First posted June 21, 2013: New Delhi: I leave the door open that leads to the roof terrace and come downstairs. Kusum is in the kitchen, cleaning up. She says: You no close door up? Pointing, so that I can understand her English; large black eyes look at me, migrant worker from Assam, North-East India, near to Myanmar. Then she’s smiling in a kind of patient way when I start to explain I’d like to have the door open, to get fresh air? Looking at me like, does she have the energy to tell me this? Ked come in. You know Ked? …raises her voice because maybe I’m deaf or something, Ked come in, you open door. And I’m thinking… what’s Ked? And there’s that incredulous look. You no unerstan’ Ked?’ Ked come in door, come down stair, into house steal food from all th’ trash‘n make a mess everywhere! And then I understand Ked is ‘Cat’… pronunciation difference. She sees the dawning of recognition on my face. Ahh… she says on my behalf, nods her head and with a final flash of these eyes, goes back to her work; like I need to be told everything. I go upstairs to close the door then decide to step out on the roof terrace where the air is cool and nice.

Wow, Kusum having a bad day. I make a mental note to always close the door leading to the roof terrace. She’s right, of course, about ked, cat; instinct and the window of opportunity – or door, in this case. There’s also monkey, of course, and rat, and all the other freeloaders and opportunists around here in the world of Wild Life; claws, wings, beak and teeth, quick and clever; skills evolved from the age of the dinosaurs. The ability to grasp, snatch, hold and eat. Human beings in the Western world similarly motivated, driven by desire. Reacting to the sensory world – sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, mental objects, and grabbing at these with extraordinary speed. The habituality of it inherited from former lives… the reason I was reborn in this world is that I’m attached to everything I love and hate… and I keep coming back for more of the same! It’s the relentless search to feel good about everything, and avoid feeling bad about everything when the good feeling falls apart.

Loving kindness and compassion for those stuck on the consumer treadmill without any good reason beyond the treadmill itself (dukkha). Earning just enough money to pay for what it takes to make us feel good for a short time, then we’re feeling bad again. All we really want is some stability and calm but it seems to be so hard to find.

It’s a characteristic of the system that it creates the predicament. Most people think there’s no way out, even though the opportunity is there (Third Noble Truth). It’s like the example of being locked up in a prison cell for years. Then, one day somebody reaches in through the window and gives you the key to the door, so you can open it and you’re free. But instead of doing that, if you’re a ‘believer’, you put the key in a special place and pray to it every day, believing you’ll be able to endure all the hardships of your prison cell by worshipping the key. You don’t know what to do, doubt, uncertainty, fear, confusion. Other people, ‘non-believers’, disagree with your worshipping; they say, we don’t believe in religion or anything, so they decide the best thing to do is just get rid of the key and throw it out the window.

The key is not an end in itself. Just a key; meditation practice, mindfulness, just the intention to be mindful is enough. Back off from the automatic pull; the sense of something out there that I’m drawn towards… and the internal sense of ‘me’. There’s nothing there, only the Five Khandas (Five Aggregates): form, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness. ‘… stopping the mind, stopping the flow of thoughts that are proliferating, stopping the flow of moods that get drawn into either attraction or aversion. We return to a clear center, to awareness’ [Ajahn Pasanno, ‘On Becoming and Stopping’]. No holding on to anything, no holding on to the teachings even. Learning how to use the key. Maybe it’ll take a lifetime, but what else is there to do that’s as valuable as this? Allowing everything to arise and fall away. Cessation. No remainder. Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to: sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya.

The story about the key comes from ‘Religious Conventions and Sila Practice’, Ajahn Sumedho, Cittaviveka 1992. Photo: the door to the roof terrace – entry point for Ked