The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part II Correcting Our Views
Problems of the World
Many poeple, particularly educated, professional people, are moving out of the big cities, seeking quieter living and simpler livelihood in the small towns and rural areas. This is natural. If you grap a handful of mud and squeeze it, it will ooze through your fingers. People under pressure likewise seek a way out.
People ask me about the problems of our world, about a coming apocalypse. I ask, what does it mean to be worldly? What is the world? You do not know? This very unknowing, this very darkness, this very place of ignorance, is what is meant by worldly. Caught in the six senses, our knowledge develops as a part of this darkness. To come to an answer to the problems of the world, we must know its nature completely and realize the wisdom that shines above the darkness of the world.
These days, it seems that our culture is deteriorating, lost in greed, hatred, and delusion. But the culture of the Buddha never changes, never diminishes.It says,"Do not lie to others or to ourselves. Do not steal from others or from ourselves." Worldly culture has desire as its director and guide. The culture of the Buddha has compassion and Dharma, or truth, as its guide.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part II Correcting Our Views
Sense Objects and the Mind
We do not examine ourselves; we just follow desire, caught in endless rounds of grasping and fearing, wanting to do just as we please. Whatever we do, we want it to be at our ease. If we are not able to have comfort and pleasure and longer, we are unhappy, anger and aversion arise, and we suffer, trapped by our mind.
For the most part, our thinking follows sense objects, and, wherever thought leads us, we follow. However, thinking and wisdom are different; in wisdom, the mind becomes still, unmoving, and we are simply aware, simply acknowledging. Normally, when sense objects come, we think about, dwell on, discourse over, and worry about them. Yet none of those objects is substantial; all are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty. Just cut them short and dissect them into these three common characteristics. When you sit again, they will arise again, but just keep observing them, keep checking them out.
This practice is like caring for a buffalo and a rice field. The mind is like the buffalo that wants to eat the rice plants, sense objects; the one who knows is the owner. Consider the comparison. When you tend a buffalo, you let it go free but you keep watch over it. You cannot be heedless. If it goes close to the rice plants, you shout at it and it retreats. If it is stubborn and will not obey your voice, you take a stick and hit it. Do not fall asleep in the daytime and let everything go. If you do, you will have no rice plants left, for sure.
When you are observing your mind, the one who knows constantly notices all. As the sutras say,” He who watches over his mind shall escape the snares of Mara the Evil One,” Mind is mind, but who is it that observes it? Mind is one thing, the one who knows is another. At the same time the mind is both the thinking process and the knowing. Know the mind – know how it is when it meets sense objects and how it is when it is apart from them. When the one who knows observes the mind in this way, wisdom arises. If it meets an object, it gets involved, just like the buffalo. Wherever it goes, you must watch it. When it goes near the rice plants, shout at it. If it will not obey, just give it the stick.
When the mind experiences sense contact, it grabs hold. When it grabs hold, the one who knows must teach it – explaining what is good and what is bad, pointing out the workings of cause and effect, showing that anything it holds on to will bring undesirable results—until mind becomes reasonable, until it lets go. In this way, the training will take effect, and the mind will become tranquil.
The Buddha taught us to lay everything down, not like a cow or a buffalo but knowingly, with awareness. In order for us to know, he taught us to practice much, rest firmly on the principles of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and apply them directly to our own life.
From the beginning I have practice like this. In teaching my disciples, I teach like this. We want to see the truth not in a book or as an ideal but in our own mind. If the mind is not yet free, contemplate the cause and effect of each situation – do not stop looking, keep at ir, drive the point home. Then attachment will find nowhere to rest. This is the way I myself have practiced.
If you practice like this, true tranquility is found in activity, in the midst of sense objects. At first, when you are working on your mind and sense objects come, you cling to them or avoid them. You are therefore disturbed, not peaceful. When you sit and wish not to have sense contact, not to have thinking the very wish not to have is desire. The more you struggle with your thinking, the stronger it becomes. Just forget about it and continue to practice. When you make contact with sense objects, contemplate: impermanent, unsatisfactory, not self. Throw everything into these three pigeonholes, file everything under these three categories, and keep contemplating.
Part II Correcting Our Views
Sense Objects and the Mind
We do not examine ourselves; we just follow desire, caught in endless rounds of grasping and fearing, wanting to do just as we please. Whatever we do, we want it to be at our ease. If we are not able to have comfort and pleasure and longer, we are unhappy, anger and aversion arise, and we suffer, trapped by our mind.
For the most part, our thinking follows sense objects, and, wherever thought leads us, we follow. However, thinking and wisdom are different; in wisdom, the mind becomes still, unmoving, and we are simply aware, simply acknowledging. Normally, when sense objects come, we think about, dwell on, discourse over, and worry about them. Yet none of those objects is substantial; all are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty. Just cut them short and dissect them into these three common characteristics. When you sit again, they will arise again, but just keep observing them, keep checking them out.
This practice is like caring for a buffalo and a rice field. The mind is like the buffalo that wants to eat the rice plants, sense objects; the one who knows is the owner. Consider the comparison. When you tend a buffalo, you let it go free but you keep watch over it. You cannot be heedless. If it goes close to the rice plants, you shout at it and it retreats. If it is stubborn and will not obey your voice, you take a stick and hit it. Do not fall asleep in the daytime and let everything go. If you do, you will have no rice plants left, for sure.
When you are observing your mind, the one who knows constantly notices all. As the sutras say,” He who watches over his mind shall escape the snares of Mara the Evil One,” Mind is mind, but who is it that observes it? Mind is one thing, the one who knows is another. At the same time the mind is both the thinking process and the knowing. Know the mind – know how it is when it meets sense objects and how it is when it is apart from them. When the one who knows observes the mind in this way, wisdom arises. If it meets an object, it gets involved, just like the buffalo. Wherever it goes, you must watch it. When it goes near the rice plants, shout at it. If it will not obey, just give it the stick.
When the mind experiences sense contact, it grabs hold. When it grabs hold, the one who knows must teach it – explaining what is good and what is bad, pointing out the workings of cause and effect, showing that anything it holds on to will bring undesirable results—until mind becomes reasonable, until it lets go. In this way, the training will take effect, and the mind will become tranquil.
The Buddha taught us to lay everything down, not like a cow or a buffalo but knowingly, with awareness. In order for us to know, he taught us to practice much, rest firmly on the principles of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and apply them directly to our own life.
From the beginning I have practice like this. In teaching my disciples, I teach like this. We want to see the truth not in a book or as an ideal but in our own mind. If the mind is not yet free, contemplate the cause and effect of each situation – do not stop looking, keep at ir, drive the point home. Then attachment will find nowhere to rest. This is the way I myself have practiced.
If you practice like this, true tranquility is found in activity, in the midst of sense objects. At first, when you are working on your mind and sense objects come, you cling to them or avoid them. You are therefore disturbed, not peaceful. When you sit and wish not to have sense contact, not to have thinking the very wish not to have is desire. The more you struggle with your thinking, the stronger it becomes. Just forget about it and continue to practice. When you make contact with sense objects, contemplate: impermanent, unsatisfactory, not self. Throw everything into these three pigeonholes, file everything under these three categories, and keep contemplating.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part II Correcting Our Views
The Discriminating Mind
Right understanding ultimately means non-discrimination -- seeing all people as the same, neither good nor bad, neither clever nor foolish, not thinking that honey is sweet and good and some other food is bitter. Although you may eat several kinds of food, when you absorb and excrete them, they all become the same. Is it one or many? Is a glass big? In relation to a little cup, yes; when placed next to a pitcher, no.
Our desire and ignorance, our discrimination colors everything in this way. This is the world we create. Again, a pitcher is neither heavy nor light; we just feel that it is one way or the other. In the Zen koan of the flag in the wind, two persons are watching a flag; one says it is the wind that moves, the other say it is the flag. They can argue forever, take sticks and fight it out, all to no avail, for it is the mind that moves.
There are always differences. Get to know those differences, yet learn to see the sameness too. In our group people come from different backgrounds, different cultures. Yet without thinking, “This one’s Thai, that one’s Lao, he’s Cambodian, he’s a Westerner,” we should have mutual understanding and respect for the ways of others. Learn to see the underlying sameness of all things, how they are all truly equal, truly empty. Then you can know how to deal with the apparent differences wisely. But do not get attached even to this sameness.
Why is sugar sweet and water tasteless? It is just their nature. So too with thinking and stillness, pain and pleasure – it is wrong understanding to want thinking to cease. Sometimes there is thought, sometimes stillness. We must see that both are by nature impermanent, unsatisfactory, not a cause for lasting happiness. But if we continue to worry and think further,” I am suffering, I want to stop thinking,” this wrong understanding only complicates things.
At times, we may feel that thinking is suffering, like a thief robbing us of the present. What can we do to stop it? In the day, it is light; at night, it is dark. Is this itself suffering? Only if we compare the way things are now with other situations we have known and wish it were otherwise. Ultimately things are just as they are -- only our comparisons cause us to suffer.
