December 2007 Newsletter

Vipassana Fellowship Newsletter

December 2007

"Endowed with faith and virtue too,
Generous he is and free from avarice;
He ever works to clear the path
That leads to well-being in future life"
- Anguttara Nikaya.

Start the New Year with meditation

Vipassana Fellowship's online meditation courses have been offered for 10 years and have proven helpful to meditators in many countries around the world. Our first course of 2008 begins in January and is an excellent way to begin the New Year. It 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 course is led by Andrew Quernmore, an experienced meditation teacher based in England, and begins on Saturday, January 26th, 2008. Andrew wrote our first course over ten years ago and he has personally led each course since then.

Registration for the January course is available at:

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

Standard applications are open now and early registration is recommended. (Our separate registration for 'Buddhist Homeland' residents - in India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Nepal, and Cambodia - opens on January 1st).

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/

The Baited Hook

by Leonard Price

Though seldom stated in so many words, a cherished belief of all human beings is that happiness lies in the satisfaction of our desires. All our actions are usually predicated on this seemingly self-evident fact. We are devoted to obtaining the objects of our desire; we consider it our right, our duty, and indeed our highest aspiration to get what we want, to obtain what we think will bring us enjoyment, satisfaction, or “fulfilment.” We are accustomed to asking one another, “What do you want out of life?” believing that if we can settle on some clear vision of happiness, and go after it, then all will be well.

Unfortunately, experience has a way of overturning our theories. Those manifold objects we yearn for prove troublesome to capture; when captured they yield less pleasure than expected; when held onto they decay and cause us grief. Then we are driven to turn for relief toward other enticements and thereby renew the cycle. Somehow we believe that if only this search for gratification is conducted correctly, if only the right objects are selected, if only we can have a little luck to add to our efforts, then we can certainly attain that permanent happiness that now eludes us. Badly thumped by fortune, we doggedly tell ourselves, “Yes, it’s worth all the pain,” and turn a swollen eye toward fresh delights.

But is it worth all the pain? Consider a succulent worm bobbing just below the surface of a pond, attracting the attention of a hungry fish. In a flash the fish swallows the worm, only to discover the hidden hook, the barb that rips into its innards and causes it terror, suffering, and ultimately death. The worm is attractive, but it delivers little satisfaction to the fish. Such is the nature of sense-pleasures. Those objects of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind that we find so alluring are more likely to cause us misery than happiness, and the surprising truth is that it is not so much our choice of objects that is at fault, but the mere act of choosing in the first place, since all phenomena of this world are in reality flawed, connected to suffering, and unreliable.

According to the Buddha, true happiness is not to be found in the deceptive sense-pleasures of the world — not in wine or wealth or roses. No matter how hard we try, we can never reach security as long as we persist in wrong views of the desirability of this or that sensual object. Without a clear understanding of the nature of phenomena our search is doomed from the outset. Our first task must be to confront the facts that the universe does not exist for our amusement and that such pleasures as we customarily derive from it are false, impermanent, and unworthy of our interest. While the Buddha does not deny the existence of enjoyment in world, he points out that all worldly pleasure is bound up with suffering, inseparable from suffering, and sure to give way to suffering. Therefore in embracing the pleasant we cannot help but embrace the unpleasant. Our craving prevents us from realizing these facts by continually projecting a false appearance on the world, convincing us that the tempting objects around us can actually be possessed and squeezed dry of some satisfying essence. Without the intervention of wisdom, craving will keep us running from one disappointment to another. Though we have many times taken the bait of sense-pleasure and suffered the inevitable pull of the hook, each new worm that comes wiggling through the water excites the heedless man.

The Buddha teaches that the solution to the terrible union of pleasure and pain is not to struggle hopelessly to split them apart, but to view the whole contaminated mass with detachment. All phenomena share the same characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and unsubstantiality, so it is futile to single out some objects for liking and others for loathing. The whole cast of mind that sees things in terms of liking-and-loathing must be abandoned in favour of the detached observation called “mindfulness.” Clearly, if the bait hides a hook we do best to curb our appetites.

Forsaking attachment to sense-pleasures is a logical application of the Four Noble Truths, yet even among those who subscribe to the teachings of the Buddha there can be found a deep-seated reluctance to move from theory to practice. The hold which craving has over our minds is so tenacious that we tend to straddle the abyss between truth and illusion, hoping to live in both with some fast philosophical footwork. For example, may we not propose that sense-pleasures are not in themselves harmful and may therefore be enjoyed in moderation? We may propose it, but we are apt to justify thereby any craving that enters our heads. As long as one regards any experience as personal or desirable, one remains mired in ignorance. There are pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings arising in the mind; they come and they go; they are to be observed, not sought after, because it is such seeking or craving that sustains the round of suffering.

Another common notion is that Buddhism may be employed to beautify life by making the individual more appreciative of the “harmony” of the universe. This is false on two counts. Firstly the Buddha did not aim to put a pleasing, comforting face on things, but to educate the individual to the ultimate worthlessness of suffering-dominated, conditioned existence. Secondly, the only “harmony” discernible here and now is the implacable and impersonal law of cause and effect — not the blissful oneness beloved of poets.

