August 2007 Newsletter

Vipassana Fellowship Newsletter

August 2007 Edition

"You won't understand what I mean when I say, 'Your problems come from your mind', but when you reach a point where you understand your mind really deeply then you will know. I live peacefully because I understand my mind deeply."- Sayadaw U Jotika

Next Online Meditation Course starting soon

Vipassana Fellowship's online meditation courses have been offered for 10 years and have proven helpful to meditators in many countries around the world. The main text is based on a tried and tested format and serves as a practical introduction to samatha (tranquillity or serenity) and vipassana (insight) techniques from the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. Intended primarily for beginners, the 90 day course is also suitable for experienced meditators who wish to explore different aspects of the tradition. The emphasis is on building a sustainable and balanced meditation practice that is compatible with lay life.

The course is suitable for users of any major operating system (Windows, Apple Mac, Linux) provided they have a recent web browser that can display Flash files. The course uses our Online Course Campus which adds additional flexibility and permits greater interactivity. Participants also receive an audio supplement on CD-Rom containing guided meditations and chants to support the online material.

Our courses are led by Andrew Quernmore, an experienced meditation teacher based in England, and the first begins on Saturday, September 1st, 2007. Andrew wrote our first course ten years ago and he has personally led each course since then.

Registration for the September course is available at:

http://www.vipassana.com/course/

Applications will be considered until the start of the course. Please note that the Audio Supplement is despatched from the UK by Airmail but late applicants will be able to work with online versions of the main audio files until the CD-Rom arrives. After the September course, we hope to offer a course in January 2008.

Parisa

If you have taken one or more of our online courses you are eligible to subscribe to our Parisa support and encouragement programme for former participants. Parisa provides ongoing access to our courses and new monthly material to provide inspiration for your practice.

http;//www.vipassana.com/parisa/

Joy and Sorrow

by Bhikkhu Dhammapala

One thing only do I teach:

Woe and how its end to reach.

(MN 22, Alagadduupamasutta)

In this saying the Lord Buddha has summed up the whole of his noble teaching, laid down its essential features, and indicated the line of thought and action, which we, his disciples, ought to follow, if we too wish to attain what so many have attained before us, and what all of us are striving for, Buddhists and non-Buddhists, knowingly or unknowingly-the attainment of the highest and purest bliss.

The very fact that we all are striving for greater happiness shows that the degree of happiness in our possession is not satisfactory, that that degree of happiness is not even considered as good. We do not strive for what is better, but for the best. The best, however, is not better than the good, but it is the good that we have recognized as such. And after having recognized it, all the rest cannot even compete; it becomes simply evil, and as such it is rejected, whatever other name we may give to it.

Because the good is not attained, the quest of the good involves striving, struggle. Hence it is that even the vaguest idea of happiness contains an element of no-more-struggle, no-more-striving, attainment, equilibrium, rest. It is the eternal rest we all are seeking.

"The night keeps hidden in its gloom the search for light;

The storm still seeks its end in peace, with all its might."

(Rabindranath Tagore)

Rest is the natural goal of all action; and all action, because it is non-attainment, is dissatisfactory: dukkha. As life is action, actuality, non-attainment, striving, it is also impermanent. Hence life is sorrow-fraught, because it is impermanent.

To see that there is suffering in the world is not such an extraordinary discovery. The greatness of the Buddha's insight, however, lies in the fact that he realized that everything is suffering; in other words he saw not merely that there was suffering in life, but he realized that life itself is suffering.

Thus suffering is actuality and as such it forms the foundation of the Buddha's teaching. This does not make Buddhism pessimistic. It has merely to be accepted as a fact, as the truth, as actuality. There is nothing to be unhappy about the fact of dukkha, but there is something to be learned from that fact. Indeed, the whole of Buddhism is dependent on it. Here in suffering lies the origin of Buddhism, and in the deliverance from suffering its culmination.