You see this mind at work -- do you consider it to be you or yours? “I don’t know if it’s me or mine,” you answer, “but it’s certainly out of control,” It is just like a monkey jumping about senselessly. It goes upstairs, gets bored, runs back downstairs, get tired of that, goes to a movie, get bored again, has good food or poor food, gets bored with that too. Its behavior is driven not by dispassion but by different forms of aversion and fear.
You have to learn control. Stop caring for the monkey - -care for the truth of life instead. See the real nature of the mind: impermanent, unsatisfactory, empty. Learn to be its master; chain it down if you must. Do not just follow it, let it wear itself out and die. Then you have a dead monkey. Let the dead monkey rot away, and you have monkey’s bones.
Still enlightenment does not mean to become dead like a Buddha statue. One who is enlightened thinks also but knows the process as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty of self. We who practice must see these things clearly. We need to investigate suffering and stop its causes. If we do not see it, wisdom can never arise. There should be no guesswork; we must see things exactly as they are – feelings are just feelings, thought are just thoughts. This is the way to end all our problems.
We can see the mind as a lotus. Some lotuses are still stuck in the mud, some have climbed above the mud but are still underwater, some have reached the surface, while others are open in the sun, stain-free. Which lotus do you choose to be? If you find yourself below the surface, watch out for the bites of fishes and turtles.
Part II Correcting Our Views
The Discriminating Mind
Right understanding ultimately means non-discrimination -- seeing all people as the same, neither good nor bad, neither clever nor foolish, not thinking that honey is sweet and good and some other food is bitter. Although you may eat several kinds of food, when you absorb and excrete them, they all become the same. Is it one or many? Is a glass big? In relation to a little cup, yes; when placed next to a pitcher, no.
Our desire and ignorance, our discrimination colors everything in this way. This is the world we create. Again, a pitcher is neither heavy nor light; we just feel that it is one way or the other. In the Zen koan of the flag in the wind, two persons are watching a flag; one says it is the wind that moves, the other say it is the flag. They can argue forever, take sticks and fight it out, all to no avail, for it is the mind that moves.
There are always differences. Get to know those differences, yet learn to see the sameness too. In our group people come from different backgrounds, different cultures. Yet without thinking, “This one’s Thai, that one’s Lao, he’s Cambodian, he’s a Westerner,” we should have mutual understanding and respect for the ways of others. Learn to see the underlying sameness of all things, how they are all truly equal, truly empty. Then you can know how to deal with the apparent differences wisely. But do not get attached even to this sameness.
Why is sugar sweet and water tasteless? It is just their nature. So too with thinking and stillness, pain and pleasure – it is wrong understanding to want thinking to cease. Sometimes there is thought, sometimes stillness. We must see that both are by nature impermanent, unsatisfactory, not a cause for lasting happiness. But if we continue to worry and think further,” I am suffering, I want to stop thinking,” this wrong understanding only complicates things.
At times, we may feel that thinking is suffering, like a thief robbing us of the present. What can we do to stop it? In the day, it is light; at night, it is dark. Is this itself suffering? Only if we compare the way things are now with other situations we have known and wish it were otherwise. Ultimately things are just as they are -- only our comparisons cause us to suffer.
You see this mind at work -- do you consider it to be you or yours? “I don’t know if it’s me or mine,” you answer, “but it’s certainly out of control,” It is just like a monkey jumping about senselessly. It goes upstairs, gets bored, runs back downstairs, get tired of that, goes to a movie, get bored again, has good food or poor food, gets bored with that too. Its behavior is driven not by dispassion but by different forms of aversion and fear.
You have to learn control. Stop caring for the monkey - -care for the truth of life instead. See the real nature of the mind: impermanent, unsatisfactory, empty. Learn to be its master; chain it down if you must. Do not just follow it, let it wear itself out and die. Then you have a dead monkey. Let the dead monkey rot away, and you have monkey’s bones.
Still enlightenment does not mean to become dead like a Buddha statue. One who is enlightened thinks also but knows the process as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty of self. We who practice must see these things clearly. We need to investigate suffering and stop its causes. If we do not see it, wisdom can never arise. There should be no guesswork; we must see things exactly as they are – feelings are just feelings, thought are just thoughts. This is the way to end all our problems.
We can see the mind as a lotus. Some lotuses are still stuck in the mud, some have climbed above the mud but are still underwater, some have reached the surface, while others are open in the sun, stain-free. Which lotus do you choose to be? If you find yourself below the surface, watch out for the bites of fishes and turtles.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part II Correcting Our Views
Happiness and Suffering
A young Western monk had just arrived at one of Achaan Chah's forest monasteries ans asked permission to stay and practice.
" I hope you're not afraid of suffering" was Achaan Chah's first response.
Somewhat taken aback, the young Westerner explained that he did not come to suffer but to learn meditation and to live peacefully in the forest.
Achaan Chah explained, " There are two kinds of suffering : the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first."
Achaan Chah's way of teaching is usually straightforward and direct. When he meets his monks on the monestery grounds, he often asks, " Are you suffering much today?" If one answers yes, he replies, " Well, you must have many attachments today," and then laughs with the monk about it.
Have you ever had happiness? Have you ever had suffering? Have you ever considered which of these is really valueble? If happiness is true, then it should not dissolve, should it? You should study this point to see what is real, what is true. This study, this meditation, leads to right understanding.
Part II Correcting Our Views
Happiness and Suffering
A young Western monk had just arrived at one of Achaan Chah's forest monasteries ans asked permission to stay and practice.
" I hope you're not afraid of suffering" was Achaan Chah's first response.
Somewhat taken aback, the young Westerner explained that he did not come to suffer but to learn meditation and to live peacefully in the forest.
Achaan Chah explained, " There are two kinds of suffering : the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first."
Achaan Chah's way of teaching is usually straightforward and direct. When he meets his monks on the monestery grounds, he often asks, " Are you suffering much today?" If one answers yes, he replies, " Well, you must have many attachments today," and then laughs with the monk about it.
Have you ever had happiness? Have you ever had suffering? Have you ever considered which of these is really valueble? If happiness is true, then it should not dissolve, should it? You should study this point to see what is real, what is true. This study, this meditation, leads to right understanding.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part II Correcting Our Views
Starving Defilements
Those just beginning often wonder what practice is. Practice occurs when you try opposing the defilements, not feeding old habits. Where friction and difficulty arise, that’s the place to work.
When you pick mushrooms to eat, you do not do so blindly; you have to know which kind is which. So too with our practice - - we must know the dangers, the snake’s bite of defilements, in order to free ourselves from them.
The defilements --- greed, hatred and delusion --- are at the root of our suffering and our selfishness. We must learn to overcome them, to conquer and go beyond their control, to become masters of our minds. Of course it seems hard. It is like having the Buddha tell you to split up with a friend you have known since childhood.
The defilements are like a tiger. We should imprison the tiger in a good strong cage made of mindfulness, energy, patience, and endurance. Then we can let it starve to death by not feeding its habitual desires. We do not have to take a knife and butcher it.
Or defilements are like a cat. If you feed it, it will keep coming around. Stop feeding it, and eventually it will not bother to come around any more.
We will unavoidably be hot and distressed in our practice at first. But remember, only the defilements are hot. People think,"I never had problems like this before. What's wrong?" Before, when we fed our desires, we were at peace with them, like a man who takes care of an internal infection by dressing only the external sores.
Resist defilements. Do not give them all the food or sleep they want. Many people consider this the extreme of self-torture, but it is necessary to become inwardly strong. See for yourself. Constantly watching the mind, you may think you are seeing only effects and wonder about the causes. Suppose parents have a child who grows up to be disrespectful. Distressed by his behavior, they may ask, " Where has this child come from? " Actually, our suffering comes from our own wrong understanding, our attachment to various mental activities. We must train our mind like a buffalo: the buffalo is our thinking, the owner is the meditator, raising and training the buffalo is the practice. With a trained mind, we can see the truth, we can know the cause of our self and its end, the end of all sorrow. It is not complicated, you know.
Everyone has defilements in his practice. We must work with them, struggling when they arise. This is not something to think about but to do. Much patience is necessary. Gradually we have to change our habitual ways of thinking and feeling. We must see how we suffer when we think in terms of me and mine. Then we can let go.
Part II Correcting Our Views
Starving Defilements
Those just beginning often wonder what practice is. Practice occurs when you try opposing the defilements, not feeding old habits. Where friction and difficulty arise, that’s the place to work.
When you pick mushrooms to eat, you do not do so blindly; you have to know which kind is which. So too with our practice - - we must know the dangers, the snake’s bite of defilements, in order to free ourselves from them.
The defilements --- greed, hatred and delusion --- are at the root of our suffering and our selfishness. We must learn to overcome them, to conquer and go beyond their control, to become masters of our minds. Of course it seems hard. It is like having the Buddha tell you to split up with a friend you have known since childhood.
The defilements are like a tiger. We should imprison the tiger in a good strong cage made of mindfulness, energy, patience, and endurance. Then we can let it starve to death by not feeding its habitual desires. We do not have to take a knife and butcher it.
Or defilements are like a cat. If you feed it, it will keep coming around. Stop feeding it, and eventually it will not bother to come around any more.
