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In Thai
language they speak of two kinds of friends. There are 'eating
friends', who are friends when there is something to eat, when
everything is going well, but who disappear as soon as things
get heavy; and 'dying friends', who would die for you. I
sometimes think of those phrases in reflecting on our Dhamma
practice. There are practices that we use as refuges when
things are going well, but they disappear as soon as things
start to get tough. It reminds me also of a scene in a movie I
saw many years ago, in which the hero, Woody Allen, had
thought up a clever idea of how to escape from jail. He had a
bar of soap, which he carved into the shape of a hand gun,
painting it black with boot polish. But then there was a heavy
rain storm on the night he was planning to make his get-away,
and there he was, trying to look really fierce, with the boot
polish beginning to run down his arms until eventually the
revolver just disappeared into a mass of soapy suds! Sometimes
in the early years of practice we can feel that we're using
the Buddhas teachings rather like Woody Allen with his soap
revolver as soon as it begins to rain the whole thing
dissolves.
We have to put effort into developing our practice because
these teaching that we have discovered are still fragile, they
don't stand up to adverse circumstances. We have to nurture
and protect them, and sometimes we have humbly to accept that
there are certain things that our minds are not strong enough
to deal with yet. So we need to give attention to developing
wisdom in relating to various phenomena or problems that arise
in our practice. In the Sabbasava Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 2)
the Buddha gives many different methods of dealing with
asavas[1] or their manifestations.
There are certain things to be avoided, for a monk they'd
be parajika[2] offences. It would be like walking along too
close to the edge of a cliff, which is a practice to be
avoided not one in which we would just endure, or practise
letting go. Then there are other things to be endured, like
heat and cold, hunger and thirst and so on, and other things
to be used mindfully, wisely. For example, the requisites of
food, clothing, shelter and medicines we can't let go of
these. It is necessary to have some kind of association with
them, even though they are part of the sensory realm, because
our bodies have to dwell in the sensory realm; they are part
of it. So the Buddha taught the principle of wise reflection (yoniso
patisankha) on the use of the things which we have to use.
Other asavas are dealt with by gradual reduction and wearing
away at them through our practice.
There's not just one blanket practice to be used in all
circumstances, so we need to develop a sensitivity and
awareness of the nature of the conditions with which we are
faced, and the knowledge and strength of mind to relate to
that condition in the correct way. This can save us a lot of
frustration, because if we lack that wisdom faculty, then
sometimes we can be enduring things that should be cut off, or
trying to cut off things that should be endured. Or we may be
avoiding things which have to be used in a mindful way, or
trying to be mindful and careful in our usage of things which
should be avoided altogether. Again and again we come back to
the importance of right view, which is the wisdom faculty.
If we are experiencing a recurrent difficulty in our
practice, we need to take up that difficulty, and start
looking at it from various angles. In certain cases, it may be
like using a soap revolver in a rain storm: we have the
teaching, we're doing the right thing but we're not applying
it in the right way. We're lacking vigour in our application,
we're lacking integrity and continuity so, instead of the real
thing, we end up through our slack grasping of it with a
poor replica. It doesn't do the job. In other cases we can be
using the wrong tool for the job, or perhaps we take up a
particular practice, without a full understanding of its
relationship to other factors which are necessary supports for
it.
So if we are getting stuck in our practice the indriyas[3]
can be used as the basis for our investigation. Suppose we are
having trouble in maintaining mindfulness, then we can look to
the foundation for mindfulness which, according to the five
indriyas, is viriya (energy, vigour). And we can ask: `Is our
mindfulness slack because we're lacking in vigour? Is there
some way that we can put more effort into practice?' because
right effort will naturally support right mindfulness.... If
we then find that there is a lack of effort, and we can't seem
to do much with will power or resolution (adhitthana), we can
go back a step further and we come to faith (saddha). So if
right effort is lacking and we can't seem to get it together
really to put any concerted effort into our practice, we can
ask whether the faculty of faith is weak. Faith here may be of
different kinds. There is the basic underlying faith of a
Buddhist, which is faith in enlightenment of the Buddha as a
human being, and therefore faith in the human potential for
enlightenment and in our own potential for enlightenment. Do
we have that kind of faith?...Or are we getting caught up in
self-critical kind of mind states, thinking that we can't
really do it or that our problems are too intractable
generally taking a very dreary and depressed view of things?
If we are, it means that at that particular moment the faculty
of faith is lacking. And if the faculty of faith is lacking,
viriya will be lacking; if viriya is lacking sati will be
lacking, so there'll be no samadhi, no panna.
It is important also to have faith in our meditation
object, so we should ask: `How much faith, how much
confidence, do we have in our meditation, in the meditation
process? How important is it to us? Do we really think that
the practice of meditation can lead us to enlightenment?' If
we don't, if the mind is lacking in faith, then again energy
is not going to be there and so we will not be able to
maintain sati.
