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Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro -
A Dhamma Collage
Highlights of talks given by Ajahn Jayasaro to the community of monks at
Wat Pah Nanachat.
The Pot of Oil Simile
The Buddha explained the practice of mindfulness using the 'Pot of Oil'
simile. A man was made to carry a big pot of oil along a difficult path
through a crowd of spectators who were watching a beautiful dancer. The
man had to avoid spilling any of the oil because behind him was a man
with a sword who would cut off his head if he spilt even a drop. Now if
you imagined yourself in that position, carrying that big pot of oil,
where would your attention be? You couldn't afford to look at the dancer
or be distracted by the crowd. Probably your attention would be mainly
on the pot, but at the same time you couldn't ignore the state of the
road; you'd have to avoid the potholes. You'd have to glance ahead
occasionally to look for obstacles, then come back to your main object
of attention, the pot of oil. So you'd be with the pot of oil most of
the time, but some of the time you'd be glancing ahead, checking the
path. This is the simile for practising sati, mindfulness. Sampajanya,
clear comprehension, is the withdrawing from the object of sati for a
moment and seeing the whole context of what you are doing: What else is
happening? Are there any obstacles or hindrances arising in the mind?
Are there any problems coming up?
Samatha and Irritability
On the path of samatha practice, it is common to reach a certain level
where you get very judgemental, and irritable with other people, angry
if people upset your meditation. You get very protective and paranoid
about your Samadhi. Of course there are good scriptural authorities to
support this proprietorial attitude. The Buddha said 'Take care of your
meditation object at all times. Don't let your Samadhi be dissipated.'
He encouraged us to avoid unnecessarily disturbing situations. But we
can take this attitude too far. We can become self-righteously peeved
about people, things, situations, responsibilities that might have a
detrimental effect on the peace - my peace! - that we're trying to
develop. This is one of the defilements of samatha practice.
Looking after your meditation object can be difficult and frustrating,
yes; but try not to blame the difficulty on others. It's better to look
at it as a challenge. Another helpful way of coping with the tension,
and preventing it taking over your mind is metta practice.
Skilful Attention and Inner Imagery
It is important to see how skilfully or unskilfully we attend to what is
pleasant or unpleasant. The first hindrance, sensual desire, is born
because we attend in an unskilful way to what is pleasant. When we are
confronted with a pleasant object, the untrained mind tends to narrow
its attention, focussing exclusively on the pleasant aspects of the
object. The aspects of the object which are unpleasant, unbeautiful or
simply neutral, the untrained mind censors or screens out. When we think
of a pleasant object or person or event, we remember just one particular
part of it, not the whole thing.
The pleasant aspect of something is called its subha nimitta. Nimitta
means 'image' or 'aspect;' the nimitta is only an aspect of an object,
not an accurate representative of it in all of its complexity. In the
case of something pleasant, we tend to focus on its subha nimitta, its
beautiful aspect. We tend to nurture subha nimittas: subha nimittas
relating to sexual matters, to food, or to places we have been. There is
a cluster of these subha nimittas in our minds and the mind takes up
subha nimittas and starts to fondle them, exaggerate them, trying to
squeeze out every last bit of pleasure from them. That kind of fondling
of subha nimittas makes them stronger and draws the mind to them like a
magnet. This is how sensual desire completely overwhelms the mind. With
such fondling of the images, the skilful dhammas of dispassion and
letting go are weakened. Unskilful dhammas of attachment and fascination
intensify.
With the second hindrance, hatred, we have asubha nimittas: images of
people, events and experiences that we don't like. We tend to take such
images as accurate, shorthand, representatives of reality, when in fact
they are dependent on screening or censoring out important information
which would radically change the perception of the object. The asubha
nimitta might relate to something external - a person or a place - or it
might relate to something internal, one of our own character traits that
we don't like. By attending to asubha nimittas in the wrong way,
unwholesome dhammas are strengthened and wholesome dhammas - a sense of
perspective, forgiveness, metta, and so on - are weakened; we lose our
sense of proportion.
Patient Endurance
In the forest monasteries, particularly in my generation, the teaching
on patient endurance was drummed into us almost every day. Patient
endurance became something we aspired to. Sometimes this went a bit too
far: when young men are inspired by the idea of patient endurance, you
sometimes get competition and people start showing-off a bit, trying to
prove how tough they are. But it is unfair to criticise a teaching
simply because certain people, now and then, grasp it wrongly.
