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.
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