NAMO TASA BHAGAVATO
ARAHATO SAMMASAMBUDDHASSA.
T
his
evening I want to talk about the Four Noble Truths (suffering, its
cause, its ending and the path leading to its ending). Towards the
end of any retreat, whether it is a three-month rainy season retreat
or a shorter one, it's worthwhile to bring the meditator's attention
to the core teaching of the Lord Buddha. Bringing the attention to
this marvelous and profound teaching might be sufficient to take the
meditator just that one step into full awareness, full knowledge and
full realisation of the Dhamma. Thereby you might see what the Lord
Buddha saw under the Bodhi tree. This will qualify you to enter the
stream and to make the transition to the Noble Person (Ariya-puggala)
- that is, seeing this very profound and powerful teaching of
the Four Noble Truths. Obviously, it's important to first know those
Four Noble Truths theoretically, and each one of you here has that
theoretical knowledge. I am going to try to build upon and deepen
that knowledge in this talk.
Joy at Last?
As I was about to
give this talk I brought to mind a well-known picture of my teacher,
Ajahn Chah (a Thai meditation master), in his first monastery in
England. In this picture, he has his arms raised above his head in
imitation of a statue from another monastery. Beneath this statue it
says, "Joy at last to know there is no happiness in the world".
I'm going to start
from there because so often in our practice and in our lives we are
seeking for happiness in the world. We seek for happiness in so many
areas and in so many ways, always seeking in the wrong place.
Eventually we realise that not finding happiness in these places
doesn't mean there is something wrong with us. It doesn't mean we
are incompetent or hopeless. Insight will show us that there is no
way anyone can find happiness in the place we were looking. The mind
realises that the world can only be dukkha (suffering). The
wise person, instead of being distressed by that suffering and
wallowing in it, contemplates what the Lord Buddha says about
suffering, the Four Noble Truths. That means, they seek to
understand this whole process of suffering.
Sometimes the
suffering can be raw, going deep into the bones, even deeper than
the bones, right to the very source of what we think we are. It goes
so deep and can cause so many problems. It's such a relief to find
out that this is par for the course, that there's nothing wrong with
this. This is the nature of the world. What do we expect?
Sometimes we go
about with the false expectation that if we're clever enough, if
we're smart enough, if we keep all the rules and do all the right
things, somehow we can have a happy life. Sometimes we think
everybody is happy but me. Often people in this monastery think, "I
bet everybody in this monastery has experienced Jhana
(meditative absorption) but me". What we need to understand is that
there is nothing special with us, and that as we practise in this
monastery these are things which everyone has to deal with. Ajahn
Chah said that when we first come to a monastery, when we first
start to practise in the true way, we can expect suffering. We're
going against the stream, and we can expect to feel the pressure of
the defilements just in the same way as when we go against the wind
we can feel the force against our bodies. This is a sign we are
getting somewhere.
Wisdom Power Better
Than Will Power
You will find that
when suffering arises, you have two options. You can either try to
escape from the suffering or you can investigate it.
Ajahn Maha Boowa (a
contemporary Thai meditation master) would only give talks when
there was a special occasion to do so. I'm pretty sure that when I
went to visit him as a young monk it must have been such an occasion
because he asked one of his senior Western monks to translate for
the visiting Western monk, which was me. Fortunately, I could
already speak Thai so I understood perfectly what Ajahn Maha Boowa
was saying. The story that he told - which I took for my own benefit
- turned out to be very instructive for my whole monastic life.
He was talking about
himself as a young monk in the time of Tan Ajahn Mun (Thai
meditation master and 'founder' of the Thai forest meditation
tradition). He was saying that once he had malaria and, instead of
just laying in bed, in typical Ajahn Maha Boowa style he decided to
fight it, to battle it and conquer it with his will. So he got off
the floor, went out of his hut, got a broom, and started to sweep
even though he was sweating and shaking. Tan Ajahn Mun saw him and
told him off. Later that evening he gave a talk to the monks saying:
"There are some people in this monastery who are born boxers and
they haven't changed". He was of course alluding to Ajahn Maha Boowa
who was a boxer when he was a layperson. Ajahn Mun said that's not
the way of Buddhism. He actually said it is the way of Hindu yogis.
The way of Buddhism is to investigate suffering, not to fight it.