The other common response to this encouragement was, 'Well, why put up
with something that you don't like? What a waste of time. Why not go and
look for something that you like? Enjoy yourself! Life is short.' But
the Buddha said that the ability to patiently abide with the unpleasant
is a wonderful jewel of the mind. If you don't have patient endurance,
in the initial onslaught of unpleasant vedana, unpleasant sensation,
then you are liable to get overwhelmed before the cavalry - which is
mindfulness - can gallop to the rescue. You've already lost it. What you
need is an ability to resist the initial push of defilements, an ability
to stand firm. Unless you have got well-developed sati, when you are
caught off guard, when suddenly there's physical pain, or someone
suddenly abuses you, at that moment sati is probably nowhere to be
found. But when you have patient endurance, you are nonetheless able to
bear with these things. The more you see the benefit of patient
endurance, the more faith you have in it, then the more willing you will
be to cultivate it.
We couldn't have a better teacher of this than Ajahn Chah. I have often
told you about Ajahn Chah's battles with sexual desire when he was a
young monk. His practice at that time was indeed a battle. There is no
other way to talk about it, except through martial imagery. On one
occasion strong, obscene, erotic visions or hallucinations obsessed his
mind for seven days and nights before eventually subsiding. Ajahn
Pasanno once asked him what skilful means he used to deal with such
incredible attacks of lust and sexual desire. Ajahn Chah said 'Nothing
special: I just endured.
Teachings on Samsara
I find the Buddha's teachings on samsara very helpful. If you believe
that you have been born many, many lifetimes already, then ten or twenty
years of meditation practice, or even thirty years, forty years, is the
blink of an eye. Some people take the agnostic view on this, saying
'Don't worry about past or future lives; you know, just concentrate on
the present life.' But if you are only prepared to consider this one
life then ordaining for five or ten years is a really big deal. If the
Buddha didn't think it useful for us to consider samsara, then why did
he talk about it so frequently?
Being Somebody
I remember in America once hearing someone telling her child 'Look, you
may be poor but you can be somebody; you can be anybody if you really
want.' This is life's goal for many people, isn't it? To be somebody;
yet what a sad way to live one's life. The desire to be somebody gets
expressed as the desire to be loved, to be appreciated, to be wanted, to
be needed; needing to be needed. Unfortunately this desire always has
its shadow. It is always dogged by the fear of not being somebody, of
being nobody, the fear of not being needed, the fear of disappearing
without trace in the sands of time.
Some years ago, a political figure was assassinated in the States, I
think in the Deep South. When they caught the assassin he shouted out in
exultation, 'Now I'm a thousandth part of history!' as if his main
motive had been to get his name in the papers, afraid he was going to
die without anybody knowing his name. This is a kind of bhava tanha,
desire to be, which has become so prominent over the past 100 or 200
years. It was quite a rare thing before the industrial revolution.
The great cathedrals were probably the greatest artistic creation of the
Middle Ages, yet nobody ever thought about recording the names of the
architects and craftsmen. With the great art of the East, nobody ever
thought to write their name in the corner of the paintings. With the
great Buddha images in Thailand, if you look round the back, you won't
find engraved there the name of the man who designed or cast it. People
weren't interested in all that. I don't know exactly when it started.
Looking for Sweet Chillies
There's a world of difference between accepting the idea of impermanence
on the intellectual level and really penetrating it with wisdom.
Probably nobody in the world, in any culture, professing any religion,
would deny that things change. Inuits and pygmies, cowboys and coolies:
all would agree that things change. But beyond the superficial
intellectual understanding of change, there is a certain point when the
perception of change changes you. This only comes about through
practice, in recognising the extent to which we have been looking for
happiness in things that don't last. This is the basic mistake that we
all make, because we don't remind ourselves, we don't want to see. There
remains a slight hope.
There's a famous story of Mulla Nazruddin, who with tears running down
his face was eating his way through a sack of chillies. When asked about
it, he explained that one day he hoped he would find a chilli that was
sweet. We're like that too. Perhaps sooner or later - we tell ourselves
- we'll find a chilli that's sweet, we'll find a condition that isn't
impermanent like all the other conditions we've experienced. The
rational side of the mind says 'No, it's not possible', but still there
is this emotional longing.
Young couples canoodling in the moonlight say: 'If only we could make
this moment, this evening last forever;' but they only wish for it to
last forever because they know it won't. Actually, it would be pretty
miserable if it did, wouldn't it? People think that happiness lies in
pleasure lasting forever; but happiness doesn't work like that, does it?
Even if canoodling lasted forever, you couldn't enjoy it, because the
body gets tired; excitement is tiring. In fact you can't enjoy anything
for long, can you? How long can you enjoy anything before it gets
boring?
The person without wisdom is like a drowning man clutching at straws,
clutching at anything to give some lasting happiness. But nothing lasts.
Nothing can do it for you. Nothing is going to give you a permanent
high. Even heaven realms are impermanent. In the heavens you can be the
life and soul of the party with five hundred young maidens frolicking
around with you, gathering daisies and making them into chains, having a
great time for aeons and aeons. Then suddenly the flowers start to fade.
Your time is up.
