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Venerable
Ajahn Sumedho -
The Real World
This
is adapted from a teaching given by Ajahn Sumedho during the 1988 winter
monastic retreat at Amaravati.
Tonight we will once again reflect on the way life is as a human being.
Birth in the human form means there is a feeling of separateness,
consciousness works within the limitations of the body, so each one of
us has to see things from that particular position. Right now I'm
sitting right here, I have to see things from this position. Sister
Kalyana is way over there in the corner, and Anagarika Bill is here in
front - but no matter how far away or close, there is this sense of
division or separation. Consciousness is the discriminative function of
the mind, so if we attach to consciousness as our identity, there is
always the sense of isolation and separation.
There are romantic views of finding someone to have communion with.
There's a longing in all human beings for some kind of communion or
sense of oneness, yet that is a totally impossible thing to have on the
level of the discriminative mind - which is where most people seek it.
If I am this body, this consciousness, then how can I ever be one with
anything? Even though momentarily there may be a sense of oneness -
through physical union or emotional unity - there is also separation,
because that which comes together must separate. This is the inexorable
law. If one is attached to an idea of union, unity or communion, and one
feels a moment of it, that conditions the sense of isolation; there is
always a sense of loss.
So the more we seek communion and oneness in terms of body and
consciousness, the more we feel alienated and lonely. Even when there
isn't physical or emotional aloneness, we can still feel lonely, because
of the existential problem of ignorance - the illusion of separation
which is created through identification with consciousness.
One can be sitting in a room full of people and feel totally alone. In
fact, I think one of the loneliest experiences of my life was when, at
about age 24, I went to New York City to live. I was surrounded by
millions of people, yet I felt so lonely. Where did the loneliness come
from? It was due to the longing, the attachment to the belief in 'the
real world' and the feeling of not having entered "the real world' in
the same way others had. I didn't realise that everyone had the- same
problem, actually. I used to think it was a personal flaw in my
character, that somehow I was a misfit and that everyone else fitted in
- only to find that most people felt that they were misfits.
This sensory world doesn't fit us, really. It's a kind of passage that
we take in order to learn a lesson. (Hopefully we will learn it!) We
don't fit into these roles - we are not realty people; you are not
really women; you are not really men. These forms are like costumes,
they're temporary things that we have to learn to live with. We have to
learn how to accept them and know them. We have to learn from this
suffering, this sense of alienation that comes from ignorance.
It probably starts from the moment you're born, from the time you are
thrown out into the world. Babies usually cry when they are born - they
don't come out laughing. I've never heard of one doing that! You are one
with your mother, and then the umbilical cord is cut. That is the end of
chat relationship and then you are a separate being; that must be very
traumatic for every baby. You see so many people longing to get back
into that relationship again. We'd like a mother to nurse us and take
care of us, protect us, keep us warm and all that. I've seen that myself
- wanting to have some nice warm womb to crawl back into, some safe
place where I'll be protected and be told, 'I love you dear, forever, no
matter what you do, and everything's going to be all right. There's
going to be plenty of everything - warmth, food and comfort - forever
more.'
If you practise meditation and develop insight into the Dhamma, you can
investigate to see the real problem. Is there any real separation, or is
it merely an appearance of separation, brought about by attachment
(through desire) to the five khandhas*?
*five khandhas: the five components or "heaps of human
psycho-physical existence, i.e. form, feeling, perception, volition, and
consciousness.
Consciousness implies desire, because as a result of consciousness
there's feeling. There are feelings of attraction, repulsion or
neutrality and we tend - until there is enlightenment - to react to
feeling with desire. We incline towards beautiful, pleasurable things.
We try to get rid of, to run away from, ugly or painful things. And the
whole range of neutrality is usually unnoticed - unless you write poetry
or do something to be more mindful. Usually we're caught in the more
extreme reactions to the attractiveness and repulsiveness of sense
experience.