Because if you fight you will find that you just get more and more
suffering. Instead, use wisdom power rather than will power. Wisdom
power is always much more effective because it's coming from a good
place. Will power, in nearly all cases, comes from ego, from self,
and you cannot expect it to produce results if it's coming from such
an unfortunate source.
To use wisdom power
means remembering the Teachings and looking at your experience in
the framework of those teachings, the framework of the Four Noble
Truths. The Lord Buddha taught that birth is suffering, old age,
sickness and death are suffering. And all that goes in between is
also suffering. In brief, life is suffering. So when suffering comes
- as disappointment, as frustration, as loneliness or depression, or
as wondering what you're supposed to be doing - you're seeing here a
basic truth of nature which every human being, whether in a
monastery or outside, must come across from time to time in their
lives.
There are times when
you don't know what to do because the suffering is so bad. As Ajahn
Chah used to say, "You cannot go forward, you cannot go back, you
cannot stand still" - you don't know what to do. This is a beautiful
time. It is the time you can really understand what the Lord Buddha
was talking about - about the suffering of life. The thing to do
when suffering arises is to investigate. To investigate means to
watch and to observe in silence. You have to watch without
interfering, without getting involved, because if you get involved
you're not watching fully.
It requires courage
and strength to stand your ground and just watch. One of the things
you will see is that suffering passes, and it always passes into
happiness. This is the play of samsara (the perpetual
wandering from life to life), the play of night and day, the play of
warmth and cold. It is the basic duality of experience. There is no
escape from that in this realm or in any other realm. It will always
follow you around, this duality of experience.
The Lord Buddha said
that getting what you don't want is suffering and not getting what
you do want is also suffering. I often ask myself, "Just what do I
want?" I use that as a mantra as I walk along the meditation path,
or as I sit if my mind is restless. "What do I want?" I've been in
this world long enough now - forty-eight years - and I have
experienced much of this world. I wasn't born in a monastery, and
from all that I have experienced and seen, from all that I have
known, I know there is not a corner of this world where I can find
happiness [1]. By its very nature, sensory experience is going to be
disappointing, and I know that if I ask for something the world can
never give me, I will suffer. When I crave for something I cannot
reach, I know I am just torturing myself more than necessary.
Putting Make-Up On
The Mirror
Instead of craving
for something else you learn to be content with what you have. When
you talk about contentment you are talking about the Third Noble
Truth. The Third Noble Truth is letting go of craving. Contentment
is the letting go of wanting something else. It is learning to be at
peace with what you have. This is where in this struggle - and it is
always a struggle - you can be at peace. How can you be content when
everything is going wrong? How can you be content when the body is
on fire with pain? How can you be at peace and content when the mind
is going crazy with so many thoughts? Even in these situations you
can find contentment in letting go, letting go of the 'controller'.
I gave a simile to
some Thai's last week. I gave this simile to the Thai ladies because
some of them are very vain - you've all seen the way they dress up
when they come to the monastery. I told them it's just like when one
sees oneself in the mirror, and sees this ugly person, but instead
of actually doing something with one's face, one puts make up on the
mirror. One tries to make the mirror look good! Of course, it's a
complete waste of time. The mirror might look good for a while with
all the make up on it, but when one walks somewhere else and sees
another mirror one is back to square one again. Putting make up on
the mirror is like trying to solve the 'outside' by craving instead
of trying to solve the 'inside' through contentment.
For the last sixteen
years I've worked hard - extremely hard, as many of you would know -
trying to build up this monastery. It's been a complete waste of
time trying to make a perfect monastery, or even trying to make an
adequate monastery, because it's never good enough. The way that
craving works, the Second Noble Truth, is to delude you into
thinking that if you just try and do a little bit more, if you just
strive harder, work harder for just one more day, then everything
will be O.K. "I'll just work another year and I'll pay off my
mortgage." "I'll just sit for one more retreat, that's all I need,
and I'll get my Jhanas." "There's this one last course of
medicine then I'll be healthy again." You might put off sickness for
a while, but you'll never escape it. It's just the nature of the
body. You might put off suffering for a while, but you'll never
escape it in that way. You're just putting it off.
