| The following teaching on
the 'Four Noble Truths' is taken from a talk given by Venerable Viradhammo
during a ten-day retreat conducted in Bangkok for Thai lay people, in June
1988.
This teaching is not aimed
at just getting another kind of experience. It is about complete freedom
within any experience.
This evening we might
begin by considering the legend of the life of the Lord Buddha. Now we
could consider this story as factual history. Or, we could also look at it
as a sort of myth - a story that reflects back on our own development as
beings seeking truth.
In the story we are told that before his enlightenment, the Bodhisatta
{Buddha-to-be) lived in a royal family with a lot of power and influence.
He was a very gifted person, and had all that any human being could wish
for: wealth, intelligence, charm, good looks, friendship, respect, and
many skills. He lived the princely life of luxury and ease.
The legend has it that when the Bodhisatta was first
born, his father the king received a prediction from the wise-men. They
said there were two possibilities: either this son would become a world-
ruling monarch, or he would become a perfectly enlightened Buddha. Of
course the father wanted his son to carry on the business of being a
monarch; he didn't want him to become a renunciate. So everybody in the
palace was always trying to protect the prince. Whenever anyone grew
vaguely old or sick they were taken away; nobody wanted the prince to see
anything unpleasant that might cause him to leave.
But then at the age of twenty-nine, curiosity struck. The
prince wanted to see what the world outside was like. So off he went out
with his charioteer and - what did he see? The first thing he saw was a
sick person - all covered with sores, in pain, and lying in his own filth.
A thoroughly wretched human condition.
'What's that the prince asked his attendant. The attendant
replied: 'That's a sick person.' After a discussion the prince realized,
for the first time, that these human bodies can become sick and painful.
The attendant pointed out that all bodies had this potential. This came as
a great shock to the prince.
The following day he went out again. This time he saw an old
person: all bent over with age, shaking, wrinkled, gray-haired, barely
able to hold himself up. Again, shocked by what he saw, the prince asked:
'What's that 'That's an old person,' the attendant replied. 'Everybody
grows old.' So the prince realized that his body too had this potential to
become old. With that he went back to the palace quite bewildered by it
all.
The third time he went out, and saw a dead person. Most of
the townsfolk were busy, happily waving at their attractive prince,
thinking he was having a great time. But behind the crowds,. there were
people carrying a stretcher with a corpse on it, going to the funeral
pyre. That was a really powerful one for him. ' And what is that?!'
he asked. So the attendant replied: 'That's a corpse. All bodies go
that way; your body, my body, they all die.' That really shocked him.
The next time the Bodhisatta went out he saw a mendicant monk
- sitting under a tree meditating. 'And who is that he asked. The
attendant replied: 'That's a sadhu - someone who is seeking the
answers to life and death.'
So we have this legend. Now what does this mean for you and
me? Is it just a historical tale to tell our children, a tale about a
person who didn't see old age, sickness or death until he was twenty-nine?
For me, this story represents the awakening of a human mind
to the limitations of sensory experience. Personally I can relate to this
from a time when I was at university. I questioned life a lot: 'What is it
all about 'Where is this all going to? I used to wonder about
death, and started thinking: 'What is the point of getting this university
degree? Even if I become a famous engineer, or if I become rich, I'm still
going to die. If I become the best politician, or the best lawyer, or the
best whatever. . Even if I was to become the most famous rock star that
ever existed. ..Big deal.' At that time, I think Jimi Hendrix had just
taken too much heroin and died.
Nothing I thought of could answer the question of death.
There was always: 'So what? ...So ifl have a family? So if l am famous? So
if I'm not famous? So if l have a lot of money? So if l don't have a lot
of money?' None of these things resolved this doubt: 'What about death?
What is it? Why am I here? Why seek any kind of experience if it all goes
to death anyway?'
Questioning all the time like this made it impossible for me
to study. So I started to travel. I managed to distract the mind for a
time, because traveling was interesting: Morocco, Turkey, India. ..But I
kept coming back to this same conclusion: 'So what? So if I see another
temple, if I see another mosque, if I eat yet another kind of food - so
what?'
Sometimes this doubt arises for people when somebody they
know dies, or if they become sick, or old. It can also come from religious
insight. Something in the mind clicks, and we are awakened to the fact
that no matter what experiences we have, they all change, they come to an
end, they die. Even if I'm the most famous, powerful, richest, influential
person in the world, all that is going to die. It's going to cease. So
this question 'So what?' is an awakening of the mind.
