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 second and last part. 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.

There are different kinds of methods that can be used to learn how to stop the thinking mind. For example, a Zen koan or self-inquiry practice like asking ‘Who am I?’ These are techniques or expedient means that we find in Zen and Advaita Vedanta, and are used to stop the thinking mind. You begin to notice the pure state of attention, where you are not caught in thinking and the assumptions of a self – where there is pure awareness. That’s when you hear the sound of silence, because your mind is in that state of attention. In pure awareness there’s no self, it’s like this. Learn to relax into that, to trust it, but not try and hold on to it. We can even grasp the idea that ‘I’ve got to get the sound of silence and I’ve got to relax into it.’ This is the risky part of any kind of technique or instruction, because it is easy to grasp the idea. Bhāvanā, cultivation of the mind, isn’t about grasping ideas or coming from any position. This paṭipadā, this practice, is one of recognizing and realizing through awakened awareness, through a direct knowing,

Some people find it frightening when the self starts to break up – because it’s like everything you have regarded as solid and real starts falling apart. I remember years ago, long before I was even a Buddhist, feeling threatened by certain radical ideas that tended to challenge the security of the world I lived in. When it seems somebody is threatening or challenging something that you depend upon for a sense that everything’s all right, you can get angry and even violent – because they are threatening ‘my world, my security, my refuge.’ You can see why conservative people get threatened by foreigners, radical ideas or anything that comes in and challenges the status quo – because that’s the world they are depending on to make them feel secure. When they are threatened, they go into panic. The Buddha pointed to the instability and impermanence of conditioned phenomena. This is not just a philosophy that he was expecting us to go along with. We explore and see the nature of the conditioned realm – the physical, the emotional and the mental – in the way we experience it. But your refuge is in this awakened awareness, rather than in trying to find or create a condition that will give us some sense of security. We are not trying to fool ourselves, to create a false sense of security by positive thinking. The refuge is in awakening to reality, because the Unconditioned is reality. This awareness, this awakenedness, is the gate to the Unconditioned. When we awaken, that is the Unconditioned. The conditions are whatever they are — strong or weak, pleasant or painful, whatever.

‘I am an unenlightened person who has to practise meditation hard. I must really work at it, get rid of my defilements and become an enlightened person some time in the future. I hope to attain stream-entry before I die, but if I don’t, I hope that I’ll be reborn in a better realm.’ Thinking like that, we go on creating more and more complications. People ask me, ‘Can we attain stream-entry? Are there any arahants?’ This is because we still think of stream-entry and arahantship as a personal quality. We look at somebody and say, ‘That monk over there is an arahant.’ We think that person is an arahant or stream-enterer. That’s just the way the conditioned mind operates. It can’t help it, it can’t do anything other than that. So, you can’t trust it; you can’t take refuge in your thoughts or your perceptions, but you can take refuge in awareness. That doesn’t seem like anything, it’s like nothing – but it’s everything. All the problems are resolved right there.

Your conditioned mind thinks, ‘Awareness is nothing, it doesn’t amount to anything. It’s not worth anything, you couldn’t sell it.’ This is where we learn to trust in the ability to awaken, because if you think about it, you’ll start doubting it all the time. ‘Am I really awake? Am I awake enough? Maybe I need to be asleep longer so that I can be awake later on. Maybe if I keep practising with ignorance, I’ll get so fed up that I’ll give it up.’ If you start with ignorance, how could you ever end up with wisdom? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s like hitting your head on a wall and thinking that after a while you might give it up if you haven’t damaged your brain. It does feel good when you stop. But instead of looking at it in that way, trust in this simple act of attention. Then explore and have confidence in your ability to use wisdom.

Many of you may think, ‘Oh, I don’t have any wisdom. I’m nobody. I haven’t had any real insight.’ So, you thoroughly convince yourself you can’t do this. That’s the way it seems on the personal level. Maybe you don’t feel you have anything to offer on that level, but that’s another creation. It’s the same as ‘I am an unenlightened person.’ Whatever assumptions you have about yourself, no matter how reasonable they might be – whether you think you are the best or the worst – they are still creations in the present. By believing in those creations, by thinking and holding to them, you’re continually creating yourself as some kind of personality.

