
"self" and "no-self," and so it is important to
understand
just what this "no-self," anatta, is all about, even if it is
first
just an idea, because the essence of the Buddha's teaching hinges on
this concept.
And in this teaching Buddhism is unique. No one, no other
spiritual teacher,
has formulated no-self in just this way. And because it
has been formulated
by him in this way, there is also the possibility of
speaking about it. Much
has been written about no-self, but in order to know
it, one has to experience
it. And that is what the teaching aims at, the
experience of no-self.
Yet
in order to experience no-self, one has first to fully know self.
Actually
know it. But unless we do know what this self is, this self called
"me,"
it is impossible to know what is meant by "there is no self there."
In
order to give something away, we have to first fully gave it in hand.
We are constantly trying to reaffirm self. Which already shows that this
"self"
is a very fragile and rather wispy sort of affair, because if it
weren't why
would we constantly have to reaffirm it? Why are we constantly
afraid of the
"self" being threatened of its being insecure, of its not
getting
what it needs for survival? If it were such a solid entity as we
believe it
to be, we would not feel threatened so often.
We affirm "self"
again and again through identification. We identify with a
certain name, an
age, a sex, an ability, an occupation. "I am a lawyer, I am
a doctor.
I am an accountant, I am a student." And we identify with the
people we
are attached to. "I am a husband, I am a wife, I am a mother, I am
a daughter,
I am a son." Now, in the manner of speech, we have to use "self"
in
that way -- but it isn't only in speech. We really think that that "self"
is
who we are. We really believe it. There is no doubt in our mind that that
"self"
is who we are. When any of these factors is threatened, if being a
wife is
threatened, if being a mother is threatened, if being a lawyer is
threatened,
if being a teacher is threatened -- or if we lose the people who
enable us
to retain that "self" -- what a tragedy!
The self-identification
becomes insecure, and "me" finds it hard to say
"look at me,"
"this is me." Praise and blame are included. Praise reaffirms
"me."
Blame threatens "me." So we like the praise and we dislike the blame.
The
ego is threatened. Fame and infamy -- same thing. Loss and gain. If we
gain,
the ego gets bigger; if we lose, it gets a bit smaller. So we are
constantly
in a quandary, and in constant fear. The ego might lose a little
bit of its
grandeur. It might be made a bit smaller by someone. And it
happens to all
of us. Somebody is undoubtedly going to blame us for
something eventually.
Even the Buddha was blamed.
Now the blame that is levied at us is not
the problem. The problem is our
reaction. The problem is that we feel smaller.
The ego has a hard time
reasserting itself. So what we usually do is we blame
back, making the
other's ego a bit smaller too.
Identification with
whatever it is that we do and whatever it is that we
have, be it possessions
or people, is, so we believe, needed for our
survival. "Self" survival.
If we don't identify with this or that, we feel
as if we are in limbo. This
is the reason why it is difficult to stop
thinking in meditation. Because without
thinking there would be no
identification. If I don't think, what do I identify
with? It is difficult
to come to a stage in meditation in which there is actually
nothing to
identify with any more.
Happiness, too, may be an identification.
"I am happy." "I am unhappy."
Because we are so keen on
survival, we have got to keep on identifying. When
this identification becomes
a matter of the life or death of the ego, which
it usually is, then the fear
of loss becomes so great that we can be in a
constant state of fear. Constantly
afraid to lose either the possessions
that make us what we are, or the people
that make us what we are. If we have
no children, or if they all die, we are
no longer a mother. So fear is
paramount. The same goes for all other identifications.
Not a very peaceful
state of living and what is it due to? Only one thing:
ego, the craving to
be.
This identification results, of course, in
craving for possessing. And this
possessing results in attachment. What we
have, what we identify with, we
are attached to. That attachment, that clinging,
makes it extremely
difficult to have a free and open viewpoint. This kind of
clinging, whatever
it may be that we cling to -- it may not be clinging to
motor cars and
houses, it may not even be clinging to people -- but we certainly
cling to
views and opinions. We cling to our world view. We cling to the view
of how
we are going to be happy. Maybe we cling to a view of who created this
universe.
Whatever it is we cling to, even how the government should run the
country,
all of that makes it extremely difficult to see things as they
really are.