If we were to do this ten-day retreat with the idea of
getting 'a meditation experience', then 'So what?' We still have to go
back to work, still have to face the world, still have to go back to
Melbourne, still have to go back to New Zealand. ...So what! What is the
difference between 'a meditation experience' and doing a cruise on The
Queen Elizabeth II? A bit cheaper maybe!
The Buddhist teaching is not aimed at just getting another
kind of experience. It is about understanding the nature of experience
itself. It is aimed at actually observing what it means to be a human
being. We are contemplating life, letting go of delusion, letting go of
the source of human suffering and realizing truth, realizing Dhamma. And
that's a different process altogether.
When we're doing 'mindfulness of breathing' - anapanasati -
we're not doing it with the effort to get something later. We're doing it
to simply be with what is: just being with an in-breath, being
with an out-breath. And what is the result when we're being mindful
in this way? Well, I think we can all see. The mind becomes calm, our
attention is steady -we are aware and with the way things are.
So already we are able to see that calming the mind is a
healthy and compassionate thing to do for ourselves. Also, notice how this
practice creates space in the mind. We can see now the potential for
really 'being attentive' to life. Our attention is not caught up. We're
not being 'kidnapped' all the time. We can really work with attention.
If we're obsessed with something, then our attention is
absorbed into the object of obsession. When we're worried, exhausted,
upset, excited, desiring, depressed and so on, our attention energy is
lost. So by calming the mind we're creating space and 'freeing' attention.
And there is a beauty in that. When we go outside after this
meditation period, maybe we'll notice things in a different way - the
green trees, the smells, what we're walking on, the little lotuses in
bloom. These pleasant experiences calm and relax us and are very helpful l
- the same as going on a cruise. In New Zealand they go trekking in the
mountains for relaxation.
But this kind of happiness, or sukha, is not the full
potential of the Buddha. A lot of joy can come with this level of
practice, but that is not enough. The happiness of a relatively calm mind
is not complete freedom. This is still just another experience. It's still
caught in 'So what!'
The complete freedom of the Buddha comes from the work of
investigation - dhammavicaya. It is completely putting an end to
all conflict and tension. No matter where we are in life, there are no
more problems. It's called 'the unshakable deliverance of the heart' -
complete freedom within any experience.
One of the wonderful things about this Way is that it can be
applied in all situations. We don't have to be in a monastery, or even to
have a happy feeling, to contemplate Dhamma. We can contemplate Dhamma
within misery. We often find that it is when people are suffering that
they start coming to the monastery. When they're happy and successful it
probably wouldn't occur to them. But if their partner leaves home, or they
lose their job, get cancer, or something, then they say, 'Oh, what do I do
now?'
So for many of us, the Buddha's teaching begins with the
experience of suffering - dukkha. This is what we start
contemplating. Later on we find that we also need to contemplate happiness
- sukha. But people don't begin by going to the Ajahn, saying: 'Oh
Venerable Sir, I'm so happy! Help me out of this happiness.'
Usually we begin when life says: 'This hurts.' Maybe it's
just boredom; for me it was the contemplation of death - this 'So what?'
Maybe it's alienation at work. In the West we have what's called 'the
middle-age crisis'. Men around the age of forty-five or fifty start to
think: 'I've got it all,' or, '1 haven't got it all, so what?' 'Big deal.'
Something awakens and we begin to question life. And since everybody
experiences dukkha, in its gross and refined aspects, it's beautiful that
the Teaching begins here - the Buddha says, 'There is dukkha.' No one can
deny that. This is what the Buddhist teaching is based upon - actually
observing these experiences we have - observing life.
Now the worldly way of operating with dukkha is to try to get
rid of it. Often we use our intelligence to try and maximize sukha and
minimize dukkha. We are always trying to figure out how to make things
more convenient. I remember a discourse that Luang Por once gave about
this.
In the monastery we used to all join in hauling water from
the well. There would be two cans of water on a long bamboo pole, and a
bhikkhu at each end to carry them. So Ajahn Chah said: 'Why do you always
carry water with the monk that you like? You should carry water with the
monk you dislike!' This was true. I was a very speedy novice and would
always try to avoid carrying water with a slow old bhikkhu in front. It
drove me crazy. Sometimes I'd get stuck behind one of them, and be pushing
away.
So having to carry water with a monk I disliked was dukkha.
