The teaching of Buddhism is
about giving up evil and practising good. Then, when evil is given up and
goodness is established, we must let go of both good and evil. We have already
heard enough about wholesome and unwholesome conditions to understand something
about them, so I would like to talk about the Middle Way, that is, the path to
transcend both of those things.
All the Dhamma talks and
teachings of the Buddha have one aim - to show the way out of suffering to
those who have not yet escaped. The teachings are for the purpose of giving us
the right understanding. If we don't understand rightly, then we can't arrive
at peace.
When all the Buddhas became
enlightened and gave their first teachings, they declared these two extremes -
indulgence in pleasure and indulgence in pain2. These two ways are the ways of
infatuation, they are the ways between which those who indulge in sense
pleasures must fluctuate, never arriving at peace. They are the paths which
spin around in samsāra.
The Enlightened One
observed that all beings are stuck in these two extremes, never seeing the
Middle Way of Dhamma, so he pointed them out in order to show the penalty
involved in both. Because we are still stuck, because we are still wanting, we
live repeatedly under their sway. The Buddha declared that these two ways are
the ways of intoxication, they are not the ways of a meditator, not the ways to
peace. These ways are indulgence in pleasure and indulgence in pain, or, to put
it simply, the way of slackness and the way of tension.
If you investigate within,
moment by moment, you will see that the tense way is anger, the way of sorrow.
Going this way there is only difficulty and distress. Indulgence in Pleasure -
if you've transcended this, it means you've transcended happiness. These ways,
both happiness and unhappiness, are not peaceful states. The Buddha taught to
let go of both of them. This is right practice. This is the Middle Way.
These words 'the Middle
Way' do not refer to our body and speech, they refer to the mind. When a mental
impression which we don't like arises, it affects the mind and there is
confusion. When the mind is confused, when it's 'shaken up', this is not the
right way. When a mental impression arises which we like, the mind goes to
indulgence in pleasure - that's not the way either.
We people don't want
suffering, we want happiness. But in fact happiness is just a refined form of
suffering. Suffering itself is the coarse form. You can compare them to a
snake. The head of the snake is unhappiness, the tail of the snake is
happiness. The head of the snake is really dangerous, it has the poisonous
fangs. If you touch it, the snake will bite straight away. But never mind the
head, even if you go and hold onto the tail, it will turn around and bite you
just the same, because both the head and the tail belong to the one snake.
In the same way, both
happiness and unhappiness, or pleasure and sadness, arise from the same parent
- wanting. So when you're happy the mind isn't peaceful. It really isn't! For
instance, when we get the things we like, such as wealth, prestige, praise or
happiness, we become pleased as a result. But the mind still harbours some
uneasiness because we're afraid of losing it. That very fear isn't a peaceful
state. Later on we may actually lose that thing and then we really suffer.
Thus, if you aren't aware,
even if you're happy, suffering is imminent. It's just the same as grabbing the
snake's tail - if you don't let go it will bite. So whether it's the snake's
tail or its head, that is, wholesome or unwholesome conditions, they're all
just characteristics of the Wheel of Existence, of endless change.
The Buddha established
morality, concentration and wisdom as the path to peace, the way to
enlightenment. But in truth these things are not the essence of Buddhism. They
are merely the path. The Buddha called them 'magga', which means 'path'.
The essence of Buddhism is peace, and that peace arises from truly knowing the
nature of all things. If we investigate closely, we can see that peace is
neither happiness nor unhappiness. Neither of these is the truth.
The human mind, the mind
which the Buddha exhorted us to know and investigate, is something we can only
know by its activity. The true 'original mind' has nothing to measure it by,
there's nothing you can know it by. In its natural state it is unshaken,
unmoving. When happiness arises all that happens is that this mind is getting
lost in a mental impression, there is movement. When the mind moves like this,
clinging and attachment to those things come into being.
The Buddha has already laid
down the path of practice in its entirety, but we have not yet practised, or if
we have, we've practised only in speech. Our minds and our speech are not yet
in harmony, we just indulge in empty talk. But the basis of Buddhism is not
something that can be talked about or guessed at. The real basis of Buddhism is
full knowledge of the truth of reality. If one knows this truth then no
teaching is necessary. If one doesn't know, even if he listens to the teaching,
he doesn't really hear. This is why the Buddha said, ''The Enlightened One only
points the way.'' He can't do the practice for you, because the truth is
something you cannot put into words or give away.
