The Freedom to Suffer
Based on a talk given at The Karuna Institute (Psychotherapy Training Centre),
Devon, in April 1997 and appearing in The Gift of Well-Being, a collection of
Ajahn Munindo's talks.
It can take a long time before we find out what the real point of Buddhist practice
is. There are innumerable doctrines, beliefs and techniques in this Way, but
none of them is an end in itself. All of them are included in an overall training
which is called cittabhavana, or 'the training of the heart'. The word citta
is variously rendered in translation as 'heart', 'awareness', and sometimes
as 'consciousness'. Bhavana literally means 'to bring into being'. So cittabhavana
can also be translated as 'cultivation of awareness'. This subject is obviously
central both to what you are doing here as psychotherapists and to what we are
doing in our monastic training, so I am glad that we have this opportunity to
consider it together. It is easy, as I said, for us to take quite some time
before we get the core message that awareness itself is what we are working
on. It is very important that we do come to see that all the different skilful
means offered in Buddhism are in reference to this.
Back in the 1960s and '70s many of us were out in Asia looking for something
that we hoped would fill up an emptiness we felt we had inside, an inner sense
of lacking. In keeping with our expectations, we found a large variety of systems
and substances, some more helpful than others. Buddhist monasteries and teachers
were amongst what we came across. What we thought they were offering was this
wonderful idea of enlightenment. We were tremendously inspired and believed
this meant that if at some time in the future we fully grasped this idea, then
we would be free from any sense of lacking for ever more; we would be free from
suffering altogether. We were tending to approach what we found there in the
same way that we approached our everyday life, that is, as consumers: "How
can I become enlightened? What must I do to get this freedom from suffering?"
I heard a story of a young Westerner travelling around Southeast Asia who was
particularly concerned that he didn't join up with anything but the best tradition
and so he proceeded to go from teacher to teacher conducting interviews with
them. He asked each one in turn the question, "What was the Buddha doing
under the Bodhi tree?" I imagine he planned to compare all the answers
and then make his choice. Each teacher naturally replied from their own perspective.
The first, a Japanese teacher living in Bodhgaya, said, "Oh, the Buddha
was doing shikantaza." Then another teacher said, "The Buddha was
definitely practising anapanasati." Another replied, "The Buddha was
doing dzogchen." And further, "The Buddha was sitting in vipassana
meditation." When this seeker visited Thailand and asked Ajahn Chah what
the Buddha was doing under the Bodhi tree, Ajahn Chah replied: "Everywhere
the Buddha went he was under the Bodhi tree. The Bodhi tree was a symbol for
his Right View."
Whenever I recall this story, I like what it does to me. There is a turning
around of attention and a remembering of the essential point of our practice.
I find myself returning to the heart of the matter, or to the only place where
I can make the kind of effort that brings about a difference. Of course it is
understandable that we don't get it altogether right in the beginning and spend
energy holding on to an initial idea about becoming enlightened. These ideas
are the seeds which grow into a fuller way of practice. However, we do need
to recognise that what is on offer in this Way is a complete training in awareness
- not just an idea. We take up the training as we would take up an invitation;
in this case an invitation to assume our own true place within our body/minds.
The Buddha's path of training isn't a mere conditioning aimed at fitting us
into anybody else's form or anybody else's understanding.
The model I find helpful in contemplating our training is that of awareness
as capacity. Our experiences are all received into awareness. How well or how
freely we receive life is dependent on our hearts' capacity; or, we could say,
on the degree of awareness we are living as. With this model, we can examine
exactly how, where and when we set the limitations on our capacity to receive
experience, what the limitations we place on awareness are, and what this feels
like.
One of the chants which we regularly recite in the monastery says: appamano
Buddho, appamano Dhammo, appamano Sangho. The word appamana translates as 'without
measure'. So this verse means: "Limitless is the Buddha, limitless is the
Dhamma, limitless is the Sangha." One way of seeing what was unlimited
about the Buddha is to look at his quality of awareness. The Buddha's heart
capacity was boundless and accordingly he could accommodate unlimited experience
without the slightest stress. He went beyond any compulsive tendency to set
limitations on awareness and so was untroubled by anything that passed through
his awareness. Hence we say, "I go for refuge to the Buddha"; or we
orient all our conscious effort towards the possibility of limitless awareness.
