noticing the way it is

Posted on April 25, 2024 by tiramit

Ajahn Sumedho

Excerpts from “Intuitive Awareness,” the. chapter titled: “The End of Suffering is Now,” retitled in this blog: “Noticing the way it is” This is the first of two parts. The original by Ajahn Sumedho, is a free Dhamma publication available as PDF, EPUB, MOBI. Look for the link at the end of this post.

The term sakkāya-diṭṭhi (personality view’ or the ego) refers to perceptions we hold in regard to our identity with the five khandhas as belonging to ‘this person.’ However, instead of starting with a perception or a conception of anything, the Buddha established a way through awakened attention, where consciousness is with the present moment, beginning to explore sakkāya-diṭṭhi in terms of the perceptions you are attached to and regard as your ‘self.’ I emphasize deliberately conceiving yourself as a person, with the thought: ‘I’m an unenlightened person who has come here to Amaravati in order to practise meditation so that I will become an enlightened person in the future.’ You can have comments about this, form more perceptions about these perceptions, but that’s not the point. This deliberate thinking allows us to listen to ourselves as we think.

When you are caught in the wandering mind, you lose yourself; you just go from one thought to another and get carried away. But deliberate thinking is not like wandering thinking. It’s intentional, for you are choosing whatever you are going to think. The important thing is not the thought, or even the quality of the thought, whether it’s stupid or intelligent, right or wrong. It’s the attention, the ability to observe the thoughts that you are deliberately thinking. What happens to me is that before I start thinking, ‘I am an unenlightened person,’ there is a space. There is an empty pause before you deliberately think. So, notice that. That’s just the way it is; there is no perception in that space, but there is attention to it, there is awareness before ‘I am an unenlightened person’ arises. Thinking about this is not wandering thinking, it’s not judging or analyzing, but just noticing it’s like this. When you deliberately think, you can also use thought to keep pointing to this awareness, noticing the way it is.

With the pronoun ‘I’ in a sentence such as, ‘I am an unenlightened person,’ if you listen to it and the words that follow, you will realize that you are creating this consciousness of yourself through the words you are deliberately thinking. That which is aware of your thinking – what is that? Is it a person who is aware? Or is it pure awareness? Is this awareness personal, or does the person arise in the awareness? This is exploring, investigating, and by doing so you are getting to notice the way it is, the Dhamma, that there is actually no person who is being aware; it’s rather that awareness will include what seems personal.

‘I am an unenlightened person who needs to practise meditation in order to become an enlightened person in the future.’ With thoughts like this, one assumes I am this body, with this past. I am … years old, born in such and such a place, I’ve done all these things and so I have a history to prove that this person exists. I have a passport and a birth certificate, but really there doesn’t seem to be any person in the awareness.

I find the more I am aware, my personal past seems totally unimportant and of no interest whatsoever. It doesn’t mean anything, actually. It’s just a few memories. Yet taking it from the personal view, if I get caught in thinking about myself as a real personality, then suddenly I find my past important. An identity gives me the sense that I am a person. ‘I have a past, I am somebody. I am somebody important; or not terribly important, but at least I feel connected to something in the past. I have a home, I have a heritage.’ Some people talk about losing the sense of their identity because they’re refugees, their parents are dead, they’re of mixed race, or they don’t have any real clear identity of themselves as belonging to something in the past. The sense of a personality depends very much on proving that you are somebody, your education, your race, your accomplishments or lack of accomplishments, whether you are an interesting or uninteresting person, important or unimportant.

In meditation we are not trying to deny personality. We are not trying to convince ourselves that we are non-people, grasping ideas that ‘I have no nationality, I have no gender, I have no social class, I have no race, the pure Dhamma is my true identity.’ That’s still another identity. That’s not it. It’s not about grasping the concepts of no-self. It’s in realizing, in noting through awakened attention the way things really are. In this simple exercise of saying, ‘I am an unenlightened person,’ this process can be quite deliberate.

