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Mental Development |
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Dhamma Talk
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When the body gets sick it doesn’t hurt so much if the mind
is happy. A happy mind could rise above the physical pain. But when the
mind is unhappy, it could cause the physical fitness or well-being to diminish
or disappear entirely. For this reason the Buddha kept stressing the importance
of taking good care of the mind, more than taking care of the body. The
mind needs the Dhamma, meritorious and wholesome kamma to make it happy.
Otherwise it could never be happy. What we are doing here today is
installing the Dhamma inside our heart and mind because the Dhamma is like
medicine that could cure the sorrow and pain caused by the mental defilement or
kilesa that have been embedded inside our heart and mind since time immemorial
and accompanied us through countless rounds of rebirth. We have to use the
Dhamma, wholesome, skillful, good and meritorious kamma to cleanse our heart and
mind of the kilesa in order to eliminate all of our sorrow and pain.
The Buddha’s enlightenment is cause for rejoicing and
celebration because of the invaluable assistance he could offer to all sentient
beings, as he is the only person in the entire universe who has discovered the
secret to true happiness or supreme bliss that results from the elimination of
the kilesa from the mind by the good and wholesome kamma. The kilesa are
like germs and viruses inside the body that could cause sickness and death such
as the HIV virus that causes aids, an incurable disease. While the kilesa
are not eradicated from the mind, stress and suffering can still afflict all of
us.
We are fortunate because we have the Buddha to help us cure
our mental illness. He is like a physician who has discovered the Dhamma
medicine to heal our mind. Unfortunately no one has yet found a cure for
Aids and, for those afflicted, death seems to be the only outcome. Before
the Buddha became enlightened no one in this world knew how to make the mind
stay happy all the time. Now we know by his teaching that bliss and
contentment can only be realized through the eradication of the kilesa, namely
greed, anger and delusion from our mind by the cultivation of Dhamma, good and
meritorious kamma, a message he had been propagating for forty-five years.
The purpose of our coming to the temple is to cultivate the
various levels of Dhamma, skillful and wholesome kamma as much as we can. Some
of us could only cultivate dana, the giving of the four requisites such as food,
clothing, medicine and shelter to the monastic order. Others could do more, like
keeping the five or eight precepts depending on the strength of our indiriya or
mental faculties like saddha (conviction), viriya (persistence), sati
(mindfulness), samadhi (concentration), and panna (discernment) that we have
developed thus far. If they are highly developed we would be able to
practice bhavana or mental development in order to lift the mind up to higher
planes of bliss, tranquility and purity by eliminating the various kinds of
kilesa.
The Buddha exhorts us to calm our mind as the first priority
because when the mind is restless and agitated it is confused, it can’t tell
north from south, cause from effect, right from wrong, good from bad, pain from
pleasure; it is deluded, not seeing things clearly as they are, such as seeing
pleasure in sensual gratification when in fact it’s miserable and painful. When
we are addicted to sensual pleasure we are subjected to stress and discontent
like a drinker or a drug user, whereas a non-drinker or a non-user of drugs
would know the difference, that it’s better not to be addicted to alcohol or
drugs.
When we are possessed by the kilesa or delusion we would not
be able to see clearly. It is therefore imperative that we should first
make the mind calm in order to clear up the clouds of defilement blinding the
mind like purifying water of pollutants. Once the water is separated from
the pollutants it would become clear and transparent and would enable us to see
what’s in the water. It is the same with the mind, when it’s defiled it
would become murky, couldn’t see clearly, not knowing what is obscuring its
vision. But once the mind has calmed down it would temporarily be cleared
of the defilement of greed, anger and delusion, enabling it to experience a
brief moment of joy and peace, long enough to let it know what true happiness is
and where to find it.
Next we must use discernment (panna) to separate good from
bad, right from wrong, wholesome from unwholesome, etc., just like separating
the pollutants from the water. With a mind calm and content we would see
that the defilement (kilesa) such as greed, anger and delusion are really a
threat to our happiness and contentment because when the mind is calm and
tranquil, it would render the kilesa temporarily inactive, creating peace and
contentment as a result, but as soon as the mind emerged from repose (samadhi)
the kilesa would become active again by inciting greed, anger and delusion into
action causing it to become restless and agitated. We would be able to see
the harmful effect caused by the kilesa very clearly if we have already
developed samadhi even if we haven’t heard of the kilesa before, we would know
them by their destructive impact on our peace of mind and mental well being.