We know we need to do this if we want to awaken out of the agonising sense of
limited being. It is because we come up against the humiliating experience of
"This is just too much - I can't take any more" that we have to train
ourselves. We must understand what this 'I' is that finds it all too much. Our
experience of the present moment is not too much for reality; reality is what's
happening. The painful constriction we feel is the symptom of the limitations
we place on awareness. This pain is the appropriate consequence of our habitual
grasping.
Seeing it from this perspective, we realise that placing limitations is something
we are responsible for doing. Our cramped hearts are not imposed on us. We come
to see that we are not helpless victims of our conditioning. I'm always surprised
when people tell me, "This is just the way I'm made," as if it's somebody
else's fault for getting the design wrong. Working with a model of awareness
as capacity, we discover (literally, 'un-cover') potential for change. With
constant careful attention in this area there begins to dawn a quiet confidence
in a way that we can cultivate.
In the world of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations and mental impressions
we have no choice but to receive sense-impingement. Regardless of our lifestyle,
be it as monk or nun or psychotherapist or any other occupation, we are all
touched by the world of the senses. And these impressions are either received
or not received. If we are rigid in our holding to the perception of ourselves
as inherently limited in our ability to receive, then we feel put upon by the
struggle; we feel obstructed. But to contemplate the possibility of opening
and expanding our heart's capacity takes us beyond the feeling of being obliged
to suffer.
If we make a discipline of paying attention to the very feeling of being obliged
to suffer, then we are being mindful of the dynamic that actually creates the
suffering. We are putting ourselves in the place where we can undo the cause
of the feeling of limitation. Our untrained attention easily and understandably
flows in the direction of being interested in maximising on possibilities for
pleasure. It is natural for the sensual side of our character to want to follow
what the senses appear to tell us is the best way to increased well-being -
that is, if it feels good then take it; if it feels bad, reject it. But from
our life experience we know that we need to look deeper than that. This is not
to pass judgement but to accord with reality. Nobody is forcing us to look deeper,
but if we don't then we remain more troubled by life's struggles than we have
to be.
Here we see why there is an emphasis on suffering in Buddhism. Right attention
paid at the right time and place shows what it is we are doing to maintain the
felt perception of limited being. If we realise that we are responsible for
doing this then we also realise we can choose to not-do it. What a relief!
So how we approach our struggles is our own choice. For example, in regard to
body, suppose one day one of us discovers a painful, sensitive lump beneath
an armpit. It is likely that to some degree we would rather not know about it.
But we are all aware of the dangerous consequences of avoiding that kind of
sign. Something within knows that pain is an organismic message calling for
attention. If we offer it the suitable response of interest then further damage
might be avoided. If we don't, then maybe the volume of the message will have
to increase.
In our practice of training for awareness we learn to read heart-pain in the
same way as we would interpret bodily symptoms. Heart-pain indicates that there
is something which for some reason we are avoiding and to which we are not paying
proper attention. Later it may be seen as a nudge towards awareness, but it
begins in shock and suffering. Remember how it was for the Buddha when he first
encountered old age, sickness and death.
Heeding this summons to attention and feeling inwardly, not turning away from
the pain that is involved, we are able to witness the resistance we have. When
we recognise what it is that we are doing we come to see the suffering for what
it is. If our attention is careful, caring and well-informed enough, an easing
of the holding to limited capacity occurs and a new understanding appears in
its place. We then receive an unexpected affirmation which says that, for every
increase in our capacity to receive life, there is a corresponding increase
in discernment itself.
The ability to see clearly and feel accurately is already there in our open-heartedness.
It is only the compulsive setting up and maintaining of restrictions on ourselves
that creates obstructions. The larger capacity of heart already has within it
what we are looking for. Our difficulty is that we prefer not to have to go
through the doorway of fear and struggle to enter that larger reality. Yet all
our efforts to become wise and compassionate by merely reading and strategising
our lives leave us feeling self-centred and frustrated. Hence, there is great
value in the encouragement we give each other in applying ourselves to the careful
cultivation of this kind of training.