When I did this exercise, it became clear what awareness is – sati-sampajañña, mindful, apperception. There is awareness, then thinking and perceptions arise. So deliberately thinking ‘I am an unenlightened person’ arises in this awareness. This awareness is not a perception, it’s an apperception; a cognition that includes perception. Perceptions arise and cease. Awareness is not personal, it doesn’t have any Ajahn Sumedho quality to it, it’s not male or female, bhikkhu or sīladharā (nun), or anything like that; it has no quality on the conventional, conditioned level. It is like nothing. This awareness – ‘I am an unenlightened person’ – and then nothing. There’s no person. So, you are exploring, you are investigating these gaps before ‘I’ and after ‘I’. You say ‘I’ – there’s sati-sampajañña, there’s the sound of silence. ‘I am’ arises in this awareness, this consciousness. As you investigate this, you can question.

This awareness is not a creation, whereas ‘I am’ is something I create. What is more real than ‘I am an unenlightened person’ is this awareness, sati-sampajañña. Awareness is continuous, it’s what sustains. The sense of yourself as a person can go any which way. As you think about yourself and who you are, who you should be, who you would like to be, who you do not want to be, how good or bad, wonderful or horrible you are – all this whirls around, it goes all over the place. One moment you can feel, ‘I’m a really wonderful person,’ the next moment you can feel, ‘I am an absolutely hopeless, horrible person.’ But if you take refuge in awareness, then whatever you’re thinking doesn’t make much difference. Your refuge is in this ability to rest in awareness, rather than in the gyrations and fluctuations of the self-view, of your sakkāya-diṭṭhi habits.

Notice how being a person is really like a yo-yo; it goes up and down all the time. With praise you feel you’re wonderful – then you’re a hopeless case, you’re depressed, a victim of circumstances. You win the lottery and you’re elated. Then somebody steals all the money and you’re suicidal. This is because the personality is like that. It’s very dependent. You can be terribly hurt on a personal level. Or you can be exhilarated: people find you just the most wonderful, thrilling, exciting personality and you feel happy.

When I was a young monk, I used to pride myself on how well I kept the Vinaya discipline, that I was really, really good with the Vinaya. I understood it and I was very strict. Then I stayed for a while with another monk on an island called Ko Sichang off the coast of Siraja. Later on, this monk told somebody else that didn’t keep good Vinaya. I wanted to murder him! Even Vinaya can support another form of self-view. As when somebody says, ‘Oh, Ajahn Sumedho is exemplary, a top-notch monk!’ – that feels wonderful. Then, ‘He’s a hopeless case, doesn’t keep good Vinaya,’ – I want to murder him. So, then I begin to question ‘Just how good a monk am I?’ This is how untrustworthy the self is.

In fact, being a person of any kind is an untrustworthy state to put your refuge in, because we can rise to great altruism and then sink to the most depraved depths in just a second. Even holding the view that ‘I am a good monk’ is a pretty dodgy refuge. If that’s all you know, then when someone says that you are not a very good monk, you’re angry, you’re hurt, you’re offended. However, despite all the fluctuations, sati-sampajañña is constant. This is why I see it as a refuge – because it’s not dependent on praise and blame, success and failure.

Continued next week, 2nd May 2024

Link to the original:

https://forestsangha.org/teachings/books/intuitive-awareness?language=English

apperception 2

Posted on April 18, 2024 by tiramit

Ajahn Sumedho

Excerpts from “Intuitive Awareness,” the. chapter titled: “When You’re an Emotional Wreck,” retitled in this blog: “Apperception” (perception of perception). This is the second and last part of the chapter. The original by Ajahn Sumedho, is a free Dhamma publication available as PDF, EPUB, MOBI. Look for the link at the end of this post.