We will unavoidably be hot and distressed in our practice at first. But remember, only the defilements are hot. People think,"I never had problems like this before. What's wrong?" Before, when we fed our desires, we were at peace with them, like a man who takes care of an internal infection by dressing only the external sores.
Resist defilements. Do not give them all the food or sleep they want. Many people consider this the extreme of self-torture, but it is necessary to become inwardly strong. See for yourself. Constantly watching the mind, you may think you are seeing only effects and wonder about the causes. Suppose parents have a child who grows up to be disrespectful. Distressed by his behavior, they may ask, " Where has this child come from? " Actually, our suffering comes from our own wrong understanding, our attachment to various mental activities. We must train our mind like a buffalo: the buffalo is our thinking, the owner is the meditator, raising and training the buffalo is the practice. With a trained mind, we can see the truth, we can know the cause of our self and its end, the end of all sorrow. It is not complicated, you know.
Everyone has defilements in his practice. We must work with them, struggling when they arise. This is not something to think about but to do. Much patience is necessary. Gradually we have to change our habitual ways of thinking and feeling. We must see how we suffer when we think in terms of me and mine. Then we can let go.
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part II Correcting Our Views
Part II Correcting Our Views
Right Understanding
One develops right understanding by seeing impermanence, suffering, and non-self in everything, which leads to detachment and loss of infatuation. Detachment is not aversion. An aversion to something we once liked is temporary, and the craving for it will return.
Imagine some food that you like --- bamboo shoots or sweet curry, for example. Imagine having it everyday for five or six years; you would be tired of bamboo shoots. If someone were to offer you some, you would not get excited. In the same way, we should see impermanence, suffering, and emptiness in all things at all times; bamboo shoots!
We seek not for a life of pleasure, but to find peace. Peace is within oneself, to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on the hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. To try to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it. Investigate suffering, see its causes, and put an end to them right now, rather than merely dealing with their effects.
One develops right understanding by seeing impermanence, suffering, and non-self in everything, which leads to detachment and loss of infatuation. Detachment is not aversion. An aversion to something we once liked is temporary, and the craving for it will return.
Imagine some food that you like --- bamboo shoots or sweet curry, for example. Imagine having it everyday for five or six years; you would be tired of bamboo shoots. If someone were to offer you some, you would not get excited. In the same way, we should see impermanence, suffering, and emptiness in all things at all times; bamboo shoots!
We seek not for a life of pleasure, but to find peace. Peace is within oneself, to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on the hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. To try to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it. Investigate suffering, see its causes, and put an end to them right now, rather than merely dealing with their effects.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part II Correcting Our Views
The Wrong Road
A wandering ascetic, having heard of the Buddha, travelled everywhere looking for him. One night he came to stay in a house where the Buddha was also staying but, not knowing the Buddha's physical appearance, he was unaware of his presence. The next morning he arose and continued on his way, still searching for the Buddha. To search for peace and enlightenment without correct understanding is like this.
Due to a lack of understanding of the truth of suffering and its elimination, all the subsequent factors on the path will be wrong - wrong intentions, wrong speech, wrong actions, and wrong practice of concentration and tranquility. Your likes and dislikes are not a trustworthy guide in this matter either, although foolish people may take them for their ultimate reference. Alas, it is like travelling to a certain town - you unknowingly start out on the wrong road, and since it is a convenient one, you travel it in comfort. But it will not take you where you want to go.
Part II Correcting Our Views
The Wrong Road
A wandering ascetic, having heard of the Buddha, travelled everywhere looking for him. One night he came to stay in a house where the Buddha was also staying but, not knowing the Buddha's physical appearance, he was unaware of his presence. The next morning he arose and continued on his way, still searching for the Buddha. To search for peace and enlightenment without correct understanding is like this.
Due to a lack of understanding of the truth of suffering and its elimination, all the subsequent factors on the path will be wrong - wrong intentions, wrong speech, wrong actions, and wrong practice of concentration and tranquility. Your likes and dislikes are not a trustworthy guide in this matter either, although foolish people may take them for their ultimate reference. Alas, it is like travelling to a certain town - you unknowingly start out on the wrong road, and since it is a convenient one, you travel it in comfort. But it will not take you where you want to go.
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part II
Correcting Our Views
Here he emphasizes the power of training our endurance and courage, developing a willingness to find the Middle Path and follow it despite temptation and defilement. When greed, hatred, or delusion arise, he says, don't give in to them. Don't be discouraged. Just stay mindful and strong in your resolve.
As your training develops you will see that every single experience you pass through is impermanent, and thus unsatisfactory. You will discover firsthand the endless truth of these characteristics in all existence and begin to learn the way of freedom, of nonattachment. But Achaan Chah reminds us that this requires a willingness to investigate both our sufferings and our joys with the an equal mind.
When the heart becomes calm and the mind clear, we come closer to the truth of what Achaan Chah calls," Just that much." The Dhamma, the truth, is really very simple. All things that arise and pass, the whole world of changing phenomena, is really only "that much!" When we truly discover what this means, then here in our world we can come to peace.
Part II
Correcting Our Views
When you pick mushrooms. Achaan Chah cautions, you must know what to look for. When you understand spiritual practice you must also know what attitudes to nourish, what dangers to avoid, and what mental qualities to encourage.
Here he emphasizes the power of training our endurance and courage, developing a willingness to find the Middle Path and follow it despite temptation and defilement. When greed, hatred, or delusion arise, he says, don't give in to them. Don't be discouraged. Just stay mindful and strong in your resolve.
As your training develops you will see that every single experience you pass through is impermanent, and thus unsatisfactory. You will discover firsthand the endless truth of these characteristics in all existence and begin to learn the way of freedom, of nonattachment. But Achaan Chah reminds us that this requires a willingness to investigate both our sufferings and our joys with the an equal mind.
When the heart becomes calm and the mind clear, we come closer to the truth of what Achaan Chah calls," Just that much." The Dhamma, the truth, is really very simple. All things that arise and pass, the whole world of changing phenomena, is really only "that much!" When we truly discover what this means, then here in our world we can come to peace.
Monday, July 09, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
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.
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.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part 1 Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
The Chicken or the Egg?
During his first visit to England, Achaan Chah spoke to many Buddhist groups. One evening after the talk he received a question from a dignified English lady who had spent many years studying the complex cybernetics of the mind according to the eighty- nine classes of consciousness in the Buddhist abhidharma psychology texts. Would he please explain certain of the more difficult aspects of this system of psychology to her so she could continue her study?
Dharma teaches us to let go. But at first, we naturally cling to the principles of Dharma. The wise person takes these principles and uses them as tools to discover the essence of our life.
Sensing how caught up she was in intellectual concepts rather than benefiting from practice in her own heart, Achaan Chah answered her quite directly, " You, madam, are like one who keeps hens in her yard," he told her, " and goes around picking up the chicken dropping instead of the eggs."
Part 1 Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
The Chicken or the Egg?
During his first visit to England, Achaan Chah spoke to many Buddhist groups. One evening after the talk he received a question from a dignified English lady who had spent many years studying the complex cybernetics of the mind according to the eighty- nine classes of consciousness in the Buddhist abhidharma psychology texts. Would he please explain certain of the more difficult aspects of this system of psychology to her so she could continue her study?
Dharma teaches us to let go. But at first, we naturally cling to the principles of Dharma. The wise person takes these principles and uses them as tools to discover the essence of our life.
Sensing how caught up she was in intellectual concepts rather than benefiting from practice in her own heart, Achaan Chah answered her quite directly, " You, madam, are like one who keeps hens in her yard," he told her, " and goes around picking up the chicken dropping instead of the eggs."
Friday, June 08, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part 1 Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
Study and Experiencing
Let us talk about the difference between studying Dharma ideas and applying them in practice. True Dharma study has only one purpose - to find a way out of the unsatisfactoriness of our lives and to achieve happiness and peace for ourselves and all beings. Our suffering has causes for its arising and a place to abide. Let us understand this process. When the heart is still, it is in its normal condition; when the mind moves, thought is constructed. Happiness and sorrow are part of this movement of mind, this thought construction. So also is restlessness, the desire to go here and there. If you do not understand such movement, you will chase after thought constructions and be at their mercy.
Therefore, the Buddha taught us to contemplate the movements of the mind. Watching the mind move, we can see its basic characteristics: endless flux, unsatisfactoriness, and emptiness. You should be aware of and contemplate these mental phenomena. In this way, you can learn about the process of dependent origination.* The Buddha taught that ignorance is the cause of the arising of all worldly phenomena and of our volitions. Volition gives rise to consciousness, and consciousness in turn gives rise to mind and body. This is the process of dependent origination.
When we first study Buddhism, these traditional teachings may apprear to make sense to us. But when the process is actually occurring within us, those who have only read about it cannot follow fast enough. Like a fruit falling from a tree, each link in the chain falls so fast that such people cannot tell what branches it has passed. When pleasurable sense contact takes place, for example, they are carried away by the sensation and are unable to notice how it happened.
Of course,the systematic outline of the process in the texts is accurate, but the experience is beyond textual study. Study does not tell you that this is the experience of ignorance arising, this is how volition feels, this is a particular kind of consciousness, this is the feeling of the different elements of body and mind. When you let go of a tree limb and fall to the ground, you do not go into detail about how many feet and iches you fell; you just hit the ground and experience the pain. NO book can describe that.
