"Our Real Home"
(A talk addressed to an ageing Lay-disciple approaching her death)
Now determine in your mind to listen with respect to the Dhamma. During the
time I am speaking, be as attentive to my words as if it was the Lord Buddha
himself sitting in front of you. Close your eyes and make yourself comfortable,
compose your mind and make it one-pointed. Humbly allow the Triple Gem of wisdom,
truth and purity to abide in your heart as a way of showing respect to the Fully
Enlightened One.
Today I have brought nothing material of any substance to offer you, only Dhamma,
the teachings of the Lord Buddha. Listen well. You should understand that even
the Buddha himself, with his great store of accumulated virtue, could not avoid
physical death. When he reached old age he relinquished his body and let go
of its heavy burden. Now you too must learn to be satisfied with the many years
you've already depended on your body . You should feel that it's enough.
You can compare it to household utensils that you've had for long time - your
cups, saucers, plates and so on. When you first had them they were clean and
shining, but now after using them for so long, they're starting to wear out.
Some are already broken, some have disappeared and those that are left are deteriorating,
they have no stable form, and it's their nature to be like that. Your body is
the same way - it's been continually changing right from the day you were born,
through childhood and youth, until now it's reached old age. You must accept
that. The Buddha said that conditions (sankharas), whether they are internal
conditions, bodily conditions or external conditions are not-self, their nature
is to change. Contemplate this truth until you see it clearly.
This very lump of flesh that lies here in decline is saccadhamma, the truth.
The truth of this body is saccadhamma, and it is the unchanging teaching of
the Buddha. The Buddha taught us to look at the body, to contemplate it and
to come to terms with its nature. We must be able to be at peace with the body,
whatever state it is in. The Buddha taught us that we should ensure that it's
only the body that is locked up in jail and not let the mind be imprisoned along
with it. Now as your body begins to run down and deteriorate with age don't
resist that, but don't let your mind deteriorate with it, keep the mind separate.
Give energy to the mind by realising the truth of the way things are. The Lord
Buddha taught that this is the nature of the body, it can't be any other way,
having been born it gets old and sick and than dies. This is the great truth
that you are presently encountering. Look at the body with wisdom and realise
it.
Even if your house is flooded or burned to the ground, whatever the danger that
threatens it, let it concern only the house. If there is a flood, don't let
it flood your mind. If there's a fire, don't let it burn your heart, let it
merely be the house, that which is external to you, that is flooded or burned.
Allow the mind to let go of its attachments. The time is ripe.
You've been alive a long time. Your eyes have seen any number of forms and colours,
your ears have heard so many sounds, you've had any number of experiences. And
that's all they were - just experiences. You've eaten delicious foods and all
the good tastes were just good tastes, nothing more. The unpleasant tastes were
just unpleasant tastes, that's all. If the eye sees a beautiful form that's
all it is, just a beautiful form. An ugly form is just an ugly form. The ear
hears an entrancing, melodious sound and it's nothing more than that. A grating,
disharmonious sound is simply so.
The Buddha said that rich or poor, young or old, human or animal, no being in
this world can maintain itself in any one state for long, everything experiences
changes and estrangement. This is a fact of live that we can do nothing to remedy.
But the Buddha said that what we can do is o contemplate the body and mind so
as to see their impersonality, see that neither of them is "me" or
"mine". They have a merely provisional reality. It's like this house,
it's only nominally yours, you couldn't take it with you anywhere . It's the
same with your wealth, your possessions and your family - they're all yours
only in name, they don't really belong to you, they belong to nature. Now this
truth doesn't apply to you alone, everyone is in the same position, even the
Lord Buddha and his enlightened disciples. They are different from us in only
one respect and that was their acceptance of the way things are, they saw that
it could be no other way.
So the Buddha taught us to scan and examine this body, from the soles of the
feet up to the crown of the head and than back down to the feet again. Just
take a look at the body. What sort of things do you see? Is there anything intrinsically
clean? Can you find any abiding essence? This whole body is steadily degenerating
and the Buddha taught to see that it doesn't belong to us. It's natural for
the body to be this way, because all conditioned phenomena are subject to change.