Even if Buddhism would teach the universal fact of suffering without showing at the same time the deliverance thereof, still it could not be said to be pessimistic; it would be stating the truth without exaggeration. But pessimism is an exaggeration towards the dark side. It would be pessimistic to state that no deliverance from, no cessation of suffering were possible. But the Buddha said: "As there is in the mighty ocean but one taste, the taste of salt, thus there is in my teaching but one taste, the taste of Deliverance" (Udaana).

So stands Buddhism marked, not as a pessimistic religion, a religion of sorrow and sadness, but as leading to the purest happiness and joy, because it teaches the deliverance from sorrow.

But in order to be delivered from sorrow, we must first understand what sorrow is.

Like the idea of happiness is linked up with eternal rest, so the idea of unhappiness is based on restless change. It is the teaching of change, of transience, of impermanence: anicca, which makes us understand all as suffering: dukkha.

To see the world as a continual flux, to see its dynamic nature, its perpetual impermanence, should not seem to be so very difficult to people who are used to discriminate. Yet most of those who even scientifically accept universal impermanence make a double exception, thereby breaking down their own logic. First of all there are those who are firmly convinced of the impermanent nature of all things, but who maintain at the same time an underlying substance that unchangingly supports the ever-changing phenomena. Secondly there are those who place themselves outside the field of observation, thus imagining to judge the phenomena objectively, as if they were the only fixed point in this raging ocean of change.

No, there is no exception to the law of nature that all component things are transient: sabbe sa.nkhaaraa aniccaa.

But why should suffering always be the result of impermanence? Not all separation is bound up with sorrow.

The rays of the setting sun part with the landscape, clouds are dispersed by the blowing wind, yet there is no suffering. Only that separation, only that transience, which is experienced through the delusion of self, is experienced as sorrow, But when there is no "self," when soullessness, "anattaa," is not only known but also realized, then there will still be transience, but no more sorrow. And transience too will be no more when all component things are decomposed.

Sorrow thus depends on transience, and on the misconception of "self." As long as "self" is not understood as a misconception, as a delusion, as an act of ignorance, so long also impermanency will not be understood as suffering. Here nothing can be learned by argument. Here nothing can help, but to pass, over and over again, through the crucible of suffering and thus to learn by experience. This is the meaning of sa.msaara. It is our egoism that makes us suffer, and suffer direly all the more, because we suffer in ignorance.

The fact of suffering is admitted by all, but it is not by all understood in the same way.

There are some, (like the Hindus) who do not see sorrow as real, but as an illusion; it is an illusion indeed to see sorrow as an illusion, not as real. There are others, (like the Christians,) who admit the widespread fact of sorrow in human life, but they consider it as a divine favour: "Blessed are the sorrowful." It is the sickly effect of an over-worked imagination. There are others again, (like the Moslems) who do not see much evil in the world at all and submit to it fatalistically. It is contrary to actuality.

But in Buddhism sorrow is not accepted as a blessing in disguise, but as an evil to get rid of; sorrow is not an illusion, but real enough, though it is dependent on ignorance; sorrow is not to be submitted to, but to be overcome. And Buddhism alone teaches how to overcome in a final victory which needs not to be fought again, because it teaches how to uproot the evil and cut down the root by the overcoming of craving, through which alone an escape from "self," from sorrow and transience is possible. If the breadth and the depth of a religion may be measured by the keenness of its analysis of evil and by the appropriateness of the salvation that it offers, then certainly the prize should go to Buddhism. For, when sorrow is identical with life, the only solution lies in no-more-rebirth. But rebirth and all the evil resulting therefrom will occur as long as there is the will to live.

Thus that will to live, that desire to be, that lust to enjoy, that craving to possess, that clinging to keep, has to be rooted out so that it will not grow again.

"Through not understanding the Noble Truths of Suffering, its origin, its cessation and the way to its cessation, we have been wandering in this beginningless sa.msaara, both you and I," said Lord Buddha (Parinibbaana Sutta).