Part 1 Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
Study and Experiencing
Let us talk about the difference between studying Dharma ideas and applying them in practice. True Dharma study has only one purpose - to find a way out of the unsatisfactoriness of our lives and to achieve happiness and peace for ourselves and all beings. Our suffering has causes for its arising and a place to abide. Let us understand this process. When the heart is still, it is in its normal condition; when the mind moves, thought is constructed. Happiness and sorrow are part of this movement of mind, this thought construction. So also is restlessness, the desire to go here and there. If you do not understand such movement, you will chase after thought constructions and be at their mercy.
Therefore, the Buddha taught us to contemplate the movements of the mind. Watching the mind move, we can see its basic characteristics: endless flux, unsatisfactoriness, and emptiness. You should be aware of and contemplate these mental phenomena. In this way, you can learn about the process of dependent origination.* The Buddha taught that ignorance is the cause of the arising of all worldly phenomena and of our volitions. Volition gives rise to consciousness, and consciousness in turn gives rise to mind and body. This is the process of dependent origination.
When we first study Buddhism, these traditional teachings may apprear to make sense to us. But when the process is actually occurring within us, those who have only read about it cannot follow fast enough. Like a fruit falling from a tree, each link in the chain falls so fast that such people cannot tell what branches it has passed. When pleasurable sense contact takes place, for example, they are carried away by the sensation and are unable to notice how it happened.
Of course,the systematic outline of the process in the texts is accurate, but the experience is beyond textual study. Study does not tell you that this is the experience of ignorance arising, this is how volition feels, this is a particular kind of consciousness, this is the feeling of the different elements of body and mind. When you let go of a tree limb and fall to the ground, you do not go into detail about how many feet and iches you fell; you just hit the ground and experience the pain. NO book can describe that.
Formal Dharma study is systematic and refined, but reality does not follow a single track. Terefore, we must attest to what arises from the one who knows, from our deepest wisdom. When our innate wisdom, the one who knows, experiences the truth of the heart / mind, it will be clear that the mind is not our self. Not the belonging to us, not I, not mine, all of it must be dropped. As to our learning the names of all the elements of mind and consciousness, the Buddha did not want us to become attached to the words. He just wanted us to see that all this is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty of self. He taught only to let go. When these things arise, be aware of them, know them. Only a mind that can do this is properly trained.
When the mind is stirred up, the various mental formations, thought constructions, and reactions start aising from it. building and proliferating continually. Just let them be, the good as well as the bad. The Buddha said simply, "Give them up." But for us, it is neccesary to study our own minds to know how it is possible to give them up.
If we look at the model of the elements of mind, we see that it follows a natural sequence: mental factors are thus, consciousness arises and passes like this, and so forth. We can see in our own practice that when we have right understanding and awareness, then right thought, right speech, right action and right livelihood automatically follow. Different mental elements arise from that very one who knows. The one who knows is like a lamp. If understanding is right, thought and all other factors will be right as well, like the light emanating from the lamp. As we watch with awareness, right understanding grows.
When we examine all that we call mind, we see only a conglomeration of mental elements, not a self. Then where can we stand? Feeling , memory, all the five aggregates of mind and body are shifting like leaves in the wind. We can discover this through meditation.
Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log; calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind.
You cannot really separate concentration, inner tranquility, and insight. They are just as a mango that is first green and sour, then yellow and sweet, but not tow different fruits. One grows into the other; without the first, we would never have the second. Such terms are only conventions for teaching. We should not be attached to the language. The only source of true knowledge is to see what is within ourselves. Only this kind of study has an end and is the study of real value.
The calmness of the mind at the beginning stage of concentration arises from the simple practice of one-pointedness. But when this calm departs, we suffer because we have become attached to it. The attainment of tranquility is not yet the end, according to the Buddha. Becoming and suffering still exist.
Thus, the Buddha took this concentration, this tranquility, and contemplated further. He searched out the truth of the matter until he was no longer attached to tranquility. Tranquility is just another relative reality, one of the matter until he was no longer attached to tranquility. Tranquility is just another relative reality, one of numerous mental formations, only a stage on the path. If you are attached to it, you will find yourself still stuck in birth and becoming, based on your pleasure in tranquility. When tranquility ceases, agitation will begin and you will be attached even more.
The Buddha went on to examine becoming and birth to see where they arise. As he did not yet know the truth of the matter, he used his mind to contemplate further, to investigate all the mental elements that arose. Whether tranquil or not, he continued to penetrate, to examine further, until he finally realized that all that he saw, all the five aggregates of body and mind, were like a red-hot iron ball. When it is red-hot all over, where can you find a cool spot to touch? The same is true of the five aggregates – to grasp any part causes pain. Therefore, you should not get attached even to tranquility or concentration; you should not say the peace or tranquility is you or yours. To do so just creates the painful illusion of self, the world of attachment and delusion, another red-hot iron ball.
The Buddha went on to examine becoming and birth to see where they arise. As he did not yet know the truth of the matter, he used his mind to contemplate further, to investigate all the mental elements that arose. Whether tranquil or not, he continued to penetrate, to examine further, until he finally realized that all that he saw, all the five aggregates of body and mind, were like a red-hot iron ball. When it is red-hot all over, where can you find a cool spot to touch? The same is true of the five aggregates – to grasp any part causes pain. Therefore, you should not get attached even to tranquility or concentration; you should not say the peace or tranquility is you or yours. To do so just creates the painful illusion of self, the world of attachment and delusion, another red-hot iron ball.
In our practice, our tendency is to grasp, to take experiences as me and mine. If you think,” I am calm, I am agitated, I am good or bad, I am happy or unhappy,” this clinging causes more becoming and birth. When happiness ends, suffering appears; when suffering ends, happiness appears. You will see yourself unceasingly vacillating between heaven and hell. The Buddha saw that the condition of his mind was thus, and he knew, because of this birth and becoming , his liberation was not yet complete. So he took up these elements of experience and comtemplated their true nature. Because of grasping, birth and death exist. Becoming glad is birth, becoming dejected is death. Having died, we are then born; having been born, we die. This birth and death from one moment to the next is like the endless spinning of a wheel.
The Buddha saw that whatever the mind gives rise to are just transitory, conditioned phenomena, which are really empty. When this dawned on him, he let go, gave up, and found an end to suffering. You too must understand these matters according to the truth. When you know things as they are, you will see that these elements of mind are a deception, in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that this mind has nothing, does not arise, is not born and does not die with anyone. It is free, shining, resplendent, with nothing to occupy it. The mind becomes occupied only because it misunderstands and is deluded by these conditioned phenomena, this false sense of self.
Therefore, the Buddha has us look at our minds. What exists in the beginning? Truly, not anything. This emptiness does not arise and die with phenomena. When it contacts something good, it does not become good; when it contacts something bad, it does not become bad. The pure mind knows these objects clearly, known that they are not substantial.
When the mind of the meditator abides like this, no doubt exists. Is there becoming? Is there birth? We need not ask anyone. Having examined the elements of mind, the Buddha let them go and became merely one who was aware of them. He just watched with equanimity. Conditions leading to birth did not exist for him. With his complete knowledge, he called them all impermanent, unsatisfactory, empty of self. Therefore, he became the one who knows with certainty. The one who knows sees according to this truth and does not become happy or sad according to changing conditions. This is true peace, free of birth, aging, sickness, and death, not dependent on causes, results, or conditions, beyond hapiness and suffering, above good and evil. Nothing can be spoken about it. No conditions promote it any longer.
Therefore, develop samadhi, calm and insight; learn to make them arise in your mind and really use them. Otherwise, you will know only the words of Buddhism and with the best intentionns, go around merely describing the characteristics of existence. You may be clever, but when things arise in your mind, will you follow them? When you come into contact with something you like, will you immediately become attached? Can you let go of it? When unpleasant experiences arise, does the one who knows hold that dislike in his mind, or does he let go? If you see things that you dislike and still hold on to or condemn them, you should reconsider - this is not yet correct, not yet the supreme. If you observe your mind in this way, you will truly know for yourself.
I did not practice using textbook term; I just looked at this one who knows. If it hates someone, question why. If it loves someone, question why. Probing all arising back to its origin, ou can solve the problem of clinging and hating and get them to leave you alone. Everything comes back to and arises from the one who knows. But repeated practice is crucial.
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part 1 Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
Go Beyond Words:
See for Yourself
In my own practice, I did not know or study much. I took the straightforward teachings the Buddha gave and simply began to study my own mind according to nature. When you practice, observe yourself. Then gradually knowledge and vision will arise of themselves. If you sit in meditation and want it to be this way or that, you had better stop right there. Do not bring ideals or expectations to your practice. Take your studies, your opinions, and store them away.
You must go beyond all words, all symbols, all plans for your practice. Then you can see for yourself the truth, arising right here. If you do not turn inward, you will never know reality. I took the first few years of formal Dharma text study, and when I had the opportunity, I went to hear various scholars and masters teach, until such study became more of a hindrance than a help. I did not know how to listen to their sermons because I had not looked within.