How else would you have it be? Actually there's nothing wrong with the way the
body is. It's not the body that causes you suffering, it's your wrong thinking.
When you see the right wrongly, there is bound to be confusion.
It's like the water of a river. It naturally flows down the gradient, it never
flows against it, that's its nature. If a person was to go and stand on a river
bank and seeing the water flowing swiftly down its course, foolishly want it
to flow back up the gradient, he would suffer. Whatever he was doing his wrong
thinking would allow him no peace of mind. He would be unhappy because of his
wrong view, thinking against the stream. If he had right view he would see that
the water must inevitably flow down the gradient and until he realised and accepted
the fact the man would be agitated and upset.
The river that must flow down the gradient is like your body. Having been young
your body's become old and now it's meandering towards its death. Don't go wishing
it was otherwise, it's not something you have the power to remedy. The Buddha
told us to see the way things are and than let go of our clinging to them. Take
this feeling of letting go as your refuge. Keep meditating even if you feel
tired and exhausted. Let your mind dwell with the breath. Take a few deep breath
and than establish the mind on the breath using the mantra "Buddho".
Make this practice habitual. The more exhausted you feel the more subtle and
focused your concentration must be, so that you can cope with the painful sensations
that arise. When you start to feel fatigued then bring all your thinking to
a halt, let the mind gather itself together and than turn to knowing the breath.
Just keep up the inner recitation "Bud-dho, Bud-dho". Let go of all
externals. Don't go grasping at thoughts of your children and relatives, don't
grasp at anything whatsoever. Let go. Let the mind unite in a single point and
let that composed mind dwell with the breath. Let the breath be its sole object
of knowledge. Concentrate until the mind becomes increasingly subtle, until
feelings are insignificant and there is a great inner clarity and wakefulness.
Then when painful sensations arise they will gradually cease of there own accord.
Finally you will look on the breath as if it was a relative come to visit you.
When a relative leaves we follow him out and see him off. We watch until he's
walked or driven out of sight and then we go back indoors. We watch the breath
in the same way. If the breath is coarse we know that it's coarse, if it's subtle
we know that it's subtle. As it becomes increasingly fine we keep following
it, while simultaneously awakening the mind. Eventually the breath disappears
altogether and all that remains is the feeling of wakefulness. This is called
meeting the Buddha. We have that clear wakeful awareness that is called "Buddho",
the one who knows, the one who is awake, the radiant one. It is meeting and
dwelling with the Buddha, with knowledge and clarity. For it was only the historical
flesh-and-blood Buddha that entered Parinibbana, the true Buddha, the Buddha
that is clear radiant knowing, we can still experience and attain today, and
when we do the heart is one.
So let go, put everything down, everything except the knowing. Don't be fooled
if visions or sounds arise in your mind during meditation. Put them all down.
Don't take hold of anything at all. Just stay with the non-dual awareness. Don't
worry about the past or the future, just be still and you will reach the place
where there's no advancing, no retreating and no stopping, where there's nothing
to grasp at or cling to. Why? Because there's no self, no "me" or
"mine". It's all gone.
The Buddha taught us to be emptied of everything in this way, not to carry anything
around with us. To know, and having known, let go.
Realising the Dhamma, the path to freedom from the Rounds of Birth and Death,
is a task we all have to do alone. So keep trying to let go and to understand
the teachings. Really put effort into your contemplation. Don't worry about
your family. At the moment they are as they are, in the future they will be
like you. There's no one in the world who can escape this fate. The Buddha told
us to put down everything that lacks a real abiding substance. If you put everything
down you will see the truth, if you don't you won't. That's the way it is and
it's the same for everyone in this world. So don't worry and don't grasp at
anything.
