These are notes based on a dhamma talk by Bhante Bodhidhamma.
The Observer
Mindfulness (sati) is an
awareness of certain characteristics. Buddha's teachings could be
reduced down to the single idea of not-self (anatta), which is quite a
confusing concept to explain. Someone once asked the Buddha, "is there a
self?" Buddha said nothing. He then asked, "is there not a self?" Still
Buddha said nothing. When he was questioned later, he said "if I had
said there is no self, they would have put me in the camp of the
annihilationists, if I had said there is a self they would have put me
in the camp of the eternalists". So he said nothing. When you meditate,
where is it that you feel the observer? I'll leave that as something for
you to investigate.
Desire for Happiness & Its Effects
But let's begin again. What is it you want out of life? Contentment,
meaning, fulfilment, the desire to make a difference, success, zen-mind,
nibbana? We all desire happiness, however we might define it. We want
this happiness to grow. But once we become psychologically dependent on
anything for happiness, then the disappearance of this object creates
suffering. I have to then always be on my guard that my object of
happiness isn't taken away. If the threat is bigger than me, then I will
fear it. Right there, are the three relationship responses arising from
the desire for happiness: acquisitiveness (which remember eventually
turns into an active greed), aversion (to keep the enemy away), and fear
if the enemy is bigger than me. This trilogy underlies everything we
are doing. The mistake we've made is to try to seek happiness in a world
which is constantly changing and a world which we can't control.
Happiness then is conditioned, and we don't have control over the
conditions, not even of our own body. The mistake comes down to one of
identity.
Identity is Beyond our Control
If sadness arises, I don't and can't control it. It is just an emotion.
I might learn some new technique which works amazingly the first time,
but then it stops working. The body, sensations, heart, and the mind
with its imaginings, are all containers or turmoil and movement. Ayn
Rand expressed in Buddhist terms the final delusion that through the
power of will we can control our life. Some very successful people have
applied her philosophy in their lives, and they recognised for
themselves that after a while the power of will reaches its limit. We
can make ourselves comfortable. But as for the power we have over our
lives, it is minimal. Have you ever experienced the exchange of oxygen
with carbon dioxide in the lungs? Did you know that every week you
create a completely new cornea? I didn't either. Who can fathom the
mysteries of this body.
Body
We have
to find a place which is objective. This is the position of vipassana,
becoming aware of sensations in the body. If you notice a pain in the
knee, attention is drawn towards it. The word pain will be somewhere in
the mind. When you observe the pain, there is a reaction. We experience
aversion to the pain. Pain and the reaction, and then allowing the
reaction to die away. So long as the pain is not ridiculous, then as you
become equanimous with it, you drive your attention into the pain. Then
the pain becomes something else, like pressure or heat. To experience
feeling through feeling, going beyond the initial perception, the word
and stories and past experiences that make us see things through a
context, we drive attention into the pain itself and the actual
perception changes.
Mind
When you
come to the surface of the pain, you see that pain is a mental construct
to tell us that something is wrong. It's the same with emotions. When I
feel anxious, that is a reaction, normally to fear. Even more extreme,
panic is the fear of fear. As we become accustomed with the feeling of
fear, not getting caught up in the story, the reaction disappears. We
are left with the raw feeling of fear. Perception changes. Nausea, cold,
heat, trembling. Something different. Through careful investigation we
see how the mind is creating the world we're living in.
Heart
When it comes to thought and imagining, the mind is always creating
stories. Connect the stories which the growth of the emotion we are
experiencing. When we're depressed, we start thinking depressing
thoughts. The more you think them, the more depressed you feel. The mind
is the mechanism by which depression develops. On the positive side,
all the joys of life, such as good food or a good meditation. A feeling
of wanting to hold on to, or at least to repeat it. It was such a great
party. We want it again. It is very difficult to distinguish from the
enjoyment because they are so close. But what is the aftermath of
attachment? Immediately we form a habitual relationship and wanting this
to grow. This is the beginning of addiction. When we can't get it,
it's frustration.
Boredom
The
unacknowledged driving force of the consumer society is desire for
something different and exciting and pleasurable to overcome boredom. I
know a monk who went through boredom watching the breath. The teacher
suggested different points, different exercises. The boredom drove him
insane. Boredom is a sense of aversion where you're not getting the
satisfaction we used to get. A society that sees happiness in terms of
excitement is prone to boredom.
Silence
I tell the story of a monastery of St. Francis which I visited. There
are signs everywhere to keep silent. And all these 12 year old kids are
making a racket. There was no effort by the teachers to keep them quiet.
Silence has gone out the window in our society. We cannot understand
it.
Joy without Attachment
Searching
for happiness, we have to be careful not to have the wrong relationship
with joy and the pleasures of life. This is not to say we shouldn't have
these joys. Buddha talks of the beauty of life and how he enjoys giving
the dhamma talks. When someone doesn't take the teaching, he doesn't
feel sad. When they do, he is joyful. Buddha is always living in a state
of love, compassion, joy, peace. When he is by himself, he is in
peaceful equanimity. He goes off into the forest to meditate. "Why?" his
disciples asked, "since he is already enlightened". He replied, for
quiet abiding and to set a good example to others. Notice the quiet
abiding comes first. The desire is for silence.
Change
There is nothing in the world worth holding onto. The reason is you
can't hold onto it. Anything you hold actually changes in your grasp.
When wrong relationship arises, allow it to just pass away. These are
conditions that you can't get rid of by doing. As soon as you feel greed
for something, or annoyed about something, we can't repress it and
pretend we don't feel it, or it comes back at us, the "return of the
repressed" as Freud calls it. This process of changing our wrong
relationships to things is a struggle. Buddha's last words were not:
relax, take it easy, but "work diligently".