The Happiness And
Suffering Of The Senses Are Just Contrast - That's All
It is the nature of
a human being to get suffering and happiness in roughly equal
proportions. If we're suffering now, it's because of some happiness
that we had before and lost. Happiness is no more than the end of
suffering, just as suffering is no more than the end of happiness.
We go around in this cycle throughout our lives.
This existential
fact is why the Lord Buddha says in the First Noble Truth that the
five aggregates (khandhas) that make up a human being are
suffering. By their very nature they are suffering. So, if anyone
comes for an interview with me and says she is having a terrible
time, often I want to say, "Of course, what's wrong with that?"
Ajahn Chah used to say it's like someone who goes into the army to
become a soldier, and then goes on to complain about being shot at
and being wounded. What do you expect when you join the army? That's
what happens. What do you expect when you become a human being? It's
suffering.
Sometimes in the
world, people run away from suffering, they hide from it. You ask
them how they are and they say, "I'm doing fine today", even though
they are going through divorces, psychotherapy, chemotherapy or the
like. They keep on saying they are 'fine' because that is what we
are supposed to say in this world. That's what's expected of us. If
only people were really honest, you'd ask them how they are and
they'd say, "I'm bloomin awful today - I've got a headache, I've got
a stomach ache, the family is causing me all sorts of trouble, I
feel rotten." If most people were honest, that's what they would
say. If they really knew what was going on, that's what they would
say. There's nothing wrong with recognising the suffering of
existence. It's being honest and having the courage to face up to
the truth.
How many people do
you know who are happy - really happy, really content? Not just
people who say they are happy but people who really are happy. The
only people I have ever seen in my forty-eight years of life who are
happy are the Enlightened Ones (Arahants) whom I have had the
good fortune to meet. Other than that, nobody! When you understand
this you understand the First Noble Truth, that the very nature of
life is suffering, and you understand it in the very deepest of
senses.
We have this world
of the five senses. When we analyse it in the way the Lord Buddha
asked us to, we use wisdom to ask, "Well, what is this world anyway,
this world is made up of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, and
mind?" When we analyse it in that way, we can see that what we see,
hear, taste, and touch by their very nature are part of the duality
of happiness and suffering. Even the food we get here which is so
wonderful, after a while it's not good enough. If we had rotten food
here as I had in my first years of being a monk, after a while we
would get to like it. It's just contrast, that's all. The happiness
and suffering of the senses are just contrast.
I've known people
who went to great restaurants, and because the food wasn't quite up
to the standard it was the week before, they got upset and
complained. Whereas other people would be glad just to get anything
to eat because they hadn't eaten for days. With the same food, why
is it that some people find it joyful and others find it full of
suffering? Just contrast, that's all!
Whatever you take to
be happiness in the world is all of the same nature. Take sexual
happiness, most of that is just the excitement of wanting
beforehand. When that happiness is reached it becomes exhausted in
no time. Sexual desire is basically a hunger, a thirst, a state of
separation from what you want, and you take that to be happiness!
What the Buddha said is suffering, you take to be happiness!
It's craving you
take to be happiness. But actually, the craving, the thirst, the
stressing out to try and reach something that is always beyond your
grasp, is suffering. Wanting is suffering. The trying to achieve
what you want, the manipulating, the thinking, the planning, that's
all suffering.
How much time have
you wasted in this rains retreat planning, manipulating and thinking
about how you can get what you want? How much more freedom would you
have if you had no wants at all and didn't need to plan? When all
the manipulation or craving is abandoned, can you understand the
peace and contentment that will come then?
Pulling Out The
Thorn
Often, when there is
great pain in the body, or when there is great disturbance in the
mind, a skilful meditator can just say 'stop'! They can let go in a
moment and stop fighting, stop craving, stop trying to control. But
when you experience great pain you may think you are going crazy and
fight even more. Ask yourself, what's wrong with being in great pain
or being greatly disappointed? The answer is, nothing is wrong. Such
things are a natural part of life. They are unavoidable. So, let go
of the 'controller'.
When you let go of
the controller and stop craving, a strange thing happens. The
madness stops and the pain disappears. I had that happen to me with
great pain once. Every monastic has to come across this sooner or
later. Some just want to run away, but they know they can't. It's a
case of wanting to go forward, but you can't go forward, wanting to
go backwards, but you can't go backwards, wanting to stay still, but
you can't stay still. You don't know what to do! You can't go
forward, you can't go back, you can't stay still - this is where you
let go. When you do let go, you find out that half of the suffering
was the fighting.