When we realize this, we must apply panna (insight) based on
the four noble truths (ariya-sacca) and the three characteristics of existence (ti-lakkhana)
inherent in all conditioned phenomena namely, being inconstant (anicca),
stressful (dukkha), and anatta (not-self) to eliminate them. If we cling
to anything in this world we would be consumed by stress, sorrow and pain
because they are impermanent, subject to change and dissolution and are not ours
or ourselves such as our body for example, which we can see clearly will get
old, get sick and die one day, sooner or later. If we cling to it we would
then wish it to live for as long as possible which is a form of greed or craving
that runs contrary to the truth of the Buddha’s teaching that says all bodies
are impermanent, cause stress and anguish, and not a self.
If we have the Dhamma teaching residing in our mind to remind
us of the truth of the ti-lakkhana we would be able to eliminate our attachment
to our body because it’s like a lump of burning coal that would burn our hands
if we scoop it up. But if we merely look, it would not cause us any pain,
because the body is just a lump of the four physical elements namely, earth
(solidity), water (liquidity), wind (gas) and fire (heat) that our deluded mind
happens to take possession of. If we know this and let go of our clinging,
it would then not cause us any pain or anguish. It’s similar to taking
possession of a plot of land that doesn’t belong to anybody and claims it to be
our property. If someone should snatch it away from us we would be sorry
because we were attached to something that doesn’t really belong to us in the
first place and would not permanently remain with us anyway. Our body is like
this plot of land that we stake our claim to by considering it to be ours and
ourselves. When it becomes old, sick and dies, we would be consumed by
sorrow and pain because we lack panna or insight into its true nature.
If we continually contemplate on the truth of the three
characteristics of existence such as anicca (impermanence), dukkha (stress) and
anatta (not-self), we would not dare to cling to anything or wish for things to
be as we would like them to be, but instead we’d let them be as they are and
will be, and be ready to see them depart even if they are our possessions.
If we could really do it, then we wouldn’t be consumed by pain and sorrow
because we have panna (wisdom) and vipassana (insight) to eliminate the kilesa
from our mind leaving it peaceful, content and blissful. We’d have
achieved the supreme bliss that the Buddha had pointed out to us by declaring
that the happiness of this world can never equal or surpass the supreme bliss
that arises out of a mind permanently subdued by the total removal of the kilesa
from the mind.
The bliss that results from the development of
samadhi (concentration) is not this supreme bliss because of its temporary
nature. Once the mind emerges from this samadhi, the kilesa which were
also subdued by the power of samadhi would also emerge to wreak havoc on the
mind again, which is not the same as the supreme bliss that results from the
work of panna (wisdom) that has completely eradicated the kilesa from the mind,
not allowing them to ever return again, like the minds of the Buddha and his
noble disciples. If we truly aspire to this supreme bliss, we must develop both
samadhi and panna. Do not be content with just samadhi because it’s like a
piece of rock sitting on a patch of grass preventing the grass from growing.
But when the rock is removed the grass would eventually grow again, because it
was not uprooted, just like the kilesa, which can’t be uprooted by samadhi
alone. We need panna (wisdom) or vipassana (insight) to do the job.
Therefore after we have developed samadhi we
must then turn to the development of panna or vipassana by continually
contemplating on the characteristics of all conditioned phenomena such as the
five khandha or the five physical and mental components of our existence namely,
rupa (body), vedana (feeling), sanna (memory or perception), sankhara (thought),
and vinnana (sensory awareness) as being impermanent, stressful and not-self.
By continually contemplating on these three characteristics of conditioned
phenomena panna (wisdom) would gradually transform from conceptual to practical.
Conceptual wisdom is contemplation of the truth while practical wisdom is the
application of the truth in our daily life like when we get sick and become
anxious. We must let go of our attachment to the body if we want to
eliminate our anxiety. We should always be vigilant by constantly
developing panna and vipassana after we emerge from samadhi.
After contemplating for a while, the mind gets
tired. We must then return to samadhi for a rest, after having rested we
would then do more contemplation. This is the way to develop samadhi and
panna - they go together like the left and right foot we use for walking, taking
turns stepping. Don’t listen to those who say skip samadhi, develop panna
straight away, or those who say once you have developed samadhi, panna would
automatically appear. These views are not correct. In fact both of them
have to be cultivated and developed, one at a time alternatively. They
perform different duties. Samadhi is for resting and recharging the mental
energy, while panna is like a knife for cutting our attachment to things that
agitate and vex the mind.
We must watch what we are getting into in our
practice. If we are devoting all our time to samadhi even after we have
already mastered it, we should turn to developing panna or vipassana by
contemplating on the three characteristics of all conditioned phenomena such as
our body, feeling, memory, thought and sensory awareness. But if we are engaging
entirely in contemplating without the support of samadhi, we could become more
deluded by our contemplation, by thinking that we have become enlightened when
no such thing has actually occurred. We should therefore rest and recharge
the mind from time to time to keep it in balance. Samadhi and panna are
interdependent; they support and assist each other. Cultivating both would
make our journey toward nibbana smooth and trouble-free.
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