To be open-minded. And it is only an open mind which can take in
new ideas
and understanding.
Lord Buddha compared listeners to four different kinds
of clay vessels. The
first clay vessel is one that has holes at the bottom.
If you pour water
into it, it runs right out. In other words, whatever you
teach that person
is useless. The second clay vessel he compared to one that
had cracks in it.
If you pour water into it, the water seeps out. These people
cannot
remember. Cannot put two and two together. Cracks in the understanding.
The
third listener he compared to a vessel that was completely full. Water
cannot
be poured in for it's full to the brim. Such a person, so full of
views he
can't learn anything new! But hopefully, we are the fourth kind.
The empty
vessels without any holes or cracks. Completely empty.
I dare say we are
not. But may be empty enough to take in enough. To be
empty like that, of views
and opinions, means a lack of clinging. Even a
lack of clinging to what we
think is reality. Whatever we think reality is,
it surely is not, because if
it were, we would never be unhappy for a single
moment. We would never feel
a lack of anything. We would never feel a lack
of companionship, of ownership.
We would never feel frustrated, bored. If we
ever do, whatever we think is
real, is not. What is truly reality is
completely fulfilling. If we aren't
completely fulfilled, we aren't seeing
complete reality. So, any view that
we may have is either wrong or it is
partial.
Because it is wrong or
partial, and bounded by the ego, we must look at it
with suspicion. Anything
we cling to keeps us bound to it. If I cling to a
table-leg, I can't possibly
get out the door. There is no way I can move. I
am stuck. Not until I let go
will I have the opportunity to get out. Any
identification, any possession
that is clung to, is what stops us from
reaching transcendental reality. Now
we can easily see this clinging when we
cling to things and people, but we
cannot easily see why the five khandhas
are called the five clung-to aggregates.
That is their name, and they are,
in fact, what we cling to most. That is an
entire clinging. We don't even
stop to consider when we look at our body, and
when we look at our mind, or
when we look at feeling, perception, mental formations,
and consciousness --
vedana, sañña, sankhara, and viññana.
We look at this mind-and-body,
nama-rupa, and we don't even doubt the fact
that this is my feeling, my
perception, my memory, my thoughts, and my awareness
of my consciousness.
And no one starts doubting until they start seeing. And
for that seeing we
need a fair bit of empty space apart from views and opinions.
Clinging is the greatest possessiveness and attachment we have. As long as
we
cling we cannot see reality. We cannot see reality because clinging is in
the
way. Clinging colors whatever we believe to be true. Now it is not
possible
to say "all right, I'll stop clinging." We can't do that. The
process
of taking the "me" apart, of not believing any more that this is one
whole,
is a gradual one. But if meditation has any benefit and success, it
must show
that first of all there is mind and there is body. There isn't one
single thing
acting in accord all the time. There is mind which is thinking
and making the
body act. Now that is the first step in knowing oneself a
little clearer. And
then we can note "this is a feeling" and "I am giving
this feeling
a name" which means memory and perception. "This is the thought
that
I am having about this feeling. The feeling has come about because the
mind-consciousness
has connected with the feeling that has arisen."
Take the four parts
of the khandhas that belong to the mind apart. When we
do that while it is
happening -- not now when we are thinking about at-but
while it is happening,
then we get a inkling that this isn't really me, that
these are phenomena that
are arising, which stay a moment, and then cease.
How long does mind-consciousness
stay on one object? And how long do
thoughts last? And have we really invited
them?
The clinging, the clung-to, are what make the ego arise. Because
of clinging
the notion of "me" arises and then there is me, and me
having all the
problems. Without me would there be problems? If there weren't
anyone
sitting inside me -- as we think there is -- who is called I or me or
John,
Claire, then who is having the problem? The khandhas do not have any
problems.
The khandhas are just processes. They are phenomena, and that is
all. They
are just going on and on and on. But because I am grasping at
them, and trying
to hold on to them, and saying: "it's me, it's me feeling,
it's me wanting,."
then problems arise.
If we really want to get rid of suffering, completely
and totally, then
clinging has to go. The spiritual path is never one of achievement;
it is
always one of letting go. The more we let go, the more there is empty
and
open space for us to see reality. Because what we let go of is no longer
there,
there is the possibility of just moving without clinging to the
results of
the movement. As long as we cling to the results of what we do,
as long as
we cling to the results of what we think, we are bound, we are
hemmed in.