A third erroneous notion is that sense-pleasures may be pursued full speed if they are part of worthy efforts and worthy goals. This is a self-serving rationalization. While mundane aspirations may be quite wholesome in conception, as long as they provide a surreptitious vehicle for craving they are flawed. For the proper development of insight one needs to get rid of the idea of an ego or self that enjoys, possesses, and appropriates. The noble-minded man is detached from both ego and world. He acts for the welfare of himself and others without thought of reward or gratification. He is indifferent to results; he is not swayed by the pleasant and the unpleasant.

In considering the lure and danger of sense-pleasures, it is not difficult to see that most of us will ultimately defend our indulgences, not from logic but from the blind urge, “I want.” What harm, we reason, can there be in a little innocent delight? To clarify: the harm lies not in the sensation but in the deluded mind that fastens onto the sensation and clings to it obsessively. What behoves the diligent Buddhist is to get beyond the whole idea of liking and disliking, to set it aside, to cease entertaining it — in order to advance to the fruitful fields of direct insight.

Suppose then, that we acknowledge the danger of the baited hook and agree that the restless, craving mind is a source of suffering. What do we do about it? Often we complain, “I can’t help myself! I know it’s dangerous but I can’t help it.” Anyone who has tried to oppose his own ravenous appetites for pleasure, amusement, or gratification knows this sense of helplessness. A mind long accustomed to grasping is not dissuaded by mere rational arguments; it goes its own way, chewing up one experience after another in a hopeless search for happiness. So what is to be done? The trouble here, as is so often the case, is one of self-deception. Although we may say we understand the danger of sensual obsession and the advantage of restraint, our weakness shows that in fact we do not. Wisdom is simply incompatible with defilement. As long as we are willing to compromise with our obsessions we have not fully understood the Buddha’s teaching about the nature of reality. We may recognize intellectually that craving and clinging lead to suffering, but we have not penetrated to a direct experience of the truth. Much work remains to be done; we can’t simply throw up our hands and plead weakness.

If we truly recognize the hazards of succumbing to the baited hook, we must resist its enticements. Yet the Buddha does not recommend a stubborn, stoical self-abnegation. The disciple must deal with the problem intelligently. Escape from suffering does not depend on obliterating or denying sense-pleasures but on seeing them for what they are through the systematic practice of mindfulness. In ordinary life we are generally too caught up in gaining and losing to give sufficient attention to the elements and dynamics of the process. We are borne along on these ancient waves only because of compulsive habit. To stop our headlong career it is essential to develop and apply mindfulness, to cultivate scrupulous attention toward even the most mundane habits and desires. Steady mindfulness, intensified in meditation, reveals that the mind is a ceaseless torrent of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and mental impressions — never still for an instant, never stable enough to be considered substantial or enduring. What we loosely term the “external” world is likewise a blur of evanescent phenomena, all changing with incredible speed, arising and vanishing with no beginning or end in sight. Where then is the object that is truly desirable? Gone! Lost to view in the instant. Where is the one who desires? Gone! Thought succeeds thought, effect succeeds cause in a tumble of empty foam, with a desiring “self” nowhere to be found. Mindfulness discerns these truths directly, examining and breaking down experience until the “permanent” is understood as impermanent, until the “pleasant” is understood as unsatisfactory, until the “self” is understood as empty and unreal.

As with all of the truths taught by the Buddha, these three characteristics of existence must be realized through direct insight — not just through the ruminations of the intellect. The practice of mindfulness can lead us to such insight if we undertake the task with patience and impartiality. One who luxuriates in craving will remain twisting between misunderstood suffering and imagined pleasure, but one who recognizes danger will shun the baited hook and seek the bare facts of reality beneath the dazzling magic show of the senses.

By avoiding the baited hook of sense-pleasures we do not, as is sometimes maintained, rob life of all its joy. On the contrary, we abandon false satisfaction and approach the true happiness that is born of freedom. We take worldly enjoyment in moderation keeping it in perspective. The wise disciple does not dwell in gloom and try to see the bad side of every experience. If it is pleasant, he notes it as pleasant; if it is unpleasant, he notes it as unpleasant; if it is neutral, he notes it as neutral. Whatever its appearance, he regards it with mindfulness and does not cling to it. He enjoys life simply as he finds it. In so doing, he escapes the peril of hook and line and swims freely toward the end of suffering.

Again and again the Buddha exhorts his followers to be mindful, because the world is burning with greed, hatred, and delusion. Freedom can be won, but not by the careless, infatuated person. The one who attains freedom will be the one who has mindfulness, energy, and the courage to see the canker in the rose.

(Source: excerpt from Bodhi Leaves No.92, BPS, Kandy. For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted and redistributed in any medium. However, any such republication and redistribution is to be made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and translations and other derivative works are to be clearly marked as such.)

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 January. Our site can be accessed via the vipassana.com and vipassana.org domains.