the eightfold path

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Excerpts from an article by Ajahn Sucitto – I decided to publish this today because I just realised it contains everything that is meaningful to me in the Buddha’s Teachings

The first and most important point about the factors of the eightfold path is that they are a way of living. They are not philosophical concepts, beliefs, or descriptions of an Ultimate Truth, or Divinity. They lead to an awakening to Truth, but do not define it. The eight factors of this Eightfold Path are: 1) right view, 2) right intent (or right attitude), 3) right speech, 4) right action, 5) right livelihood, 6) right effort, 7) right mindfulness, and 8) right concentration. I’ll give details on these factors later.

The Buddha’s realisation was that the experience of Truth was consonant with the ending of dukkha. And dukkha – whether this be depression, anxiety, frustration, or a more general sense of pointlessness – concerns us all in the here and now of our lives. It’s not a matter of belief. Nor, in Buddhism, do you have to believe that there is such a thing as liberation or Truth; just put an end to suffering and stress, and you’ll know Truth for yourself.

So, the Buddhist approach is through direct experience, of which the first thing to consider is where both our innermost pain and our most reliable sense of wellbeing are to be found. Circumstances such as illness or good fortune come and go; but what lingers with us are internal conditions- a sense of being trusted and at peace, or of having regret or hatred gnawing away at our hearts. If we have peace of mind, we can weather through the rough patches; but guilt, hatred or depression can cloud the brightest day. A millionaire or a king can be beset with worry and mistrust.  And a penniless monk like the Buddha can dwell in ease and fulfilment. Suffering and its cessation lie in our minds and hearts.

Mind and heart: we have an awareness that is affected by and responds to experience. This awareness is what the Buddha would encourage a listener to attend to when putting the teachings to the test. In dialogue he would encourage the inquiry: how does it feel if someone abuses you, kills your friends and relatives? Is that suffering or not? And how is it when people treat you with generosity and kindness? And if you act in either of these ways, which brings about the results that will give you most wellbeing? So, using your own wisdom, how should you best act? Applying reasoned inquiry in this way, the Buddha would sketch in the outline of his Dhamma.

In a nutshell, the eightfold Path can be seen as covering ethics, meditation and understanding. Be with what’s happening, and guide your responses with an understanding of how to let go of the stress. Easy enough in theory, but I could see that I needed some training. Meditation takes us to where we’re really being affected in the present moment, but that’s where we tend to react blindly. To respond clearly to experience, we need to establish guidelines. The foundation for such guidelines is right view.

1) Right view is the recognition that what we do counts. We’re not in a pre-determined cosmos, we can be effective. We can be a source of benefit or harm for ourselves and others; and such a responsibility is not so much a moral obligation as a mandate: if we develop clarity and kindness, we can live with that kind of mind. If, however, we sustain prejudices or indifference, we become narrow and insensitive. We can act clearly and be at peace with ourselves, or we can act out of compulsion, and get stuck in the impotence that compulsion brings – addictive behaviour and loss of personal authority. And in all cases, the chances are that we’ll end up being associated with people who mirror our attitudes. So right view is the recognition that our own integrity has to be the centre of our lives. And that feels empowering.

2) Right intent, sometimes called right attitude or even right thought, proceeds from that understanding of cause and effect; it means setting up the intention to bring around skilful results through body, speech and mind, and to relinquish the unskilful ones. This is the foundation of the teachings on action, or kamma, as it is called in Buddhism, of which mental intention is the agent. Since actions of body and speech proceed from mind-states and emotions, if we can get the mind and heart clear, we can both act from a place of balance, and be able to discern the results of our actions. This is what 3) right speech, for example, is about. We give up deception, abuse, and gossip, and cultivate honesty and words that are worth treasuring. 4) Right action refers to avoiding unskilful bodily action, such as killing. 5) Right livelihood means avoiding trade in arms, prostitution, animal slaughter; and it also broadens out into how one shares one’s life with others.

Right view (1), 6) right effort and 7) right mindfulness: these underlie every other factor. For example, with right speech (3), one starts with the right view by recognising that how one talks affects others. We can bring something of value into someone’s mind with a well-attuned remark, or we could ruin their day. We could be left with regret and mistrust, or with openness and peace of mind. So, right effort means doing the work of steering one’s actions, and right mindfulness (7) – being fully present with what we do or say and seeing what effect it has. The result is we avoid distress and participate in something of immediate benefit. This is the process of the entire Eightfold Path.

