POSTCARD#375: Bangkok: “The Way to Practice in Order to Abide With Emptiness”, another short piece from the revised text of “Heartwood From The Bo Tree” by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. In this section on selflessness, Ajahn describes in detail our situation when faced with the concept of ‘having and of ‘being’.

The ‘self’ is merely a condition that arises when there is grasping and clinging in the mind. We don’t see it as empty, but see it as ‘self’. Grasping arises by itself, there being ignorance or unknowing in the mind. It’s not that we make a deliberate effort to consciously establish a self. When the mind contains unknowing (avijja), it inevitably experiences all things as being ‘self’, the vast myriad of things seen as independent entities.

If authentic knowing takes place then we will see the truth that emptiness is the remainderless extinction of self. The ‘remainderless extinction of self’ is the non-arising of ‘self’. Advanced practice refers to the situation whereby we prevent the arising of ‘self’ completely so that it has no way of arising at any moment in the here and now, nor at any time in the future,

The way to practice so that we know how to live with emptiness lies in the act of preventing ‘self’ arising in this body/mind organism. Consequently, in order to facilitate our understanding we will divide practice up into three sections:

1. The ‘ordinary times’.
2. The moments of sense-contact.
3. The moment of physical death.

1) How should we practice during those ordinary times when the mind is free of association with sense objects? Maybe we are doing some kind of work alone and unconcerned, performing our daily tasks or of practicing formal meditation. There is nothing arising from sense-contact. We may be reading a book or even thinking about something, as long as the mind is undisturbed by sense-contact. At such times our practice must be the study and clarification of the way in which things are empty and the way in which to make the mind empty and free of delusion. Think about it, study it for yourself, enquire from others, and discuss it regularly. Keep doing it.

Consider, what’s worth having and what’s worth being. Gaining wealth, possessions, prestige and power – what is worth gaining, what is worth having? Being a human being, being a millionaire, being a beggar, being a king, being a king’s subject, being a celestial being, what is worth being, what about it is worth being?

Is it worth being a happy person? Bear in mind that it is the worldly who establish the conventions as to the nature of happiness: that the one who has money and power and enjoys every sort of sense-pleasure is the happy person. But if we look closely we will see that such a person suffers Dukkha in an appropriate fashion, a ‘fishbone’ forms in the flesh of his pleasure. Even with the more subtle happiness that arises from samadhi and the meditative absorptions of the rishis and munis if the feeling that ‘I am happy’ arises, then it too will form a ‘fishbone’ in the flesh of that happiness that will stick in the enjoyer’s throat. Those who grasp at and cling to the happiness of rupajhana suffer accordingly.

Consider this example: if we take diamonds and jewels and pile them up so that they completely fill a room and there is no clinging to them in the mind as being ours or that we are their owners, it’s the same as if there is no possession or gain. The pile of precious stones stands there without meaning. But if grasping at ‘I’ occurs, and the thought: ‘the precious stones belong to me’ accordingly ‘self’ arises in the mind – and having or being is present.

What is it that having been possessed by mind won’t lead its owner to suffering? (dhukka) Every single thing there is, will burn up its owner, pierce, strangle and entangle him, envelop and oppress him should he start to ‘have’ or to ‘be’. But should the precious stones stand piled up filling the room and he has no feeling of having or being, then there is no burning, entangling or strangling of any kind. This is not-having and not-being.

Consider what is it that having gone through the stage of becoming in the mind does not ultimately end in dukkha? This can be a formula for reflection. It is the essential point. The word ‘being’ just as with the words ‘have’ and ‘gain’, refers only to the being that is accompanied by upadana, the grasping and clinging to the ‘I am’. About that room full of diamonds and jewels, if we have no feeling of being its owner, there is no gaining or having and no being. Therefore, we must make the mind constantly empty of ego, so that emptiness is the natural state and we abide with the awareness that there is nothing worth having or being.

/continued in part 5/