Part 1 Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
Thieves in Your Heart
The purpose of meditation is to raise things up and put them to the test, to understand their essence. For example, we see the body as something fine and beautiful, whereas the Buddha tells us it is unclean, impermanent, and prone to suffering. Which view accords with the truth?
We are like visitors to a foreign country; not knowing the language, we cannot enjoy ourselves. But once we have learned the language, we can laugh and joke with others. Or we are like children who have to grow up before we can understand what the grown-ups are saying.
The normal view is that the elements of our life, beginning with the body, are stable. One child plays with his balloon until it catches on a branch or a thorn and bursts, leaving him in tears. Another child, smarter than the first, knows that his balloon can burst easily and is not upset when it does. People go through life blindly, ignoring the fact of death like gourmets feasting on fine foods, never thinking they will have to excrete. Then nature calls, but having made no provision, they do not know where to go.
There is danger in the world – danger from the elements, danger from thieves. These dangers have their counterpart in the temples too. The Buddha taught us to investigate these dangers and gave the name bhikku to one who ordains. Bhikkhu has two meanings: one who begs and one who sees danger in the round of samsara, of grasping. Beings experience greed, hatred, and delusion. Succumbing to these defilements, they reap the results, increase their bad habits, make yet more karma, and again succumb to defilements.
Why can’t you get rid of greed, hatred, and delusion? If your thinking is wrong, you will suffer; if you understand correctly, you can end suffering.
Know the workings of the karma, of cause and effect. Attachment to pleasure brings suffering in its wake. You gorge yourself on good food, but stomach trouble and intestinal discomfort follow. Or you steal something and are happy with it, but later the police come around to arrest you. When you watch, you can learn how to act, you can learn to end grasping and sorrow. The Buddha, seeing this, wanted to escape from the real dangers of the world, which we have to overcome within ourselves. External dangers are not as frightening as the dangers within. What are the elements of this inner danger?
Wind. Things come at the senses, causing compulsion, lust, anger, and ignorance to arise, destroying what is good in us. Normally, we see the wind only as that which blows the leaves about, not seeing the wind of our senses, which, unwatched, can cause the storms of desire.
Fire. Our temple may never have been struck by fire, but greed, hatred, and delusion burn us constantly. Lust and aversion cause us to speak and do wrong; delusion leads us to see good as bad, bad as good, the ugly as beautiful, the valueless as valueble. But one who does not meditate does not see this and is overcome by these fires.
Water. Here the danger is the flood of defilement in our hearts submerging our true nature.
Thieves.The real thieves do not exist outside us. Our monastery has been thieves only once in twenty years, but inwardly the five gangs of attachment, the aggregates, are ever robbing, beating, and destroying us. What are these five aggregates?
1. Body. It is a prey to illness and pain; when it does not accord with our wishes, we have grief and sorrow. Not understanding the natural aging and decay of the body, we suffer. We feel attraction or repulsion toward the bodies of others and are robbed of true peace.
2. Feeling. When pain and pleasure arise, we forget that they are impermanent, suffering, not self; we identify with our emotions and are thus tortured by our wrong understandings.
3. Memories and perceptions. Identifying with what we recognize and remember gives rise to greed, hatred, and delusion. Our wrong understanding becomes habitual, stored in the subconscious.
4. Volitions and other elements of mind. Not understanding the nature of mental state, we react, and thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes, happiness and sorrow arise. Forgetting that they are impermanent, suffering, and selfless, we cling to them.
5. Consciousness. We grasp that which knows the other aggregates. We think, "I know, I am, I feel," and are bound by this illusion of self, of separation.
All these theives, this wrong understanding, leads to wrong action. The Buddha had no desire for this; he saw that there was no true happiness to be found here. Thus, he gave the name bhikkhu to those who also see this danger and seek a way out.
The Buddha taught his monks the true nature of the five aggregates and how to let go of them without clinging to them as me or mine. When we understand them, we will see that they have potential for great harm or great value, but they do not disappear. They are simply no longer grasped as our own. After his enlightenment, the Buddha still had physical ills, had feelings of pain and pleasure, had memories, thoughts, and consciousness. But he did not cling to them as being self, as being me or mine. He knew them as they were, and the one who knew was also not I, not self.
Separating the five aggregates from the defilements and from clinging is like clearing the brush in the forest without destroying the trees. There is just a constant arising and falling away; defilement cannot gain a foothold. We are simply being born and dying with the aggregates; they just come and go, according to their nature.
If someone curses us and we have no feelings of self, the incident ends with the spoken words, and we do not suffer. If unpleasant feelings arise, we should let them stop there, realizing that the feelings are not us. " He hates me, he troubles me, he is my enemy." A bhikkhu does not think like this, nor does he hold views of pride or comparison. If we do not stand up in the line of fire, we do not get shot; if there is no one to receive it, the letter is sent back. Moving gracefully through the world not caught in eveluating each event, a bikkhu becomes serene. This is the way of Nirvana, empty and free.
Investigate the five aggregates, then; make a clean forest. You will be a different person. Those who understand emptiness and practice accordingly are few, but they come to know the greatest joy. Why not try it? You can abolish the thieves in your heart and set everything right.