Mindfulness and the last Path factor, 8) right concentration, take us into the domain of meditation, the cultivation of awareness. These factors are often what people are usually struck by in Buddhism, because they offer a powerful deepening of the inner life, possibilities of great serenity and joy and the unconditioned peace that is called ‘nibbāna’. And this deepening begins and is maintained with mindfulness – which entails being simply and purely present to what is going on.
If I think back to my first meditation class in Thailand: the monk gave us some advice on how to sit upright in a state of relaxed alertness, and start paying attention to the sensations that accompanied the process of breathing. I couldn’t have followed more than a breath or two before my mind was wandering. In fact, it was careening on a wave of speculations, memories, and analyses. Every now and then I would steer my attention back to the breath sensations, and be able to maintain that for a few seconds before a fresh tide of thoughts came washing in. This is pretty much the standard beginner’s meditation. Nevertheless, what struck me deeply was that here I was witnessing my mind. And that was strangely peaceful, even reassuring: somehow, I didn’t have to make anything out of my thoughts, or even out of my mind. It was just something happening. Moreover, if I was witnessing my mind, who was I, and whose mind was this?
The Buddha reckoned these to be unanswerable questions. Whatever you think or say you are is just one more event passing through your mind. No, the point is that there is always this present awareness, and what passes through it is changing and not what you really are. But the more you centre on that present awareness, maybe using a focal point like the sensations of breathing to help you do that, the steadier and clearer you feel.  You can let go of the impulses and sensations that come up, or, as I learnt later, you can focus on them and allow the steadiness of awareness to bring them into harmony.  Which is what happens. That is, with practice you can stop struggling with your body and your moods, and that very quality of non-struggle starts to infuse and settle them. So: bringing attention into the present is mindfulness, and the result, a steadiness that pervades the body and mind is concentration or ‘samādhi’. Samādhi is not a concentration that you do, it’s a centred and pleasurable unity that occurs as a result of right view, right effort and right mindfulness.
Although the practice of mindfulness and concentration is immensely remedial in terms of clearing out stress, worry, and obsessive moods, it has a further development; which is the understanding that liberates the practitioner from the very source of suffering and stress. This understanding, called ‘insight’, both attunes you to the ephemeral nature of what is happening, and puts you in touch with the steady ever-presence of awareness itself. Sensing this time and time again, an involuntary shift takes place: your centre moves to that pure awareness. In daily life, you can act from that awareness with compassion and clarity; and in meditation, you can let all the events subside, and dwell in a bright, unhindered presence. This leads to nibbāna, the fulfilment of the Eightfold Path. As you get to sense this, even in glimpses, you don’t get caught up in hankering or dejection; there’s no frustration, no need to defend, and nothing you have to prove. Just this is an end to suffering and stress.
To read the whole article click on the link below:
https://ajahnsucitto.org/articles/the-eightfold-path/

all the myriad things

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“The doing is done but there is no doer. The principle of doerless doing must be taken up and utilized in our daily lives. Whether we’re eating, sitting, laying down, walking, using, seeking, whatever we’re doing we must have enough truth-discerning awareness to prevent the arising of ‘I’ – the feeling that ‘I’ am the doer. ‘I’ am the eater, the walker, the sitter, the sleeper, or the user. We must make the mind constantly empty of ego, so that emptiness is the natural state and we abide with the awareness that there is nothing worth having or being.” [Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, “Heartwood from the Bo Tree”]

Emptiness means that there is no feeling of ‘self’ or ‘belonging to self’, there is no feeling of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, which are the creations of craving and grasping. Being void of these things is ‘being empty’. What is it that is empty? It is the mind that is empty, emptied of the feelings of ‘self’, and of ‘belonging to self’, both in their crude and subtle forms. If the mind is empty to the degree of being free of even the most refined sense of self it is said that the mind is itself emptiness. This agrees with the teaching that mind is emptiness, emptiness is mind; emptiness is Buddha, Buddha is emptiness, emptiness is Dhamma, Dhamma is emptiness. There is only one thing… all the myriad things that we are acquainted with are nothing but emptiness.

The characteristic of all things is emptiness. This phrase ‘all things’ must be understood correctly as encompassing every single thing from a speck of dust up to Nibbana. It must be well understood that in a speck of dust there is emptiness or absence of self, absence of a permanent, independent entity. The mind and heart, thoughts and feelings, each thing is characterized by emptiness, absence of a permanent, independent entity.