This awakenedness is not a creation. It’s the immanent act of attention in the present. That is why developing this exercise of deliberately thinking ‘I am an unenlightened person’ is a skilful means to notice more carefully and continuously what it’s like to be mindful and aware while you are creating yourself as a person. You get this sense that your self-view is definitely a mental object; it comes and goes. You can’t sustain ‘I am an unenlightened person.’ How do you sustain that one, by thinking it all the time? If you went around saying ‘I am an unenlightened person’ all the time they would send you to a mental hospital. It arises and ceases, but the awareness is sustainable. That awareness is not created, it’s not personal, but it is real.

Recognize the ending, when ‘I am an unenlightened person who has got to practise meditation in order to become an enlightened person some time in the future’ stops. Then there is the ringing silence. There’s awareness. Conditions always arise and cease now, in the present. The cessation is now. The ending of the condition is now. The end of the world is now. The end of self is now. The end of suffering is now. You can see the arising, ‘I am,’ then the ending, and what remains when something has begun and ended is awareness. It’s like this. It’s bright, it’s clear, it’s pure, it’s alive. It’s not a trance, not dull, not stupid.

This is an encouragement, an ‘empowerment’ according to modern jargon. Do it! Go for it. Don’t just hang around on the edges thinking, ‘I am an unenlightened person who has to practise really hard in order to become an enlightened person’ and then after a while start grumbling, ‘Oh, I need more time,’ and go into the usual plans and plots, views and opinions. If you start with ignorance you will end up with suffering. In the teachings on dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda) you have ‘avijjā paccayā saṅkhārā.’ Avijjā is ignorance, and that conditions (paccayā) mental formations (saṅkhārā), that then affects everything. As a result, you end up with grief, sorrow, despair and anguish: soka-parideva-dukkha-domanassupāyāsā. So, I’m encouraging you to not start from avijjā but from vijjā, awareness, from paññā, wisdom. Be that wisdom itself rather than a person who isn’t wise, trying to become wise. As long as you hold to the view that ‘I’m not wise yet, but I hope to become wise,’ you’ll end up with grief, sorrow, despair and anguish. It’s that direct. It’s learning to trust in being the wisdom now, being awake.

Even though you may feel inadequate emotionally, doubtful or uncertain, frightened or terrified – these are reactions; emotions are like that. But be the awareness of the emotions: emotion is like this. Emotionally we are conditioned for ignorance. I am emotionally conditioned to be a person, to be Ajahn Sumedho. Someone says, ‘Ajahn Sumedho, you are wonderful!’ and the emotions go ‘Oh?’ Then, ‘Ajahn Sumedho, you are a horrible monk with terrible Vinaya!’ and the emotions go ‘grrrrr’. Emotions are like that. If my security depends on being praised and loved, respected and appreciated, successful and healthy, everything going nicely and everyone living in harmony – the world around me being so utterly sensitive to my needs – then I feel all right when everything seems to be going all right. But then it goes the other way – persecution, abuse, disrobing, blame, criticism – and I think ‘Life is horrible. I can’t stand it anymore! I’m so hurt, so wounded. I’ve tried so hard and nobody appreciates me, nobody loves me.’ That’s the emotional dependency of the person; that’s personal conditioning.

Awareness includes emotions as mental objects or ārammaṇā, rather than subjects. If you don’t know this, you tend to identify with your emotions and they become yourself. You become this emotional thing that is terribly upset because the world is not respecting you enough. Our refuge is in the Deathless reality rather than in the transient and unstable conditions. If you trust in awareness, then the self and your emotions – whatever they might be – can be seen in terms of what they are; not judged, not making any problem out of them, but just noticing: it’s like this.

Link to the original:

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