‘Selected excepts from Kamma and the End of Kamma’ by Ajahn Sucitto

This world, Kaccāna, for the most part depends upon a duality – upon the notion of existence and the notion of nonexistence. But for one who sees the origin of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no notion of nonexistence in regard to the world. And for one who sees the cessation of the world as it really is with correct wisdom, there is no notion of existence in regard to the world.

‘“All exists”: Kaccāna, this is one extreme. “All does not exist”: this is the second extreme. Without veering towards either of these extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma by the middle: With ignorance as condition, volitional formations [saṇkhārā] come to be; with volitional formations as a condition, “consciousness. … Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance comes cessation of volitional formations; with the cessation of volitional formations, cessation of consciousness. … Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.”’

(S.12:15; B. Bodhi, Trans.)

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One thing led to another, and after three years of practising in solitude, I returned to England for a visit. I stopped off in London, where Ajahn Sumedho was leading a small group of monks. In that community, there was more emphasis on action and interaction, “on a detailed training in terms of ethics and frugality, and on mindfulness with regard to using requisites. There was a lot of that kind of attention given to daily life; no competition, and no achievement. It demanded energy: all-night group meditation was a weekly practice, with its too brief highs and too long lows. ‘Patient resolve’ was the watchword. All this broadened equanimity and deepened awareness. And we were all in it together, so that generated friendship – even when people got stirred up and argumentative at times. That was understood and accepted, and we were encouraged to explore the cause of conflict and stress. The overall theme was to be mindful of whatever the mind brought up and investigate where the suffering was. It made life into a practice of pāramī; I made a resolution to stay with it – even though that meant getting stirred up pretty often. It was easy to see and feel where the challenge lay: clinging to my way and wishes. Holding on goes deep.

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The Buddha spoke of clinging as having four successively deeper levels: 1) clinging to sense objects, 2) to rules and customs, 3) to views, and 4) to impressions of what we are.

The first is fairly obvious – it’s about hanging on to possessions, and feeding on sights, sounds and the rest of it. In the monastery, with the limitation on sense-input, and with a good amount of physical work going on, most of this intensity would gather around the one meal of the day, or the hot drink and occasional sweets at tea-time. The very energy of clinging to the felt meaning of getting fed would sometimes send so much energy through the system that to patiently wait for everyone to gather, patiently file through to receive the food, patiently wait for everyone to get back … then, after chanting the meal-time blessings, to patiently wait for the senior person to begin eating – was quite an achievement! The food itself was nothing special – sometimes I hardly noticed what it was. Moreover, the degree of satisfaction derived from eating was nothing fantastic and was offset by feeling dull afterwards. The passion was all around the idea, the felt meaning, of eating. But that impression of gratification, and the appealing nature of the food could shift within minutes. On contemplating the whole issue, it was apparent that the intensity was just around the set of feelings and drives that clinging made solid and real – for a while. Clinging was just clinging to its own interpretations.

I could experience the same clinging occurring in terms of the second level of clinging – with reference to the rules and customs of the monastery. Everyone uses rules and customs to regulate their lives or occupations: forms of etiquette, customs around what food to eat at what time on what day of the week, or around how I like my office to be arranged, as well as religious observances and social taboos. But there’s a tendency to go into automatic, or to get dogmatic about one’s own system. One feeling I had about committing to Buddhist practice was to get out of this – to be more spontaneous, to live in the here and now. But after about three years with nothing to do, nothing to belong to, and therefore nothing to be spontaneous about, I really appreciated things like morning chanting every day, observances around handling and washing your alms-bowl, and a training in conventions that helped to keep me focused in daily life in a way that wasn’t about me achieving or being rewarded. The training just kept placing awareness ‘here’ in what I was doing.

It was the same with the system of meditation that I was using; even if I wasn’t always good at it, it defined where I was. I got to feel solid. But then there’d be a hunger to get even more solid; to be part of a highly-disciplined outfit and be someone who could sit like a rock with unwavering mindfulness of breathing. So, the snag that I hit was that a subtle condescension crept in for people who weren’t so solid, or couldn’t keep up; and an outright dismissal of those ‘here and now’ types who were sloppy and clearly had no sense for resolution.