The Buddhist Teachings, the study and practice of Dhamma have the characteristic of an absence of a permanent, independent entity. All the way through to the final Path Realizations, their Fruits and Nibbana itself, have this same characteristic, it’s just that we don’t see it. Even a sparrow flying to-and-fro has the characteristic of emptiness but we don’t see it. All things display the characteristic of emptiness, it’s just that we don’t see it.

The word ’empty’ also refers to the characteristic of the mind that is free from all grasping and clinging. Although the mind is empty of self, it doesn’t realize that it is empty, because ordinarily, it is constantly enveloped and disturbed by the conceptual thought that feeds on sense contact.

As a result, the mind is neither aware of its own emptiness nor the emptiness in all things. But whenever the mind completely throws off that which is enveloping it, the grasping and clinging of delusion and ignorance, and detaches from it completely, then the mind, through its non-clinging has the characteristic of emptiness.

Because all things do truly have the characteristic of being empty of a self, no permanent, independent entity to be grasped at or clung to, we are able to see the truth of emptiness. Thus, the mind seeing emptiness in all things collapses into itself, leaving only emptiness. It becomes emptiness and sees everything as emptiness. Material objects, people, animals, time and space, every sort of dhamma melts into emptiness through knowing this truth. The word empty is the remainderless extinction of ‘I’ and ‘mine’, the utter destruction of self.

So, how should we practice during those times when the mind is free of association with sense objects? Maybe we are doing some kind of work alone and unconcerned, performing our daily tasks or of practicing formal meditation. There is nothing arising from sense-contact. We may be reading a book or even thinking about something, as long as the mind is undisturbed by sense-contact. At such times our practice must be the study and clarification of the way in which things are empty and the way in which to make the mind empty and free of delusion. Think about it, study it for yourself, enquire from others, and discuss it regularly. Keep doing it.

Excerpts from three talks given by Ajahn Buddhadasa to a Dhamma study group in Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok in 1961 and 1962.

Dhammafootsteps, Postcards# 375,374, 373, 372

Image by Bella White, source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/body-of-water-and-seashore-during-sunset-635426/

awareness: nameless and stopped

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Excerpts from Reflections: Ajahn Sucitto
One of the monks asked a renowned Forest Ajahn: ‘What’s it like to see things as they really are?’ There was an understandable air of expectation in the room: to ‘see things as they really are’ (yathābhutam ñānadassanam) is the vision of the Awakened Mind. What mystical insight was about to be revealed?

‘It’s ordinary,’ said the Ajahn in his customary succinct and matter-of-fact way.

Bodhidharma (6th Century CE), the legendary conveyor of the Ch’an Dhamma to China. Ch’an (from Sanskrit Jhāna), a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Bodhidharma had an exchange with the Chinese Emperor that was similar in tone to the Forest Ajahn. The Emperor, who had devotedly built temples and shrines throughout China, implored the Master, ‘What is the essence of the Holy Truth?’

‘Emptiness, no holiness,’ replied the sage.

Awakening is more of a deflation of the mind than a peak experience. That way, it’s difficult to grasp. Actually, ‘emptiness’ – until you understand it as the non-clingable, signless quality of what arises – does give one something a little mystical to cling to… perhaps the Emperor wasn’t ready for the really direct teaching. The point is that the closer you get to the Dhamma, the more you know that appearances aren’t where it’s at. What you are able to see is the Unconstructed, and the end to the conceiving, favouring and proliferations of the mind.

A related example is Bhikkhuni Patacāra’s experience of Awakening. Returning to her dwelling after a period of walking meditation, her realization occurred as she turned down the flame of her lamp: Like the going out of a flame was the release of awareness. (Thig. 5,10)

No blazing light, just the opposite… so, is ‘Awakening’ some kind of coma? Well, this apparent paradox occurs because awareness as consciousness is not fully understood. This kind of consciousness is the six-fold awareness that processes data through eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and thinking mind. In this context, mind-consciousness is the awareness that is affected by the perceptions and feelings that arise from external sense contact, and also from of the internal (mind-base). The mind is always being affected, it’s either fluttering, on the run, or sliding from this to that. Now, maybe if all that flittering and chattering were to stop… that would be a stilling of an activity rather than an annihilation of anything solid. Which is exactly the point. It also explains why the language of Awakening is distinctly unexciting and doesn’t get one’s pulses racing.