There is culture, refinement and beauty in the sensory realm, and we can
appreciate celestial and ethereal planes of mental creativity. However,
it is the lower elements which tend to be the easiest things to absorb
into: violence, sex, survival, which are the instinctual functions of
the animal world. If you want to turn on masses of people, you have to
appeal to that level. We must learn how to touch the earth and accept
instinctual nature, the four elements and planetary life as it is.
Meditation isn't an escape from the instinctual world, but an opening up
to it; it's a way of understanding the world, apart from the reactions
of indulgence or suppression.
We are not trying to deny the animal functions or instincts - or reject
them, suppress them - or identify with them as 'me' or 'mine'. But we
can reflect, we can note, we can accept them for exactly what they are,
rather than for what we believe them to be. Then we can appreciate the
intelligence and creativity of a human mind too, without becoming
attached to it.
This attachment (upadana} is really the crux of the matter.
Identification is attachment: 'I am this person, this personality.... I
am this body, this is "me". ... I am this way. ... I should be ... I
shouldn't be. . . .' And because of "I am' and 'me', there's 'you' -
because on this level of consciousness there is separation. We are
separate, aren't we? I'm here, and you're there.
If we understand this separation to be simply a conventional reality,
there is no attachment. We are merely using it for communication and for
practical reasons. But for most people that separation is the real
world: "Look after yourself. You have to look after yourself first.' 'I
have to protect myself. I only have one life, and I've got to see that I
can get everything I can out of it.' Parents say, 'Now, Sonny-boy,
you've got to be careful, you are not getting any younger. You've got to
make sure that you have your pay cheque and your social security, your
insurance, your hospital and medical insurance.' People think, 'When I
get old, I don't want to be a burden.' The elderly can be perceived as
burdensome and they see themselves as burdensome, because of
identification with the age of the body.
Contemplating this, we can observe all that we create out of these
illusions: 'I don't wane to be a burden. ... 1 should, I shouldn't. ...
I would like to be ... You should be, you shouldn't be ... You ought,
you ought not to . . .' and on and on in this fashion. Views, opinions,
identifications, preferences, attachments of all kinds - this is what we
call 'the real world', this is what we believe in as reality.
If you pick up a London newspaper you'll find all about "the real
world'. You can read about the financial problems and the business
world, the economic problems of Britain, the United States, the problems
of the Soviet Union, and the problems of the Third World countries.
Problems of individuals: who's divorcing whom, who's having an affair
with whom. Who's being a burden, who's not being a burden, and all kinds
of advice over what you should or shouldn't be. That's "the real world',
encapsulated in a few sheets of paper, with photographs.
Now that 'real' world is a poverty stricken world. It's meaningless. If
one believes in that and attaches to it then life is a very depressing,
increasingly depressing experience - because the world of separation,
alienation and division is a world of despair. It's anguishing. Most of
it is not particularly joyful - it's dukkha, it's suffering. So what
does it mean to be fully human? To be fully human is to be moral: you
can't say you are fully human unless you keep at least the five moral
precepts - otherwise you are only human some of the time. Now moral
responsibility, willingness to be responsible for one's actions and
one's speech, is not instinctual, is it? Instincts don't care about
speech and actions. In instinctual nature, if some- thing is in your way
then you just kick it out or kill it. The animal kingdom doesn't have
very much to say; the animal world doesn't seem to have developed highly
complicated speech patterns like humans. It's survival of the fittest in
the animal kingdom, because there's not the ability to rise up to a
moral commitment. To be responsible on the moral plane is a uniquely
human opportunity. So, in Buddhist terms, it's only when we rise to that
moral plane that we can say we are fully human. This is fulfillment of
our humanity, not a rejection of it.
Note that so much of the violence and murder is done in the name of
something noble: 'Kill the Heretics! . . . Kill the Communists!' But
this is all from the position of a 'not-quite' human, isn't it? It's
non-humans that do all this - because to be human, you have to be moral.