Then great meditation masters spoke about the truth within oneself. Practicing, I began to realize that it existed in my own mind as well. After a long time, I realizes that these teachers have really seen the truth and that if we follow their path, we will encounter everything they have spoken about. Then we will be able to say: “ Yes, they were right. What else would there be? Just this.” When I practiced diligently, realization unfolded like that.
If you are interested in Dharma, just give up, just let go. Merely thinking about practice is like pouncing on the shadow and missing the substance. You need not study much. If you follow the basics and practice accordingly, you will see the Dharma for yourself. There must be more than merely hearing the words. Speak just within yourself, observe your own mind. If you cut off these verbal, thinking mind, you will have a true standard for judging. Otherwise, your understanding will not penetrate deeply. Practice in this way and the rest will follow.
Buddhist Psychology
One day, a famous woman lecturer on Buddhist metaphysics came to see Achaan Chah. This woman gave periodic teachings in Bangkok on the abhidharma and complex Buddhist psychology. In talking to Achaan Chah, she detailed how important it was for people to understand Buddhist psychology and how much her students benefited from their study with her. She asked him whether he agreed with the importance of such understanding.
“ Yes, very important”, he agreed.
Delighted, she further questioned whether he had his own students learn abhidharma.
“Oh, yes, of course.”
And where, she asked, did he recommend they start, which books and studies were best?
“Only here,” he said, pointing to his heart, “ only here,”
See for Yourself
In my own practice, I did not know or study much. I took the straightforward teachings the Buddha gave and simply began to study my own mind according to nature. When you practice, observe yourself. Then gradually knowledge and vision will arise of themselves. If you sit in meditation and want it to be this way or that, you had better stop right there. Do not bring ideals or expectations to your practice. Take your studies, your opinions, and store them away.
You must go beyond all words, all symbols, all plans for your practice. Then you can see for yourself the truth, arising right here. If you do not turn inward, you will never know reality. I took the first few years of formal Dharma text study, and when I had the opportunity, I went to hear various scholars and masters teach, until such study became more of a hindrance than a help. I did not know how to listen to their sermons because I had not looked within.
Then great meditation masters spoke about the truth within oneself. Practicing, I began to realize that it existed in my own mind as well. After a long time, I realizes that these teachers have really seen the truth and that if we follow their path, we will encounter everything they have spoken about. Then we will be able to say: “ Yes, they were right. What else would there be? Just this.” When I practiced diligently, realization unfolded like that.
If you are interested in Dharma, just give up, just let go. Merely thinking about practice is like pouncing on the shadow and missing the substance. You need not study much. If you follow the basics and practice accordingly, you will see the Dharma for yourself. There must be more than merely hearing the words. Speak just within yourself, observe your own mind. If you cut off these verbal, thinking mind, you will have a true standard for judging. Otherwise, your understanding will not penetrate deeply. Practice in this way and the rest will follow.
Buddhist Psychology
One day, a famous woman lecturer on Buddhist metaphysics came to see Achaan Chah. This woman gave periodic teachings in Bangkok on the abhidharma and complex Buddhist psychology. In talking to Achaan Chah, she detailed how important it was for people to understand Buddhist psychology and how much her students benefited from their study with her. She asked him whether he agreed with the importance of such understanding.
“ Yes, very important”, he agreed.
Delighted, she further questioned whether he had his own students learn abhidharma.
“Oh, yes, of course.”
And where, she asked, did he recommend they start, which books and studies were best?
“Only here,” he said, pointing to his heart, “ only here,”
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part 1
Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
Part 1
Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
Ending Doubt
Many people who have studied on a university level and attained graduate degrees and worldly success find that their lives are still lacking. Though they think high thoughts and are intellectually sophisticated, their hearts are still filled with pettiness and doubt. The vulture flies high, but what does it feed on?
Dharma is understanding that goes beyond the conditioned, compounded, limited understanding of worldly science. Of course, worldly wisdom can be used to good purpose, but progress in worldly wisdom can cause deterioration in religion and moral values. The important thing is to develop supermundane wisdom that can use such technology while remaining detached from it.
It is necessary to teach the basics first – basic morality, seeing the transitoriness of life, the facts of aging and death. Here is where we must begin. Before you drive a car or ride a bicycle, you must learn to walk. Later, you may ride in an airplane or travel around the world in the blink of an eye.
Outward, scriptural study is not important. Of course, the Dharma books are correct, but they are not right. They cannot give you right understanding. To see the word hatred I print is not the same as experiencing anger, just as hearing a person’s name is different from meeting him. Only experiencing for yourself can give you true faith.
There are two kinds of faith. One is kind of blind trust in Buddha, the teachings, the master, which often leads one to begin practice or to ordain. The second is true faith – certain, unshakable - - which arises from knowing within oneself. Though one still has other defilements to overcome, seeing clearly all has things within oneself makes it possible to put an end to doubt to attain this certainty in one’s practice.
Many people who have studied on a university level and attained graduate degrees and worldly success find that their lives are still lacking. Though they think high thoughts and are intellectually sophisticated, their hearts are still filled with pettiness and doubt. The vulture flies high, but what does it feed on?
Dharma is understanding that goes beyond the conditioned, compounded, limited understanding of worldly science. Of course, worldly wisdom can be used to good purpose, but progress in worldly wisdom can cause deterioration in religion and moral values. The important thing is to develop supermundane wisdom that can use such technology while remaining detached from it.
It is necessary to teach the basics first – basic morality, seeing the transitoriness of life, the facts of aging and death. Here is where we must begin. Before you drive a car or ride a bicycle, you must learn to walk. Later, you may ride in an airplane or travel around the world in the blink of an eye.
Outward, scriptural study is not important. Of course, the Dharma books are correct, but they are not right. They cannot give you right understanding. To see the word hatred I print is not the same as experiencing anger, just as hearing a person’s name is different from meeting him. Only experiencing for yourself can give you true faith.
There are two kinds of faith. One is kind of blind trust in Buddha, the teachings, the master, which often leads one to begin practice or to ordain. The second is true faith – certain, unshakable - - which arises from knowing within oneself. Though one still has other defilements to overcome, seeing clearly all has things within oneself makes it possible to put an end to doubt to attain this certainty in one’s practice.
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part 1
Understanding The Buddha's Teaching
The Simple Path
Traditionally the Eightfold Path is taught with eight steps such as Right Understanding, Right Speech, Right Concentration, and so forth. But the true Eightfold Path is within us - two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, a tongue, and a body. These eight doors are our entire Path and the mind is the one that walks on the Path. Know these doors, examine them, and all the dhammas will be revealed.
The heart at the path is so simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are. That is all I do in my own practice.
Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing, Resist nothing.
Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques to develop samadhi and many kinds of vipassana. But it all comes back to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle.
Why not give it a try? Do you dare?
The Middle Way
The Buddha does not want us to follow the double path - desire and indulgence on the one hand and fear and aversion on the other. Just be aware of pleasure, he teaches. Anger, fear, dissatisfaction are not the path of the yogi but the path of worldly people. The tranquil person walks the Middle Path of right practice, leaving grasping on the left and fear and aversion on the right.
One who undertakes the path of practice must follow the Middle Way: " I will not take interest in pleasure or pain. I will lay them down." But, of course, it is hard at first. It is as though we are being kicked on both sides. Like a cowbell or a pendulum, we are knocked back and forth.
When Buddha preached his first sermon, he discoursed on these two extremes because this is where attachment lies. The desire for happiness kicks from one side; suffering and dissatisfaction kick from the other. These two are always besieging us. But when you walk the Middle Path, you put them both down.
Don't you see? If you follow these extremes, you will simply strike out when you are angry and grab for what attracts you, without slighest patience or forbearance. How long can you go on being trapped in this way? Consider it: If you like something, you follow after it when liking arises, yet it is just drawing you on to seek suffering. This mind of desire is really clever. Where will it lead you next?
The Buddha teaches us to keep laying down the extremes. This is the path of right practice, the path leading out of birth and becoming. On this path, there is neither pleasure nor pain, neither good nor evil. Alas, the mass of humans filled with desiring just strive for pleasure and always bypass the middle, missing the Path of the Excellent One, the path of the seeker of truth. Attached to birth and becoming, happiness and suffering, good and evil, the one who does not travel this Middle Path cannot become a wise one, cannot find liberation. Our Path is straight, the path of tranquility and pure awareness, calmed of both elation and sorrow. If your heart is like this, you can stop asking other people for guidance.
You will see that when the heart / mind is unattached, it is abiding in its normal state. When it stirs from the normal because of various thoughts and feelings, the process of thought construction takes place, in which illusions are created. Learn to see through this process. When the mind has stirred from normal, it leads away from right practice to one of the extremes of indulgence or aversion, thereby creating more illusion, more thought construction. Good or bad only arises in your mind. If you keep a watch on your mind, studying this one topic your whole life, I guarantee that you will never be bored.