One of the ideals we talk about is the concept of universal compassion. But the words themselves have no ability to feel compassion. We might attach to the most beautiful, perfect ideals, but attachment blinds us. We can talk about how we must all love each other, have compassion for all sentient beings, but not be able to do that in any practical way, to feel it or notice it. Then, going into the heart – where oftentimes it’s amorphous, where it’s not clean, neat and tidy, like the intellect – emotions can be all over the place. The intellect says, ‘Oh, emotional things are so messy. You can’t trust them,’ and feel embarrassed. “ I don’t want to be considered emotional.’ Then someone says, ‘Ajahn Sumedho is very emotional.’ Whoa – I don’t want anyone to think that. So maybe you think of Ajahn Sumedho as mindful, reasonable, intelligent, reasonable, kind. Now, I like that. That’s nice. But, ‘Ajahn Sumedho is emotional’ – it makes me sound like I’m weak and wet, doesn’t it? ‘Ajahn Sumedho is emotional. He cries, he weeps and he’s wet. He’s all over the place. Ugh.’ Emotions are oftentimes simply ignored or rejected and not appreciated. We don’t learn from them, because we’re always rejecting or denying them. At least I found this easy to do myself. Sati-sampajañña is opening and being willing to be a mess. Let a mess be a mess; a mess is like this. Wet, weak, all over the place, being foolish and silly, stupid; sati-sampajañña embraces all that. It’s not passing judgement or trying to control, to pick or choose. It’s simply the act of noticing that whatever emotion is present, this is the way it is, it’s like this.

So, the point that includes – notice it’s the here-and-now, the paccuppanna-dhamma, just switching on this immanent kind of attention. It’s a slight shift. It isn’t very much, just relaxing and opening to the present, listening, being attentive. It’s not going into some kind of real super-duper samādhi at all. It’s just like this. It doesn’t seem like much at all. As you relax, trust and rest in it, you find it sustains itself. It’s natural, you are not creating it. In this openness, in this one point that includes, you can be aware of emotions that you don’t usually bother with, like feeling lonely or sad, or subtleties such as resentment or disappointment. Extreme emotions are quite easy because they force themselves into attention. But as you open, you can be aware of subtle emotions. Not judging this, just embracing it, so that it’s not making a problem about the way it is, it’s just knowing the way it is. At this moment, the vedanā-saññā-saṅkhārā, the feelings, perceptions and mental formations, are like this. Rūpa, the body, is like this.

Notice what it’s like when you open to an emotional feeling or mood without judging it or making any problem out of it. Whether it’s an emotional feeling or physical feeling, whatever its quality, you’re learning to embrace it, to sustain your attention by holding it without trying to get rid of it, change it or think about it. Just totally accept the mood you’re in, the emotional state, or the physical sensations like pain, itching or tension, with this sense of well-being, of embracing. When I do this, I notice the ‘changingness’. When you are willing to let something be the way it is, it changes. Then you begin to recognize or realize non-attachment. In this way, sati-sampajañña is not attaching, it’s embracing. It’s a sense of widening, it includes; it’s not picky-choosy. It’s not saying, ‘I’ll pick only the good things; I won’t pick the bad ones.’ It takes the bad along with the good, the whole thing, the worm and the apple, the snake and the garden. It allows things to be what they are, but it’s not approving. It’s not saying that you have to love worms and want them in your apples, to like them as much as you like apples. It’s not asking you to be silly or ridiculous, but it’s encouraging you to allow things to exist, even the things we don’t want, because if they exist, that’s what they do, they’re existing. The whole thing belongs, the good and the bad. Sati-sampajañña is our ability to realize that, to know in a direct way, and then the processes take care of themselves. It’s not a case of Ajahn Sumedho trying to get his act together, trying to cleanse his mind, free himself from defilements, deal with his immature emotions, straighten out his wrong, crooked views, trying to make himself into a better monk and become enlightened in the future. That doesn’t work, I guarantee — I’ve tried it!

From this perspective, you can use upāya (skilful means) for particular conditions that come up. One could say, ‘Just be mindful of everything.’ That’s true, that’s not wrong. But some things are quite obsessive or threatening to us, so we can develop skilful means with them. I got a lot of encouragement from Ajahn Chah to develop skilful means, and that takes paññā. It’s using paññā to see how I would deal with things, especially difficult emotional states and habits. Don’t be afraid to experiment. See what comes up using catharsis, talking it out with somebody who will listen to you, or thinking it out deliberately.