It’s all in the mind. The mind base is the home of the impulses and psychological activities, which stimulate consciousness for good or for bad. On investigation these activities of liking, disliking, of hesitancy or eagerness are seen as arising dependent on our attitudes and subjectively-based perceptions we acquire over the course of time. Whether a taste is ‘delicious’ or music ‘pleasant, etc., all gets learned from paying attention and assessing results through language communication. This is how consciousness is formed, activated and programmed; a perception of ‘what’s out there,’ from moment to moment, defines a ‘me’, as lively, articulate, passionate, even-minded or dull. So, the solidity of our world and our self is based upon activities and formations. And what if they stopped? In that freeing up, in things really being seen as they are, the world and the self neither exist nor don’t exist. They both arise dependently.

One point to emphasize is that the ‘me’ sense is a solidification of the sense of presence that is the resonance of consciousness. It takes form dependent on the perceptions and feelings that consciousness forms, infers and otherwise derives from sense-contact. When an architect looks at a building, he/she becomes an architect (that particular sense of self doesn’t arise as they eat a meal or watch TV). And in that mode, he/she sees something different from that which is seen by a thief. The individual bias, the acquired activity forms an impression both of the subject and the object.

When pain or displeasure touch the heart, ‘I’ get formed as the victim of that. With pleasure, I become the owner. Then I get defensive or acquisitive and act accordingly – instant kamma. Have you seen – or felt – who you become when guilt or fear gets into you? Or when compassion or joy touches your heart? ‘Being touched’ is a formation; contact/impression is an activity that modifies and colours the sense of self. In this respect, I’m referring not so much to direct sensory contact, but the impression that the mind makes of that contact, called ‘designation contact’.

This form of contact is the significant one: owing to the subjective flavouring of designation contact, different people find different sights, sounds, flavours, ideas, remarks and gestures delightful, repugnant, or neutral. Designation contact sets up the familiar pattern of how we experience the world; and the consequent perceptions and impressions guide what we will make impingement contact with in the future. So, this is the key to how we react and create fresh action, or kamma, based on the blueprint of the past.

The sting in this apparently neutral functioning is that when it gets infected with ignorance, the mind takes as real, substantial and potentially acquirable what in fact has been formed by consciousness. So that stirs consciousness into chasing its tail, motivated by either acquisition, aversion or delusion. Of which three, delusion is the one that is most constantly streaming in.

So, how would it be if, instead of creating fantasies and phobias, those streams were to stop? Intellectually, it’s not difficult to repudiate delusion. As far as we can see, in the experienced Cosmos, there’s no such thing as a thing: from the stars and rocks on down to the oscillating cells in our bodies and our flickering thoughts, it’s all dynamic. How could there be a permanent self? But in all this movement, there’s one process that forms the apparent self. It’s the lock of grasping. And that occurs in the mind-base when it’s infected by ignorance. So, trust what arises within when the self-impression passes. Investigate the dukkha of ‘how it should be.’ Because with unerring simplicity, release always comes down to cultivating the Four Noble Truths. Selfless clarity spontaneously arises with their comprehension; what arises by itself after the release is the true guide.

And it’s nobody’s. The awareness that is liberated through such realization is just ‘aññā’ ‘the Knowing.’ It’s a knowing that has no subject, a development based on, but beyond, the mindful knowing and witnessing of what arises. At each stage of Awakening, as places where self-view congregates get freed, there is the Knowing, dispassionate and free from positions. And the Buddha constantly refused to make a self out of that.

Ajahn Sucitto

To read the whole piece, follow this link:
https://ajahnsucitto.org/reflections/awareness-nameless-and-stopped/

Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/WGVOaJIyMd0

soaring summits of silence

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Excerpts from the Introduction to: “Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond,” by Ajahn Brahm

During meditation we should not develop a mind that accumulates and holds on to things. Instead, we should develop a mind that is willing to let go, to give up all the burdens we carry like so many heavy suitcases. In meditation unload as much baggage as you can. Think of duties and achievements as heavy weights pressing upon you. Abandon them freely without looking back. This attitude of mind that inclines to giving up will lead you into deep meditation.