And, as Ajahn Chah said, I would always try to figure out how to have
things the way I wanted. That's using intelligence to try to maximize
sukha and minimize dukkha. But of course even if we do get what we want,
we still have dukkha; because the pleasure of gratification is not
permanent -it is anicca. Imagine eating something really delicious;
in the beginning it would feel pleasurable. But if you had to eat that for
four hours! It would be awful.
So what do we do with dukkha? The Buddhist teaching says: use
intelligence to really look at it. That's why we put ourselves in a
retreat situation like this with the Eight Precepts. We're actually
looking at dukkha rather than just trying to maximize sukha. Monastic life
is based on this also; we're trapped in these robes.
But then we have an incredible freedom to look at suffering -
rather than just ignorantly trying to get rid of it. Wearing these robes
in the West can be really difficult. It's not like wearing a robe in
Thailand! When we first moved to London I felt so out of place. As a lay
person I always dressed to not be noticed, but in that situation we were
up front all the time. That was dukkha for me; I felt very self-conscious.
People were looking at me all the time. Now, if I had had the freedom to
maximize sukha and minimize dukkha, I would have put on a pair of jeans, a
brown shirt, grown a beard and been one of the mob. But I couldn't do that
because I had renunciation precepts. Renunciation is giving up the
tendency to always try to maximize pleasure. I really learned a lot in
that situation.
We all have responsibilities: family, job, career and so on.
And these are kinds of limitations, aren't they ? What do we do with them?
Rather than resent these limitations and say: 'Oh if only it were
different, I would be happy,' we can consider: 'Now this is a chance to
understand.' We say: 'This is the way it is now. There is dukkha.' We
actually go towards that dukkha; we make it conscious - bring it into
mind. We don't have to create dukkha especially, there's already enough
suffering in this world. But the encouragement of the teachings is to
actually feel the dukkha that we have in life.
Maybe on this retreat you find during a sitting that you are
bored and restless, and waiting for the bell to ring. Now you can actually
notice that. If we didn't have this form, then we could just walk out. But
what happens if I walk out on restlessness? I might think I've gotten rid
of restlessness, but have I? I go and watch T. V. or read something- I
keep that restlessness going. And then I find my mind is not peaceful:
it's filled with activity. Why? Because I've followed sukha and tried to
get rid of dukkha. That is the constant, painful, restlessness of our
lives. It is so unsatisfactory, so unpeaceful - not Nibbana.
The First Noble Truth of the Buddhist teaching is not saying,
'Get this experience.' It says look at the experience of dukkha. We are
not expected to merely believe in Buddhism as a 'teaching', but to look at
dukkha - without judging. We are not saying I shouldn't have dukkha. Nor
are we just thinking about it. We're actually feeling it- observing it.
We're bringing it to mind. So, there is dukkha.
The teaching then goes on to consider that dukkha has a cause
and also that it has an end. A lot of Westerners think that Buddhism is a
very negative teaching, because it talks about suffering. When I first had
the inspiration to become a Buddhist monk, I was in India. Then my
grandfather died so I went back to Germany for the funeral. I tried to
talk to my mother about ordination. But when I mentioned suffering, she
got quite upset; she took it quite personally. She didn't understand what
I was saying: that this is simply what human beings have to go through.
So the Buddha wasn't just talking about dukkha. He was also
talking about the cause of dukkha, the end of dukkha and a path to that
end. This teaching is about enlightenment - Nibbana. And that is
what this Buddha-image is saying. It's not an image of the Buddha
suffering. It's of his enlightenment; it's all about freedom.
But to be enlightened we have to take what we've got, rather
than try to get what we want. In the worldly way we usually try to get what
we want. All of us want Nibbana - right? - even though we don't know what
it is. When we're hungry, we go to the fridge and get something, or we go
to the market and get something. Getting, getting, always getting
something. ...But if we try to get enlightenment like that, it
doesn't work. If we could get enlightenment the same way as we get money,
or get a car, it would be rather easy. But it's more subtle than that. It
takes intelligence - panna. It takes investigation, dhammavicaya.
So now we're using intelligence not to maximize sukha and
minimize dukkha, but to actually look at dukkha. We're using intelligence
to consider things skillfully. 'Why am I suffering?' So you see, we're not
dismissing thought; thought is a very important faculty. But if we can't
think clearly then it's not really possible to use the Buddhist teachings.
However, you don't need a Ph.D. in Buddhism either.
