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Venerable Ajahn Sucitto -
Puja
Every
morning we start the day with a puja. It's a celebration of the Buddha's
awakening, an act of praise and recognition. It’s an act of offering.
Then when we have completed the chanting if we stay with the spirit of
puja and continue the act of offering, this is a spiritual yoga. Merely
chanting some words and then forgetting them as soon as the chanting
finishes, is not a true exercise of the spirit. There might well be a
fleeting arousal of energy but if we don’t recollect the meaning, we
drop the offering and drop the spirit. Maybe we stumble around in
thoughts, perceptions and feelings - not so much grasping them as being
gripped by them. But if we pause to reflect on this teaching, this
training in the Dhamma, then we realise that it is about involving our
hearts, minds, spirit very fully. It’s through this that we activate the
five support faculties, (indriya), making them strong, and really bring
forth the spirit of Awakening. The first faculty is that of faith; and
this is what puja is for. The puja is an offering, a bringing forth, an
activation of the spirit.
In our spiritual development, quite a lot is made of concentration and
calming, but we need to bring forth the right attitude - the element of
faith - before we start concentrating and calming down. It shakes off
the staleness that allows us to imagine that we’re breathing mindfully,
but in fact we fall into a state of stagnation than of calm. Things may
be still, but it is not the stillness of a clear mind, it's not an
wakeful calm.
Faith freshens us up, arouses heart-energy and gives us a new
perspective. Without faith, we tend to operate within old psychological
habits, in established perceptions of ourselves and time and place with
all the habitual moods and attitudes. Mindfulness is just the ability to
bear something in mind in an objective way. But if we base our
mindfulness on our personality perspective, if we're bringing attitudes
about ourselves and our flaws, needs and limitations into meditation,
just this is grasping, or being grasped in the experience of self.
Sitting here, we just put in time confirming who we assume ourselves to
be.
However if we undertake a puja without steadying the mind and going
inwards then the faith isn't settled. We just get high. Without that
reflective recollection into how the heart is moved and aspires, the
experience doesn’t have wisdom. Then we attach to it, develop esoteric
views about energies cosmic consciousness. Instead of using mindfulness
for wisdom, we develop attachment to rituals and systems - a major
obstacle. This lack of reflection establishes a mind-set in which
meditation practice becomes another ritual that we do without
sensitivity and without integration into our personal world. Meditation
can become a way of not actually relating to or experiencing anything in
terms of the thoughts and attitudes that we need to penetrate with
wisdom. Then we are not being mindful but going into spiritual
fantasies,
So what is this faith that is said to arise? How can it be aroused? We
need purposefully to make the puja into our offering to the Triple Gem -
to the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha - and to stay mentally alert by
activating and exercising the spiritual faculties. This is done by
focussing first on the qualities of the Buddha, recollecting his
Awakening and the blessing he has given us; really taking this in and
considering it as it touches the heart. We might recollect the Buddha
touching the earth, bringing Awakening into the world, into
consciousness. That is an act of compassion and strength. Such
recollection is not a belief which constricts the mind, but a way of
touching the heart. It’s in the heart that we’re resonating with and
participating with Buddha. Buddha is the heart of our practice: what is
Buddha now but an Awakening to the present with all its mysteries and
unknown causes?
Then there is Dhamma, the Absolute Honesty - a quality that is
ever-present, total, unifying and absolute; and which attends to all
conditions, whether they are painful, pleasant, subtle or gross,
physical or mental. It is an honesty that we are encouraged to develop
and realise for ourselves. We don't have to conceive it or become it, we
just have to open to being truthful about experience. So Dhamma is
inviting; it welcomes us, it's not something aloof. It has a loving,
expansive quality: "Please bring yourself here", rather than, "Don't
come in here with your grubby mind!" attitude. This "ehipassiko,
opaniyiko" is something that we can all experience; we're part of it.
Thus it touches us, arouses our faith. We are invited to incline into
the Dhamma and let it support us. If we can bring this reflection into
our hearts, we open ourselves to a great movement of the spirit.
Then there is faith in the Sangha. That is the potential for the
personal, localised kammic experience that we call 'me, myself' to
associate with value, purpose, integrity. We are invited to find our
authority, to come into our unique, human lives.
The arising of faith then is almost miraculous - it provides an occasion
wherein one experiences a state of being in wholeness, acceptance; it
offers that kind of fulfilment
Most religions recognise and evoke this spirit of the Divine, the
Sublime, the Brahma, the Atman or God the Almighty, but then the
thinking mind says: "But how do I get to it?" It is a movement of faith.