It is ignorance that leads to rebirth, i.e., to sorrow; thus it is in knowledge that the great problem of life and death must be solved. To understand that decay, disease, death, sorrow, lamentation, grief, woe and despair are unsatisfactory does not require much understanding indeed. But to understand that birth is suffering, it is necessary to know that birth is not only the physical process in which a living being appears in this world, but also the mental conception that is followed by craving. It is the birth of the defilements (kilesajaati): greed, hate, delusion, pride, false belief, scepticism, sloth, agitation, unscrupulousness and recklessness of consequences. It is the birth of actions (kammajaati) that will give rise to effects (vipaakajaati). Understood in this way, any existence is evil, for it is arisen from craving and offers fresh fuel for ever-renewed craving. But to understand that life itself with all its beauty and joy is suffering, one must have tasted and understood the impermanency of life. Experience and understanding both are necessary. For if transience is only experienced, it might well become a new source of fresh delight which keeps away the boredom and the tedium of constant and unchanging beauty and joy. Is not the sea made beautiful by the rise and fall of her waves? Do not the different seasons add to the attraction of nature? Does not a change of food add to better appetite, a change of climate to better health?

But the fact that our craving ever wants a new supply of new delights must lead to disappointment, because the supply is not always at our command. Not to understand this is ignorance of the first Noble Truth of the universality of sorrow. To miss this point is to miss the whole of Buddhism. No introduction, no argument can be of any use. He who finds happiness in suffering, who is satisfied with what he has, will never seek beyond. The understanding, the realization of sorrow, of life as sorrow, is a growth of insight. No fruits can be expected of a seedling; growth is necessary and development, till at the proper season from the fading blossom of transience, will ripen the fruit of understanding.

What matters it, if that fruit be bitter in taste, as long as it cures the chronic disease of craving? Sorrow, if recognized as a by-product of "self," may become the means, may open the road to Deliverance, as the proper diagnosis of an illness is the first step, the chance for a cure.

But the sorrow, the suffering, on which the Lord Buddha based his doctrine of actuality and deliverance, is more than pain-laden affections. The five aggregates of clinging (pa.tcupadaanakkhandhaa), the psycho-physical composition of mind and body (naama-ruupa) itself is said to be sorrow. Thus suffering is both bodily and mental; it is the imperfection inherent in life, whatever form that life may take.

A certain amount of happiness may fill the emptiness within to some extent, but that craving, like an abysmal emptiness, will never be fulfilled. Before the cup is full to the brim, it has sprung a leak at the bottom. Hence that constant thirst resulting from that fleeting happiness. When the object of craving is within reach for a moment, that craving becomes clinging (ta.nhaa-paccayaa upaadaana); but clinging is impossible because all is impermanent (anicca).

Even if one finds some little happiness through satisfying one's desire, does this mean that complete satisfaction will give complete happiness? Because a thirsty man gets satisfaction in drinking water, everlasting bliss is not found in being drowned.

It is the want that makes one strive for satisfaction, but if that satisfaction is obtained, the need for it is no longer felt, and it is not wanted any more.

Even the satisfaction bears in itself the seed of fear and discontent, fear owing to its uncertainty, discontent over its impermanence, which is even hidden in the folds of smiling lips, while it leaves one afterwards emptier than ever before.

The satisfaction of a want is not a final satisfaction; it seems only to create a new want instead.

Modern civilization has made much progress and given to man many comforts. But those very comforts have only made life more complicated; easier communications have made the problems and quarrels of families those of nations. It is like an attempt to reach the horizon; the harder one strives, the greater is the disappointment for not getting nearer the goal.

But why then is the goal unattainable?

It is because the goal exists not in reality but only the mind's fiction. Not by striving, but by bringing the mind at peace, by giving up even the idea of self, is it possible to attain that rest and equilibrium which form the foundation and essence of happiness.