Meditators are like birds that soar through the sky and rise to the peaks. It is on such summits of perception that meditators will understand, from their own direct experience, what we call “mind” and the nature of what we call “self,’ “God,” “the world,” “the universe,” the whole lot. It’s there that they become enlightened – not in the realms of thought, but on the soaring summits of silence within their mind.

“Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond” is a guided tour through the world of timeless Buddhist rapture. It describes how meditation literally implodes into the supreme bliss of the jhānas and how such states of letting go lift the veil of our fives senses, to reveal the awesome world of the mind, the magic inner garden where enlightenment is reached.

In the Mahāsaccaka sutta (MN 36) the Buddha relates, “I considered:… ‘Could that [jhāna] be the path to enlightenment?’ Then following on that memory, came the realization, ‘That is the path to enlightenment.’”

Image: detail of a photo by Simon Berger (Unsplash)

disembodied beauty

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Excerpts from Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator’s Handbook by Ajahn Brahm.

[Note: The following is the beginning of the meditational guide that takes the reader to the jhānas, the higher states of bliss. Ajahn Brahm explains that even though the jhānas may seem distant and unreachable, for some meditators, discussing such sublime states can create inspiration, as well as map out the territory ahead. Some readers may have already gotten close enough to be able to understand this discussion from their own experience, and it may help them to make that last leap into the jhānas – eventually the seeds that are planted in this kind of discussion will someday bear fruit.]

It would be marvellous for each one of us if we could abandon all inner speech and abide in silent awareness of the present moment long enough to realize how delightful it is. Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking. When one realizes that, silence becomes more attractive and important. The mind inclines toward it, seeks it out constantly, to the point where it engages in the thinking process only if it is really necessary, only if there is some point to it.

Once we have realized that most of our thinking gets us nowhere, we gladly and easily spend much time in inner quiet. Turn the awareness onto the breath and follow that breath from moment to moment without interruption. Notice the arising of inner speech and the mind’s tendency to go off into the past or future. Come back to the breath, and see how your attention expands to take in every single moment of the breath.

You know the inbreath at the very first moment, when the first sensation of inbreathing arises. Then you observe as those sensations develop gradually through the whole course of one inbreath, not missing even a moment of the in-breath. When that in-breath finishes, you know that moment. You see in your mind that last movement of the in-breath. You then see the next moment as a pause between breaths, and then many more moments of pause until the out-breath begins. You see the first moment of out-breathing and each subsequent sensation as the out-breath evolves, until the out-breath disappears when its function is complete. All this is done in silence and in the present moment.

You can attain this degree of stillness by letting go of everything in the entire universe except for this momentary experience of the breath happening silently. Actually “you” do not reach this stage, the mind does. This is where the doer, the major part of one’s ego, starts to disappear. One finds that progress happens effortlessly at this stage of meditation. We just have to get out of the way, let go, and watch it all happen. The mind will automatically incline toward this very simple, peaceful, and delicious unity of being alone with one thing, just being with the breath in each and every moment. This is the unity of mind, the unity in the moment, the unity in stillness.

The Beautiful Breath

This is what I call the “springboard” of meditation, because from it one may dive into the blissful states. When we simply maintain this unity of consciousness by not interfering, the breath will begin to disappear. The breath appears to fade away as the mind focuses instead on what is at the center of the experience of breath, which is awesome peace, freedom, and bliss.

When the breath disappears, all that is left is “the beautiful.” Disembodied beauty becomes the sole object of the mind. The mind is now taking the mind as its own object of contemplation. We are no longer aware of the breath, body, thought, sound, or outside world. All that we are aware of is beauty, peace, bliss, light, or whatever our perception will later call it. We are experiencing only beauty, continuously, effortlessly, with nothing being beautiful! We have long ago let go of chatter, let go of descriptions and assessments. Here the mind is so still that it cannot say anything. One is just beginning to experience the first flowering of bliss in the mind. That bliss will develop, grow, and become very firm and strong. And then one may enter into the jhānas.