A Still Forest Pool
The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
Part 1
Understanding the Buddha’s Teachings
Achaan Chah asks us to begin our practice simply and directly with the understanding that the Buddha’s truths of suffering and liberation can be seen and experienced right here, within our own bodies, hearts, and minds. The eightfold path* , he tells us, is not to be found in books or scriptures but can be discovered in the workings of our own sense perceptions, our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. To study these in an immediate and wakeful way and cultivate mindfulness is the path of insight prescribed by the Buddha. It has been kept alive and followed by those monks, nuns, and laypeople inspired to devote themselves to practice in the centuries since.
Achaan Chah speaks as a contemporary living representative of this ancient teaching. His wisdom and mastery have not come through study or tradition but are born of his years of practice, his diligent effort to employ meditation to calm the heart and awaken the mind. His own practice was inspired and guided by the wisdom of several great forest masters a generation before him. And he invites us to follow their example and his.
Look at what makes up the world – the six senses, the processes of body and mind. These processes will become clear through examination and an ongoing training of attention. As you observe note how fleeting and impermanent are each of the sense objects which appear. You will see the conditioned tendency to grasp or to resist these changing objects. Here, teaches Achaan Chah, is the place to learn a new way, the path of balance, the Middle Path.
Achaan Chah urges us to work with our practice, not as an ideal, but in our everyday life situations. It is here tha we develop strength to overcome our difficulties and a constancy and greatness of heart. It is here, he says , in each moment that we can step out of our struggle with life and find the inner meaning of right understanding and with it the peace of the Buddha.
* Eightfold Path: The Buddhist path of purification and liberation – right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
Understanding the Buddha’s Teachings
Achaan Chah asks us to begin our practice simply and directly with the understanding that the Buddha’s truths of suffering and liberation can be seen and experienced right here, within our own bodies, hearts, and minds. The eightfold path* , he tells us, is not to be found in books or scriptures but can be discovered in the workings of our own sense perceptions, our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. To study these in an immediate and wakeful way and cultivate mindfulness is the path of insight prescribed by the Buddha. It has been kept alive and followed by those monks, nuns, and laypeople inspired to devote themselves to practice in the centuries since.
Achaan Chah speaks as a contemporary living representative of this ancient teaching. His wisdom and mastery have not come through study or tradition but are born of his years of practice, his diligent effort to employ meditation to calm the heart and awaken the mind. His own practice was inspired and guided by the wisdom of several great forest masters a generation before him. And he invites us to follow their example and his.
Look at what makes up the world – the six senses, the processes of body and mind. These processes will become clear through examination and an ongoing training of attention. As you observe note how fleeting and impermanent are each of the sense objects which appear. You will see the conditioned tendency to grasp or to resist these changing objects. Here, teaches Achaan Chah, is the place to learn a new way, the path of balance, the Middle Path.
Achaan Chah urges us to work with our practice, not as an ideal, but in our everyday life situations. It is here tha we develop strength to overcome our difficulties and a constancy and greatness of heart. It is here, he says , in each moment that we can step out of our struggle with life and find the inner meaning of right understanding and with it the peace of the Buddha.
* Eightfold Path: The Buddhist path of purification and liberation – right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Since I have finished typing ' Breaking The Link' , it's a good idea to start typing the profound Dhammas preached by Achaan Chah. His witty ways of teaching directly pointed to the Dhamma which the meditators need to reach certain Magga and Phala stage. Hope the readers may find them useful too. This book is written under 4 parts and under various sub-titles. So I will compile them part by part.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Loving-Kindness
Loving kindness or rather mettā is defined as that 'which is solvent, which adheres'. It can be likened to oil which people put in the engines. Nobody will drive his or her car if there is no engine-oil in it for fear that the car may be damaged, but seldom do people remember to put the oil of mettā in their relationships with other people; no wonder there is so much friction, so much abrasion in human relationships. If only people could put just a small amount of mettā in their relationships, a lot of unnecessary anger, hate, grudge, resentment and other undersirable results could have been avoided. Moreover, the practice of mettā can give us eleven benefits as declared by the Buddha:
Loving kindness or mettā is one of the four subjects of meditation called Brahma-vihāra, Divine Abidings. The practice of this meditation is explained in detail in Visuddhimagga. Those who want to practice this meditation seriously should follow the instructions given in that book. The practice given here is for those who want to practice it as one item in their daily spiritual practice.
Loving kindness or rather mettā is defined as that 'which is solvent, which adheres'. It can be likened to oil which people put in the engines. Nobody will drive his or her car if there is no engine-oil in it for fear that the car may be damaged, but seldom do people remember to put the oil of mettā in their relationships with other people; no wonder there is so much friction, so much abrasion in human relationships. If only people could put just a small amount of mettā in their relationships, a lot of unnecessary anger, hate, grudge, resentment and other undersirable results could have been avoided. Moreover, the practice of mettā can give us eleven benefits as declared by the Buddha:
1. One sleeps in comfort.
2. One wakes in comfort.
3. One has no evil dreams.
4. One is dear to human beings.
5. One is dear to non-human beings.
6. One is protected by deities.
7. Fire, poison and weapons cannot hurt him.
8. One's mind is easily concentrated.
9. The expression of one's face is serene.
10. One dies unconfused.
11. If one does not penetrate any higher, one will be reborn in the Brahma World.
To enjoy these benifits too we should practice loving-kindness.
The Practice of Loving-Kindness
By way of Location:
May I
be well, happy and peaceful.
May all beings in this house
be well, happy and peaceful.
May all beings in this area
be well, happy and peaceful.
May all beings in this city
be well, happy and peaceful.
May all beings in this country
be well, happy and peaceful.
May all beings in this world
be well, happy and peaceful.
May all beings in this universe
be well, happy and peaceful.
May all beings
be well, happy and peaceful.
By way of Persons:
May I
be well, happy and peaceful
May my teachers
be well, happy and peaceful
May my relatives
be well, happy and peaceful
May my freinds
be well, happy and peaceful
May the indifferent persons
be well, happy and peaceful
May the unfriendly persons
be well, happy and peaceful
May all meditators
be well, happy and peaceful
May all beings
be well, happy and peaceful
May suffering ones be suffering-free
And the fear-struck fearless be
May the grieving shed all grief
And all beings find relief
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Mangala Sutta
(Discourse on Auspicious Blessing)
Thus have I heard. Once the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi in Jeta’s Grove of Anathapindikasa’s Park. (monastery)
Then a certain devata, in the night’s last extreme, whose extreme brilliance lighted up the whole Jeta’s Grove, approached the Exalted One, having approached the Exalted One and revered him, he stood to one side, standing there to one side that devata addressed the Exalted one in verses:
Many devas and men,
Have pondered on blessings
Longing for safety
Tell them the highest blessing
1. Not to consort with fools,
With the wise to consort
And to honour the honourable
This is the highest blessing.
2. Living in befitting places,
In the past to have made merits (punna)
And with oneself rightly guided,
This is the highest blessing.
3. Ample learning and handicraft,
Being well trained in discipline
And that speech which is well spoken,
This is the highest blessing.
4. Support of mother and father,
Cherishing of wife and children
And ways of work without conflict,
This is the highest blessing.
5. Giving and conduct according to the Dhamma
And help for relatives,
With unobstructive kamma
This is the highest blessing.
6. Shrinking abstinence from evil,
Refraining from intoxicants,
Heedfulness in all that is Dhamma,
This is the highest blessing.
7. Respectfulness and humility,
Contentment and gratitude,
The timely hearing of the Dhamma
This is the highest blessing.
8. Patience and meekness when corrected
And sight of samanass,
Timely discussion of Dhamma,
This is the highest blessing.
9. Ardent effort, the divine life leading,
Insight into the Noble Truths,
And the realization of Nibbana,
This is the highest blessing.
10. Though in contact with worldly Dhammas,
Yet his mind is not shaken,
Griefless, dustless, secure,
This is the highest blessing.
11. Since by doing such things
As these (men) are everywhere unvanquished
And go everywhere in safety
This is the highest blessing.
(Discourse on Auspicious Blessing)
Thus have I heard. Once the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi in Jeta’s Grove of Anathapindikasa’s Park. (monastery)
Then a certain devata, in the night’s last extreme, whose extreme brilliance lighted up the whole Jeta’s Grove, approached the Exalted One, having approached the Exalted One and revered him, he stood to one side, standing there to one side that devata addressed the Exalted one in verses:
Many devas and men,
Have pondered on blessings
Longing for safety
Tell them the highest blessing
1. Not to consort with fools,
With the wise to consort
And to honour the honourable
This is the highest blessing.
2. Living in befitting places,
In the past to have made merits (punna)
And with oneself rightly guided,
This is the highest blessing.
3. Ample learning and handicraft,
Being well trained in discipline
And that speech which is well spoken,
This is the highest blessing.
4. Support of mother and father,
Cherishing of wife and children
And ways of work without conflict,
This is the highest blessing.
5. Giving and conduct according to the Dhamma
And help for relatives,
With unobstructive kamma
This is the highest blessing.
6. Shrinking abstinence from evil,
Refraining from intoxicants,
Heedfulness in all that is Dhamma,
This is the highest blessing.
7. Respectfulness and humility,
Contentment and gratitude,
The timely hearing of the Dhamma
This is the highest blessing.