In working to go beyond habitual or ignorant existence, we will at some stage
be called to look at just how it is that we find a personal sense of security
- our identity. For all of us this arises to some degree by taking a position
for or against what is happening. We recognise this as feeling safe when we
know where we stand in relation to an experience we are having or some issue
that is presented to us. This ability to secure ourselves by discriminating
is a normal disposition for us, but only suitable up to a certain point. When
this discriminating faculty takes over and becomes who and what we are, we have
a big problem. It means we can never be free from taking sides, from agreeing
and disagreeing even in subtle ways, and that keeps our minds busy. Accordingly,
we are never simply aware of the activity of our minds. Our wish to abide in
quiet investigation ends up as a struggle with resistance and confusion.
We can find help in this area if we consider the consequences of the kind of
messages we were given early on in life about what represents Ultimate Reality.
For instance, what is the effect if the idea didn't get through that God is
love, that the ultimate reality in all existence is all-pervading, all-inclusive,
caring, but instead we got the idea that God is a Being who eternally accepts
and rejects according to some agenda that we have no say in - that there is
an Omnipotent Being who is taking some up and sending some down - for ever?
The effect is that the highest aspect of our psyche is continuously discriminating
and we are effectively locked into a process that is inherently frustrating.
We are in a state of chronic stress.
There is no possibility of freedom in such a conditioned view. It is very important
to examine this. Imagine what happens, for example, if we are tired or unwell
and not in touch with much compassion. If an habitual taking sides for good
and against bad is dominating then we can't receive ourselves in that state.
All we do is act out of a chronically judging mind: "I shouldn't be this
way." Habitually seeking an identity by holding a view for or against keeps
us locked into or bonded to an imaginary programme that is ultimately right.
But what is right about it? Finding identity by seeking security in the conditioned
activity of our minds can be contrasted with the spiritual path of finding well-being
and identity in awareness itself. Those who are committed to awakening move
beyond a search for security in a personal identity born out of fixed views
and opinions; they move through the insecure and unfamiliar world of not knowing
where they stand, and eventually reach non-judgemental awareness. If we don't
have to know who we are or be assured we are right, but can rather receive,
in freedom of awareness, how this moment is manifesting, we leave behind our
addiction to certainty, with its predictability and limited possibility. Our
lives enter a different mode altogether. We don't have to have guarantees that
our group is the best or that everything will turn out all right. We can tolerate
uncertainty - and that is wonderfully liberating. We find the possibility of
being able to accord with all the activity of our totally uncertain world without
being driven heedlessly into taking sides. The discovery is a welcome one.
As our investigation continues, we arrive at a point of seeing how all the picking
and choosing activity going on is simply activity taking place in awareness.
During the first interview I had with my first teacher in Thailand, the Venerable
Ajahn Thate, I was told that my task was to learn to see the difference between
the activity taking place in awareness and awareness itself. End of interview!
This instruction still underlies all my practice. I feel very fortunate to have
had such clear, simple guidance. The suggestion this teaching gives us lifts
us out of believing we are the activity that is taking place. We can grow into
seeing all the content of our minds, including the picking and choosing and
evaluating and so on, as the natural waves that pass across the ocean of awareness
that is our life. We are positively disinclined to struggle with what arises
within us. Instead, we know that the judging mind is just so. It is natural
activity - no blame; no taking a position for or against the judging mind or
any activity. If we are aware of the inclination to grasp onto a view about
what we see, we remember, 'no judging the judging mind'. We have to get quite
subtle about it. Abiding as awareness, wise reflection is energised and inspired.
And it is this very awareness which in turn gradually dissolves our false identity
as inherently limited, conditioned beings. In terms of training, we commit ourselves
to a practice of mindfulness of the felt perception of 'struggle'. If we can
remember to be conscious of the struggle that is taking place in any given moment
and then further remember to not judge the struggle, we find ourselves elevated
into an awareness that already has in it the understanding and sensitivity that
brings about letting go. Letting go happens; it is not something we do. Rather,
it is conditioned by our not-doing - our not taking a position for or against.