One of my skilful means was listening to my thoughts as if they were neighbours talking on the other side of the fence. I’m just an innocent bystander listening whilst they carry on these conversations. I’m actually producing all the gossip, opinions and views in my own mind. I’m not involved, not getting interested in the subject matter, but just listening as it goes on and on about what it likes and doesn’t like, and what’s wrong with this person and what’s wrong with that person, and why I like this better than that, and if you want my opinion about this … I just kept listening to these inner voices, these opinionated, arrogant, conceited, foolish voices that go on. Be aware of that which is aware; notice that. The awareness is my refuge, not the gossiping, not the arrogant voices or opinions and views.

We can learn to help each other by just listening. Learning to listen to somebody is about developing relationship rather than preaching and trying to tell somebody how to practise and what to do. Sometimes all we need to do is learn how to listen to somebody else with our own sati-sampajañña, so that they have the opportunity to verbalize their own fears or desires without being condemned or given all kinds of advice. Listening can be a very skilful means. Some kinds of therapy can be considered skilful means that help us deal with problems that are usually emotional, and where we tend to be most blind and undeveloped is in the emotional realm.

Skilful means is learning that you do have the wisdom to do it. If you think that ‘I’m not wise enough to do that,’ don’t believe it. But also, don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s not that one is better than the other, just trust your own experience of suffering. If you find you obsess a lot, suddenly things will fill your consciousness: memories will come up, certain emotions, foolish thoughts or silly things can pursue you. We can say, ‘I don’t want to bother with that stupidity, I’m trying to get my samadhi and be filled with loving-kindness – do all the right things,’ and not see what we are doing. When we think that, we’re trying to make ourselves fit into an image that is unreal. It’s imagined, it’s an idealized image. The Buddha certainly did not expect that. Whatever way it is for you is the way it is. That’s what you learn from, that’s where enlightenment is – right there – when you’re an emotional wreck.

Link to the original:

https://forestsangha.org/teachings/books/intuitive-awareness?language=English

apperception

Posted on April 11, 2024 by tiramit

Ajahn Sumedho

Excerpts from “Intuitive Awareness,” the. chapter titled: “When You’re an Emotional Wreck,” retitled in this blog: “Apperception” (perception of perception). The original by Ajahn Sumedho, is a free Dhamma publication available as PDF, EPUB, MOBI. Look for the link at the end of this post.

We’re in a retreat situation in Amaravati. Everything is under control and perfect for what we regard as a proper, formal retreat. In contrast to this, next week there will be a lot of comings and goings, and things happening that we can’t control. So, just be aware of expectation, and the view about what a proper, formal retreat should be. Whatever views or opinions you may have, just know the way they are. Whatever kind of irritation, frustration or aversion you might feel – you can use all of that for meditation. The important thing is to maintain the awareness that ‘it is the way it is’ rather than making attempts to suppress your feelings, ignore, or get upset and angry about things not going the way you want, and then not taking the opportunity to observe the way it is. If one is upset about the way it is, one can use that as a part of the meditation.

Unwanted things happen in any retreat. Like the window in the Temple: the electric motor that opens and closes it doesn’t work. High-tech! Then the spotlight went out. I notice in my own mind that when things go wrong, things break or things are going in a way that makes me feel frustration or irritation, then I like to use those situations. If the window doesn’t close, and the spotlight doesn’t go on, I can feel a certain way. I’m aware of that feeling of not wanting the spotlight or window to be broken, of wanting to get it fixed right away, ‘We can just get somebody in to do it during the break so it doesn’t interfere with my practice.’ But notice in all of this that mindfulness is the important factor, because concentration can get disrupted. However, mindfulness, if you trust it, opens to the flow of life as an experience, with its pleasure and pain.