To this end, recollection stimulates faith and energy, and as we
experience their steady strength we recognise that even the aspiration
to be with Dhamma, IS Dhamma. It already is it. We look at that which
brings us here: what it is that actually moves us to come together for a
puja, or to commit to the practice, or to go forth in the Holy Life?
What is that? We might think, "I want to do it" or, "I don’t think I can
do it.” These attitudes and thoughts are the interpretations of the mind
that assumes there’s a self in charge of life. But that's just a
habitual standpoint and we don't have to operate from there all the
time. That’s not going to get you very far. And it’s just a
psychological creation. Who got born? Who dies? Who can Awaken?
Yes, ask yourself: what is it that urges us to Awaken? That urge, in
itself, is an aspect of Awakening. It, too, is an essential aspect of
Dhamma; it is like the potential for Awakening seeking to manifest. When
we participate in a puja, it's a celebration, a recognition and a
gladness for our aspiration. We move out of our personal story, our
history and assumptions about who we are and what will happen tomorrow.
We come out of re-creating our historical identity with its flaws and
doubts. The act of faith is one of freshening up, of reminding
ourselves, which is literally a re-minding, not using the same old mind.
Then we can witness ordinary things afresh. We can note our embodiment,
the sensations and energies in the body. We can regard the thinking mind
with curiosity: how does this operate? Who does it? Where do thoughts
and sensations come from? We can get so caught up in assuming we are
these, or are in them, or need to fix them, get rid of them, perfect
them... feeling good about this and bad about that, wondering what to
do, trying to get away from this or that. Or just ignore them and chase
rainbows. All this comes from self-view. Instead we can note that there
IS feeling; there Is consciousness....So what is it? How does seeing
happen? What is it that can note seeing, or be aware of thoughts, moods
and feelings, and note that they change?
So the puja comes before any meditation system. It's a great shake-out.
It's a celebration and sweeping around to establish and bring forth
faith, energy and mindfulness. Then we can sense what theme of
meditation is most suitable, what arouses our interest, whether we want
to go deeper into the body or handle some emotional issues. In this
recollection and re-minding, spirit can apply itself to sensations of
coolness or warmth, or the breathing; while with self-view, our physical
form remains just a bag of meat. With self-view, the mind can just be
recycling its habitual phrases, moods and feelings - like a weary old
parrot squawking on your shoulder. But we can make it dance, make it
responsive. We can be spacious: the thought is there, not here; the
feeling is there, changing, moment by moment. It's all just an immediate
dance of the present moment. This is the puja of the spirit, why not
join it?
The Buddha was awakened within the five khandhas; for example, within
meanings and memories, noticing the way they affect us, change and
moves; noticing our thoughts and drives as energies arising, slow or
agitated. When we don't hold or grasp at the aggregates, they become a
basis for the realisation of the momentary, dancing nature of
experience. When there is faith, it arouses energy and gives us the
space and perspective from which to work, rather than be pummelled by
some obsessive habit, mood, or dullness. We can move attention to our
skin, to the bones, to the back, the head, the eyes - even to the fact
that there is consciousness arising; consciousness moving and
ever-changing. All these can be looked at, afresh, observed clearly in
their changing and evanescent qualities. Then we can return to the moods
and energies that we seem to get stuck in, with the capacity to work
with them. Faith and energy give us the possibility to change from
reacting to responding. The movement of energy, the constriction or
imbalance – what is needed right now?
So we approach meditation with mindfulness and investigation. These are
the first two factors of Awakening, avenues to the Unconditioned -
because they show us that things are changing, that none of them are
self; and how grasping at thoughts and feelings is unsatisfactory. These
three signs will always guide and steer us. If we experience
unsatisfactoriness, it's because of grasping. And things can’t be
grasped. In the attempt to hold on, a frustrated self gets created. But
with change, there is the vibration of feeling, the movement of thought,
the ebbing and flowing of the emotions and so on. Then, what is it that
notices their changing, and can stay with that - with the seeing eye,
the listening ear - with a patient heart, and the faith of the spirit?
This is a perspective which is outside of circumstances and yet, at the
same time, totally applicable to them. So for the welfare of the world,
we can practise these ways of the spirit within this body and mind;
within the body, mind and the six sense spheres. When this world of
which we seem to be the centre, this world of consciousness, of forms
and change, is reviewed with spirit - when the spirit moves through it -
then it's a delight, a place of realisation, love and boundlessness. To
enter this is the offering of puja- an offering that embraces both
ourselves and others.
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