Now there is a third thing that we do: we are interested in becoming
something
or somebody. Interested in becoming an excellent meditator.
Interested in becoming
a graduate. Interested in becoming something which we
are not. And becoming
something stops us from being. When we are stopped
from being, we cannot pay
attention to what there really is. All this
becoming business is, of course,
in the future. Since whatever there is in
the future is conjecture, it is a
dream world we live in. The only reality
we can be sure of is this particular
moment right now; and this particular
moment as you must be able to be aware
of -- has already passed and this one
has passed and the next one has also
passed. See how they are all passing!
That is the impermanence of it all. Each
moment passes, but we cling, trying
to hold on to them. Trying to make them
a reality. Trying to make them a
security. Trying to make them be something
which they are not. See how they
are all passing. We cannot even say it as
quickly as they are doing it.
There is nothing that is secure. Nothing
to hold on to, nothing that is
stable. The whole universe is constantly falling
apart and coming back
together. And that includes the mind and the body which
we call "I." You may
believe it or not, it makes no difference. In
order to know it, you must
experience it; when you experience it, it's perfectly
clear. What one
experiences is totally clear. No one can say it is not. They
may try, but
their objections make no sense because you have experienced it.
It's the
same thing as biting into the mango to know its taste.
To
experience it, one needs meditation. An ordinary mind can only know
ordinary
concepts and ideas. If one wants to understand and experience
extraordinary
experiences and ideas, one has to have an extraordinary mind.
An extraordinary
mind comes about through concentration. Most meditators
have experienced some
stage that is different then the one they are use to.
So it is not ordinary
any more. But we have to fortify that far more than
just the beginning stage.
To the point where the mind is truly
extraordinary. Extraordinary in the sense
that it can direct itself to where
it wants to go. Extraordinary in the sense
that it no longer gets perturbed
by everyday events. And when the mind can
concentrate, then it experiences
states which it has never known before. To
realize that your universe
constantly falls apart and comes back together again
is a meditative
experience. It takes practice, perseverance and patience. And
when the mind
is unperturbed and still, equanimity, evenmindedness, peacefulness
arise.
At that time the mind understands the idea of impermanence to such
an extent
that it sees itself as totally impermanent. And when one sees one's
own mind
as being totally impermanent, there is a shift in one's viewpoint.
That
shift I like to compare with a kaleidoscope that children play with. A
slight
touch and you get a different picture. The whole thing looks quite
different
with just a slight shift.
Non-self is experienced through the aspect of
impermanence, through the
aspect of unsatisfactoriness, and through the aspect
of emptiness. Empty of
what? The word "emptiness" is so often misunderstood
because when one only
thinks of it as a concept, one says "what do you
mean by empty?" Everything
is there: there are the people, and there are
their insides, guts and their
bones and blood and everything is full of stuff
-- and the mind is not empty
either. It's got ideas, thoughts and feelings.
And even when it doesn't have
those, what do you mean by emptiness? The only
thing that is empty is the
emptiness of an entity.
There is no specific
entity in anything. That is emptiness. That is the
nothingness. That nothingness
is also experienced in meditation. It is
empty, it is devoid of a specific
person, devoid of a specific thing, devoid
of anything which makes it permanent,
devoid of anything which even makes it
important. The whole thing is in flux.
So the emptiness is that. And the
emptiness is to be seen everywhere; to be
seen in oneself. And that is what
is called anatta, non-self. Empty of an entity.
There is nobody there. It is
all imagination. At first that feels very insecure.
That person that I've been regarding with so much concern, that person
trying
to do this or that, that person who will be my security, will be my
insurance
for a happy life -- once I find that person -- that person does
not really
exist. What a frightening and insecure idea that is! What a
feeling of fear
arises! But as a matter of fact, it's just the reverse. If
one accepts and
bears that fright and goes through it, one comes to complete
and utter relief
and release.
I'll give you a simile: Imagine you own a very valuable jewel
which is so
valuable that you place your trust in it so that should you fall
upon hard
times, it will look after you. It's so valuable that you can have
it as your
security. You don't trust anybody. So you have a safe inside your
house and
that is where you put your jewel. Now you have been working hard
for a
number of years and you think you deserve a holiday. So now, what to
do with
the jewel? Obviously you cannot take it with you on your seaside holiday.