The Lord Buddha said
there are two thorns which cause suffering in a human being (see
SN,36,6). The first thorn is the thorn of the five senses which is
physical suffering. The second thorn is the mental thorn. There's
the thorn of having sickness, having pain, and having to hear, see,
taste, smell, and touch unpleasant things. Then there is the
proliferation which goes around that, which is mental pain. It's
very important here to notice the physical pain - seeing what you
don't want to see, hearing what you don't want to hear, and doing
what you don't want to do. And it's important to recognise there's
not much you can do about that. For example, when I was a young monk
I thought if I ever became an abbot, it would be fine because I
could always do what I wanted to do. I could give all the orders,
and I'd only give the orders I wanted to. Ironically, I found out
that the more authority I had, the more of a prison I was in! I
couldn't just do what I wanted. I had responsibility. I was even
more controlled by the situation than before. So in the end I
realised I had to give up trying to control, trying to somehow make
things different.
Let go, just be with
the present moment. You will find out that if you can let go of the
pain and allow it to be, the whole situation changes. The first time
I did this as a monk in Thailand was with a toothache. As soon as I
let go the pain disappeared. It was quite a remarkable event in my
monastic life to see intense pain suddenly go - just through wisdom
power. Ajahn Chah and other great monks, following the Lord Buddha,
always taught the Third Noble Truth as a way to end suffering, that
is to let go of craving. They kept on saying it again and again, but
theory is never as powerful as practise.
If you really let
go, the whole problem just caves in - it fades and disappears. This
is a beautiful moment of insight. Not insight based on thinking or
theory, but insight based on experience. For a moment you let go of
suffering because you don't fight. Thus the Second and Third Noble
Truths are not just something to be thought about, written about,
and theorised about, they are to be practised, especially the Third
Noble Truth about letting go.
That is why in this
monastery I have been teaching meditation aimed at letting go of the
'controller', particularly in deeper meditation when we can
carelessly get too involved in trying to make the breath quiet or
make some mental images (nimitta) appear and move it this way
or that. What are we doing that for? - or rather, what's doing it?
As we look deeper and deeper into the problem, we might have enough
wisdom and enough courage to let go. Every meditator who has ever
come to me and said that they got into a deep meditation always says
that it was because they let go of something - that 'controller',
that 'doer'.
You can only teach
the Four Noble Truths deeply once a person has done a lot of
meditation, because suffering, its cause, and the end of suffering,
can only be seen through practise, through letting go of suffering.
When you are meditating you are letting go of the world. You are
letting go of one thorn, the physical thorn of suffering, for a
short while, by going into the world of the mind.
Revulsion Towards
This Thing We Call Existence
The Lord Buddha kept
on saying that the five aggregates are suffering. I know some monks
who say it is just attachment to the five aggregates that is
suffering, not the aggregates themselves. You just chanted the
Anattalakkhana Sutta (the Discourse on Non-Self; Mv,I,6,38-47),
a very beautiful Sutta which does say quite clearly that it's
not just the attachment to the aggregates that is suffering: it's
form (rupa), this body itself, that is
suffering, feeling (vedana) is suffering, perception
(sa, consciousness (via) and mental formations (sankhara)
are suffering. All formations are suffering (sabbe
sankhara dukkha; AN,III,134).
If you see this, you
get revulsion (nibbida) to these aggregates. Revulsion means
that you see that the five aggregates are just a bunch of suffering.
To really see it means that you get fed up, you get disinterested,
you get repulsed from these five aggregates! Not just from one of
them but from all five, especially the mental aggregates. Why do you
always want to go out into the world and get more feeling, more
sensations, and more experience? "Let's go out and see a movie and
get more experience. Let's go out and get a wife, get a husband, and
have children. You haven't lived until you've had kids", so people
say. That's stupid! That's just getting more feeling to be worried
about, to be concerned about, and to torture yourself with. The
whole point of the practise of Buddhism as expressed in the Third
Noble Truth is to try and let go of feeling, to try and let go of
perception, to try and calm mental formations and to try and
eliminate consciousness, to bring it all to an end.