The first precept - Panatipata veramani, to refrain from intentionally
taking life - is actually applied, for us, to all beings. It is not for
us to decide who is going to live and who isn't. Other beings have as
much right to be here, to live on this planet, to breathe, as we do. So
this is the beginning of Humanity, because this is something we can
choose - instinct doesn't choose to do this. If somebody is being a
threat or a bother, our instincts tell us to get rid of them as quickly
as possible. But the human side says, 'Would I like to be treated like
that? Is that fair, is that right, is that a proper thing to be doing?'
My instincts say, 'Kill the mosquitoes! They're a nuisance, they give
you malaria. . . . Kill those blasted midges; get rid of them as quickly
as possible!' But then the human side says that they have as much right
to be here as I do. Who am I to think chat I, somehow, am more important
or have more right to breathe and to live my life than midges do? So
then from that position, I'm a little kinder, aren't I? I'm not so quick
to destroy that which I don't like - which bothers me or is a nuisance -
and I am much more willing to give it a chance, to try and understand
it, to respect it for what it i?, even though I may never like it. I
can't imagine myself ever liking midges - they are just not likeable to
humans. But one can accept them for what they are. When you contemplate
the amount of irritation they cause, then it's not that much; one can
put up with it, one can bear it - it's just the way things are. Their
lives are as important to them as my life is to me.
That is rising up to the plane of humanity. But I'm sure that the midge
doesn't reflect like that; I'm sure the midge doesn't say, 'Look,
there's Venerable Sumedho - he keeps the moral precepts, I'm not going
to bite him!' They are not human; they cannot rise up to the human
plane.
But we can sink down to their's very quickly. They are pain of the
sensory realm and following the instinctual tendencies of those bodies
with their survival mechanisms and all that. What we are doing in
Buddhist practice is rising beyond mere human existence towards the
refuges of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha - towards the transcendent, the
Death-less, Nibbana. For this, the human foundation is necessary; we
have to be fully human before we can expect to get beyond that. In order
to transcend it, we have to fully accept the instinctual plane and
respect it for what it is; we no longer condemn it or identify with it.
We can respect the midges, and the mosquitoes, and all the other beings.
So we are not judging the instinctual plane, or exalting it. It is what
it is - it's like this. We refrain from doing evil - from intentionally
doing cruel, unkind, selfish, mean things, or using our ability to speak
for harming others. Then from that human plane we can aspire to the
transcendent Deathless Realm, Amaravati. Our bodies will die when it is
the time for them to go; they die - that is their nature. The human
realm is not an end in itself. We have to learn from the human
experience - to know it, and rise up to it - but no longer attach to or
identify with it, because humanity is not what we are. We are not really
humans either! But, paradoxically, we have to be fully human to realise
we are not human. From the human plane we can contemplate the
instinctual plane. When you are caught in the instinctual plane you
can't very well contemplate it, be- cause you are just caught into that
level of activity and reaction. But going to the human plane, one can be
very much aware of the instinctual one for what it is. Then, from the
transcendent plane, we can understand the human one. Much of our
meditation is on seeing our own human limitations for what they really
are; that's why morality is such an important part of our training.
Daily reflections are also very important. We take time to consider what
it is to be human, and what is necessary for human survival: 'What do we
really need?', rather than 'What do we really want?' 'What is necessary
for living in the society in the right way?' As a Sangha, we must
consider how to be living examples for the society to see the beauty of
humanity, the gentleness, the kindness, the propriety of it - the wisdom
of the human realm. However, we are definitely not just pointing to the
human realm, but also beyond it. 1 find it very helpful to just be able
to contemplate what it is to be a human being - to be conscious. What is
it to be born and to age? All the things-that are affecting each one of
us are to be contemplated; none of it is to be dismissed or rejected.
The instinctual realm, the realm of survival and procreation, the
emotional realm, the intellectual realm, the ability to feel and to love
and to hate and so forth - all these are natural phenomena (dhammas) for
us to reflect on and to understand. Then as you awaken more and more,
and contemplate and understand more of the Dhamma, you can understand
why this world is the way it is.
Forest Sangha Newsletter: January 1991, Number 15
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