The Buddha related his own early reflections on this. He said, 'Before
my enlightenment, though being myself subject to birth, ageing and
death, I looked for happiness in things that were also subject to birth,
ageing and death.' He reflected that such a search was not suitable or
appropriate for a person of intelligence. This led him to embark on what
he called the noble search. It wasn't the search for material pleasures;
it was the search for liberation.
Self-perceptions and Misunderstandings
What happens when you are falsely accused of something? What happens,
particularly if you have done something in a very good way, a very
selfless way, and then you are accused of doing it in a very selfish
way? How does that feel? How does it feel when people misunderstand you
like this? This sense of self, the person you think you are, the sense
of being someone, anyone, is an expression of ignorance. The moment
you've any sense of being someone, you're setting yourself up as an Aunt
Sally in a fairground, inviting people to throw balls at you. You'll
find yourself suffering immediately. Even if other people's perceptions
of you are not bad, it's unsettling if they don't coincide with your
own.
Sometimes you meet someone who is absolutely convinced that they know
you better than you know yourself. I used to find it intolerable when my
mother would say to me, 'I can read you like a book'. I would reply, 'No
you can't!' I'd insist that she didn't know me at all. Sometimes you
find that someone's perceptions of you don't fit your own perceptions of
yourself. There was an interesting example of this, this morning. A
couple of young women visiting the monastery were overheard in the
kitchen saying that they thought the abbot's eyes - my eyes - were
chilling, like those of an executioner. So I suppose they won't be
coming back here again.
I remember a rather confused layman once asked Ajahn Chah about the goal
of practice. He had read so many books: books on Zen, books on Mahayana,
books on Taoism, books on Don Juan. He asked Ajahn Chah: 'Should we
practice to become a Bodhisattva or to become an Arahant?' Ajahn Chah
said 'Don't become anything at all. Don't become an Arahant. Don't
become a Bodhisattva. The moment that you become anything at all, you'll
be suffering already.'
Vanity
As a young man, King Asoka's teacher was a perfume seller. The most
beautiful courtesan in the city fell in love with him and did her best
to entice him to her bed. But he wouldn't have anything to do with her.
Of course, being already completely infatuated with him, the fact that
he was the only man for hundreds of miles who wouldn't jump at the
chance for an evening with her made him even more alluring. She made him
many invitations to visit her, and his continual reply was, 'It's not
yet time.'
One evening while she was entertaining a certain guest, she was told
that someone incredibly wealthy had just arrived. The only way she could
get rid of the present guest was to have him murdered, which she
arranged. She got caught for this and sentenced to a horrible
punishment, which involved having her hands, feet, nose and ears cut
off. Having been punished in this awful way, she was then taken to the
cremation ground to die. Still dressed in her finest silks, she lay
there with hands, feet, nose and ears scattered around her. Her faithful
maidservant sat there comforting her as gradually her life drained away.
Suddenly, the maidservant saw someone coming and realised it was the
young man that her mistress had been lusting after for so many years.
Having so often said, 'It's not yet time,' now of all times he had come.
When she informed her mistress about this, her mistress's first reaction
was 'Oh, that he should see me like this! Quickly gather the hands,
feet, nose and ears and cover them with a cloth.' Such was the intensity
of her vanity, even in the final moments of her life! It would be better
somehow, she thought, if the young man did not see her severed limbs.
Meanwhile the man approached and gave her a wonderful Dhamma teaching.
Before she died she became a sotapanna, a stream enterer. In terms of
Dhamma then, it is a story with a happy ending.
Gratitude to Parents
As a teenager before becoming a monk I once travelled through Iran. I
was pretty much down-and-out at the time, living in an alleyway, relying
on alms. One day someone had given me a few coins. I knew of a soup shop
across Teheran where for very little money they'd give you a big bowl of
soup and all the bread that you could eat. So on this day, I was walking
in the early morning towards the soup shop across the city. I passed a
woman who had obviously just come out of her house and was on her way to
work. She looked at me in a very disgusted way, which was, I admit,
reasonable enough, as I was pretty disgusting. She walked over to me
looking very stern and pointed at me indicating that I should follow
her. We went to the block of flats where she lived and into the lift.
She didn't say a word to me the whole time, so I didn't know what was
going to happen. She took me into her flat and gruffly showed me to the
kitchen, sat me down, and put a huge pile of food out for me and watched
me eat till I was full. Then she barked out something in Persian and her
son came in with a clean shirt and a pair of trousers. She let me know
that my present outfit deserved to be incinerated and pointed me to the
bathroom, to shower and change, which I did. When I emerged, she pointed
to the door. We walked out, into the lift, onto the road and then she
just walked off without another word. I was very impressed.
My fortunes changes. I returned to India to live a more meditative life.