Sometimes I get into
trouble when I say that consciousness is suffering. I like to use
the metaphor for consciousness of a television screen. When you
really investigate it, you see that this is not one 'television set'
with six different programs on it, ie. sight, hearing, smell, taste,
touch and mental phenomena, but it's six completely different types
of televisions with only one type of program on each. This is where
you actually see what consciousness truly is. When there is
consciousness there will be suffering. "Consciousness is the
condition for suffering" (via paccaya dukkha), as is
stated in the Sutta Nipata (734-735). If you know this, you
know the danger (adinava) in consciousness, and then you get
revulsion towards consciousness.
The world, life, no
matter how you arrange it, always ends up in suffering. You get your
share of happiness, then suffering, then happiness, then suffering,
in whatever realm. Even if you get into the bliss of Jhanas
it doesn't last, you have to come out afterwards. You have a
beautiful two-week retreat, and when you come out, you find your
disciples are going up the wall and you've got work to do. No matter
how high you get on your retreat, you've got to come down.
This is just the
nature of life. So what we actually see when we use wisdom power is
that wherever we go in the world, no matter what we do, ultimately
all we have is suffering. Ajahn Chah used to tell the story of the
mangy dog. It itches so much that it goes into the sun to try to get
rid of the mange. It doesn't go away, so it goes into the rain. The
itch doesn't go away, so it goes under a rock, into the forest, into
the village, but of course, wherever it goes it always takes the
mange with it. It doesn't matter where we go in this world, or in
other worlds, that suffering which we experience now will go with
us. There is no escape in that way because suffering is inherent to
human existence and even to the existence of the devas
(heavenly beings).
Whether you get into
Jhanas or you don't, there is still suffering. After a while
of looking at all the different aspects and all the different types
of happiness to be found in the world - sex, drugs, rock'n'roll,
even right up to the high meditative happinesses - you see that each
one of them are by their very nature impermanent and are therefore
conducive to suffering. After a while you realise what the Lord
Buddha was saying: form is suffering, feeling is suffering,
perception, mental formations, and consciousness are suffering - the
whole caboodle is suffering.
When you truly see
suffering, and that wherever you go suffering will be with you, then
you get revulsion towards this thing we call existence. You find
that whether it's in the deva realms or in the hell realms or
in the human realm, it's just like the dog going to different places
to get rid of the itch. It's just that some realms hurt more than
others, but all realms hurt. When the Jhana realms fall
apart, there comes the hurt and pain. The higher the happiness you
have, the more suffering there is when that happiness disappears.
It's like people in the world, the more they love someone, the more
they suffer when that person dies. The more you love your existence
in the great Jhana realms, in the higher deva realms
(brahmaloka), the more suffering there is when that existence
collapses and disappears. This is the nature of experience. After a
while you realise that the whole purpose of the Buddha's teaching is
to end suffering through the ending of birth - to find the cause for
birth and to eliminate that cause.
Why Would You Crave
For Suffering
As to this
particular life you have now, you're stuck with it. If you try to
end it prematurely you just get another life, and you have to go
through the whole thing all over again. That's not the way to end
life, through suicide. You end life through cutting off craving,
cutting off the cause. If you investigate things according to
Dependent Origination (Paticca Samuppada), you will see how
rebirth occurs and what this process is that makes you go into
another life in the future. You are already fueling that process now
from the delusion of a self and from the delusion that there is some
happiness somewhere in the world. You crave based on the lie that
somewhere, some place, there can be happiness, there can be
fulfillment, there can be what you really want. What you are really
looking for in the world, "It's over there somewhere", so you think.
For that reason you crave.
If you knew there is
no happiness in the world - no place, no where - why would you
crave? All sorts of craving would be taken away. If you really saw
that "all formations are suffering" if you could actually understand
and accept this fully, that would be the end of craving. Why would
you crave for dukkha? You only crave for what you assume to
be happiness. This 'happiness' has been burning you for lifetime,
after lifetime, after lifetime.
When I ask myself
what I really want, I always get the same answer. What I really want
is more dukkha. "Stupid monk, shut up!" Seeing that you're
looking and searching for more dukkha, is a good way
to end wanting. You actually see that the illusion (avijja)
is that you think you're going to get happiness. Again, if you see
with clear understanding that what you really want is suffering, you
can give up wanting. What do you want in the world anyway? What do
you really want? What you are asking for is just more
suffering. Let go!