8. Patience and meekness when corrected
And sight of samanass,
Timely discussion of Dhamma,
This is the highest blessing.
9. Ardent effort, the divine life leading,
Insight into the Noble Truths,
And the realization of Nibbana,
This is the highest blessing.
10. Though in contact with worldly Dhammas,
Yet his mind is not shaken,
Griefless, dustless, secure,
This is the highest blessing.
11. Since by doing such things
As these (men) are everywhere unvanquished
And go everywhere in safety
This is the highest blessing.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Breaking the Link
By Sayadaw U Jotika
Perface
Breaking The Link is one of a series of talks given by Sayadaw U Jotika as an introduction to a meditation retreat. The talks were given at the Buddha Society of Victoria in Melbourne Australia in 1998.
Sayadaw replies to a question that leads to him discussing aspects of Paţiccasamuppāda (Dependent Origination), as to where in the chain-link of existence, the link can be most easily severed.
He also talks about Paţiccasamuppāda from a practical point of view, its relevance to normal life as well as to meditation practice. He expands on how mental states are the primary influence of our lives.
He says :” when we measure other people by our standards and when we measure ourselves by other people’s standard; as long as we do this, we will always feel unhappy,” and expands on this.
In further questions he talks of the best way to sleep and overcome sleeping problems. How mindfulness in daily life is the best way to overcome many other problems.
May reading this Dhamma text (* book) inspire you to further strive towards the attainment of your spiritual goals!
Anna Muresu & Lesilie Shaw
January 2006, Penang
_________________________________________________
Breaking the Link
Most of you have heard of Paţiccasamuppāda (Dependent Origination). In Paţiccasamuppāda there are two ways of beginning: one is to begin from avijjā; avijjā-paccayā sańkhāra. Paccaya means cause. From ignorance (avijjā) sańkhāra are caused. Activities, actions, deeds, wholesome and unwholesome deeds, all are sańkhāra. Also meditation and jhāna are included in sańkhāra.
Vipassanā is a different matter because the chain-links of dependent origination can be broken by seeing the true reality of mind and matter. This will be explained in detail later. However when a person practices jhāna, because in jhāna you do not see the reality of mind and matter, you identify with it. You see ans feel this as mine and it can cause another rebirth, It will be a very good rebirth because the mental state of jhāna is very concentrated, calm, peaceful and very clear, but there is still ignorance. The rebirth will be the reflection on the mental state.
Everything that happens in our life is a reflection of our mental state. This is a very important basic law to understand. It is the mental state and the power of that mental state that produces the situations of life. People sometimes ask me,” How can this sort of life happen?” What is the cause of this sort of life? How many different kinds of lives are there?” Well I cannot tell you how many different kinds, because it depends on how many different kinds of mental state there are! Depending on the mental state many different kinds of life can happen.
Even in this human world if you studied each human being very closely you would be very surprised. Although physically we share the same physical world, mentally, emotionally and intellectually, the quality of each individual mind is very different. Some people live in very painful situations, mentally they are in pain. They do not have mettā (loving-kindness) or karuņā (compassion), they don’t have clarity.
By Sayadaw U Jotika
Perface
Breaking The Link is one of a series of talks given by Sayadaw U Jotika as an introduction to a meditation retreat. The talks were given at the Buddha Society of Victoria in Melbourne Australia in 1998.
Sayadaw replies to a question that leads to him discussing aspects of Paţiccasamuppāda (Dependent Origination), as to where in the chain-link of existence, the link can be most easily severed.
He also talks about Paţiccasamuppāda from a practical point of view, its relevance to normal life as well as to meditation practice. He expands on how mental states are the primary influence of our lives.
He says :” when we measure other people by our standards and when we measure ourselves by other people’s standard; as long as we do this, we will always feel unhappy,” and expands on this.
In further questions he talks of the best way to sleep and overcome sleeping problems. How mindfulness in daily life is the best way to overcome many other problems.
May reading this Dhamma text (* book) inspire you to further strive towards the attainment of your spiritual goals!
Anna Muresu & Lesilie Shaw
January 2006, Penang
_________________________________________________
Breaking the Link
Most of you have heard of Paţiccasamuppāda (Dependent Origination). In Paţiccasamuppāda there are two ways of beginning: one is to begin from avijjā; avijjā-paccayā sańkhāra. Paccaya means cause. From ignorance (avijjā) sańkhāra are caused. Activities, actions, deeds, wholesome and unwholesome deeds, all are sańkhāra. Also meditation and jhāna are included in sańkhāra.
Vipassanā is a different matter because the chain-links of dependent origination can be broken by seeing the true reality of mind and matter. This will be explained in detail later. However when a person practices jhāna, because in jhāna you do not see the reality of mind and matter, you identify with it. You see ans feel this as mine and it can cause another rebirth, It will be a very good rebirth because the mental state of jhāna is very concentrated, calm, peaceful and very clear, but there is still ignorance. The rebirth will be the reflection on the mental state.
Everything that happens in our life is a reflection of our mental state. This is a very important basic law to understand. It is the mental state and the power of that mental state that produces the situations of life. People sometimes ask me,” How can this sort of life happen?” What is the cause of this sort of life? How many different kinds of lives are there?” Well I cannot tell you how many different kinds, because it depends on how many different kinds of mental state there are! Depending on the mental state many different kinds of life can happen.
Even in this human world if you studied each human being very closely you would be very surprised. Although physically we share the same physical world, mentally, emotionally and intellectually, the quality of each individual mind is very different. Some people live in very painful situations, mentally they are in pain. They do not have mettā (loving-kindness) or karuņā (compassion), they don’t have clarity.
When we think of life,
We should think more about
The quality of the mind
One person may be a millionaire and another may be very poor, but the poor man may be living a very satisfying and happy life and the millionaire may have a very miserable one.
We cannot judge a person’s life on how much money or status or whatever he or she has. If I have to judge someone’s life I prefer to do it by his or her mental states. If they are a loving, kind and contented person and if their mind is peace and clear, then they are living a wonderful life. So life is a reflection of our mental state, whether your life is a success or failure it depends on your mental state, not on what you own.
A man asked me about success in life. He is working very hard to get promoted. He judges his life by how highly he has achieved in his career and he is still trying to get a higher position. He is thinking of getting another degree so that he can be promoted. I asked him why he wanted to be promoted and he said that if he got promoted he would get a higher salary.” Why do you want to get a higher salary?” I asked.” So that I can have more money and buy a bigger house and a better car.” I asked him why he wanted a bigger house and a better car.” Then I will be satisfied and I’ll consider myself a successful person and that will make me happy.”
I said ”when the day comes that you have to stop doing what you are doing,will you think of your life as a failure? How long does success last? For a few years you may feel you are a success and after failure again! As long as you measure your life by what you have, you’ll always have the fear that one day you’ll be a failure again.” Then he said:” Oh well, I’ll think about my past and about what I have achieved and that will make feel happy.”
This is just an illusion;
real happiness comes from
what you are now
not from what you have been
real happiness comes from
what you are now
not from what you have been
Most of us go through life thinking “ I was this” ……” I was that” ……. I often ask people “who are you?” by that I mean their name. But one man, instead of telling me his name said ”I was a minister.” All I wanted to know was his name, not what he did. He was so concerned with who he was that he didn’t even understand my question. By looking at him I could see that he was really afraid of people not respecting him for who he is.
As long as you cling to what you were or are,
You will be insecure
Real security comes from being satisfied with
Who you are and not what you are
You will be insecure
Real security comes from being satisfied with
Who you are and not what you are
If you are a peaceful, calm, loving, compassionate, mindful and wise person you can be very satisfied with who you are and it does not matter whether people think highly of you or not. Your satisfaction is expressed in the way you live your life, you will not be afraid of people not respecting you because you don’t have a high status. As long as we cling to our status or position, we live life with fear and insecurity. Life is a reflection of our mental states, therefore who we are depends on our mental state.
Let’s come back to meditation. In Vipassanā practice we are paying attention to what is happening right now, not the past; we are paying attention to what is happening in the present, but the immediate past can also be included in the present. For example, if I strike this bell; no, I have not struck this bell it; now I am going to, so its in the future, we cannot really observe the sound of the bell now, because it does not exist; so you can think “he is going to strike the bell and it will make a sound” this is just a thought, this is not observation, this is not Vipassanā .
Now I strike the bell, you hear the sound, you pay attention to the sound, ’hearing’, this is a sound; also you can pay attention to the quality of the sound, slowly it becomes softer and softer, then you cannot hear it anymore. So at the moment you hear the sound you can pay attention to the sound and you can pay attention to the consciousness of the sound too; ’hearing’. Hearing means consciousness. This hearing consciousness arises because of the sound, without the sound there cannot be consciousness of it.
There must be this ‘it’ (the sound) present for consciousness to arise. When you are watching this consciousness you are watching vińńāņa-kkhandha ( consciousness aggregate). We know that this consciousness of ‘it’ cannot arise without the ‘it’. This sound is the cause of this consciousness, we are seeing cause and effect nd this cause is samudaya as well.