The book has been extensively discussed in dhammafootsteps, Click on the link below for a more detailed presentation

silent present-moment awareness of the breath

Photo by Simon Berger

there’s no need to be busy

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Excerpts from “The Path to Peace: A Buddhist Guide to Cultivating Loving-Kindness” by Ayya Khema

There’s no need to be busy. We should of course fulfill our obligations and responsibilities. The Buddha always gave guidelines in that direction. But to be overly busy cannot possibly bring peacefulness. It cannot bring contentment. It cannot bring a heart full of love; it cannot bring a heart that can actually bring the mind to meditation. So, we should check our activities and see which ones are totally unnecessary. And we should see whether, with the activities that we do, we are not only trying to escape our own suffering (dukkha) but also trying to prove something to ourselves and others—that we are somebody. The more we try to prove that we are somebody, the less we have a chance to become nobody. And that’s what nirvana is all about. It doesn’t sound appealing to some people, because they haven’t had enough dukkha yet. When we’ve had enough dukkha with the somebody, we can actually appreciate the fact that there’s only one way to get out of dukkha, and that’s being nobody.

We have the wealth of absolute truth, of immeasurable love and compassion—the whole wealth of the universe within us. It’s just waiting to be discovered. But within the hustle and bustle of morning-to-evening activity, we’ll never manage to find it. It’s like a golden treasure that is lying within us, that we can actually touch upon through the quiet mind. Anyone can do it, but they’ve got to become quiet. And we’ve got to stop trying to be something special. Only then can we get at it, and then, having found it, we can share it. That’s what the Buddha did. He shared it for forty-five years. With a few thousand people. And today we’re sharing it with five hundred million. That’s the value of enlightenment.

So, we have that treasure. But if we really get busy, we have no way of unlocking that treasure chest. Unlocking it takes time, and it takes the quiet mind, the contented mind, the satisfied mind. It needs the mind which knows that there is something to be found far beyond anything at all that we can ever find in the world. And then we will make an attempt at checking out what is really necessary to do.

Whatever we do out of compassion is well done. And this should be our checkpoint: what am I doing out of compassion, and what am I doing in order to assert that I am really here and to let as many people know about it as possible, and what am I doing in order to get out of my dukkha to keep busy? But whatever I do out of compassion, that is what we should pursue.

Ayya Khema (1923–1997) was an international Buddhist teacher, and the first Western woman to become a Theravada Buddhist nun. An advocate of Buddhist women’s rights, in 1987 she helped coordinate the first conference for the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women in Bodh Gaya, India.

selflessness

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Excerpts from “A Path With Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life” by Jack Kornfield (1993)

When Buddhists speak of emptiness and of no self, what do they mean? Emptiness does not mean that things don’t exist, nor does “no self” mean that we don’t exist. Emptiness refers to the underlying nonseparation of life and the fertile ground of energy that gives rise to all forms of life. Our world and sense of self is a play of patterns.

Any identity we can grasp is transient, tentative. When we are silent and attentive, we can sense directly how we can never truly possess anything in the world. Clearly, we do not possess outer things. We are in some relationship with our cars, our home, our family, our jobs, but whatever that relationship is, it is “ours” only for a short time. In the end, things, people, or tasks die or change or we lose them. Nothing is exempt.

We encounter another aspect of the emptiness of self when we notice how everything arises out of nothing, comes out of the void, returns to the void, goes back to nothing. All our words of the past day have disappeared. Similarly, where has the past week or the past month or our childhood gone? They arose, did a little dance, and now they’ve vanished, along with the twentieth century, the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries, the ancient Romans and Greeks, the Pharaohs, and so forth. All experience arises in the present, does its dance, and disappears. Experience comes into being only tentatively, for a little time in a certain form; then that form ends and a new form replaces it moment by moment.

As we open and empty ourselves, we come to experience an interconnectedness, the realization that all things are joined and conditioned in an interdependent arising. Each experience and event contains all others. The teacher depends on the student, the airplane depends on the sky.

When a bell rings, is it the bell we hear, the air, the sound on our cars, or is it our brain that rings? It is all of these things. As the Taoists say, “The between is ringing.” The sound of the bell is here to he heard everywhere—in the eyes of every person we meet, in every tree and insect, in every breath we take…

When we truly sense this interconnectedness and the emptiness out of which all beings arise, we find liberation and a spacious joy. Discovering emptiness brings a lightness of heart, flexibility, and an ease that rests in all things. The more solidly we grasp our identity, the more solid our problems become. Once I asked a delightful old Sri Lankan meditation master to teach me the essence of Buddhism. He just laughed and said three times, “No self, no problem.”

Jack Kornfield was trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma, and India, and holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He is a psychotherapist and founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society and the Spirit Rock Center. His books include Seeking the Heart of Wisdom and Still Forest Pool.