Renunciation Leads
To Peace
When you've been
meditating, you find that the most happy times, the times when
you've come closest to real happiness, are when you've been content.
You find in your life that you can be happy with such a small
amount. In fact, the less you have, the happier you can be. That's
why the path of renunciation and letting go overcomes craving. It's
the path of the Third Noble Truth - renunciation leads to peace.
Practise that
principle in your life. Every time there is some suffering, that is
where you have to renounce. What are you hanging onto anyway? Give
up something, let go of something, be content. As soon as you are
content the problem is solved. You don't need to think about it,
just be at peace with whatever happens. Who knows, maybe the mob has
been hired to come and beat me up tonight. O.K., I can handle that.
Whatever happens to you, if you know contentment, then you know the
path to freedom from suffering.
This is the Third
Noble Truth. Don't just think about it, practise it - let go of
craving. If ever there is a problem in your meditation or in your
life, instead of trying other solutions to overcome suffering, try
'The Third Noble Truth Solution' - let go of something, let go of
craving. Again, you're craving for something, and that is causing
suffering, so abandon it. Find out what you want, what you really
want, and you'll know what's causing you to suffer. Give it up!
"I want to be
healthy", - give it up! Just be content being sick. "O.K. I'm sick.
Let's see how sick I can be!" That sort of attitude really gets
Mara [2] worried. When you do things like that, the reply
comes back, "Come on, don't be stupid, you'll get even more sick and
it will hurt even more." See how sick you can be. That's the sort of
contentment which goes in the opposite direction of craving. This is
what release is.
Don't Make Any
Future Houses
"Blinded by
illusion, fettered by craving", we actually take up and create our
'houses' for the future (see Dhp,153-154). That creating a house for
the future is bhava (literally 'existence'). Its like when we
are building huts here in the monastery; we have to build the hut
before someone can move into it. We build our next existence in this
life through illusion and craving. We are making the kamma
(volitional actions) and creating the bhava for the next
life. We're just creating a house for the future.
That's why you've
heard - and it comes straight from the Buddha's teachings - that for
people who make great merit there is a heavenly mansion (vimana)
already waiting for them in a heavenly realm. For those who are
creating bad kamma the pots of boiling liquid are already
being heated up for them, waiting for them to fall down into hell.
You are already creating your house for the future.
If you really are a
homeless one, an anagarika, you should not just sell your
existing house in this world but make sure you're not making any
future houses for your fantasies, dreams, and hopes for some sort of
happiness at some time in the future. Again, with those dreams and
fantasies you're actually creating the conditions, you're building
the house, building the state of existence where you'll find
rebirth. Don't underestimate the power of the mind to create realms
of existence. "Mind is the forerunner and mind is the chief"
(Dhp,1-2). Mind is the main thing. The world exists in the mind. The
mind can create whole worlds, whole universes, whole states of
existence through illusion and craving.
The Lord Buddha kept
on saying that because you've been fed up, because you've been
depressed until you've gone crazy, because this thing has happened
to you and because that thing has happened to you, you've cried more
tears in all of your existences than the water in all the oceans of
the world (SN,15,3). That's a lot of tears you've shed and a lot of
crying you've done. When are you going to stop filling up the
oceans? When are your bones going to stop filling up the graveyards?
When you see the Four Noble Truths, that's when.
The Lord Buddha said
that once you've seen the Four Noble Truths and seen the inherent
suffering of life, you get revulsion coming up - this beautiful,
wonderful revulsion, which does not seek for escape outside, but
seeks for escape inside instead. You're not like that dog with the
mange trying to go somewhere else to get rid of the mange, and
you're not like a dog trying to kill itself to get rid of the mange.
Instead you're trying to be content with the mange, learning to live
with rather than against. You find that when you can be content with
the mange, the mange disappears. Through craving you've known
suffering. From fully seeing suffering you get revulsion. From
revulsion comes dispassion (viraga). Dispassion is the fading
away of everything, things disappearing, going, ending. It is
wonderful when you start to see things disappear, the whole world
fading away and vanishing into emptiness. It's marvelous to know
things vanishing.