Sati-sampajañña, awareness, apperception or intuitive awareness: I keep reiterating this so that you can really appreciate the difference between intuitive awareness and thinking and analysis that comes from trying to get something or get rid of something. If you’re caught in the thinking process, then you’ll end up always with, ‘Well, it should be like this and it shouldn’t be like that,’ and ‘This is right and that is wrong.’ We can even say, ‘The Buddha’s teachings are right,’ and get attached to that idea! The result of that, if we don’t have enough sati-sampajañña along with it, is that we become Buddhists who feel we are right because we’re following the ‘right’ teaching. Thus, as a consequence of attachment and the way we perceive the Buddha’s teachings, we can become self-righteous Buddhists. We can feel that any other form of Buddhism that doesn’t fit into what we consider right is then wrong, or that other religions are wrong. That’s the thinking behind self-righteous views – notice how limiting it is. We can be attached to these thoughts and perceptions, or to negative, inferior perceptions of ourselves, and think that’s right. Apperception means being aware of perceptions – perceptions of myself or that Buddhism is right … and they’re like this. There’s still consciousness, awareness, intelligence. It’s pure, but it’s not ‘my purity’ as a personal achievement, it’s naturally pure.

Notice that this awareness includes the body, the emotions and the intellect. Sati-sampajañña includes everything. It’s not dismissing the physical condition that we’re experiencing; it includes the emotional state and whatever state your body is in, whether it’s healthy or sickly, strong or weak, male or female, young or old – whatever. The quality is not the issue; it’s not saying how your body should be, but the body is included in this moment. Apperception is the ability to embrace that which is, and the body is right now. This is my experience. The body is right here – I can certainly feel it. Awareness includes emotional states, no matter what they are. Whether you’re happy or sad, elated or depressed, confused or clear, confident or doubtful, jealous or frightened, greedy or lustful, awareness includes and notices all those in a way that is not critical.

We’re not saying, ‘You shouldn’t have lustful emotions,’ or anything like that. We’re not making moral judgements, because we’re using sati-sampajañña. If you get caught up in your brain, your intellect, then it says, ‘Oh! You’re having lustful thoughts in the shrine room. You shouldn’t do that. You’re not a very good monk or nun if you do things like that. You’re impure!’ We’re attached to these judgements, this judgemental function we have, but sati-sampajañña includes that; it includes the judgement. It doesn’t judge judgement; it’s noticing the tyrannical, self-righteous superego that says, ‘You shouldn’t be the way you are. You shouldn’t be selfish. You should be compassionate and loving.’ ‘Buddhism is right.’ ‘I’m getting nowhere in my practice.’ Sati-sampajañña embraces that. It’s just noticing the way it is. I can listen to my intellect, my superego, emotional states and the body – but with sati-sampajañña the attitude is one of ‘I know that. I know you.’ It’s patient with all this. It’s not trying to control or make any problem out of it. As we relax and open to these things, we allow them to change on their own, we give them that opportunity. They have their own kammic force. Our refuge is not in thinking or emotions or the physical body, but in this simple ability to listen, to be attentive to this moment.

I always use the practice of listening to the sound of silence – that subtle, continuous inner ringing tone in the background of experience – because every time I open the mind, that’s what I hear. Its presence contains and embraces the body, the emotional quality and the thinking mind all at once. It’s not like A-B-C or anything in tandem or sequence. Just the way it is, as a whole, it includes. It doesn’t pick and choose, ‘I want this but I don’t want that.’ Noticing, trusting and valuing this ability that each one of us has is something to really treasure and cultivate.