These indriya are all things that go against the stream,
they don't just arise naturally. Their opposites arise
naturally: lack of faith, laziness, heedlessness, distraction,
delusion these things arise very easily, they're natural to
the untrained mind. But those virtuous qualities which oppose
them faith, energy, mindfulness, samadhi, panna are
brought into existence with difficulty. Now the very fact that
one finds practice difficult is not surprising; in fact, that
is what gives it its spice, it's what makes it so challenging
and enjoyable. If it was easy, it would be really boring. Why
would we want to do it, if it was so easy? Once we've flipped
a problem over into a challenge it's easy to feel strengthened
and inspired by it, and for energy to arise. If you look at
something just as a problem then you can feel oppressed and
discouraged by it. So we ask ourselves: `Do we feel weighed
down, oppressed or averse to the particular things that we're
working with? Do we think it should be some other way?' The
way we feel about our practice and how we interpret it has an
effect on the practice itself it's a two way thing. We can
bypass quite a lot of suffering by skill in our way of looking
at things.
The ability to use thought wisely and intelligently is
what the Buddha called yoniso manasikara. Without it, thought
instead of simply resting in a neutral state becomes
ayoniso manasikara ; it naturally takes the path of
unwholesomeness. So we are using the wisdom faculty to
evaluate and to adapt. We come to know what things have to be
endured and to recognise the various kinds of wrong thought (micchasankappa),
which are not things just to abide with patiently and allow to
pass away by themselves. For example, sexual fantasy or
thoughts of hatred and ill will are habits that are extremely
heavy kamma in the mind. They intoxicate the mind, they make
it lose its sense of balance and can lead it into hell realms
very easily, so the Buddha said: `At the moment that we become
aware of such thoughts, we cut them off without a moment's
hesitation. We give no harbour to them'. In our practice we
need many different kinds of qualities a vast array of tools
or weapons. So we need warm and gentle kindness, compassion,
forgiveness and also, at the same time, a ruthlessness of mind
as regards unwholesome intentions. Through it all we develop a
strong wish to be free of cyclic existence free of the
attachment to those things that make up the personality: form,
feelings, sensations, mental formations and consciousness. By
constantly reflecting on the suffering of attachment not
just as a theoretical study, but through our own experiences
we gradually turn away from things. This is not with aversion
or the desire to get rid of things (vibhavatanha). It's more
as if, while driving along a road we see a left turn ahead
that looks a beautiful way to go with trees and mountains and
beautiful views, but it is not the way we want to go. We don't
feel, `Maybe I could go along that road...', we make a
definite choice not to go that way because we see that it's
not the way that we want to go. The mind is cool, there's not
the heat, the movement of aversion; there's no need to be
angry or to feel any ill will. So although forms, feelings,
perceptions, mental formations and the various kinds of
consciousness may have pleasant, loveable and enticing
aspects, they are not where we want to go because we have
been doing that for so long. We've been attaching to these
conditions for life after life, and where has it got us?...In
times of pain and distress, loneliness, anxieties, fears or
depression arising in the mind, what can all the past
pleasures and wonderful experiences do for us then? Nothing.
So we train ourselves to see that forms are just forms,
sounds are just sounds, odours are just odours, tastes are
just tastes, physical sensation. They're just that, they are
just part of the material world; they're just dhammata, as
they say in Thai. But then the moment there is craving or
attachment to anything in the mind, it is no longer just
dhammata, it isn't just ordinary the way it is it
automatically grows in significance; we project onto it,
giving it importance, meaning. Whereas seeing things as
dhammata means that were aware of phenomena simply for what
they are. But when habitual thoughts come up: `It shouldn't be
like this!', `Why me?', `He shouldn't have said that!', these
kinds of judgements are all based on the feeling that things
should be other than the way they are.
Guilt is based on the feeling that we shouldn't have said
what we did say or we should have said something that we
didn't say, that somehow we should have been better than we
actually are. However the understanding of dhammata is that
things are exactly this way because of certain causes and
conditions. When we understand this then we can see that, at
this moment, it could not be any other way. In response to a
question: `How could someone possibly act in such a crude
gross fashion?'... we see that it's because of all the causes
and conditions, maybe right back to things that happened in
childhood or in a past life. Or it may be due to some illness
or a particular mental state that's causing the person to act
in a very unpleasant way. We realise that given the way the
components or khandas[4] which make up that person have been
conditioned, it was in fact the perfect manifestation at that
particular moment.
Teaching ourselves to see things in terms of causes and
conditions, as the only or the perfect manifestation of the
causes and conditions in existence at any one time, doesn't
just take us to a kind of dull passivity: `Well that's the way
things are, and they'll always be that way'....It means things
are like this because of causes and conditions at this moment;
but causes and conditions change. It is only when the mind has
realised equanimity that it will be able to respond in an
appropriate way, in a creative way. This directly opposes
quite a common view in the West that you have to be passionate
before you can get anything done. To be passionately involved
in something is highly praised nowadays people think that
positive change, action, can only spring from passion
dispassion is not a word that one hears bandied around very
much. But the Buddha said that actions springing from passion
will always be slightly distorted, will never quite fit the
situation. They will always lack a certain circumspection and
maturity of vision.