I remember as a
young man travelling in the south of Mexico to a town called Oaxaca.
It was the centre of the mushroom culture, but I wasn't interested
in mushrooms and I wasn't taking them either, because I was already
a Buddhist by that time. I remember getting a mental image (nimitta)
while in a room and seeing the walls and the ceiling become like
butter and just melt and disappear into nothingness. That was quite
scary at the time. But it was just a sign that I was beginning to
understand what perception is all about and allowing things to
disappear, fade, and go empty.
All of this which
you take to be real is an illusion. As the Lord Buddha said, this
body of yours is just like froth on the river Ganges (SN,22,95). You
poke it and there's nothing really there. It's not yours, it's just
a body. Just blood and bones made up of food. You look at feeling,
and it's just like a raindrop hitting a puddle. During my retreat -
during one of the rainstorms - when I came to the end of my walking
path under my verandah, there was heavy rain. There was a puddle
there and there was froth on one side and little bubbles coming from
the drips in the gutter. I thought to myself that this froth is just
like my body, and the little bubbles caused by the drops of water
hitting the puddle is all feeling is. Happy feeling, unhappy
feeling, in between, pop! - and it's gone; another one, and another
one, and another one, completely uncertain and beyond my control.
You know that sometimes you will feel happy and that sometimes
unhappy, and there's nothing you can do about it in this life. It's
just nature.
The More You Give
Up, The More Happiness You Have
"Joy at last to know
there's no happiness in the world." That means there is nothing
wrong with you. When you actually understand this, you can let go of
this building up of more worlds. When you understand it, then, in
meditation, you make the world more and more simple. And how much
more simple can you make it than by getting into a deep meditation
where there's hardly anything left? Sometimes you can get to the
point where there's only the breath left, and that's the only thing
left in the whole world. That's pretty neat! Sometimes you can let
go of the breath, and you've only got a mental image left, just a
beautiful 'light' in the mind. It's not going away and it's
completely stable. That's beautiful! That's probably the best bliss
you've ever experienced. But go deeper and you get into Jhana
which is complete, unchanging, completely satisfying, very simple,
and really blissful.
It's great to be
able to reflect on the Jhanas. First Jhana is so much
less than you had before. You've given up so much. There's hardly
anything of existence left, just this small little blip called First
Jhana. You enter into Second Jhana, and there's only
half a blip left. You're hardly there, and you can hardly say that
you exist. You're not doing anything. You're like a rock, stable,
still. There's nothing much going on because you've given up so
much. There's just this last little vestige of consciousness
remaining. You find that's the most blissful experience so far. When
you get into Third Jhana you've given up even more. You
really get into this giving up business. You really get off on it.
You really get off on renunciation (nekkhamma). You can't
wait to give up more: "How much more can I give up?"
You realise this is
the path to liberation from suffering - letting go. You understand
why - because deep down there is no one in here. When there is no
owner, your possessions are free for anyone to take. When there is
no owner nature can go right ahead and take your happiness and give
you suffering, because you know it's going to take your suffering
and give you happiness later on. These things don't belong to you.
All of our joys and
depressions, our wisdom and craziness, don't belong to anybody -
it's all just nature. That's all there is. So we can let go and
learn to live with it, because we know it's going to change. Every
time we get down, we know we're going to get up again soon. Every
time we get up, we know we're going to get down again. It's just the
nature of us. That's why we can smile when we're down because we
know it's not going to last. That's why we can be peaceful when
we're up because we know that's not going to last either.
This is how to deal
with suffering and to learn to let go of things - understanding that
the more you give up, the more happiness you have. It takes time
though; you've got to give yourself time to be able to do these
things, you have to be patient. It's a natural process and each one
of you already has enough of a start. You've experienced enough
suffering in this world; so don't go looking for happiness in the
wrong places, otherwise you will just find more suffering. Don't be
like the mangy dog. Just sit down and stay in one place, and watch
the suffering just disappear all by itself without you doing
anything. The best thing to do when you go through difficulties as a
monk, as a nun, or as an anagarika, is just to stay still and
not move.
Do as the Lord
Buddha in the Bhayabherava Sutta (MN,4). If he was walking
and fear came, he would carry on walking until the fear left and
only then would he change to another posture. If he was sitting he
wouldn't get up, he would just stay there until the fear subsided.