The way forward then becomes clear.
In my opinion, we don't get very far in practice as meditators or as psychotherapists
until we are well-acquainted with the reality of not-judging. Without access
to it we simply won't have the inner space to hold the intensity of dilemma
with which a life committed to transformation will most certainly challenge
us. If we do know the non-judgmental mind, then we know the place of resolution,
the place of spontaneity, of creativity, of intelligence. This is where what
we are looking for already exists. Until we enter this dimension, all our wise
words will be mere imitation. When we speak we will always be quoting others.
Now let's turn to talking specifically about training. I use this word not in
the sense, for instance, of training a parrot to talk, which is better considered
as conditioning, but in the way of giving a direction to something that is moving.
At the centre of the cluster of buildings that comprise our monastery, there
is a garden dedicated to the memory of the late Venerable Ajahn Chah. In the
centre of the garden there is a stupa (reliquary) containing relics of our teacher,
and this stupa sits in a beautiful small pond. To keep the pond fresh and filled
up, the rain water from the roof of the adjacent Meditation Hall is gathered
and 'trained' to flow towards the stupa. Behind the stupa there is a variegated
ivy growing and I am trying to train it to climb the wall. Anyone who does gardening
knows that this kind of training can only work if it is in the nature of the
plant to go that way. Right training must accord with the true nature of that
which is being trained. And this training does most definitely mean going against
our unruly nature. Some gardeners might prefer wildness, which I understand.
But if we follow the way of undirected, untrained wildness in the area of human
passions, we cause a lot of suffering for ourselves and others. So we willingly
give ourselves into a training. If it is Buddhist training it must involve body,
speech and mind.
When we look at our present quality of life, we should see it as the result
of our past actions (kamma). Our being is conditioned by actions of body (kayakamma),
actions of speech (vacikamma) and actions of mind (manokamma). Bringing our
passionate nature into line with the path of realisation must involve all of
our being. Many of our formal rituals are aimed at elevating awareness of these
three dimensions. As we bow in front of the Buddha image we are lowering our
bodily form in an acknowledgement of our experience of limitation. With our
body we are saying 'I', as separate ego, willingly submit myself to the 'way
of what is', in contrast to the stiff-necked 'I can handle it, I don't need
anybody' kind of attitude. And as we offer candles and incense to the Triple
Gem, we perform with our body gestures of respect and gratitude, which bring
into relief the self-oriented activity of our lives that is always taking from
the world for 'me'. Similarly, as we recite the morning and evening chanting,
we utter words that resonate with the deepest aspects of our hearts. By intentionally
acting with body and speech in the form of regular ritual, we are reminded of
where the real responsibility for our actions lies.
Mindfully engaging each other in dialogue on matters of truth also serves to
cultivate a felt sense of the significance of training. It is encouraging to
see that more and more people are wanting to meet to support each other in this
way. If we don't train, then, like the water off the roof that never reaches
the pond but merely seeps away, so the precious passion of our hearts fails
to enliven our commitment to the Way.
If training accords with the true nature of that which is being trained, there
is an ease, even if at times we feel challenged. Training is challenging because
it is not what 'I' want. But then, when does 'I' ever truly get what it wants?
Is it possible for this separate 'I' to be genuinely contented? No! Because,
by being identified as the activity of wanting and not as awareness itself,
we are compelled to feel always busy. When we understand this then we start
wanting to train. And such wanting is essential. The meditation master Venerable
Ajahn Mahabua, when asked, "What is the place of desire for liberation
in this Way?", replied that it is the Way. When we fully want to submit
ourselves to a training because we long to go beyond a sense of cramped limitation,
then the interest and creativity that we will need for the task ahead becomes
available to us.
If hearing talks or reading books about practice inspires us to take up training,
then that is good. But we need to know that we are doing it because we want
to do it. It is only from this perspective that we can learn from what our own
discernment faculty has to tell us. If we are imitating someone else's practice,
then we are compromising this faculty.
We need to assess, as we proceed, if this way is our way. Entering into training
is like entering a mountain stream to bathe: we wouldn't just dive in because
it looks attractive. Maybe it's only a foot deep and we would be badly hurt.
