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Venerable
Ajahn Tiradhammo -
Joy in Spiritual Practice
The following teaching has been adapted from a talk given by Venerable
Tiradhammo on the seventh day of a ten day retreat in Switzerland, in May 1988. The 'Seven Factors of Enlightenment' referred
to in the talk
are mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, relaxation, concentration and
equanimity.
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When there is joy, we are ready to discover new things. ...If
we have already decided 'Life is suffering,' then we won't look any further.
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We can sometimes make the mistake in practice of thinking that the religious
life means some sort of self-flagellation. Or, we tend to believe that spiritual
practice should result in some special kind of purity. With this idea we
look at ourselves and, of course, all we see is impurity; having developed a
concept of enlightenment, we examine our own minds and see just the opposite -
confusion and conflict.
But the point is, these ideas we have about practice are just
ideas.
Thinking: 'I’m here and Nibbana is over there; I'm just a confused idiot and
Nibbana is all purity and profundity,' is merely projecting onto concepts. When
it comes down to real practice, enlightenment means actually being
aware of confusion itself. Wisdom is that which is aware of ignorance. It's not
a matter of knowing our wisdom, but of using wisdom to know ignorance!
The whole practice of mindfulness is about realizing the true nature of this
being right here. We're not trying to plug into some kind of 'Nibbanic Wisdom'
that's floating around in space or waiting for wisdom to fall into our laps. We
are being aware of the nature of the human condition as it is. Once we really
understand life as it is, then we can begin to transcend it. If we try to
transcend it before we actually know it, we're merely caught up in illusion.
Ajahn Chah used to say: 'First we have to pick things up before we can
realize how heavy they are.' When we see how heavy they are, then that's seeing 'dukkha'. Having seen dukkha, we let go. When we've let go of things then we
realize how light it actually is. ' Ah! What a relief.' And this is where joy
comes in - or piti as it's called in the 'Factors of Enlightenment'.
There are various translations of this term piti. As there are various
kinds of joy. We were talking yesterday about how, having been motivated by
dukkha to seek the 'Way', we arrive at trust - and this trust in turn conditions
joy.
So we have these various kinds of joy arising in practice from different
causes, and, personally I've found reflecting upon them very useful. The point
of joy and its function often seems to be missed when talking about spiritual
training.
Now piti is not just the pleasure of having a good time. But it's the
kind of experience that leads to opening up to life - to awakening. When there is
joy, we are ready to discover new things. On the other hand, if we have already
decided 'Life is suffering', and judged it as 'miserable', then we won't look
any further.
Consider children: notice how they observe and want to find out - the
fascination they have about things. Sadly, as adults, we've become too
sophisticated to go around looking into flowers and little things. We function
on a much more conceptual level.
When we see a flower we think 'flower'. And then, 'Yes, I know all about
flowers. I've seen flowers all my life and this is just another flower.'
Actually, each flower is a unique flower: it is here, at this moment, this time,
this place, this flower.
If we can truly listen, for instance, to a bird singing; there is just sound.
And that's quite different from thinking, 'Oh, another bird singing.' If we really
listen, there is simply sound happening right in this moment, in this place,
in this situation; and there is a knowing of that -there's hearing. And that's a
completely different reality from thinking 'bird singing'.
If we are always falling back into concepts, then the internal dialogue goes
chattering on: 'Bird singing. Flower over there. This person talking. I wish
they'd be quiet. Candle burning. ..' and so on. And we think we know
all about life! We continually juggle these concepts around in our heads and
all they ever do is move from one side of the brain to the other - out of the
memory to be verbalized, then back again. If we live with only concepts of life,
it can get pretty boring -it's the same old words -'flower, bird, tree'.
While it's natural that we learn and understand through language, and express
our understanding through language, many of us have become prisoners of
language. With meditation we have the opportunity now to bring about a profound
change in our Western civilization. We are trying to understand on a 'non -
conceptual' level. In meditation we are realizing the nature of experience
directly.
People who are completely identified with words may find this threatening,
but we're not talking about bypassing words altogether; we still have to express
ourselves; we still need to communicate. But we should recognize that the words
we use in communication are not the same as the experience we are attempting to
convey.
Such little space is given in our society to silence. Words have become so
loud and so powerful these days that sometimes that is all we hear. But
it is the very space of silence that gives us access to, and nurtures, another
way of relating. How wonderful to be like a child again and not be limited by
words!
In the beginning, children don't have a word for a flower. 'What is this?'
they enquire. And we tell them: 'It's a flower.' So okay, they have to learn to
communicate, but maybe we should try saying, 'Well, it's called a flower,
but that's not what it really is. It has its own perfect nature which is
just-the-way-it-is.' To know this 'just- the-way-it-is' is to know joy. And
knowing joy means we can bring back to life many of those beautiful qualities
that have become drained out of us. We have a secret key now that will help free
us from our habits.
The quality of joy can also be developed further. Beyond piti
or
spiritual joy there is a much more stable quality known as sukha. Generally,
this term sukha is translated merely as happiness - the opposite of dukkha - but that's not enough. Momentary happiness is like a butterfly that
flitters around. It's certainly 0. K., but it's not the profound quality of
well-being that is meant by sukha. Through having lived so much in
concepts, our life has become boring, and fleeting excitement has come to appear
as important to us.
Sukha, on the other hand, means: 'Everything is just fine.' It's a sense
of calm and well-being which pervades our whole body and mind. It makes the mind
peaceful and collected, providing a firm foundation for samadhi -
concentration.
But coming back to joy: joy is spontaneous. You can't preconceive it. You
can't make it. It just arises in the moment. When there is true joy, you are in
the moment. And joy in this way becomes a valuable reference point for us: if
there is true joy, then we know we're in the moment, and if we are really in the
moment, then there is true joy.
So try to discover where joy comes from. See what supports it and what causes
it to pass away. When we are doing this, we are beginning to cultivate joy as
one of the 'Factors of Enlightenment'. It becomes one of the qualities that
leads us to awakening.
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