Even if you find yourself thinking, well that's all right too, as long as you
think wisely. Don't think foolishly. If you think of your children think of
them with wisdom, not with foolishness. Whatever the mind turns to, then think
and know that thing with wisdom, aware of its nature. If you know something
with wisdom then you let it go and there's no suffering. The mind is bright,
joyful and at peace, and turning away from distractions it is undivided. Right
now what you can look to for help and support is your breath.
This is your own work, nobody else's. Leave others to do their own work. You
have your own duty and responsibility and you don't have to take on those of
your family. Don't take anything else on, let it all go. That letting go will
make your mind calm. Your sole responsibility right now is to focus your mind
and bring it to peace. Leave everything else to others. Forms, sounds, odours,
tastes - leave them to others to attend to. Put everything behind you and do
your own work, fulfil your own responsibility. Whatever arises in your mind,
be it fear or pain, fear of death, anxiety about others or whatever, say to
it "Don't disturb me. You are not my business any more". Just keep
saying this to yourself when you see those dhammas arise.
What does the word dhamma refer to? Everything is a dhamma. There is nothing
that is not a dhamma. And what about "world"? The world is the very
mental state that is agitating you at this moment. "What will this person
do? What will that person do? When I am dead who will look after them? How will
they manage?" This is all just "the world". Even the mere arising
of a thought fearing death or pain is the world. Throw the world away! The world
is the way it is. If you allow it to arise in the mind and dominate consciousness
then the mind becomes obscured and can't see itself. So what appears in the
mind just say "This isn't my business. It's impermanent, unsatisfactory
and not-self.
Thinking you'd like to go on living for a long time will make you suffer. But
thinking you like to die right away or die very quickly isn't right either,
it's suffering, isn't it? Conditions don't belong to us, they follow their own
natural laws. You can't do anything about the way the body is. You can prettify
it a little, make it look attractive and clean for a while, like the young girls
who paint their lips and let their nails grow, but when old age arrives, everyone
is in the same boat. That's the way the body is, you can't make it any other
way. But what you can improve and beautify is the mind.
Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught that that
sort of home is not our real home, it's only nominally ours. It's a home in
the world and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace.
An external material home may well be pretty but it is not very peaceful. There's
this worry and then that, this anxiety and then that. So we say it's not our
real home, it's external to us, sooner or later we'll have to give it up. It's
no place we can live in permanently because it doesn't truly belong to us, it's
part of the world. Our body is the same, we take it to be self, to be "me"
and "mine", but in fact it's not really so at all, it's another worldly
home. Your body has followed it's natural course from birth until now, it's
old and sick and you can't forbid it from doing that, that's the way it is.
Wanting it to be different would be foolish as wanting a duck to be like chicken.
When you see that that's impossible, that a duck has to be a duck, that a chicken
has to be a chicken and that bodies have to get old and die, you will find strength
and energy. However much you want the body to go on and last for a long time,
it won't do that. The Buddha said:
"Anicca vata sankhara Uppadavayadhammino Upajjhitva nirujjhanti Tesam vupsamo
sukho"
The word "sankhara" refers to this body and mind. Sankharas are impermanent
and unstable, having come into being they disappear, having arisen they pass
away and yet everyone wants them to be permanent. This is foolishness. Look
at the breath.
Having come in, it goes out, that's its nature, that's how it has to be. The
inhalations and exhalations have to alternate, there must be change. Sankharas
exist through change, you can't prevent it. Just think: could you exhale without
inhaling? Would it feel good? Or could you just inhale? We want things to be
permanent but they can't be, it's impossible. Once the breath has come in, it
must go out, when it's gone out it comes in again and that's natural isn't it?
Having been born we get old and sick and then we die, and that's totally natural
and normal. It's because sankharas have done their job, because the in-breaths
and out-breaths have alternated in this way, that the human race is still here
today.
As soon as we're born we're dead. Our birth and our death are just one thing.
