With Gratitude and Respect, this is the second part of a a summary of “Off the Wheel”, by Ajahn Amaro in 2021.

In Thailand last century, there was a very prominent writer, thinker, and teacher named Ajahn Buddhadasa. He emphasized that the way to make the teaching on dependent origination really useful is to understand it and apply it to our everyday life, our moment-by-moment experience. The Buddha’s teaching is essentially practical, so pointing to the use of this teaching here and now, discovering how it can help us here in this very lifetime, is much more pertinent than talking about its relevance in past lives or future lives. Ajahn Buddhadasa confined his teachings of dependent origination to how it describes the arising of dukkha here and now, how it comes into being in our present experience.

So, how can we be free of the addiction to becoming? The cycle of becoming bhavacakka is our drug of choice to which we are all habituated, whether it is ‘becoming’ based on sense-pleasure, or becoming born of noble aspirations or caring for our family. The objects of becoming can vary from those which are reasonably wholesome to those which are downright destructive, but the process works in exactly the same way irrespective of the object, and if we don’t understand how it works, we are inevitably trapped in that endless cycle of addiction. The Buddha’s teaching helps us to recognize that trap and to break free from it.

The first exit point is at the point of dukkha itself. You’ve already arrived. You’ve woken up. You find yourself barefoot, surrounded by broken glass, thinking, “How did I get into this?” The Buddha said (A 6.63) that suffering, dukkha, ripens in two ways: it either ripens in further suffering, in which case you just keep repeating the cycles over and over again, or you ask yourself: “How did this happen? I said I wasn’t going to get caught in this again, but here I am —there has to be an alternative.”

There is a feeling, an intuition in the heart of that other way. At some level you realize that freedom from addiction must be a possibility. And that very intuition is what the Buddha refers to as faith, saddha. This is how suffering can be a cause for the arising of faith that addiction and endless suffering can’t be the only possibility. There has to be an alternative, and even if you haven’t figured out what the alternative is or how to find it, something in the heart is saying that this is how to find the way to become free of dukkha. So, the suffering you experience is a cause for the arising of faith, and that faith is a cause for a sense of delight or gladness—the potential that this addictive habit can be broken. This brings about a relaxation, a calming of the body and the mind arrives at a quality of sukha, happiness or contentment.

When the heart is content and at ease, it is natural for the mind to focus on the present moment. When there is sukha, it becomes a basis for samādhi. Samādhi is then a cause for the arising of insight. The knowledge and vision of the way things are, leads to letting go, non-attachment. The heart sees that everything is impermanent, empty, and not self. Habits of attachment and identification are relinquished. That letting go leads to freedom and to full enlightenment, full liberation.

Another point where we can exit the cycle. is the link between feeling and craving, between vedanā and taṇhā. Most meditation teachers refer to this as the weakest link in the cycle. – there can be a clear and unconfused mindfulness with regard to feelings, whether pleasant, painful, or neutral. Where it all goes wrong is when the mind buys into those feelings, trying to get rid of a painful feeling, grasps hold of a pleasant feeling, or actively ignores a neutral feeling. That’s when the confusion really kicks in and there is craving, clinging, and becoming.

Before it develops to this stage, the realm of feeling, as it is, can be the easiest point at which to break the cycle; you see there is a pleasant feeling, you see there is a painful feeling, you see there is a neutral feeling; but the heart is not ensnared by the feeling, not caught in it. Be aware that the mind is always drawn beyond the feeling, adding on to it all the shoulds and shouldn’ts, and chasing after how it ought to be—being caught up in the follow-up to a feeling.

This practice is all about working with the feeling that is actually present; for example, somebody comes to you, very upset about something and is asking you to fix it. Your habitual reaction is to feel you should do something. But if instead you say to yourself, “This is the feeling of someone-is-upset-and-asking-me-to-fix-it—that is what this is,” in a strange and mysterious way, you enable yourself to attune more completely to what is actually present. Out of that attunement, what is appropriate and helpful for the situation can arise. If we are busy trying to figure things out or just reacting from memory and hoping to sort things out without reflecting, we don’t notice that we’re already caught up in the experience, we haven’t noticed our own conceptual proliferations, and therefore our response is skewed. This is a helpful practice, you can use it any time—when you’re queuing for food, feeling the standing-in-the-queue-at-lunchtime-trying-not-to-think-about-that-last-piece-of-cake feeling; or reading a book and feeling the I-wonder-if-I’m-almost-at-the-end-of-the- chapter feeling.

We bring attention to the actuality of what is present, and taking the trouble to do that opens up to us a huge amount of psychological space that is always present and always available. Often, though, we are unaware of that spaciousness because we get drawn into trying to fix things—either trying to grab hold or take advantage of a pleasant situation or trying to fend off or get away from a difficult or painful situation. But if we simply bring our attention to what is here, what is present, then we are able to employ the qualities of mindfulness and wisdom.

One of the disciples of Luang Por Dun asked him if he still experienced anger. Luang Por Dun answered that the anger was there, but he didn’t accept it. He gave this answer in a very matter-of-fact way. It was as if he was saying that anger was there, but there was no place for it to land. The delivery arrives, but he doesn’t sign for it, so it’s returned to sender. The feeling of aversion and negativity can be there, but there’s no place for it to land, there’s nothing for it to hang on to. The feeling of aversion or anger arrives at the door, but there’s nobody to sign for the delivery. So it does not give rise to any kind of unwholesome action or speech.

This is why the meditation upon feeling is a very helpful practice. Just try to stay in the realm of feeling and watch as feeling tries to drift toward craving. There’s a big difference between liking and wanting, or not liking and hating. They’re not the same things. We can hear something or feel something that we do not like; we can recognize that we do not like it—it is an ugly sound or a painful feeling—but we don’t have to contend against it. We don’t have to hate it. Liking or disliking can be completely peaceful. But as soon as they transmute into wanting or hating, there is a distortion. You can’t be peaceful and hate at the same time. That doesn’t work. But if there is an ache or a pain in the body, you can dislike it but still be at peace with it. There can be a clarity: “Ouch, I don’t like that.” But no contention arises against it, no hatred toward it. That is a prime opportunity and an important area of the practice to develop. In feeling there is no intrinsic confusion or alienation. There can be a complete and comprehensive quality of clarity and peacefulness in relationship to feeling.

The last exit point from the bhavacakka, which I’ll just mention very briefly, is not to let the whole thing begin in the first place. As the mind is trying to drift into avijjā, ignorance, notice that. When mindfulness starts to slip, don’t allow avijjā to come into being. Don’t let that dulling or obscuration arise.

This is something to practice when the mind is very clear and awake in meditation. You can see the mind being drawn toward a sound or a memory or a feeling—it is almost like a tugging at your body or your clothes. You can feel the mind being drawn into wanting to attach to this, wanting to have an opinion about that or to remember this, or to absorb into a like or a dislike. Don’t let that happen. Don’t let that complication arise. Just stay with the quality of vijjā—awakened awareness, knowing. Be that very knowing. Watch those urges. Be aware of the mind trying to lurch toward an opinion or a memory or a sound, lurching toward avijjā. And then, having seen that, calmly say “No”—do not allow that ignorance to arise. This is the most subtle but also the primary and most complete way of breaking the cycle—not to let the cycle arise in the first place.

Link to the original: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-021-01621-9