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Venerable
Ajahn Viradhammo -
So What
The following teaching on the 'Four Noble Truths'
is taken from a talk given by Venerable Viradhammo during a ten-day retreat
conducted in Bangkok for Thai lay people, in June 1988.
This teaching is not aimed at just
getting another kind of experience. It is about complete freedom within any
experience.
This evening we might begin by
considering the legend of the life of the Lord Buddha. Now we could consider
this story as factual history. Or, we could also look at it as a sort of myth -
a story that reflects back on our own development as beings seeking truth.
In the story we are told that
before his enlightenment, the Bodhisatta {Buddha-to-be) lived in a royal
family with a lot of power and influence. He was a very gifted person, and had
all that any human being could wish for: wealth, intelligence, charm, good
looks, friendship, respect, and many skills. He lived the princely life of
luxury and ease.
The legend has it that when the Bodhisatta was first born, his father the king received a prediction from
the wise-men. They said there were two possibilities: either this son would
become a world- ruling monarch, or he would become a perfectly enlightened
Buddha. Of course the father wanted his son to carry on the business of being a
monarch; he didn't want him to become a renunciate. So everybody in the palace
was always trying to protect the prince. Whenever anyone grew vaguely old or
sick they were taken away; nobody wanted the prince to see anything unpleasant
that might cause him to leave.
But then at the age of
twenty-nine, curiosity struck. The prince wanted to see what the world outside
was like. So off he went out with his charioteer and - what did he see? The
first thing he saw was a sick person - all covered with sores, in pain, and
lying in his own filth. A thoroughly wretched human condition.
'What's that the prince asked
his attendant. The attendant replied: 'That's a sick person.' After a discussion
the prince realized, for the first time, that these human bodies can become sick
and painful. The attendant pointed out that all bodies had this potential. This
came as a great shock to the prince.
The following day he went out
again. This time he saw an old person: all bent over with age, shaking,
wrinkled, gray-haired, barely able to hold himself up. Again, shocked by what he
saw, the prince asked: 'What's that 'That's an old person,' the attendant
replied. 'Everybody grows old.' So the prince realized that his body too had
this potential to become old. With that he went back to the palace quite
bewildered by it all.
The third time he went out, and
saw a dead person. Most of the townsfolk were busy, happily waving at their
attractive prince, thinking he was having a great time. But behind the crowds,.
there were people carrying a stretcher with a corpse on it, going to the funeral
pyre. That was a really powerful one for him. ' And what is that?!' he
asked. So the attendant replied: 'That's a corpse. All bodies go that way; your
body, my body, they all die.' That really shocked him.
The next time the Bodhisatta
went out he saw a mendicant monk - sitting under a tree meditating. 'And who is
that he asked. The attendant replied: 'That's a sadhu - someone who is
seeking the answers to life and death.'
So we have this legend. Now
what does this mean for you and me? Is it just a historical tale to tell our
children, a tale about a person who didn't see old age, sickness or death until
he was twenty-nine?
For me, this story represents
the awakening of a human mind to the limitations of sensory experience.
Personally I can relate to this from a time when I was at university. I
questioned life a lot: 'What is it all about 'Where is this all going to? I
used to wonder about death, and started thinking: 'What is the point of getting
this university degree? Even if I become a famous engineer, or if I become rich,
I'm still going to die. If I become the best politician, or the best lawyer, or
the best whatever. . Even if I was to become the most famous rock star that ever
existed. ..Big deal.' At that time, I think Jimi Hendrix had just taken too much
heroin and died.
Nothing I thought of could
answer the question of death. There was always: 'So what? ...So ifl have a
family? So if l am famous? So if I'm not famous? So if l have a lot of money? So
if l don't have a lot of money?' None of these things resolved this doubt: 'What
about death? What is it? Why am I here? Why seek any kind of experience if it
all goes to death anyway?'
Questioning all the time like
this made it impossible for me to study. So I started to travel. I managed to
distract the mind for a time, because traveling was interesting: Morocco,
Turkey, India. ..But I kept coming back to
this same conclusion: 'So what? So if I see another temple, if I see another
mosque, if I eat yet another kind of food - so what?'
Sometimes this doubt arises for
people when somebody they know dies, or if they become sick, or old. It can also
come from religious insight. Something in the mind clicks, and we are awakened
to the fact that no matter what experiences we have, they all change, they come
to an end, they die. Even if I'm the most famous, powerful, richest, influential
person in the world, all that is going to die. It's going to cease. So this
question 'So what?' is an awakening of the mind.