Samudaya has two meanings: arising and cause. That is why the Second Noble Truth is dukkha samudaya sacca; the Truth of the cause of the dukkha. So this sound is the cause of this hearing consciousness. They are so much together, one being the cause of the other, we do not think.”this happen first and that happen later”. In fact they happen at the same time; when the sound is there, so is the consciousness; when there is no sound, there is no consciousness.
Sometimes in the same noticing, when the mind is working very fast, we can see both. In the same noticing there is a series of awareness’s, in fact in just one second they can be innumerable, seeing clearly becomes so powerful that in one seeing you can understand so much. When you experience it, you will know how amazing it is. Without thinking of anything, in one seeing, you can understand a lot.
When you notice the consciousness of the sound at the same time you are aware of the sound, you cannot separate the two. Sometimes when you are paying attention to the sound you can reflect and contemplate on the fact that because of this sound there is hearing, without it there cannot be any hearing.
Although if you think about this is obvious and you can understand it, when you actually see the consciousness arising just NOW, you really know that because of this sound, this consciousness arises; that this is something new that you are experiencing.
Although if you think about this is obvious and you can understand it, when you actually see the consciousness arising just NOW, you really know that because of this sound, this consciousness arises; that this is something new that you are experiencing.
Meditation is not about seeing something
that has not been seen before;
meditation is seeing
that same phenomenon in a different way.
It is a new way of seeing
Everybody knows that because of the sound there is hearing, but this is a thought. We feel that there is already a person there to hear the sound, but in meditation practice, when it happens, we know that this consciousness just happens NOW, and it appears because of the sound. You know this consciousness as something totally new.
When we can see phenomena as something totally new, arising just now, only then we are seeing reality. This happens in Vippasanā meditation practice, you can see consciousness arising NOW because of this object and we know that because of this object this consciousness arises. This is the samudaya factor. We can also see the sound as arising and passing away; arising is samudaya and passing away is vaya.
We can understand the same Dhamma in many ways. The Buddha says:
“ He dwells contemplating the Samudaya- Dhamma (originating factors) and he dwells contemplating the Vaya-Dhamma (dissolution factors)”
~ MAHĀ-SATIPATTHĀNA SUTTA,
DIGHA NIKĀYA SUTTA 22
Vaya also means nirodha. There are many synonyms here: Samudaya also means nibbati-lakkhana. Vaya means viparinama-lakkhana and it also means nirodha, dissolution.In Paţiccasamuppāda the word nirodha is used: Avijjā-paccayā sańkhāra can be put another way, avijjā tveva asesavirāga-nirodha; sańkhāra-nirodho. Here the word nirodha comes in. So when there is avijjā (delusion) there is sańkhāra.
We do so many things because we don’t really understand absolute reality. We think that it will make us happy doing this and that and we will be unhappy if we don’t. There is always this ‘I’. But when we really see there is no real ‘I’ and there are only mental and physical phenomena, then our understanding changes. When ignorance (avijjā) totally ceases, even doing wholesome actions does not create kamma anymore, and because kamma is not created anymore there can be no result and there are no sańkhāra created. The link is broken; sańkhārā nirodhā, viňňāņā nirodho.
At birth, the first consciousness in life happens because of sańkhārā, which in this case is synonymous with kamma. Because of kamma there is rebirth consciousness and this is called viňňāņā. If there were no sańkhārā there would be no kamma to give rebirth; therefore there would be no rebirth. So sańkhārā nirodhā, viňňāņā nirodho viňňāņā nirodhā, nāma-rūpa nirodho; if there were no rebirth consciousness there would be no mental and physical process following it. If this dissolves, this also dissolves, it continues on and on that way.
Nāma-rūpa nirodhā, phassa nirodho; if there are no mental and physical phenomena going on, there cannot be contact with sense objects anymore.
The opposite is, as there is mental and physical process going on, so there is contact with sense objects. Phassa-samudayā, vedanā-samudayo, phassa-nirodhā, vedanā-nirodho; because of contact there are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings. If there were no contact then there would not be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings anymore.
We do so many things because we don’t really understand absolute reality. We think that it will make us happy doing this and that and we will be unhappy if we don’t. There is always this ‘I’. But when we really see there is no real ‘I’ and there are only mental and physical phenomena, then our understanding changes. When ignorance (avijjā) totally ceases, even doing wholesome actions does not create kamma anymore, and because kamma is not created anymore there can be no result and there are no sańkhāra created. The link is broken; sańkhārā nirodhā, viňňāņā nirodho.
At birth, the first consciousness in life happens because of sańkhārā, which in this case is synonymous with kamma. Because of kamma there is rebirth consciousness and this is called viňňāņā. If there were no sańkhārā there would be no kamma to give rebirth; therefore there would be no rebirth. So sańkhārā nirodhā, viňňāņā nirodho viňňāņā nirodhā, nāma-rūpa nirodho; if there were no rebirth consciousness there would be no mental and physical process following it. If this dissolves, this also dissolves, it continues on and on that way.
Nāma-rūpa nirodhā, phassa nirodho; if there are no mental and physical phenomena going on, there cannot be contact with sense objects anymore.
The opposite is, as there is mental and physical process going on, so there is contact with sense objects. Phassa-samudayā, vedanā-samudayo, phassa-nirodhā, vedanā-nirodho; because of contact there are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings. If there were no contact then there would not be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings anymore.
At one stage in your Vipassanā meditation practice you see this very clearly, sometimes brief moments of thinking arise and sometimes even without thinking you can know it; you can see the reality of it very clearly.
Vedanā-nirodhā, taņhā-nirodho; if there are no feelings of any kind; there cannot be desire for anything anymore. When we feel happy or unhappy about something, we see that because of feelings, because of enjoyment, there is this desire to have more. When we feel good about something we want more of it and when we don’t feel good about something we don’t want it instead we want to replace it with something that feels good.
Feelings direct the mind towards more desire. When there are neutral feelings and we don’t like them we want something pleasant, something that can give us strong feelings, which is further desire. Whenever desire arises we can see that it arises because of feelings, if there were no feelings there would be no desire anymore.
Vedanā-nirodhā, taņhā-nirodho; if there are no feelings of any kind; there cannot be desire for anything anymore. When we feel happy or unhappy about something, we see that because of feelings, because of enjoyment, there is this desire to have more. When we feel good about something we want more of it and when we don’t feel good about something we don’t want it instead we want to replace it with something that feels good.
Feelings direct the mind towards more desire. When there are neutral feelings and we don’t like them we want something pleasant, something that can give us strong feelings, which is further desire. Whenever desire arises we can see that it arises because of feelings, if there were no feelings there would be no desire anymore.
Feelings control our lives.
Vedanā is that factor that motivates us
to do this and that, in order to feel good.
When we can see this very clearly it helps
the mind to become more detached.
This detachment is freedom.
Detachment makes this mind clearer and
it gives us more freedom.
The more we see how vedanā influences our mind the more we can free ourselves. This is where the chain-link in Paţiccasamuppāda can be broken and we find the way out: between vedanā and taņhā. We experience vedanā but if we don’t let it become taņhā (craving) we can get out of it. But if we go on to taņhā, which means desire, then desire can build more and more energy, more and more momentum.
Taņhā can then become upādāna, clinging or very strong desir. Taņhā is normal desire; upādāna is very strong desire. When taņhā is present you feel “I want it”, if it becomes upādāna then you feel you cannot live without it. What do you do when you feel you can’t live without it? You do whatever can to get it. Upādāna leads to bhava. Here bhava has two meanings, one is ‘kamma’ and the other is ‘ another life’. Here it means kamma because you have such a strong desire, you think about it, you talk about it and you do something about it; this creates kamma. Kamma leads to jāti (birth), because of kamma there is another rebirth.
The chain goes on and on. In practice, sometimes we see one part of it and sometimes another, but mostly we begin to see the vedanā and taņhā link more clearly. Later in our practice when concentration and mindfulness become very strong, we can experience phassa (contact), the mind coming in contact with the object, the contact is very clear and powerful. Usually we don’t experience this contact because immediately there is vedanā , the feeling of enjoyment of it.
So when mindfulness becomes very strong, instead of going into the process of taņhā we stop there and watch the object, we define it, and we enjoy the object.
In meditation practice we receive the object,
we see what it is very clearly but
we don’t go into enjoying it.
Instead of getting happy or unhappy about it,
we stop right there and just watch it.
We see that it is arising and passing away and there is nothing to be happy or unhappy about. When this takes place the process stops at the point of phassa: contact and observation, without reacting to it.
We don’t see this as either good or bad, there is no discrimination anymore. There is no desire for it to be different anymore. Observation is very clear, therefore without thinking of it being different in any way, the mind just observes it; it makes no difference, whatever it might be.
Phassa-samudayā vedanā-samudayo; phassa-nirodhā vedanā-nirodho; is a very important link. From vedanā-samudayā, taņhā-samudayo; vedanā-nirodhā, taņhā-nirodho; when we see the links like that, we are seeing the originating factor and the dissolution factor, both of them; seeing it arising, seeing it passing away. Seeing the cause of it and seeing the dissolution of it. This all means seeing samusaya-dhamma and vaya-dhamma.
~end~
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)