However, Ajahn Sumedho, the leader of what was supposed to be the crack troop, did from time to time cancel routines, either if he thought people were struggling, or just for a break. Or maybe it was just for us to see what our minds did. He also lessened the intensity of some of the observances, allowing an early-morning mug of porridge because some people weren’t so well … And as for a system of meditation, although he sat in meditation a lot, he didn’t use much more of a technique than a basic focus on breathing for starters. The main theme was one of letting go.

It was a complete turn-around from how I had been practising, so it was very confusing for a few years, but it was to the point, and very direct. Let go of clinging. Yes, you do get to recognize that taking hold of a system, firming up and getting righteous about it, carries the same feel and passion that you can get around a bar of chocolate. It’s clinging … and it means you’re about to suffer. And probably to inflict some suffering on someone else.

Much the same thing occurs with the next layer of clinging to views, typified as views of ‘becoming and not-becoming’. These are the ways we extend out of direct experience to conjure up a future. That is, we either add continuity, purpose and a trajectory in life, or deny that there is any purpose; we either get involved with action or development, or declare that nothing can really be done – that everything’s impermanent so there’s no point. This is the underlying view of ‘becoming/not-becoming’ (bhava-vibhava) that makes us unable to relate to the ongoing and uncertain nature of conditions. Those views solidify and spin, sometimes with great conviction. They carry the passion and thirst that initiate kamma, so you don’t get out of cause and effect by following their signals.[38] The harder you work at getting things finished and solid, the more that craving for becoming sets up new goals. But saying that there’s no goal, that it’s all an illusion and let’s not bother with the future – also has its negative effects. Failure to consider cause and effect has definitely affected and continues to affect our environment. Results inevitably proceed from action. So, the more immediate goal is to find balance; and act from there.

Our attempts at getting enlightened can follow the becoming/not-becoming bias. Is it about having the Ultimate Experience of Deathlessness; or is it about the Final Cessation of Nibbāna? Either way, the clinging to these ideas comes from views that configure either some Timeless Ground of Being or a Blissful Oblivion as the goal. And these depend on whether the self-view inclines towards becoming or towards not-becoming. We probably switch from one to the other “dependent on whether we’re feeling upbeat or fed-up, or just as our energies fluctuate. Of course, it doesn’t make sense because the underlying bias varies: one moment we want an experience, and the next we want to get away from experiencing anything. A good question to ask dispassionately is: ‘Who’s doing that?’  and that takes us to the fourth layer of clinging – clinging to self. Clinging to the tendency of becoming or not-becoming generates the self who will be, or who will be eliminated. But any idea of self arises within awareness. And it changes all the time, such as from confident and relaxed to anxious and tense. Notice the itch and the thirst to be successful – or even a failure – a s long as you’re being something. “As this urge affects the mind with regard to any form, any thought and any scenario, so feelings and impressions get clung to and become solidified into a self who is the agent or victim of the world. And that world, whether it be a sublime, immaterial ‘Ultimate Reality’, or the ‘authentic, pure Buddhist tradition’, or the benighted and unjust world of geopolitics, is then regarded as a foundation for a view and inclination with regard to the world it’s created. Essentially, ‘self’ and ‘world’ arise interdependently as two ends of the same designation process; my self is embedded in my world. With this, skills and advantages get tainted with conceit and the urge for more, and negative conditions arouse despond or irritation. There’s plenty of room for suffering, and no end to the goings-on that occur around identification.  So, the four bases give us windows through which to contemplate clinging. In themselves, material food and the rest of it are useful. Rules and customs are useful guides, and in order to do anything well, you have to have a point of view and take into account your own energies, inclinations and skills. But there is also a need to witness and contain the passion and clinging around all this. This is the purpose of cultivating pāramī: to check, witness and move through the mind’s assumptions and resistances. Then, if you stay focused at the place where the mind lets go, there is a sense of ease and spaciousness. You get a glimpse of non – clinging.

However, you don’t resolve and clear these programs with pāramī alone. Cultivating pāramī develops one’s intent to the point where one can have a choice over whether to act upon them or not; but the tendencies remain as potentials in the mind, ready to engender more problems. To clear the tendencies of ignorance and becoming takes the factors of awakening (bojjhanga.)

To be continued