But the striving, which is involved even in the attainment of states of spiritual absorption (jhaana), is attended with great difficulties and is known as the distressful path (dukkha-pa.tipadaa). It would be interesting to draw a comparison here with what mediaeval spiritual authors have called "the dark night of the soul."

Thus "dukkha" is not only bodily pain (kaayika dukkha) and mental distress (cetasika dukkha), that is physical and psychological suffering-it is also the ethical, religious experience as opposed to bliss and even the difficulty encountered in the process of attaining that bliss. Nay, even joy and delight itself is called sorrow-fraught: "nandi pi dukkhaa": not merely because joy and delight are not lasting, but far more because delight is a fetter (nandi-sa.myojana) which will prevent the attainment of perfect freedom.

Though delight is thus shown as a source of sorrow, yet sorrow, well understood, can become a source of happiness. Here especially lies the greatness of the Buddha's teaching-that it shows the deliverance from sorrow and also from pleasure, which leads to sorrow.

Like the knowledge of an illness, though painful in itself, may be the reason why one consults a doctor, who finally cures the disease-similarly the understanding of all life as suffering will be the driving force to seek a remedy. And as of all religious teachers only the Buddha has pointed out all life as sorrow-fraught, it is natural that to him we turn in confidence.

Confidence is not the same as Faith. For Faith is in things that cannot be known; knowledge destroys faith and faith destroys itself, for it is based on that which it cannot know. Faith is defined (by Pope Pius X) as a real assent of the intellect, thus condemning those Modernists holding that faith is merely a blind feeling about religion in the sub-consciousness.

Voltaire said: "The proof of faith is that it is unintelligible." "Faith is to believe in something which your reason tells you cannot be true, for if your reason approved of it, there could be no question of blind faith." (Edwin Montagu).

Confidence, however, is not a mental acceptance of that which cannot be known; it is an assured expectation, not of an unknown beyond, but of what can he tested and experienced and understood by every one for oneself (paccatta.m veditabbo vi.t.tuuhi). It is the confidence a student has in his teacher who explains in the classroom the inverse square law of gravitation as stated by Newton. But if the student has heard something of the relativity-theory of Einstein, he will not implicitly believe his teacher and his textbook, but reserve his judgment till the time that he will be able to investigate for himself.

Likewise a student of Buddhism will have confidence in the Teacher, because his teaching can be tested and ought to be tested. As a doctrine of actuality Buddhism cannot attach any value to blind submission. No possible good "can follow from the neglect of use of the very sense which lifts man sky-high above his surroundings, the use of reason. But when, walking on the Path, one sees the light grow while proceeding, one may safely continue in confidence and yet investigate the path step for step. It is that confidence, which is the immediate fruit of the understanding of sorrow: dukkhupanisaa saddhaa. And it is that same confidence which gives already that first taste of the happiness towards which all striving is moving. It is the joy (paamojja) of having found a possibility to escape from this round of birth, suffering and death; the increase of that joy will become sheer delight (piiti) only to make place for a serene tranquillity (passaddhi) and that sense of security, equilibrium, the bliss of well-being (sukha), which is the very opposite of that sense of insecurity, unbalanced striving, which is sorrow-fraught (dukkha).

When this tranquillity and sense of security have been obtained through the experience and understanding of suffering, the vicissitudes of life will no longer be able to create disturbances in the peace of mind.

Concentration of mind (samaadhi) will become a second nature; and in that natural peacefulness things will be seen in their real nature, not coloured by likes or dislikes, not disfigured by passions, not hazed by ignorance, like objects seen at the bottom of a rippleless lake of clear water.

It is with this knowledge and insight into the real nature of things (yathaabhuuta.taa.nadassana) that the golden mean can be attained, when exaggerated enthusiasm is cooled down, thus preventing the disillusion of the idealist; on the other hand preventing also the other extreme which makes life materialistic, mechanical and sombre.