If we were to do this ten-day
retreat with the idea of getting 'a meditation experience', then 'So what?' We
still have to go back to work, still have to face the world, still have to go
back to Melbourne, still have to go back to New Zealand. ...So what! What is the
difference between 'a meditation experience' and doing a cruise on The Queen
Elizabeth II? A bit cheaper maybe!
The Buddhist teaching is not
aimed at just getting another kind of experience. It is about understanding the
nature of experience itself. It is aimed at actually observing what it means to
be a human being. We are contemplating life, letting go of delusion, letting go
of the source of human suffering and realizing truth, realizing Dhamma. And
that's a different process altogether.
When we're doing 'mindfulness
of breathing' - anapanasati - we're not doing it with the effort to get
something later. We're doing it to simply be with what is: just being with
an in-breath, being with an out-breath. And what is the result when we're being mindful in this way? Well, I think we can all see. The mind becomes
calm, our attention is steady -we are aware and with the way things are.
So already we are able to see
that calming the mind is a healthy and compassionate thing to do for ourselves.
Also, notice how this practice creates space in the mind. We can see now the
potential for really 'being attentive' to life. Our attention is not caught up.
We're not being 'kidnapped' all the time. We can really work with attention.
If we're obsessed with
something, then our attention is absorbed into the object of obsession. When
we're worried, exhausted, upset, excited, desiring, depressed and so on, our
attention energy is lost. So by calming the mind we're creating space and
'freeing' attention.
And there is a beauty in that.
When we go outside after this meditation period, maybe we'll notice things in a
different way - the green trees, the smells, what we're walking on, the little
lotuses in bloom. These pleasant experiences calm and relax us and are very
helpful l - the same as going on a cruise. In New Zealand they go trekking in
the mountains for relaxation.
But this kind of happiness, or sukha, is not the full potential of the Buddha. A lot of joy can come with this
level of practice, but that is not enough. The happiness of a relatively calm
mind is not complete freedom. This is still just another experience. It's still
caught in 'So what!'
The complete freedom of the
Buddha comes from the work of investigation - dhammavicaya. It is
completely putting an end to all conflict and tension. No matter where we are in
life, there are no more problems. It's called 'the unshakable deliverance of the
heart' - complete freedom within any experience.
One of the wonderful things
about this Way is that it can be applied in all situations. We don't have to be
in a monastery, or even to have a happy feeling, to contemplate Dhamma. We can
contemplate Dhamma within misery. We often find that it is when people are
suffering that they start coming to the monastery. When they're happy and
successful it probably wouldn't occur to them. But if their partner leaves home,
or they lose their job, get cancer, or something, then they say, 'Oh, what do I
do now?'
So for many of us, the Buddha's
teaching begins with the experience of suffering - dukkha. This is what
we start contemplating. Later on we find that we also need to contemplate
happiness - sukha. But people don't begin by going to the Ajahn, saying:
'Oh Venerable Sir, I'm so happy! Help me out of this happiness.'
Usually we begin when life
says: 'This hurts.' Maybe it's just boredom; for me it was the contemplation of
death - this 'So what?' Maybe it's alienation at work. In the West we have
what's called 'the middle-age crisis'. Men around the age of forty-five or fifty
start to think: 'I've got it all,' or, '1 haven't got it all, so what?' 'Big
deal.' Something awakens and we begin to question life. And since everybody
experiences dukkha, in its gross and refined aspects, it's beautiful that the
Teaching begins here - the Buddha says, 'There is dukkha.' No one can deny that.
This is what the Buddhist teaching is based upon - actually observing these
experiences we have - observing life.
Now the worldly way of
operating with dukkha is to try to get rid of it. Often we use our intelligence
to try and maximize sukha and minimize dukkha. We are always trying to figure
out how to make things more convenient. I remember a discourse that Luang Por
once gave about this.
In the monastery we used to all
join in hauling water from the well. There would be two cans of water on a long
bamboo pole, and a bhikkhu at each end to carry them. So Ajahn Chah said: 'Why
do you always carry water with the monk that you like? You should carry water
with the monk you dislike!' This was true. I was a very speedy novice and would
always try to avoid carrying water with a slow old bhikkhu in front. It drove me
crazy. Sometimes I'd get stuck behind one of them, and be pushing away.