Image: Giant Buddha statue under construction at the Khai Nguyen Pagoda in Son Tay, on the outskirts of Hanoi, Vietnam, on May 18, 2019

perception & reaction

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Essentially what counts about our life is our kamma (karma), that is, our actions of body, speech or mind. And kamma means you have a choice: you can act wisely now rather than react compulsively. Reactions are generated by contact – that is something touches the heart. When we notice or are struck by something – it could be something seen, remembered, tasted, imagined – then something vibrates and there’s perception. Perception is the solidification of the immediate impression arising in consciousness; the light goes on, there is meaning, true or false. Then comes the reaction, the volitional quality, or cetanā – and when the mind engages with that, there is kamma.

Training is about putting a micro-pause or attentiveness, between the perception and the reaction, or, between the mental reaction and any engagement with it. And it’s also good to challenge perceptions before they land, or as they arise. So, you establish the perception of impermanence: ‘This is going to change.’ And the perception of the unattractive: ‘This too loses flavour and breaks down.’ Then there are perceptions based on goodwill: ‘Just like me, they are enriched by kindness.’ And when we practice recollection, we establish perceptions based upon awakening: ‘Freedom from suffering is possible.’ In this way, you’re changing your life right now in terms of how and when the mind jumps.

Notice: What are the most habitual jumps? Habitual reactions are about how we repeatedly jump; the ingrained impressions and reactions that become ‘myself’. ‘I’m always like this, I see things this way, I tend to mistrust, or be apprehensive, or urgent, or dismissive, or…’  Then pause; wait a minute. Check. Do you have to jump, right now? Come out of the obsessive rut.

Ajahn Sucitto

Image by Penn B: Coastal view, Phuket Island

neti-neti

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Neti-neti is a Sanskrit expression that translates to “neither this, nor that” or “not this, not this.” This expression is used in Hinduism, mainly in Jnana yoga and in Advaita Vedanta (non-dualistic spiritual practice). Neti-neti is a form of analytical meditation that helps the individual understand the nature of brahman (absolute reality) by first understanding what is not brahman.
A “neti-neti search” is one of the key elements of Jnana yoga practice. It is an exercise in negating rationalizations and other distractions from the non-conceptual meditative awareness of reality.
Yogapedia: In Jnana yoga and Advaita Vedanta, “neti-neti” may be a chant or mantra. It is an 8,000-year-old practice that takes the focus away from all disturbances, so the practitioner may find the stillness in every movement and the formless in every form. Neti-neti meditation helps to identify all things of the world which are not the atman (the real), thus negating the anatman (the unreal).
When it’s adapted for the modern world, including neti-neti meditation in one’s yoga practice, neti-neti helps the practitioner realize that they are not actually the things that they normally identify themselves with (personalities, thoughts, feelings or jobs), nor are they merely their roles (parents, partners, friends or siblings) in life. In this way, neti-neti can also be interpreted as “beyond this, beyond that.”
Source: https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5325/neti-neti

the deathless citta

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Ajahn Maha Bua observes the essential enduring truth of the sentient being, composed of the indestructible reality of the citta (heart/mind). But as long as there is a ‘self’ the citta is not free. This ‘self’ is the ‘Ultimate Danger’ because of its alluring radiance that causes attachment. The Ultimate Danger disguises itself as the Ultimate Virtue. When the perception of anatta (not-self) is applied, the agitated citta becomes calm and impassive with no interest in either atta (self) or anatta (not-self). The perception of anatta causes the self to be let go of and is totally destroyed, along with the ignorance that causes all beings enthralled by ‘self’ to wander in samsara.

The citta, intrinsically bright, clear, and aware, gets superficially tangled up in samsara but ultimately cannot be destroyed by any samsaric phenomenon. The citta may be caught up in the vortex of conditioned phenomena, but is not subject to destruction, It is ultimately not beholden to these laws of conditioned existence. The citta is bright, radiant, and deathless, and is its own independent reality.

The fundamental problem that besets human beings, is that they have taken untruth as their true self and unknowingly they allow the wiles and deceits of the mental defilements to generate fear and anxiety in their minds. Fear and anxiety are not inherent within the citta; in fact, the citta is ultimately beyond all such things and indeed is beyond time and space. But it needs to be cleansed of its inner defilements (the kilesas) before that truth can be realised. When the cleansing of defilements is complete, the citta remains, experientially abiding in its own firm foundation, yet ultimately indescribable.

