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