All the teachings are
merely similes and comparisons, means to help the mind see the truth. If we
haven't seen the truth we must suffer. For example, we commonly say 'sankhāras3' when referring to the body. Anybody
can say it, but in fact we have problems simply because we don't know the truth
of these sankhāras, and
thus cling to them. Because we don't know the truth of the body, we suffer.
Here is an example. Suppose
one morning you're walking to work and a man yells abuse and insults at you
from across the street. As soon as you hear this abuse your mind changes from
its usual state. You don't feel so good, you feel angry and hurt. That man
walks around abusing you night and day. Whenever you hear the abuse, you get
angry, and even when you return home you're still angry because you feel
vindictive, you want to get even.
A few days later another
man comes to your house and calls out, ''Hey! That man who abused you the other
day, he's mad, he's crazy! Has been for years! He abuses everybody like that.
Nobody takes any notice of anything he says.'' As soon as you hear this you are
suddenly relieved. That anger and hurt that you've pent up within you all these
days melts away completely. Why? Because you know the truth of the matter now.
Before, you didn't know, you thought that man was normal, so you were angry at
him. Understanding like that caused you to suffer. As soon as you find out the
truth, everything changes: ''Oh, he's mad! That explains everything!''
When you understand this
you feel fine, because you know for yourself. Having known, then you can let
go. If you don't know the truth you cling right there. When you thought that
man who abused you was normal you could have killed him. But when you find out
the truth, that he's mad, you feel much better. This is knowledge of the truth.
Someone who sees the Dhamma
has a similar experience. When attachment, aversion and delusion disappear,
they disappear in the same way. As long as we don't know these things we think,
''What can I do? I have so much greed and aversion.'' This is not clear
knowledge. It's just the same as when we thought the madman was sane. When we
finally see that he was mad all along we're relieved of worry. No-one could
show you this. Only when the mind sees for itself can it uproot and relinquish
attachment.
It's the same with this
body which we call sankhāras.
Although the Buddha has already explained that it's not substantial or a real
being as such, we still don't agree, we stubbornly cling to it. If the body
could talk, it would be telling us all day long, ''You're not my owner, you
know.'' Actually it's telling us all the time, but it's Dhamma language, so
we're unable to understand it.
For instance, the sense
organs of eye, ear, nose, tongue and body are continually changing, but I've
never seen them ask permission from us even once! Like when we have a headache
or a stomachache-the body never asks permission first, it just goes right
ahead, following its natural course. This shows that the body doesn't allow
anyone to be its owner, it doesn't have an owner. The Buddha described it as an
object void of substance.
We don't understand the
Dhamma and so we don't understand these sankhāras; we take
them to be ourselves, as belonging to us or belonging to others. This gives
rise to clinging. When clinging arises, 'becoming' follows on. Once becoming
arises, then there is birth. Once there is birth, then old age, sickness, death
... the whole mass of suffering arises.
This is the paticcasamuppāda4. We say
ignorance gives rise to volitional activities, they give rise to consciousness
and so on. All these things are simply events in mind. When we come into contact
with something we don't like, if we don't have mindfulness, ignorance is there.
Suffering arises straight away. But the mind passes through these changes so
rapidly that we can't keep up with them. It's the same as when you fall from a
tree. Before you know it - 'Thud!' - you've hit the ground. Actually you've
passed many branches and twigs on the way, but you couldn't count them, you
couldn't remember them as you passed them. You just fall, and then 'Thud!'
The paticcasamuppāda is the
same as this. If we divide it up as it is in the scriptures, we say ignorance
gives rise to volitional activities, volitional activities give rise to
consciousness, consciousness gives rise to mind and matter, mind and matter
give rise to the six sense bases, the sense bases give rise to sense contact,
contact gives rise to feeling, feeling gives rise to wanting, wanting gives
rise to clinging, clinging gives rise to becoming, becoming gives rise to
birth, birth gives rise to old age, sickness, death, and all forms of sorrow.