So having to carry water with a
monk I disliked was dukkha. And, as Ajahn Chah said, I would always try to
figure out how to have things the way I wanted. That's using intelligence to try
to maximize sukha and minimize dukkha. But of course even if we do get what we
want, we still have dukkha; because the pleasure of gratification is not
permanent -it is anicca. Imagine eating something really delicious; in
the beginning it would feel pleasurable. But if you had to eat that for four
hours! It would be awful.
So what do we do with dukkha?
The Buddhist teaching says: use intelligence to really look at it. That's why we
put ourselves in a retreat situation like this with the Eight Precepts. We're
actually looking at dukkha rather than just trying to maximize sukha. Monastic
life is based on this also; we're trapped in these robes.
But then we have an incredible
freedom to look at suffering - rather than just ignorantly trying to get rid of
it. Wearing these robes in the West can be
really difficult. It's not like wearing a robe in Thailand! When we first moved
to London I felt so out of place. As a lay person I always dressed to not be
noticed, but in that situation we were up front all the time. That was dukkha
for me; I felt very self-conscious. People were looking at me all the time. Now,
if I had had the freedom to maximize sukha and minimize dukkha, I would have put
on a pair of jeans, a brown shirt, grown a
beard and been one of the mob. But I couldn't do that because I had renunciation
precepts. Renunciation is giving up the tendency to always try to maximize
pleasure. I really learned a lot in that situation.
We all have responsibilities:
family, job, career and so on. And these are kinds of limitations, aren't they ?
What do we do with them? Rather than resent these limitations and say: 'Oh if
only it were different, I would be happy,' we can consider: 'Now this is a
chance to understand.' We say: 'This is the way it is now. There is dukkha.' We
actually go towards that dukkha; we make it conscious - bring it into mind. We
don't have to create dukkha especially, there's already enough suffering in this
world. But the encouragement of the teachings is to actually feel the
dukkha that we have in life.
Maybe on this retreat you find
during a sitting that you are bored and restless, and waiting for the bell to
ring. Now you can actually notice that. If we didn't have this form, then we
could just walk out. But what happens if I walk out on restlessness? I might
think I've gotten rid of restlessness, but have I? I go and watch T. V. or read
something- I keep that restlessness going. And then I find my mind is not
peaceful: it's filled with activity. Why? Because I've
followed sukha and tried to get rid of dukkha. That is the constant, painful,
restlessness of our lives. It is so unsatisfactory, so unpeaceful - not Nibbana.
The First Noble Truth of the
Buddhist teaching is not saying, 'Get this experience.' It says look at the
experience of dukkha. We are not expected to merely believe in Buddhism as a
'teaching', but to look at dukkha - without judging. We are not saying I
shouldn't have dukkha. Nor are we just thinking about it. We're actually feeling
it- observing it. We're bringing it to mind. So, there is dukkha.
The teaching then goes on to
consider that dukkha has a cause and also that it has an end. A lot of
Westerners think that Buddhism is a very negative teaching, because it talks
about suffering. When I first had the inspiration to become a Buddhist monk, I
was in India. Then my grandfather died so I went back to Germany for the
funeral. I tried to talk to my mother about ordination. But when I mentioned
suffering, she got quite upset; she took it quite personally. She didn't
understand what I was saying: that this is simply what human beings have to go
through.
So the Buddha wasn't just
talking about dukkha. He was also talking about the cause of dukkha, the end of
dukkha and a path to that end. This teaching is about enlightenment -
Nibbana. And that is what this Buddha-image is saying. It's not an image of
the Buddha suffering. It's of his enlightenment; it's all about freedom.
But to be enlightened we have
to take what we've got, rather than try to get what we want. In the worldly way
we usually try to get what we want. All of us want Nibbana - right? -
even though we don't know what it is. When we're hungry, we go to the fridge and
get something, or we go to the market and get something. Getting, getting,
always getting something. ...But if we try to get enlightenment like
that, it doesn't work. If we could get enlightenment the same way as we get
money, or get a car, it would be rather easy. But it's more subtle than that. It
takes intelligence - panna. It takes investigation, dhammavicaya.
So now we're using
intelligence not to maximize sukha and minimize dukkha, but to actually look at
dukkha. We're using intelligence to consider things skillfully. 'Why am I
suffering?' So you see, we're not dismissing thought; thought is a very
important faculty. But if we can't think clearly then it's not really possible
to use the Buddhist teachings. However, you don't need a Ph.D. in Buddhism
either.