You can reflect on intuition as the point that includes or embraces. In addition to the intuitive ability, we have the thinking ability. The thinking ability excludes, like the single-pointedness you get through concentrating on an object. With a single point for concentration, you focus on it in order to exclude distractions. When you’re using intuitive awareness, it includes all that is there. The single point you get through concentration is just a perception. When you take it literally, it means one naturally excludes anything that’s not in that point. That’s the rational, logical way of looking at it. One-pointedness can be seen in terms of the one point that excludes everything, because that’s the logic of thought. Intuition is non-verbal and non-thinking, so the point is everywhere, it includes. This is sati-sampajañña and satipaññā, or mindful wisdom. You can’t do this through thinking or analysis, or by defining or acquiring all the knowledge in the Abhidhamma Piṭaka or the suttas, and so becoming an expert on Buddhism because you might know a lot about it. But you won’t know it. It’s like knowing all about honey without tasting it – chemical formulae, different qualities, which one is rated the highest, the best and the sweetest, which one is considered common and vulgar, lower-realm honey – you might know all that but not know the flavour of any of it. You ca n have pictures and portraits of it, the whole lot. But if you just taste honey, then you are intuitively aware that it tastes like this.

Paññā, or wisdom, comes from intuition, not from analysis. You can know all about Buddhism and still not use any wisdom in your life. I like the word combinations sati-sampajañña and satipaññā (wisdom based on mindfulness). Sati-sampajañña is not something that you acquire through studying, or through trying to pursue it by will alone. It is awakening, learning to trust this awakening, paying attention to life. It’s an immanent act of trust in the unknown, because you can’t get hold of it. People like to ask, ‘Define it for me, describe it to me, tell me if I have it.’ Nobody can tell you, ‘Well, I think you have it, you look like you’re mindful right now.’ A lot of people who look mindful are not necessarily mindful at all. It’s not a matter of someone telling you, or acquiring the right definitions for the words, but in recognising and realizing the reality of it and trusting it .

I used to experiment with this because of my background. I spent many years studying in university and was conditioned by wanting to define and understand everything through the intellect. I was always in a state of doubt. The more I tried to figure everything out, I still wasn’t certain whether I had got it right or not, because the thinking process has no certainty to it. It’s clean and neat and tidy, but it is not liberating in itself. Emotional things are a bit messy. With emotions you can cry, you can feel sad, you can feel sorry, you can feel angry and jealous and all kinds of messy feelings. But a nice intellectual frame of reference is so pleasurable because it’s tidy and neat. It isn’t messy, doesn’t get sticky, wet and soggy, but it doesn’t feel anything either. When you’re caught in the intellect, it sucks you away from your feelings. Your emotional life doesn’t work anymore, so you suppress it because you’re attached to thought, reason and logic. Intellect has its pleasure and its gifts, but also makes you insensitive. Thoughts do not have any sensitive capability. Thoughts are not sensitive conditions.

Continued next week, 18 April 2024

Link to the original:

https://forestsangha.org/teachings/books/intuitive-awareness?language=English

identity part 2

Posted on April 4, 2024 by tiramit

Excerpts from “Intuitive Awareness,” by Ajahn Sumedho, the Chapter titled Identity. This is a free Dhamma publication available as PDF EPUB MOBI. Look for the link at the end of this post.

As soon as we identify with a negative thought, it hooks us: ‘Oh, here I go again, being critical and negative about somebody and I shouldn’t do that. I’ve been a monk all these years and how can I stop doing that?’ I’ve identified with a negative thought and it triggers off all kinds of feelings of despair. Or, ‘I shouldn’t be like this, I shouldn’t think like this. A good monk should love everybody.’ With awareness, you suddenly stop that, and you’re back in the centre again.

So just recognize, no matter how many times you go out on the wheel, it’s just a very simple act of attention to be back in the centre. It’s not that difficult, remote or precious; we’re simply not used to it. We’re used to being on the turning wheel. We’re used to going around and around and becoming all kinds of things. We’re used to delusions, fantasies, dreams. We’re used to extremes. What we’re used to we are inclined to do if we’re not attentive, if we’re not vigilant. Then we easily fall back onto the turning wheel because we’re used to that, even though we suffer. When we aren’t aware, when we aren’t vigilant and attentive, then we easily fall back into the realm of suffering. The good side of it is the more we develop awareness, cultivate awareness, we then start de-programming those habits. We’re not feeding these illusions anymore. We’re not believing, we’re not following, we’re not resisting. We’re not making any problem about the body as it is, the memories, the thoughts, the habits or the personality that we have. We’re not judging or condemning, praising, adulating or exaggerating anything. It is what it is. As we do that, our identification with the personal condition begins to slip away. We no longer seek identity with our illusions; we’ve broken through that. When we’ve seen through that illusion of self, what we think we are, then our inclination is towards this centre point, this Buddho position.