Open Hearted Contentment
When someone complained that this training was difficult and painful,
all for the sake of Nibbana — so what? But when you get Nibbana, you are
contented, without attachment. This contentment is said to be one of
the greatest virtues of one who has realised Nibanna. It comes across as
equanimity. It is not coming from a fixed position, not from a
prejudice, coming to everything with an open heart and an open mind.
Purifying the Heart
If we go back to the enlightenment experience of the Buddha, there are
three knowledges. The process of insight is inseparable from the process
of purification (moving towards an ethical life). In the 1980s, there
was the idea that you go for a long enough retreat and you would reach
enlightenment. The result for many was despair. Many turned to drugs.
When they gave up, all the old conditioning came up. So you see, you
can't give up! Unfortunately, you've all entered on the spiritual path,
so you've got not choice now. Now you've set out on the path, you must
continue!
Absorption of the Self
When
have you been most happy in life? Is it not when you've committed
yourself or absorbed yourself in something. We have this idea of free
will in Western philosophy, but there is no free-floating will, free
from conditions. All will does is empower your intention. You can change
your situation by understanding conditions, and so move towards
happiness. The presupposition of I am is that something exists before
the sense of identity. In meditation, we get back to the point of not
knowing. Feeling a sensation in the body, I am no longer the sensation,
but the feeler of that sensation. When you hurt your finger, you are the
finger. Jump out of that and you want to retaliate against a door even.
When you lose your temper, you are your temper. That is what identity
means. Disidentifying the body from its sensation, the heart from its
emotions, and the mind from its thoughts, we pull out something from its
confusion, that something being the observer.
The Observer Revisited
Going back to my original question, "where do you experience that
observer?" You are aware of yourself being the observer. If you are
aware of it, you can't be that. Buddha is pointing to something behind
that, to a point which is not aware of itself, yet complete, entire,
unconditioned. Next time you are in meditation, just find out. I'll
leave that with you.
Two Consciousnesses
Whenever you want to do something, do it with a full heart. Then lose
yourself, lose sense of time. At the end it is done. You only recognise
it afterwards. That's it. We have a lot to be going away to work on. Let
us meditate and work on it.
Metta Prayer
May I be free of greed and selfishness
May I be free of anger and ill-will
May I be free of fear and anxiety
May I be free of ignorance and delusion
May I be kind & gentle, sympathetic & benevolent
May I be forgiving and compassionate
May I be joyful and rejoice in the success of others
May I be peace-loving and calm
May I be liberated of all my sufferings
May I experience the peace & bliss of Nibbana.
~*~
May all beings be free of greed and selfishness
May all beings be free of anger and ill-will
May all beings be free of fear and anxiety
May all beings be free of ignorance and delusion
May all beings be kind & gentle, sympathetic & benevolent
May all beings be forgiving and compassionate
May all beings be joyful and rejoice in the success of others
May all beings be peace-loving and calm
May all beings be liberated of all their sufferings
May all beings experience the peace & bliss of Nibbana.
Painting: "Woman at the Window" by Salvador Dalí.
By The Window (Edward Dowden)
| STILL deep into the West I gazed; the light |
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| Clear, spiritual, tranquil as a bird |
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| Wide-winged that soars on the smooth gale and sleeps, |
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| Was it from sun far-set or moon unrisen? |
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| Whether from moon, or sun, or angel’s face |
5 |
| It held my heart from motion, stayed my blood, |
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| Betrayed each rising thought to quiet death |
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| Along the blind charm’d way to nothingness, |
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| Lull’d the last nerve that ached. It was a sky |
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| Made for a man to waste his will upon, |
10 |
| To be received as wiser than all toil, |
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| And much more fair. And what was strife of men? |
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| And what was time? |
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| Then came a certain thing. |
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| Are intimations for the elected soul |
15 |
| Dubious, obscure, of unauthentic power |
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| Since ghostly to the intellectual eye, |
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| Shapeless to thinking? Nay, but are not we |
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| Servile to words and an usurping brain, |
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| Infidels of our own high mysteries, |
20 |
| Until the senses thicken and lose the world, |
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| Until the imprisoned soul forgets to see, |
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| And spreads blind fingers forth to reach the day, |
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| Which once drank light, and fed on angels’ food? |
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| It happened swiftly, came and straight was gone. |
25 |
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| One standing on some aery balcony |
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| And looking down upon a swarming crowd |
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| Sees one man beckon to him with finger-tip |
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| While eyes meet eyes; he turns and looks again— |
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| The man is lost, and the crowd sways and swarms. |
30 |
| Shall such an one say, ‘Thus ’tis proved a dream, |
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| And no hand beckoned, no eyes met my own?’ |
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| Neither can I say this. There was a hint, |
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| A thrill, a summons faint yet absolute, |
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| Which ran across the West; the sky was touch’d, |
35 |
| And failed not to respond. Does a hand pass |
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| Lightly across your hair? you feel it pass |
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| Not half so heavy as a cobweb’s weight, |
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| Although you never stir; so felt the sky |
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| Not unaware of the Presence, so my soul |
40 |
| Scarce less aware. And if I cannot say |
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| The meaning and monition, words are weak |
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| Which will not paint the small wing of a moth, |
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| Nor bear a subtile odour to the brain, |
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| And much less serve the soul in her large needs. |
45 |
| I cannot tell the meaning, but a change |
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| Was wrought in me; it was not the one man |
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| Who came to the luminous window to gaze forth, |
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| And who moved back into the darkened room |
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| With awe upon his heart and tender hope; |
50 |
| From some deep well of life tears rose; the throng |
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| Of dusty cares, hopes, pleasures, prides fell off, |
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| And from a sacred solitude I gazed |
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| Deep, deep into the liquid eyes of Life. |