It's like a tree: when there's a root there must be twigs. When there are twigs,
there must be a root. You can' t have one without the other. It's a little funny
to see how at a death people are so grief-stricken and distracted, fearful and
sad, and at a birth how happy and delighted. It's delusion, nobody has ever
looked at this clearly. I think if you really want to cry then it would be better
to do so when someone's born. For actually birth is death, death is birth, the
root is the twig, the twig is the root. If you got to cry, cry at the root,
cry at the birth. Look closely: if there was no birth there would be no death.
Can you understand this?
Don't think a lot. Just think "this is the way things are". It's your
work, your duty. Right now nobody can help you, there is nothing your family
and your possessions can do for you for you. All that can help you now is the
correct awareness.
So don't waver. Let go. Throw it all away. Even if you don't let go, everything
is starting to leave anyway. Can you see that, how all the different parts of
your body are trying to slip away? Take your hair: when you were young it was
thick and black, now it's falling out. It's leaving. Your eyes used to be good
and strong and now they're weak and your sight is unclear. When the organs have
had enough they leave this isn't there home. When you were a child your teeth
were healthy and firm, now they are wobbly, perhaps you got false ones. Your
eyes, ears, nose, tongue - everything is trying to leave because this isn't
their home. You can't make a permanent home in a sankhara, you can stay for
a short while and than you have to go. It's like a tenant watching over his
tiny little house with failing eyes. His teeth aren't so good , his ears aren't
so good, his body's not so healthy, everything is leaving.
So you needn't worry about anything because this isn't your real home, it's
just a temporary shelter. Having come into this world you should contemplate
its nature. Everything there is, is preparing to disappear. Look at your body.
Is there anything there that's still in its original form? Is your skin as it
used to be? Is your hair? It's not the same is it? Where has everything gone?
This is nature, the way things are. When their time is up, conditions go their
way. This world is nothing to rely on - it's an endless round of disturbance
and trouble, pleasures and pain. There's no peace.
When we have no real home we're like an aimless traveller out on the road, going
this way for a while and then that way, stopping for a while and then setting
off again. Until we return to our real home we feel ill-at-ease whatever we're
doing, just like one who's left his village to go on a journey. Only when he
gets home again can he really relax and be at ease.
Nowhere in this world is any real peace to be found. The poor have no peace
and neither do the rich. Adults have no peace, children have no peace, the poorly
educated have no peace and neither do the highly-educated. There's no peace
anywhere. That's the nature of the world.
Those who have few possessions suffer and so do those who have many. Children,
adults, the aged, everyone suffers. The suffering of being old, the suffering
of being young, the suffering of being wealthy and the suffering of being poor
- it's all nothing but suffering.
When you've contemplated things in this way you'll see aniccam, impermanence,
and dukkham, unsatisfactoriness. Why are things impermanent and unsatisfactory?
It's because they're annata, not-self.
Both your body that is lying here sick and painful and the mind that is aware
of its sickness and pain, are called dhammas. That which is formless, the thoughts,
feelings and perceptions, is called namadhamma. That which is racked with aches
and pains is called is called rupadhamma. The material is dhamma and the immaterial
is dhamma. So we live with dhammas, in dhammas, we are dhammas. In truth there's
no self anywhere to be found, there are only dhammas continually arising and
passing away, as it is their nature. Every single moment we're undergoing birth
and death. This is the way things are.
When we think of the Lord Buddha, how truly he spoke, we feel how worthy he
is of salutation, reverence and respect. Whenever we see the truth of something
we see his teachings, even if we've never actually practised Dhamma. But even
if we have a knowledge of his teachings, have studied and practised them, but
still haven't seen their truth, then we're still homeless.
So understand this point that all people, all creatures, are about to leave.
When beings have lived an appropriate time, they go their way. The rich, the
poor, the young, the old, all beings must experience this change.