This is something you can really trust. That’s why I keep saying this, just as a way of encouraging you. If you think about it, you don’t trust it. You can get very confused because other people will say other things and you’ll hear all kinds of views and opinions about meditation, Buddhism and so on. Within this sangha there are so many monks and nuns, so many views and opinions. It’s a matter of learning to trust yourself, the ability to be aware rather than think, ‘I’m not good enough to trust myself. I’ve got to develop the jhānas first. I’ve got to purify my sīla first, my ethical conduct. I’ve got to get rid of my neurotic problems and traumas first before I can meditate.’ If you believe that, then it’s what you’ll have to do. But if you begin to see what you’re doing, that very illusion, then you can trust in that simple recognition. It’s not even condemning the illusion. It’s not saying you shouldn’t do those things. I’m not saying you shouldn’t purify your sīla or resolve your emotional problems, go to therapy or develop the jhānas. I’m not making any statement about ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’, but rather I’m pointing to something that you can trust – this awareness, sati-sampajañña, here and now.

If one of you should come to me and say, ‘Ajahn Sumedho, I’ve got so many neurotic problems and fears. I really need to go to therapy and get these things straightened up in some way because I can’t meditate the way I am,’ and I say, ‘Well, that self-view might even be right on a worldly level – I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to a therapist. What’s best is to not say you are this way or that way – to not give you some kind of identity to attach to – but to empower or encourage you to trust in your own ability to wake up, to pay attention. I don’t know what the result of that will be. I hope it will be good. But what’s true is that your true identity isn’t dependent upon any condition.

Pointing to the present, the paccuppanna-dhamma, we can grasp that idea and then think we don’t need to do all those things. ‘We don’t need to be monks or nuns; we don’t need therapy. We can just meditate. Pure meditation will solve all our problems.’ Then we grasp that and become anti-religious: ‘All religion is a waste of time; it’s all a bunch of rubbish. Psychotherapy is a waste of time. You don’t need that. All you need to do is be mindful and meditate.’ That’s another viewpoint. Those kinds of opinions are not pointing to the centre, they’re judging the conditions or the conventions. And even though you can say that it is true, that ultimately all you need to do is to wake up – simple as that – that in itself is a convention of language. This empowerment or encouragement is pointing to an immanent act of awakening. It’s not telling you that you are some kind of person who is asleep and should wake up, or that you should grasp that idea. It is pointing to that sense of actually being awake, aware.

In the Western world we get very complicated because we don’t usually have a lot of faith, or saddhā. Asian Buddhists tend to be more culturally attuned to this. They have a lot of faith in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha or a teacher. Most of us come to Buddhism or become monks or nuns when we’re adults, and we’re sceptical. Usually, we’ve gone through a lot of sceptical doubts and have strong self-images, and a hard, strong sense of individuality. Speaking for myself, my personality was a doubting, sceptical one. This doubt, or vicikicchā, was one of my greatest obstructions. That’s why I couldn’t be Christian: it was totally impossible for me to believe in the kinds of doctrines that you have to believe in to be one. I was a sceptical, doubting character. At the age of thirty-two I was quite cynical. I’d been through a lot, and had quite a lot of bitterness about life. I was not pleased with my life at thirty-two. I was disappointed with myself and a lot of others. There was a kind of despair, bitterness and doubt, and yet the faint light at the end of the tunnel was Buddhism. That was one thing I still had some hope for, my interest in Buddhism. It was a sign to me, something that drew me into this life.

