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Venerable Ajahn Sundara -
Even the Buddha
was challenged
Extract from a talk by Ajahn
Sundara
You would have thought that after his enlightenment the
Buddha would have had an easy life, wouldn’t you? Isn’t that what we’re
all hoping for, just a little bit of enlightenment, and then life might get a
little bit easier?
I thought I’d tell you the real truth so that your
expectations won’t be disappointed! In the 45 years that the Buddha was
teaching and leading monastic communities, he met an incredible amount of
difficulties. Even though he was enlightened, he still had karma.
He had ascetics coming to challenge and criticise him,
accusing him of distorted views and incorrect teachings, and throughout his
entire life his disciples caused him lots of problems. Some wanted to encourage
eating and sleeping and sexual practices as a way to enlightenment, while others
wanted to tighten up the discipline, to enforce vegetarianism, for instance. His
cousin Devadatta tried to kill him several times, sent a mad elephant to trample
him and tried to create a schism in the Sangha. Finally some ascetics jealous of
the Buddha got a woman to blame him for fathering her child. So we haven’t got
such a bad deal after all!
After spending a few days meditating, we realise that the
point of the practice is not about getting out of our human predicament or
avoiding life’s problems; it’s about understanding and liberating the mind
from delusion. It is a great power within us which, if it’s not understood,
will easily send us to hell. The power of our wilfulness, our anger, our
stubbornness, and our opinionated mind — have we ever noticed how strong it
is? We can’t stop getting depressed so we fill up our mind with things to
distract us, but this feeling is still there, isn’t it? We can’t control our
mind that way forever.
One of the Buddha’s most important contributions to our
understanding the mind is to teach us the cause of suffering. Most of us are
still at the stage of looking outside ourselves for the causes of suffering, and
indeed there are many external things that trigger our agitation, lack of
contentment, and so on. But the Buddha’s teaching is that the real cause is tanha:
desire, grasping.
Without awareness, our mind is almost always found in a state
of grasping, even at the pettiest things, like our cushion, or our place in the
food queue. Little things like that are the causes of bigger miseries; it just
takes someone to trigger an irritation in the early morning to set the tone for
the whole day. Quite often we are totally oblivious of our feelings. Have we
noticed how, often, the most angry people haven’t a clue that they are angry?
It took me a long time to truly acknowledge that in certain situations, or with
certain people, I was always infuriated. When I began to notice this process
clearly and at a deeper level, it was a great relief.
Most of us are seeking happiness but don’t even notice that
we are unhappy. And yet before we can be happy the first step is to notice that
there is dukkha, that there is suffering. It’s quite frightening for
many people to come to terms with that. They think: "If I find out I’m
unhappy, I’ll want to escape, I’ll have to leave my partner, my home, my
job." They believe that by removing themselves from a painful situation,
they can escape their miseries. But that’s not the way out of suffering. The
Buddha said that even if you hid away alone in a remote place, you would still
take your mind with you!
Monastic life is a wonderful playground for quickly learning
about dukkha because every day you experience this truth with almost no
distraction. In a monastic community you find yourself in situations you have
little control over, with people you have not chosen. This kind of environment
pushes all your buttons. The only thing that saves us is our refuge in
mindfulness. When we are mindful, we contain the energies of our mind, we are
cultivating restraint. In other words, we are not splashing our mental soup over
other people.
I remember the time when I was cooking for a Senior Monk at
Chithurst who for a few years was very sick. I offered to look after his diet as
I knew about macrobiotic food before I became a nun.
One day everything irritated me. I was cooking his meal and I
thought: "Angry vibrations in food aren’t going to help anyone, are
they?" So I went to my teacher and said, "I think I’m going to have
to give up this cooking. I’m so angry sometimes, I think I’m poisoning
him." His reply was, "Well, if you’re mindful of your anger then you
are not poisoning him. Your anger’s not coming out into the food, you’re
containing it within you."
On another occasion when I was due to give a teaching to 45
people, my heart started racing and all I wanted to do was to run out of the
room to release the adrenaline. But as I waited in silence, knowing that things
would change, I began talking. It’s quite amazing. Even though I had
experienced a feeling of total panic, the nun who was sitting next to me told me
how calm and peaceful I seemed while teaching!
So when you go to the office tomorrow, and you have a boss
you can’t stand or you have come to your wit’s end at work, just be mindful
of that feeling, and your boss might not even notice.
Mindfulness truly protects us and you will know through
cultivating it how you don’t need to repress or wait to blow up to express
yourself. See how it works, whether it is with your partner, your friend, or
your dog. Just remind yourself every morning what is truly important in your
life. In the West, so many opportunities are available to us, we are really
spoiled. Even at the best retreat centres, people complain about the food, about
this and that. Don’t we recognise heaven when it is in front of us? It is so
easy for us to fall into negativity; often we even seem to get a lot of energy
out of it.
Instead, can we learn to tap into something more nurturing
than frustration and discontent? Scientists tell us we’re not using even a
tenth of our mind’s potential, and even that small amount is misused and
channelled into things like doubt, worry, fear, greed, envy, etc.
The West has few examples that inspire qualities of wisdom
and compassion in us. Our modern heroes are not particularly peaceful or wise
heroes. In this materialistic society we often feel like spiritual orphans,
bereft of guidance from wise and compassionate beings. Fortunately, the Buddhist
teaching is always pointing to the teacher within. Here and now, we can tune in
to the wisdom within us and nurture it, rather than tormenting ourselves for
being a failure. It’s important to see that the problems that arise in life
can be a time of awakening, of transformation.
Even if we attach to goodness, as an end in itself, it will
create suffering. Wanting not to be angry, or wanting to become good, is dukkha.
The Buddha said that there is only one wholesome attachment, the desire for
liberation. So with mindfulness as your refuge, cultivate in yourself that
intention to release your heart from dukkha, to abandon all those things which
are in the way of liberating your heart from delusion.
Once we’ve tasted what it is to be unburdened by craving,
clinging, grasping, then life is so much simpler — we are abiding with the
power in our own heart, with the power of patience, of mindfulness, of
loving-kindness, of peace.
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