When you realise that that's the way the world is, you'll feel that it's a wearisome
place. When you see that there's nothing stable or substantial you can rely
on, you'll feel wearied and disenchanted. Being disenchanted doesn't mean you're
adverse though. The mind is clear. It sees that there is nothing to be done
to remedy this state of affairs, it's just the way the world is. Knowing in
this way you can let go of attachment, let go with a mind that is neither happy
nor sad, but at peace with sankharas through seeing with wisdom their changing
nature. Anicca vata sankhara all sankharas are impermanent. To put it simply
- impermanence is the Buddha. If we see an impermanent phenomena really clearly
we'll see that it's permanent, permanent in the sense that its subjection to
change is unchanging. This is the permanence that living beings possess. There
is continual transformation, from childhood through youth to old age and that
very impermanence, that nature to change, is permanent and fixed. If you look
at it like that your heart will be at ease. It's not just you that has to go
through this, it's everyone.
When you consider things thus you'll see them as wearisome and disenchantment
will arise. Our delight in the world of sense-pleasures will disappear. You'll
se that if you have a lot of things, you have to leave a lot behind, if you
have few you leave behind few. Wealth is just wealth, long life is just long
life, there is nothing special.
What's important is that we should do as the Lord Buddha taught and build our
own home, building it by the method that I've been explaining to you. Build
your home. Let go. Let go until the mind reaches the peace that is free from
advancing, free from retreating and free from stopping still. Pleasure is not
our home. Pain is not our home. Pleasure and pain both decline and pass away.
The Great Teacher saw that all sankharas are impermanent and so He taught us
to let go of attachment to them. When we reach the end of our life, we'll have
no choice anyway, we won't be able to take anything with us. So wouldn't it
be better to put things down before that? They're just a heavy burden to carry
around; why not throw off that load now? Why bother to drag them around? Let
go, relax, and let your family look after you. Those who nurse the sick grow
in grow in goodness and virtue.
One who is sick and giving others that opportunity shouldn't make things difficult
for them. If there is pain or some problem or other let them know and keep the
mind in a wholesome state. One who is nursing parents should fill his or her
mind with warmth and kindness, not get caught in aversion. This is the one time
when you can repay the depth you owe them. From your birth through your childhood,
as you've grown up, you've been depending on your parents. That we are here
today is because our mothers and fathers have helped us in so many ways. We
owe them an incredible dept of gratitude.
So today, all of you children and relatives gathered here together, see how
your parents become your children. Before you were their children, now they
become yours. They become older and older until they become children again.
Their memories go, their eyes don't see so well and their ears don't hear, sometimes
they garble their words. Don't let it upset you. All of you nursing the sick
must know how to let go. Don't hold onto things, just let go and let them have
their own way. When a young child is disobedient sometimes the parents let it
have its own way just to keep the peace, to make it happy. Now your parents
are like that child. Their memories and perceptions are confused. Sometimes
they muddle up your names or you ask them to bring a cup and they bring a plate.
It's normal, don't be upset by it.
Let the patient remember the kindness of those who nurse and patiently endure
the painful feelings. Exert yourself mentally don't let the mind become scattered
and agitated, and don't make things difficult for those looking after you. Let
those who nurse the sick fill their minds with virtue and kindness. Don't be
averse to the unattractive side of the job, to cleaning up mucus and phlegm,
or urine and excrement. Try your best. Everyone in the family give a hand.
These are the only parents you've got. They gave you life, they have been your
teachers, your nurses and your doctors they've been everything to you. That
they have brought you up, taught you, shared their wealth with you and made
you their heirs is the great beneficence of parents. Consequently the Buddha
taught the virtues of katannu and katavedi, knowing our dept of gratitude and
trying to repay it. These two dhammas are complimentary. If our parents are
in need, they're unwell or in difficulty then we do our best to help them. This
is Katannukatavedi, it is a virtue that sustains the world. It prevents families
from breaking up, it makes them stable and harmonious.
Today I have brought you the Dhamma as a gift in this times of illness. I have
no material things to give you, there seems to be plenty of those in the house
already, and so I give you Dhamma, something which has a lasting worth, something
which you will never be able to exhaust. Having received it from me you can
pass it on to as many others as you like and it will never be depleted. That
is the nature of Truth. I am happy to have been able to give you this gift of
Dhamma and hope it will give you strength to deal with your pain.