The good thing about being highly individualistic, sceptical and doubtful is that you do tend to question everything. One thing I appreciated with Ajahn Chah was that everything was up for questioning. That which is sacred and oftentimes never questioned in religions, was allowed to be questioned. He was never one for a peremptory approach of ‘you have to believe in this and you have to believe in that.’ There was never that hard, heavy-handed, dictatorial style; it was much more this reflective questioning and inquiry. One of the problems with Westerners is that we’re complicated because of the lack of faith. Our identities get complicated in so many ways, and are highly personal; we take everything personally. Sexual desire and the sexual forces in the body are regarded as very personal. The same is true with how we identify with hunger and thirst. We judge the basic forces that are natural and take them personally, thinking we shouldn’t be cowardly and weak, pusillanimous. We get complicated because we judge ourselves endlessly, criticize ourselves according to very high, ideal standards – noble standards we can never live up to. We get self-disparaging, neurotic and depressed because we’re not in touch with nature. We’ve come from the world of ideas rather than from realizing the natural law.

In meditation it’s a matter of recognizing the way it is – the Dhamma or the natural law, the way things are – that sexual desire is like this, it’s not mine. The body is like this; it has sexual organs so it’s going to have these energies. This is the way it is. It’s not personal. I didn’t create it. We begin to look at the most obvious things, the basics, the human body, in terms of ‘the way it is’ rather than identifying with it personally. We investigate the instinctual energies. We have strong survival and procreative instincts: hunger and thirst, the urge to protect ourselves, the need for safety. We all need to feel some kind of physical safety, which is a survival instinct; these are basic to the animal kingdom, not just humans. It gets more complicated because we identify with it, and judge it according to high standards and ideals. Then we become neurotic. It gets all over the place; we can’t do anything right. This is the complicated mess that we create in our lives and it’s very confusing.

Now is the time to understand that it needn’t be seen in this way. No matter how complicated things are, the practice is very simple. This is where we need a lot of patience, because when we’re complicated, we oftentimes lack patience with ourselves. We’ve got clever minds. We think very quickly and have strong passions, and it’s easy to get lost in all of this. It’s confusing for us because we don’t have any way out of it, we don’t know a way to transcend or to see it in perspective. In pointing to this centre point, to this still point, to the here-and-now, I’m pointing to the way of transcendence or the escape. Not escape by running away out of fear, but by means of the escape hatch that allows us to get perspective on the mess, on the confusion, on the complicated self that we have created and identify with.

It’s simple and uncomplicated. But if you start thinking about it, then you can make it very complicated with such thoughts as, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think I could ever realize nibbāna.’ But this is where trust comes in. If you’re aware that ‘Oh, I don’t know’ is a perception in the present, trust in that awareness. That’s all you need to know. It is what it is. We’re not even judging that perception. We’re not saying, ‘What a stupid perception.’ We’re not adding anything. The awareness of it, that’s what I’m pointing to.

Learn to trust in that awareness rather than in what the perception is saying. The perception might even be common sense in a way, but the attachment to it is where you get lost. ‘We should practise meditation. We should not be selfish and we should learn to be more disciplined and more responsible for our lives.’ That’s very good advice, but if I attach to that, what happens? I go back to thinking, ‘I’m not responsible enough, I’ve got to become more responsible and I shouldn’t be selfish. I’m too selfish and I shouldn’t be,’ and I’m back onto the turning wheel again. One gets intimidated even by the best advice. What to do? Trust in the awareness of it. The thought ‘I should be responsible’ is seen, and one’s relationship to it is no longer that of grasping. Maybe if that thought resonates as something to do, then be more responsible. It’s not a matter of denying, blotting out, condemning or believing, but of trusting in the attitude of attention and awareness rather than endlessly trying to sort it out on the turning wheel with all its complicated thoughts and habits, where you just get dizzy and totally confused.

The still point gives you perspective on the conditions, on the turning wheel, on the confusion, on the mess. It puts you into a relationship to it that is one of knowing it for what it is, rather than making a personal identity out of it. Then you can see that this knowing is your true nature – your real home – this pure state, pure consciousness, pure awareness. You are learning to remember that, to be that. It’s what you really are, rather than what you think you are according to the conditioning of your mind.