So
you buy new locks for the doors to your house and you bar your windows and
you
alert your neighbors. You tell them about the proposed holiday and ask
them
to look after you house -- and the safe in it. And they say they will,
of course.
You should be quite at ease and so you go off on your holiday.
You go
to the beach, and it's wonderful. Marvelous. The palm trees are
swaying in
the wind, and the spot you've chosen on the beach is nice and
clean. The waves
are warm and it's all lovely. The first day you really
enjoy yourself. But
on the second day you begin to wonder; the neighbors are
very nice people,
but they do go and visit their children. They are not
always at home, and lately
there has been a rash of burglaries in the
neighborhood. And on the third day
you've convinced yourself that something
dreadful is going to happen, and you
go back home. You walk in and open the
safe. Everything is all right. You go
over to the neighbors and they ask,
"Why did you come back? We were looking
after your place. You didn't have to
come back. Everything is fine."
The next year, the same thing. Again you tell the neighbors, "Now this
time
I am really going to stay away for a month. I need this holiday as I've
been
working hard." So they say, "Absolutely no need to worry, just
take off. Go
to the beach." So once more you bar the windows, lock the
doors, get
everything shipshape, and take off for the beach. Again, it's wonderful,
beautiful.
This time you last for five days. On the fifth day you are
convinced that something
dreadful must have happened. And you go home. You
go home, and by golly, it
has. The jewel is gone. You are in a state of
complete collapse. Total desperation.
Depressed. So you go to the neighbors,
but they have no idea what has happened.
they've been around all the time.
Then you sit and consider the matter and
you realize that since the jewel is
gone, you might as well go back to the
beach and enjoy yourself!
That jewel is self. Once it is gone, all the
burden of looking after it, all
the fears about it, all the barring of doors
and windows and heart and mind
is no longer necessary. You can just go and
enjoy yourself while you're
still in this body. After proper investigation,
the frightening aspect of
losing this thing that seemed so precious turns out
to be the only relief
and release from worry that there is.
There are
three doors to liberation: the signless, the desireless, and
emptiness. If
we understand impermanence, anicca, fully, it is called the
signless liberation.
If we understand suffering, dukkha, fully, it is the
desireless liberation.
If we understand no-self, anatta, fully, then it is
the emptiness liberation.
Which means we can go through any of these three
doors. And to be liberated
means never to have to experience an unhappy
moment again. It also means something
else: it means we are no longer
creating kamma. A person who has been completely
liberated still acts, still
thinks, still speaks and still looks to all intents
and purposes like
anybody else, but that person has lost the idea that I am
thinking, I am
speaking, I am acting. Kamma is no longer being made because
there is just
the thought, just the speech, just the action. There is the experience
but
no experiencer. And because no kamma is being made any longer, there is
no
rebirth. That is full enlightenment.
In this tradition, three stages
of enlightenment have been classified before
one comes to the fourth stage,
full enlightenment. The first stage, the one
we can concern ourselves with
-- at least theoretically -- is called
sotapanna. Stream-enterer. It means
a person who has seen Nibbana once and
has thereby entered the stream. That
person cannot be deterred from the Path
any more. If the insight is strong,
there may be only one more life-time. If
the insight is weak, it can be seven
more life-times. Having seen Nibbana
for oneself once, one loses some of the
difficulties one had before. The
most drastic hindrance that one loses is the
idea that this person we call
"I" is a separate entity. The wrong
view of self is lost. But that doesn't
mean that a sotapanna is constantly
aware of no-self. The wrong view is
lost. But the right view has to be reinforced
again and again and
experienced again and again through that reinforcement.
Such a person no longer has any great interest, and certainly no belief, in
rites
and rituals. They may still be performed because they are traditional
or that
are customary, but such a person no longer believes they can bring
about any
kind of liberation (if they ever believed that before). And then a
very interesting
thing is lost: skeptical doubt. Skeptical doubt is lost
because one has seen
for oneself that what the Buddha taught was actually
so. Until that time skeptical
doubt will have to arise again and again
because one can easily think: "Well,
maybe. Maybe it's so, but how can I be
sure?" One can only be sure through
one's own experience. Then, of course,
there is no skeptical doubt left because
one has seen exactly that which has
been described, and having seen it, one's
own heart and mind gives an
understanding which makes it possible to see everything
else.