If he was lying or standing, it was the same. Let it be the same
when you get any suffering in your life. Don't change your position.
What I am talking about here is don't do anything different, just
carry on, and I guarantee whatever suffering you experience will
just disappear. You'll find that suffering has got nothing to do
with how you try and manipulate it. It's got nothing to do with the
monastery, with your body, with your health, with your age, or with
whatever. That's just what suffering does, it comes and goes all by
itself.
Whatever you are,
whatever you do, it's the nature of suffering - it just comes when
it wants to. Uninvited it comes, and it leaves without permission.
It will go when it wants to go, not when you want it to go. In fact,
the more you want it to go, the longer it will stay. It's perverse
like that. Actually, if you invite it in and allow it to stay, it
can't stand you any longer and it goes away. That's the nature of
suffering.
But it's
particularly important to know deeply that the five aggregates of
themselves, even consciousness, are suffering. The less you are
conscious of, the more peaceful you are. Jhanas are the
highest happinesses you can experience until you let go completely
and reach the attainment of cessation (nirodha samapatti)
where there is no consciousness at all. The five aggregates just
stop for a while. Once those five aggregates have stopped and you
come out afterwards, you have to know - there's no other way - that
consciousness is suffering, perception is suffering, feeling is
suffering, the body is suffering, mental formations are suffering,
birth is suffering, and life is suffering. So when you suffer it
just proves the Buddha was right. Also, you know that the more you
can let go, the less suffering you have. That too just proves the
Buddha was right again. If you can let go completely, you know the
cause of all future suffering is finally overcome.
A Workman Waiting
For His Wages
In the
Anattalakkhana Sutta (Mv,I,6,38-47) the Lord Buddha says that
from revulsion comes dispassion - when you get fed up with these
five aggregates they start to fade. And from dispassion comes
freedom (vimutti). You know from that freedom that you're not
building any more houses. You have completely abandoned everything.
You know that birth is destroyed. You've just this life to live.
You're like a workman waiting for his wages (see Thag,1003). You've
done your work, and you know there is no more existence in the
future for you. That in itself is great happiness - to know that
whatever suffering you have to experience between now and the
dissolution of the aggregates (parinibbana) is just that
much, and that's the last of the suffering that you have to
experience in samsara.
If you haven't
attained that or if you haven't entered the stream, it means the
suffering ahead of you in samsara is endless - life after
life of going through the same old thing. But don't blame anyone
else for your suffering, and don't blame yourself. It's the very
nature of existence. Just apply the Third Noble Truth of letting go
or the Fourth Noble Truth of the practices of morality (sila),
sustained attention (samadhi) and wisdom (pa.
Keep precepts and you lessen suffering. Develop sustained attention,
gentleness, persistence and stability of mind and you lessen
suffering even more. Develop wisdom and you end suffering.
Joy at last!
Ajahn Brahmavamso
(taken from: "Dhamma
Journal",
Buddhist Society of Western Australia, July 2001)
-ooOoo-
Notes:
[1] It is important
to realise that although one speaks about the alternation of
happiness and suffering in life, ultimately its all suffering. An
experience you now perceive as happiness due to some previous
suffering, may be perceived as suffering later on in comparison to
an even greater happiness. Thus, in the broadest sense, all
experience is suffering.
[2] "Mara?is the
Buddhist 'tempter' - He appears in the texts both as a real person (ie.
as a deity) and as the personification of evil and passions, of the
totality of worldly existence and of death." See: Nyanatiloka Thera,
Buddhist Dictionary (4th Rev. Ed.), (Kandy, Sri Lanka, Buddhist
Publication Society, 1980), p.116.
The following
abbreviation system is used for Sutta references in this discourse:
Maha Vagga (Vinaya):
(Mv, Section#, Chapter#, Paragraph#);
Majjhima Nikaya: (MN, Sutta#);
Samyutta Nikaya: (SN, Samyutta#, Sutta#);
Anguttara Nikaya: (AN, Nipata#, Sutta#);
Dhammapada: (Dhp, Verse#);
Sutta Nipata: (Sn, Verse#);
Theragatha: (Thag, Verse#).
-ooOoo-
Source :
http://www.budsas.org
&
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jhanas/files/Ajahn%20Brahmavamso/