One day I recalled that woman in Teheran, how inspiring I found her. I
was sure that I would never forget what she did for me. Suddenly it
dawned on me that whereas I felt so much gratitude for someone who had
given me just one meal and a shower, I had lived with my parents for
almost eighteen years; they had given me three meals a day, all the
clothes I needed, and if I ever got sick, they were more worried about
it than I was, and I realised that I'd taken it all for granted. I felt
more gratitude towards that Iranian woman than I did to my own parents.
I realised how shallow my thinking was, how much I had received as a boy
without giving it a second thought.
It seems to me that unresolved issues with parents are a major obstacle
to spiritual progress: the unwillingness to forgive them for not being
perfect, for not being who we want them to be, for having greed, hatred
and delusion, for being puthujjanas. This is something we monks need to
look at. It's a kind of wound that needs to be allowed to heal.
The Practice of Metta
A lot of us have problems with the practical details of metta
meditation. We wonder how exactly to go about it. What methods should we
use? One approach I have found helpful in my own practice is to spark
off a feeling of metta and then expand it. I have found that the
quickest way to spark off a feeling of metta is to think of my mother
and of her love. This is something most of us will be well acquainted
with. We all know what this is like. When I think of my own mother, I
get this very warm feeling in my heart, in the chest area. I take this
as a meditation object, and develop metta meditation from it. Thinking
about one's mother's love is not simply a sentimental excursion. It is
immensely precious; it has practical value.
Gratitude and Humility
In this tradition we put a lot of effort into striving to be our own
refuge and to take responsibility for ourselves and our conduct. In such
an individualistic style of practice, it is through reflecting on what
we've been given that we prevent ourselves falling a prey to pride. We
are saved from the perils of spiritual pride by remembering our
connections with others - remembering what we have been given.
Reflecting like this is very supportive of humility, of genuine
humility, one of the most beautiful spiritual qualities. It is not
merely the outer trappings of humility, not merely an ideal that we try
to correspond to, but a humility that comes from not grasping at self
and from recognising that all that we have has been given to us.
Appreciative Joy
Not many people develop mudita, appreciative joy, as a meditation. This
is a pity, because it's a wonderful thing to do. I always say that it is
the lazy person's path to enlightenment, because you don't have to
actually do anything, you just appreciate what other people are doing.
You just sit back, watch and enjoy other people's goodness, and feel
your mind becoming purer.
As you cultivate mudita, you'll find your mind develops a natural
sensitivity to goodness. It is as if you study plant life or herbs and
then walk into a forest: you automatically know which tree is which,
which plant is which, which plants can be used for medicine and so
forth. In a forest your mind turns to these considerations quite
naturally. Similarly, when you develop mudita, you become increasingly
sensitive to goodness and to the good intentions of other people. This
appreciative attitude begins to replace the negative and cynical
reactions that are ingrained in many of us. Mudita is a way of
recognising, of opening our eyes to the goodness around us. In a
monastic community of course, it's not difficult to see goodness in
every part of the day. It's very unusual to see anything else really.
You can see small acts of kindness even on the streets. I remember one
day on almsround seeing somebody dropping something, and somebody else
called out to them, 'You've dropped something,' and then picked up the
article and gave it back to them. The other person received it with a
smile and a 'Thank you'. What a lovely thing that was to see. It made my
day. There's no reason why people should bother to do such things, but
they do; it's a lovely thing to see. There's no kind of reward for it
either; it is just the obvious thing to do. It's the naturalness of such
actions that is so uplifting, the intimation of what the human heart is
capable of.
Counting Blessings
I'm often reminded of the words of wisdom that I received from my
parents when I was small. For instance, I remember my father frequently
telling me, 'Sit up straight!' I realise now how wise and profound that
advice was, though I didn't used to appreciate it when I was a teenager.
Another phrase from my childhood that springs into my mind occasionally
is 'Count your blessings!' Probably most English people have heard this.
I think in this monastic environment it is particularly worth bearing in
mind, because we can easily take what we have for granted: that we are
fed every day, that we have kutis to live in, that we have good friends
to live with. If we constantly reflect on our blessings, not simply the
material blessings but also the small spiritual victories that we
achieve and the goodness that we create, then discontent regarding our
progress, or lack of it, shrinks. Counting our blessings provides a
cushion, a sense of wellbeing which enables us to bear with the ups and
downs of practice, the difficult times, the disappointments and
disillusionments that inevitably come, and when one realises that this
is a lot bigger job than we initially thought. This isn't just a ten day
retreat, it's a practice of ten years, twenty years, thirty years, if
one is lucky. If you count your blessings you end up feeling, 'Well,
there is nothing else I'd rather do anyway'. There is a sense that we
are doing what needs to be done. This is a wonderful refuge.
Forest Sangha Newsletter, October 2004, Number 70
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