Dhamma must have as its base the understanding that there is no
special
entity. There is continuity, but there is no special entity. And that
continuity
is what makes it so difficult for us to see that there really
isn't anybody
inside the body making things happen. Things are happening
anyway. So the first
instance of having seen a glimpse of freedom, called
stream-entry, makes changes
within us. It certainly does not uproot greed
and hate -- in fact, they are
not even mentioned. But through the greater
understanding such a person has,
the greed and the hate lessen. They are not
as strong anymore, and they do
not manifest in gross ways, but do remain in
subtle ways.
The next
stages are the once-returner, then the non-returner, then the
arahat. Once-returner,
one more life in the five-sense world. Non-returner,
no human life necessary,
and arahat, fully enlightened. Sensual desire and
hate only go with non-returners,
and complete conceit of self, only with
arahat.
So we can be quite
accepting of the fact that since we are not arahats, we
still have greed and
hate. It isn't a matter of blaming oneself for having
them: it's a matter of
understanding where these come from. They come from
the delusion of me. I want
to protect this jewel which is me. That is how
they arise. But with the continued
practice of meditation, the mind can
become clearer and clearer. It finally
understands. And when it does
understand, it can see transcendental reality.
Even if seen for one
thought-moment, the experience is of great impact and
makes a marked change
in our lives.
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Buddhist Publication
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Bodhi Leaves BL 95
Copyright © 1984 Buddhist Publication
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Revised: Sun 3 October 1999
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*********************
Meditation mapped in monks
During meditation,
people often feel a sense of no space
Scientists investigating the effect of
the meditative state on Buddhist monk's brains have found that portions of the
organ previously active become quiet, whilst pacified areas become stimulated.
Andrew Newberg, a radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, US, told
BBC World Service's Discovery programme: "I think we are poised at a wonderful
time in our history to be able to explore religion and spirituality in a way which
was never thought possible."
Using a brain imaging technique, Newberg
and his team studied a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks as they meditated for approximately
one hour.
When they reached a transcendental high, they were asked to pull
a kite string to their right, releasing an injection of a radioactive tracer.
By injecting a tiny amount of radioactive marker into the bloodstream of a deep
meditator, the scientists soon saw how the dye moved to active parts of the brain.
Sense of space
Later, once the subjects had finished meditating, the regions
were imaged and the meditation state compared with the normal waking state.
The
scans provided remarkable clues about what goes on in the brain during meditation.
"There was an increase in activity in the front part of the brain, the
area that is activated when anyone focuses attention on a particular task,"
Dr Newberg explained.
In addition, a notable decrease in activity in the back
part of the brain, or parietal lobe, recognised as the area responsible for orientation,
reinforced the general suggestion that meditation leads to a lack of spatial awareness.
Dr Newberg explained: "During meditation, people have a loss of the sense
of self and frequently experience a sense of no space and time and that was exactly
what we saw."
Prayer power
The complex interaction between different
areas of the brain also resembles the pattern of activity that occurs during other
so-called spiritual or mystical experiences.
Dr
Newberg's earlier studies have involved the brain activity of Franciscan nuns
during a type of prayer known as "centring".
As the prayer has a
verbal element other parts of the brain are used but Dr Newberg also found that
they, "activated the attention area of the brain, and diminished activity
in the orientation area."
This is not the first time that scientists
have investigated spirituality. In 1998, the healing benefits of prayer were alluded
to when a group of scientists in the US studied how patients with heart conditions
experienced fewer complications following periods of "intercessory prayer".
Inner world
And at the annual meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science in Boston last month, scientists from Stanford University
detailed their research into the positive affects that hypnotherapy can have in
helping people cope with long-term illnesses.
Scientific study of both the
physical world and the inner world of human experiences are, according to Dr Newberg,
equally beneficial.
"When someone has a mystical experience, they perceive
that sense of reality to be far greater and far clearer than our usual everyday
sense of reality," he said.
He added: "Since the sense of spiritual
reality is more powerful and clear, perhaps that sense of reality is more accurate
than our scientific everyday sense of reality."