It's better to go carefully, feeling our way until we are confident about what
we are getting ourselves into.
Sometimes people have a problem in this area of wholeheartedly wanting to progress
in their training, because Buddhist Teachings so insistently call attention
to the fact that suffering is rooted in desire. Such people jump to the conclusion
that to want anything at all is not the Way. This is very unfortunate. As we
know, where there is desire there is energy. If because of some ill-informed
assumptions about desire we disown this energy, then who is taking responsibility
for it? Who is taking care of it if we aren't? It doesn't just go away because
we don't think it's a good idea. The last thing that the world needs is for
more heedlessness around desire. What does help, though, is to know what we
want more than anything else. I am suggesting the reason that we take up this
training is because we want to find out what this is.
At Ratanagiri Monastery, we have a regular meeting on Sunday nights at which
the local Buddhists like to gather for chanting, meditation and discussion.
We begin with the recitation of the Three Refuges and Five Precepts. For a long
time this took place with very little volume, until one day it occurred to me
that they sounded embarrassed about doing it. I asked if we should stop; but
no, they wanted to continue with it. So I suggested that unless the group were
feeling apologetic about wanting to do it, we should shout the recitation out.
These days we don't exactly shout, but there is a good strong communal voice
resonating around the Hall, reaffirming our determination to offer ourselves
into the training. The need to know that we are doing our own practice stays
with us.
We can easily become habituated to the training forms that we have acquired
and because of this they cease to work for us. However, if these forms are rightly
grasped then they enthuse and energise us. So we keep checking to see if we
are doing it because we want to. When we reach a point of genuinely wanting
to train, we can enjoy practice much more. Obviously, there will be times when
we feel like we don't want to do it anymore. If we have cultivated the skilful
habit of inquiring of ourselves, with interest, as to what motivates our actions,
when this feeling of not-wanting arises we will be in the best place to find
out whether or not we really don't want to do it. Superficially, our desires
come and go, conditioned by many different casual concerns; but at the deepest
level, as Buddhism sees it, all beings want to be free. So if we look long enough,
we will penetrate beyond the not-wanting and remember what we are in this for.
We all have a problem with keeping effort fresh. Simply going through the routine
of doing formal practice is not enough. A few decades ago out in Asia we were
quick to criticise what we saw as pointless superstitious carry-on, like the
waving of incense in front of golden Buddhas. Yet our sitting meditation can
be the same. If we aren't doing it with freshness it becomes pointless carry-on;
in fact, it's worse than pointless. If we are not fully involved with all our
body, heart and mind in meditation, then we can be compounding the already established
patterns of limitation. How unfortunate!
For it to be the profound and radical ritual that meditation can truly be, we
need to remember what we have to do to keep our effort fresh and alive. Whilst
formal sitting is one valid way, there are other ways; we need to re-examine
the whole area of devotion and what it means to us. It is almost certain that
to imitate Asian devotional practices will not work, but it is vitally important
to find out what does work. Actually, in my experience, developing a devotional
practice of a daily offering of incense to the shrine is tremendously helpful
in sustaining spiritual aliveness. I might not sit meditation on some days but
I almost never omit my devotional efforts.
It is by remembering what brought us to training, and remembering to rediscover
right effort moment by moment, that clear understanding of the functioning of
awareness dawns on us. With this new dawning of the inherent value and beauty
of awareness, a new letting go of the security of old familiar identities occurs;
even letting go of the idea of becoming better or developing ourselves - even
letting go of the idea of enlightenment. We now value this clear-seeing so highly
that we are positively disinclined to settle for anything less.
There can even be a letting go of the preoccupation with the idea of becoming
free from suffering. We are more interested now in how accurately we are meeting
any suffering in this moment. We begin to find our security and well-being in
the freedom to suffer: "Can I suffer and remain free at the same time?"
Our interest in cultivating awareness has brought us full circle to discover
not freedom from suffering but a vast capacity to suffer. This vast capacity
to suffer is the vast compassion we are all looking for. How fortunate it would
be for the world if there were more beings around with such compassion.
Thank you for the opportunity to look into these matters.