Once when I was in England, we
went to go see a chap in Lancaster. He had just finished a 'Master's' thesis on sunyata
- ten thousand words on emptiness. He wanted to make us a cup of coffee. So
he put the coffee in the cups with the sugar and milk, and offered them to us -
forgetting to put in the water. He could do a 'Master's' degree on emptiness,
but it was more difficult to mindfully make a cup of coffee. So intelligence in
Buddhism isn't just an accumulation of ideas. It's more grounded than that. It's
grounded in experience.
Intelligence is the ability to
observe life and to ask the right questions. We're using thought to direct the
mind in the right way. We're observing and opening the mind to the situation.
And it is in this openness, with the right questions, that we have vipassana practice:
insight into the way we are. The mind is taking the concepts of the teaching,
and channeling intelligence towards human experience. We're opening, being
attentive, and realizing the way things are. This investigation of the Four
Noble Truths is the classic application of intelligence in Theravada Buddhism.
So simply observing dukkha is
not trying to get an experience, is it? It is accepting responsibility for our
dukkha - our inner conflict. We feel the inner conflict - 'I am
suffering.' And we ask: 'What is the cause ?'
The teaching says, dukkha
begins and ends - it's not permanent. Suppose I'm feeling uncomfortable during
the sitting, and I turn to that dukkha and ask: 'What is the cause of this
suffering?' 'It's because the body is uncomfortable,' comes the answer. So I
decide to move. But after five minutes, I find the body is uncomfortable again.
So this time, I look at the feeling a little more closely. And I notice
something more: '1 don't want discomfort. I want pleasant
feeling.' Ah! So it's not the painful feeling that's the problem - it's the not
wanting the painful feeling. Now that is a very useful insight, isn't it?
That's a bit deeper. I find that now I can be at peace with painful feeling and
don't have to move. I don't get restless and the mind becomes quite calm.
So I've seen that the cause of
the problem isn't the painful feeling - it's the 'not wanting' that particular
feeling. 'Wanting' is quite tricky stuff. It comes in many forms. But we can
always apply this same investigation: 'What is it I want now?' The Second Noble
Truth - samudaya - says that the cause of suffering is attachment to
wanting - tanha. It makes us feel that if we get what we want we'll be
fulfilled: 'If I have this' or 'If I become that' or 'If I get rid of this and
don't have that'. ...And that's samsara rolling on. Desire and fear,
pushing beings into always becoming: always seeking rebirth, leading endless
busy lives.
But the Buddha says that there
is also 'a way out'. There is an end to suffering. The end of suffering we call nirodha
- cessation - or Nibbana. When I first read about Nibbana, I
understood it to mean no greed, no hatred and no delusion. So I thought if only
I can get rid of all greed, hatred and delusion, then that would be Nibbana - it
seemed that way. I tried and it didn't work. I got more confused.
But as I continued to practise,
I found that the 'cessation of suffering' meant the ending of these things in
their own time - they have their own energy. I couldn't say to myself: '0. K.
Tomorrow I'm not going to be greedy or afraid.' That was a ridiculous idea. What
we have to do is to 'contain' these energies until they die - until they cease.
If I felt angry and were to act on it, maybe I would kick someone in the shins.
Then they'd kick me back, and we'd have a fight. Or, I'd go back to my hut and
meditate, and hate myself. It goes on and on because I've reacted to it. If I'm
either following it or trying to get rid of it, then it doesn't cease. The fire
doesn't die.
The Teaching of the Four Noble
Truths says then: we have suffering - dukkha; there is a cause -
samudaya; there is an end - nirodha; and a path to that end -
magga. This is such a practical teaching. In any situation of inner conflict
we can take responsibility for what we're feeling: 'Why am I suffering? What am
I wanting now? We can investigate- using dhammavicaya.
It is important that we
actually apply these Teachings. Luang Por used to say: 'Sometimes people who are
very close to Buddhism are like ants that crawl around on the outside of the
mango. They never actually taste the juice.' Sometimes we hear the structure of
the teachings and think we understand- 'It's just a way of observing life,' we
say. But the teachings are not just an intellectual structure. They are saying
that experience itself has a structure, which must be understood.
So we're not merely using
intelligence to maximize sukha and minimize dukkha. We are using it to free the
mind, to go beyond, to realize the unshakable deliverance of the heart, to
realize Nibbana. We're using intelligence for freedom, not just frivolity; to
liberate the mind, not just to be happy. We're going beyond happiness and
unhappiness. We're not just trying to get another experience- it is a different
attitude altogether.
I'll leave you with that for
tonight.
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