But in truth, when you come into contact with something you don't like, there's
immediate suffering! That feeling of suffering is actually the result of the
whole chain of the paticcasamuppāda. This is
why the Buddha exhorted his disciples to investigate and know fully their own
minds.
When people are born into
the world they are without names - once born, we name them. This is convention.
We give people names for the sake of convenience, to call each other by. The
scriptures are the same. We separate everything up with labels to make studying
the reality convenient. In the same way, all things are simply sankhāras. Their original nature is
merely that of compounded things. The Buddha said that they are impermanent,
unsatisfactory and not-self. They are unstable. We don't understand this
firmly, our understanding is not straight, and so we have wrong view. This
wrong view is that the sankhāras are ourselves, we are the sankhāras, or that
happiness and unhappiness are ourselves, we are happiness and unhappiness.
Seeing like this is not full, clear knowledge of the true nature of things. The
truth is that we can't force all these things to follow our desires, they
follow the way of nature.
Here is a simple
comparison: suppose you go and sit in the middle of a freeway with the cars and
trucks charging down at you. You can't get angry at the cars, shouting, ''Don't
drive over here! Don't drive over here!'' It's a freeway, you can't tell them
that. So what can you do? You get off the road! The road is the place where
cars run, if you don't want the cars to be there, you suffer.
It's the same with sankhāras. We say they disturb us,
like when we sit in meditation and hear a sound. We think, ''Oh, that sound's
bothering me.'' If we understand that the sound bothers us then we suffer
accordingly. If we investigate a little deeper, we will see that it's we who go
out and disturb the sound! The sound is simply sound. If we understand like
this then there's nothing more to it, we leave it be. We see that the sound is
one thing, we are another. One who understands that the sound comes to disturb
him is one who doesn't see himself. He really doesn't! Once you see yourself,
then you're at ease. The sound is just sound, why should you go and grab it?
You see that actually it was you who went out and disturbed the sound.
This is real knowledge of
the truth. You see both sides, so you have peace. If you see only one side,
there is suffering. Once you see both sides, then you follow the Middle Way.
This is the right practice of the mind. This is what we call straightening out
our understanding.
In the same way, the nature
of all sankhāras is imper-manence and death, but we want to grab them, we carry
them about and covet them. We want them to be true. We want to find truth
within the things that aren't true. Whenever someone sees like this and clings
to the san kharas as being himself, he suffers.
The practice of Dhamma is
not dependent on being a monk, a novice or a layman; it depends on
straightening out your understanding. If our understanding is correct, we
arrive at peace. Whether you are ordained or not it's the same, every person
has the chance to practise Dhamma, to contemplate it. We all contemplate the
same thing. If you attain peace, it's all the same peace; it's the same path,
with the same methods.
Therefore the Buddha didn't
discriminate between laymen and monks, he taught all people to practise to know
the truth of thesankhāras. When we know this truth, we let them go. If
we know the truth there will be no more becoming or birth. How is there no more
birth? There is no way for birth to take place because we fully know the truth
of sankhāras. If we
fully know the truth, then there is peace. Having or not having, it's all the
same. Gain and loss are one. The Buddha taught us to know this. This is peace;
peace from happiness, unhappiness, gladness and sorrow.
We must see that there is
no reason to be born. Born in what way? Born into gladness: When we get
something we like we are glad over it. If there is no clinging to that gladness
there is no birth; if there is clinging, this is called 'birth'. So if we get
something, we aren't born (into gladness). If we lose, then we aren't born
(into sorrow). This is the birthless and the deathless. Birth and death are
both founded in clinging to and cherishing the sankhāras.
So the Buddha said. ''There
is no more becoming for me, finished is the holy life, this is my last birth.''
There! He knew the birthless and the deathless. This is what the Buddha
constantly exhorted his disciples to know. This is the right practice. If you
don't reach it, if you don't reach the Middle Way, then you won't transcend
suffering.
Footnotes
Given in
the Northeastern dialect to an assembly of monks and lay people in 1970
See
introduction
In the
Thai language the word 'sungkahn', from the Pāli word 'sankhāra' (all
conditioned phenomena), is a commonly used term for the body. The Venerable
Ajahn uses the word in both ways.
Paticcasamuppāda - The pinciple of conditioned arising, one of the central
doctrines of the Buddhist teaching.
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