Some of the notions found here are reminiscent of the Tathagatagarbha tradition found in Mahayana Buddhism— although the latter posits an original, primordial purity to the mind, whereas Bua sees that purity as needing to be established through mental and moral cultivation. [Re: Ajahn Maha Bua Wikipedia page: “Some basic teachings on the ‘Citta’”]

Excerpts from a talk by Ajahn Maha Bua, London, June 1974

We are here today to train our minds to be calm and cool. The normal state of the mind is such that it has no Middle Way. It continually tends to go to extremes of thinking and imagining and its moods are in confusion. What the heart (citta) is used to and likes to do, leads it away from what it should be doing. We must therefore make use of the Dhamma principles of the Buddha as a means to train the Citta to be calm — and however much or little one does this will not be without result.

Whoever makes use of any method of meditation, as, for example, paying attention to one’s breath (Ānāpānasati) or the repetition (Parikamma) of “Buddho,” “Dhammo,” or “Sangho,” should have mindfulness to control the Citta. The Citta should not be allowed to wander for if it does, one will not get results and the Citta will not get calm. In the Dhamma it says “Natthi santi param sukham,” which means “there is no happiness greater than peace.” The heart (citta) must be peaceful or calm to attain happiness, so we should try to help it to be calm. The Citta which is not calm will tend to be agitated continually and even when it is asleep it dreams of all sorts of things. If one’s Citta thinks a lot it will create fantastic dreams and talking in one’s sleep, for if one’s sleep is not deep, dreaming will occur, whereas a deep sleep is a sleep without dreams. So, one trains to make the Citta calm down, but whether the Citta becomes calm and to what degree will depend on the ability of each person. If the Citta is very calm, there will be a great deal of happiness and this is the first step of the training.

The value of the mind will then be apparent because there is nothing greater than a quiet mind. I would ask you to try to have your minds steadily overcome the difficulties and laziness, which are usually in control. We believe that we cannot overcome them because we have seen their power, but if we think we are able to challenge them, and if we really do fight them, then the time will arrive when we do overcome them. We still hear of victories in regard to such things as sports and such like, but with regard to Kilesas (defilements) we only hear of giving in to them. Perhaps this is because we fall on our faces before the Kilesas and let them walk all over us.

Citta likes to go wherever it pleases and in whatever the Citta does, it is not afraid of doing wrong, nor is it afraid of danger. If mindfulness does not restrain it, it may stray and go for unchecked pleasure seeking, possessed by Kilesas. But if the Citta is trained and controlled by mindfulness, it will slowly become disciplined and the Kilesas can then be eradicated. When it is accompanied by wisdom (Pañña) which investigates and extracts the Kilesas, the Citta will become clearer and brighter and one will discover the Citta is becoming more and more subtle and it has more strength and power. The Citta can become pure through the practice of meditation, but one cannot understand the Citta merely by reading books, for one can only come to know the real Citta by practicing the way. Then one will gradually come to see the true nature of the Citta a little more each time until one sees it clearly and all doubts vanish. Practice is therefore extremely important if one wants to know the Citta, because one can come to know the real Citta absolutely clearly and eliminate all doubts by means of practice. There is no other way in which one can come to know.

Question:

People in England study Buddhism from books. They do not know that there is a Citta and Buddhism is not taught here according to the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta. The result is that people are led to understand that the Citta is mindfulness and wisdom. I therefore think it necessary for Ven. Paññavaddho to have the Venerable Acharn give us some understanding of the Citta.

Ven Paññavaddho to the Venerable Acharn in Thai:

People here in England understand “Citta” to mean thinking and that the Citta is divided into those forms of the Citta which come from seeing, hearing, & touching; in other words, “consciousness” (Viññāṇa).

Answer:

That aspect of the Citta which arises when something comes into contact with eyes, ears, nose, etc., and which knows and receives that contact is called “consciousness” (Viññana). It arises and ceases together with that contact. As for the Citta which waits and knows these things, it does not cease together with the consciousness when it ceases, it does not cease even though the body ceases, for it will go on and take rebirth in the future. There is no end to it if the “sap of the heart” which is the Kilesas and Ignorance (Avijja) are still in the heart. But when this “sap” has been removed from the heart, there is an end to continual becoming and birth, as happened with the Buddha and his arahant disciples.

Reference: The Dhamma Teachings of Acariya Maha Boowa in London:

Link: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/boowa/london.html