By seeing things as they really are, valueless trifles will not be treated as occurrences of the highest importance, which tend to make life unnecessarily complicated.

It will leave room for a sense of humour in which we may laugh even at ourselves, for it is the sense of actuality which gives the sense of humour, in which the world is seen but as the world:

"a stage where every man must play a part "

(Merchant of Venice).

"a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

(Macbeth, V. 5).

It is the lack of this insight that creates worry, a resultant of craving. The world puts all its "self" in every action, and thus the reaction is so keenly felt. Indeed, dukkha has no existence apart from ta.nhaa. This world is merely the shadow of truth, for the world as we know it is only the reaction of our contact and thus the reflection of our "self." The more of "self" we have put in, the greater will be the reaction-thus we make our own sorrow and suffering. But for all that it remains a reaction all the same, a shadow, a reflection of self.

"The world is a comedy to those who think,

A tragedy to those who feel."

(Horace Walpole).

We all can enjoy even the most terrible misery as long as it is painted upon a piece of canvas; then we can appreciate the skilfulness of the artist, the exquisiteness of forms, the beauty of colours, hardly being moved by the represented misery. The reason is that it is not "real," by which we mean that we do not take part in it, there is no "self" in it, and we are mere spectators.

Thus we are mere spectators in this picture palace of the universe. Even if we see ourselves acting on the screen, we know that that is no real self who suffers or rejoices. It is mere acting.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.

(As You Like It, 11 7).

This sense of humour may seem rather grim now and then, as if mocking at what is holiest and dearest, at life itself. It is the grin of a skull which can look at life from the other side of the grave. Thus he who perceives and understands sorrow and the emptiness of sorrow, he perceives also a sense of the human comedy.

Through understanding the real nature of things, through understanding the nature and origin of sorrow and suffering, i.e. of actuality-weariness, repulsion, disgust (nibbidaa) arise which can only lead to passionlessness, dispassion (viraaga), the detachment from world and self, from matter and mind which is the real freedom and release (vimutti) for which we all are striving. Detachment, indeed, is not a morbid asceticism which aims at mortification of the flesh, or at subjection of the mind, but it should grow from understanding as necessarily as a flower in due season from a well developed plant. It is the knowledge of things as fearful (bhaya-.taa.na) and the knowledge of things as dangerous (aadiinava-.taa.na), the understanding of the evil of conditionality (sa.nkhaara-dukkha) and of the evil of changeability (vipari.naama-dukkha), which make craving and clinging impossible, because the object is no longer seen as one worthy to possess, but rather as one causing disgust. Craving for, and attachment to, disgusting states or things is impossible; and thus it is that the realization of suffering, so far from being pessimistic, leads to the deliverance from all suffering and even to the deliverance from a possible return.

Once a misconception is realized as such, it cannot be reinstated, but clarity of insight will lead to purity of virtue (siila-visuddhi), the first of the seven stages of Purity on the way to Nibbaana.

Virtue thus purified will further purify the mind with further progress on the Path of Holiness, till finally the fruit of Sainthood (arahatta-phala) is obtained, where a final death with no more rebirth will make an absolute end to all suffering, happy (sukha) because free from all sorrow, desirable (subha) because free from all desires, which are the causes of sorrow, eternal (dhuva) because free from becoming and rebirth which result in decay and death.

May all attain to that birth-less, death-less state, the supreme deliverance of heart and mind, Nibbaana.

Source: BPS Wheel Publication 132-4. Copyright: 1944-2007, BPS, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

The Vipassana Fellowship Newsletter is published about 10 times each year and is sent only on request and to previous participants of our courses. Vipassana Fellowship is an organisation dedicated to the dissemination of accurate and useful information on Buddhist meditation practices as found in the Theravada tradition. Our next mailing will be in September. Our site can be accessed via the vipassana.com and vipassana.org domains.