So the way to resolution and to peace lies, first of all,
in the recognition and acceptance of the situation as dhammata.
It's like this, because of past experiences, past situations
and so forth, which have culminated now in these particular
phenomena. With the recognition and acceptance of dhammata,
aversion and various unwholesome dhammas are abandoned. The
mind enters a cool state of equanimity, just as a car shifts
into the neutral gear before going on to a higher gear. We see
that equanimity is a necessary stage, which then leads on to
the active stage of speaking or keeping silent, of doing or
not doing, or whatever.
One basic truth of the human mind that the Buddha pointed
to very often is that wisdom and compassion are inseparable.
In one of the traditional similes there is the giant bird, the
great eagle with two wings, one wing of which is wisdom and
the other is compassion. The Buddha pointed out that the more
clearly we see the nature of suffering, the more clearly we
understand that suffering is conditioned by desire born of
ignorance; we see the efficacy of the Eightfold Path in
alleviating that suffering, and we begin to see cessation. As
our understanding of the Four Noble Truths deepens, we feel
more compassion for ourselves and for others indeed for all
sentient beings. So the test, if you like, of the wisdom that
we have developed through our practice is the amount of
compassion there is, and a test of the compassion in our heart
knowing whether it's true compassion, and not mere pity or
sentimentalism is the wisdom faculty.
Where there is true wisdom there is compassion, where
there is true compassion there is wisdom. But if compassion
lacks wisdom it can do more harm than good. There is an old
English saying: `The road to hell is paved with good
intentions.' Sometimes people try to do good or to help,
without understanding their own mind and motivation, and
without understanding the people they want to help. They have
no sensitivity to time and place or to their own capacity, and
so they don't achieve the results that they hope for. Then
they can become angry, disillusioned or offended and if there
is any criticism, such a person will feel even more hurt. They
might think that the action must have been correct because it
was based on a good intention, that their hearts were pure in
their intention. But purity of intention is not enough, it has
to be based on wisdom: understanding the nature of suffering,
how it comes into existence and how it is alleviated. It has
to be based on the true understanding of suffering.
So the more we look at ourselves in practice, the more we
see suffering in all its myriad forms from the gross to the
very subtle and the ubiquitous presence of tanha (craving)
every time we suffer. We begin to see how unnecessary
suffering is, and deep compassion arises for ourselves and for
other people. In fact, the distinction between self and others
becomes far less rigid. It may almost disappear as the mind
becomes firm and strong, bright and powerful, through our
practice. At the same time, paradoxically, it becomes
incredibly sensitive to suffering, we find suffering
intolerable; and the inability to withstand suffering is a
sign of a compassionate mind. Through the threefold training
(sila, samadhi, panna) we gradually free the mind giving it a
true independence, an integrity. We are increasing its wisdom
and understanding of the way things are, and a sense of
compassion arises towards all sentient beings, including
ourselves.
So as we practise, we can try to look at our practice as a
challenge. When any particular problem comes up, that's our
challenge, that's our practice, it's not a distraction from
it. Sometimes we can learn a lot from these particular
challenges, since a particular kind of habit or imbalance may
become clear in our formal meditation practice. When we see
such a recurrent pattern, we realise that is obviously
unlikely to be restricted to our meditation practice it is
usually symptomatic of our whole approach to life. It's as
though, in meditation, we're looking through a magnifying
glass at the germs of the things which cause us suffering. So
there is a lot to be learnt from what is preventing us from
realising samadhi.
We begin to regard whatever arises, whether it's
hindrances or enlightenment factors or whatever, as dhammata;
these are conditioned phenomena, they are this way because of
specific conditions. Realising this, we can actually enter
into the stream of causality and affect it in a positive way.
Through just recognizing things as being dhammata we remove
the instinctive emotional reaction to them, whether of like or
dislike, and come to a state of equanimity. Then from
equanimity, the neutral state, the mind can shift into the
active mode which is most appropriate to dealing with that
phenomenon. If it's an unwholesome phenomenon we make effort
to abandon it, if it's a positive wholesome phenomenon we can
mindfully encourage and develop it. The more and the closer we
look, the more we understand and the more compassion arises in
the heart. So if wisdom is being developed as a practice it's
not just a one-sided development, it includes the whole being
because wisdom and compassion are the two wings of the bird.
Footnotes:
[1]Εsavas the basic outflowing energies that prevent us from
seeing things clearly. These are sensual desire, the desire
for eternal existence and ignorance.
[2]Parajika the most serious offence for a bhikkhu. The
penalty is that one is no longer considered to be part of the
Bhikkhu Sangha.
[3]Indriyas the five spiritual faculties: Saddha/faith;
viriya/energy, effort; sati/mindfulness;
samadhi/concentration, collectedness; panna/wisdom.
[4]Khandas form, feeling, perceptions, mental formation,
consciousness. |