Once when I was in England, we went to go see a chap in
Lancaster. He had just finished a 'Master's' thesis on sunyata -
ten thousand words on emptiness. He wanted to make us a cup of coffee. So
he put the coffee in the cups with the sugar and milk, and offered them to
us - forgetting to put in the water. He could do a 'Master's' degree on
emptiness, but it was more difficult to mindfully make a cup of coffee. So
intelligence in Buddhism isn't just an accumulation of ideas. It's more
grounded than that. It's grounded in experience.
Intelligence is the ability to observe life and to ask the
right questions. We're using thought to direct the mind in the right way.
We're observing and opening the mind to the situation. And it is in this
openness, with the right questions, that we have vipassana practice:
insight into the way we are. The mind is taking the concepts of the
teaching, and channeling intelligence towards human experience. We're
opening, being attentive, and realizing the way things are. This
investigation of the Four Noble Truths is the classic application of
intelligence in Theravada Buddhism.
So simply observing dukkha is not trying to get an
experience, is it? It is accepting responsibility for our dukkha - our
inner conflict. We feel the inner conflict - 'I am suffering.' And
we ask: 'What is the cause ?'
The teaching says, dukkha begins and ends - it's not
permanent. Suppose I'm feeling uncomfortable during the sitting, and I
turn to that dukkha and ask: 'What is the cause of this suffering?' 'It's
because the body is uncomfortable,' comes the answer. So I decide to move.
But after five minutes, I find the body is uncomfortable again. So this
time, I look at the feeling a little more closely. And I notice something
more: '1 don't want discomfort. I want pleasant feeling.'
Ah! So it's not the painful feeling that's the problem - it's the not
wanting the painful feeling. Now that is a very useful insight, isn't
it? That's a bit deeper. I find that now I can be at peace with painful
feeling and don't have to move. I don't get restless and the mind
becomes quite calm.
So I've seen that the cause of the problem isn't the painful
feeling - it's the 'not wanting' that particular feeling. 'Wanting' is
quite tricky stuff. It comes in many forms. But we can always apply this
same investigation: 'What is it I want now?' The Second Noble Truth - samudaya
- says that the cause of suffering is attachment to wanting - tanha.
It makes us feel that if we get what we want we'll be fulfilled: 'If I
have this' or 'If I become that' or 'If I get rid of this and don't have
that'. ...And that's samsara rolling on. Desire and fear, pushing
beings into always becoming: always seeking rebirth, leading endless busy
lives.
But the Buddha says that there is also 'a way out'. There is
an end to suffering. The end of suffering we call nirodha -
cessation - or Nibbana. When I first read about Nibbana, I
understood it to mean no greed, no hatred and no delusion. So I thought if
only I can get rid of all greed, hatred and delusion, then that would be
Nibbana - it seemed that way. I tried and it didn't work. I got more
confused.
But as I continued to practise, I found that the 'cessation
of suffering' meant the ending of these things in their own time - they
have their own energy. I couldn't say to myself: '0. K. Tomorrow I'm not
going to be greedy or afraid.' That was a ridiculous idea. What we have to
do is to 'contain' these energies until they die - until they cease. If I
felt angry and were to act on it, maybe I would kick someone in the shins.
Then they'd kick me back, and we'd have a fight. Or, I'd go back to my hut
and meditate, and hate myself. It goes on and on because I've reacted to
it. If I'm either following it or trying to get rid of it, then it doesn't
cease. The fire doesn't die.
The Teaching of the Four Noble Truths says then: we have
suffering - dukkha; there is a cause - samudaya; there is an
end - nirodha; and a path to that end - magga. This is such
a practical teaching. In any situation of inner conflict we can take
responsibility for what we're feeling: 'Why am I suffering? What am I
wanting now? We can investigate- using dhammavicaya.
It is important that we actually apply these Teachings.
Luang Por used to say: 'Sometimes people who are very close to Buddhism
are like ants that crawl around on the outside of the mango. They never
actually taste the juice.' Sometimes we hear the structure of the
teachings and think we understand- 'It's just a way of observing life,' we
say. But the teachings are not just an intellectual structure. They are
saying that experience itself has a structure, which must be understood.
So we're not merely using intelligence to maximize sukha and
minimize dukkha. We are using it to free the mind, to go beyond, to
realize the unshakable deliverance of the heart, to realize Nibbana. We're
using intelligence for freedom, not just frivolity; to liberate the mind,
not just to be happy. We're going beyond happiness and unhappiness. We're
not just trying to get another experience- it is a different attitude
altogether.
I'll leave you with that for tonight. |