2020/11/24

希修 불교에 대한 오해 #3. 나와 남 사이의 경계를 없애는 것이 '무아'

 


希修
Favourites · 16h · 


< 불교에 대한 오해 #3. 나와 남 사이의 경계를 없애는 것이 '무아' >
----
.
거의 대부분의 종교들이 '신성한 본체' (신, 브라만, 불성, 대자연 등)를 상정하고 그것의 회복이나 그것과의 합일을 궁극의 목적으로 하며, 그렇기에 나와 남 사이의 경계를 없애는 것이 수행의 중요한 부분이 되지만 (나도 남도 그 '신성한 본체'의 일부/표현일 뿐이기에), 초기불교는 예외.
.

부처님은 '본성'이나 '본체'의 존재를 부인하셨으며, A라는 사람의 업은 오로지 A 스스로만 어떻게 할 수 있지 부처님조차 도무지 도와 줄 방도가 없다는 것이 초기불교의 관점. 우리가 타인을 '돕는' 것은 누군가 다쳤을 때 구급차를 부르거나 반창고를 건네 주는 정도일 뿐. 그 사람의 건강은 궁극적으로 그 사람 스스로 건강한 생활습관을 들이고 운동 열심히 해야만 가능한 것. 내가 상대를 아무리 사랑해도, 상대방 대신 내가 열심히 운동한다고 해서 그 사람이 건강해지지는 않는 것. 이런 점에서 초기불교에서 나와 남 사이의 경계는 결코 지워지지 않는 것. (해탈 이후는 어떻게 되는지 모르겠음.)
.

불교에서 말하는 '무아'의 '아'는 '나의 이익', '나의 즐거움', '나의 관점/서사'를 가리킴. 그런 관점 대신 탐진치의 관점에서 impersonal 하게 매사를 보라는 것. 남과 세상을 콘트롤할 수 없기에 어떤 일의 발생에 나 자신 어떻게 직간접적으로 공헌했으며, 그걸 바라보는 내 마음 속에 어떤 일들이 일어나고 있는지에 집중하라는 것. 다시 말해
수행은, '생각/말/행동으로 내가 무엇을 하고 있는가?'라는, 처음부터 끝까지 '나'가 중심.
.

남을 '위해' 내가 할 수 있는 가장 기본적이면서도 가장 중요한 일은, 나 스스로 수행하여 나의 탐진치 때문에 남에게 직간접적인 폐를 끼치지 않는 것, 남을 나의 에너지원으로 삼아 소비/섭취하면서 그걸 '사랑'이라고 착각/고집하지 않는 것. (그래서 스님들은 봉사나 구제 활동이 아닌 오로지 수행만 하루종일, 매일, 평생, 하는 것 - 세속적인 관점에선 '이기적'으로 보이지만.) 인간이나 인간관계에 대해 비현실적 낭만적 환상을 가질 때보다 불교의 이런 관점을 기억할 때 오히려 더 건강한 인간관계가 가능할 듯.
.------
Bhikkhu Bodhi on 
Brahman / Atman / Oneness / Fullness (Vedic tradition) 
vs. Emptiness (Early Buddhism)
Majjhima Nikaya (MN 121: part 1-1, 2014.11.15) Bhikkhu Bodhi
1,435 views•Dec 13, 2014
BAUS Chuang Yen Monastery
Chapter 121: Culasunnata Sutta - The shorter discourse on voidness. 
"The Majjhima Nikaya, the Middle Length Discourses"
The Buddha instructs Ananda on the "genuine, undistorted, pure descent into voidness."
----


#194~210: The Buddha nature? https://facebook.com/keepsurfinglife/albums/1107718949600187/


希修 Unless you can step back from your own actions and keep diligently evaluating your actions to make them more refined and skillful, you cannot improve yourself. Just because the intention was pure and well-meant, does not mean your actions and the consequences are immune to judgment or criticism. This applies not only to individuals but also to organizations or social campaigns.
If you wonder whether you are 'selfish', read the part on ego. Only if you pursue your happiness by harming/hurting others or you demand that other people should make you happy, then you are 'selfish'. Also check whether you are caught by the spiritual bypass of ego-less-ness or self-less-ness.

---
Head & Heart Together

*** You can download this book for free at https://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html under the category of 'Essays'. ***
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#2~27: The Lessons of Gratitude
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(a) You can 'appreciate' your mean difficult boss who forced you to learn how to be patient. But, as for those who went out of their ways to give you a help to improve the quality of your life, you have to feel 'grateful' and 'indebted' to.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(b) No matter how mean or abusive your parents have been, as long as they did not leave you to starve to death when you were a baby, you are still indebted to them. However, just because you carry them on your shoulder for 100 years, it is not good enough to pay them back. 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(c) The best way to repay anyone is: (i) to work hard so that the help you received will bear as much fruit as to deserve the benefactor's resources - such as time, money or energy - invested in you instead of dissipating them; (ii) to become a person of integrity and 'wisdom' or help your benefactor to become a such a person too. ('Wisdom' in this context means to live following the Buddha's teachings.) 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(d) Since we have been going through trillion times of rebirths, everyone we meet in this life must have been a family member in one birth or another. The lesson here, though, is not that you should love everyone you meet. The real message from the Buddha is that you should wake up to the meaning-less-ness of this never-ending rebirth cycle of infinite debts, entanglements and suffering and that you should find a way to end all these through nirvana, awakening or release. 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
[cf.] Considerations on how to help others wisely: 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
"Limitless Compassion, Limited Resources"
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1094889330883149&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
.............................................................................................................................................. 
"Unlimited Compassion, Limited Resources" (1)~(8)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1068501266855289&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#28~40: No Strings Attached. Generosity.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(a) Giving a gift is not an obligation. You give one wherever you are inspired.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(b) The donor should be glad before, while and after giving. The recipient should be free of passion/craving, aversion and delusion.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(c) The teaching of Dhamma should be rewarded not by a gift but by the listener's respectful learning and practicing.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#41~64: The Power of Judgment. Admirable Friends. ('Friends' include 'teachers'.)
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(a) An 'admirable friend' is someone who has integrity and wisdom and whose actions you want to model after. Even if someone is a 'good person', if his standards/values are not necessarily what you want to internalize, he won't be a good friend for you.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(b) In order to see your delusion, you need an admirable friend's criticism - gentle or harsh.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(c) If you focus on 'yourself' or your 'pride' rather than on improving your 'actions', you won't be able to take a criticism, and you won't be able to have an admirable friend. But you have to test your friend's suggestions instead of going blind.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(d) Without integrity yourself, you won't be good at judging others' integrity. By carefully evaluating your actions all the time and learning from mistakes, you will sharpen your discernment.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(e) A teacher-student relationship or friend-friend relationship can last only as long as the relationship can help integrity and wisdom to grow. If it does not work, go separate and don't take it personally.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(f) If one becomes a person of integrity and wisdom, it will benefit the entire world. This is why judging one's own and others' actions is not only justified but in fact necessary. The goal of the Buddhist practice is not to be 'easy-going' or 'positive' or 'happy' with a dull mind like an animal but to eradicate or reduce craving, aversion and delusion.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
[cf.] Khaggavisana Sutta "We praise companionship - yes! Those on a par, or better, should be chosen as friends. If they're not to be found, living faultlessly, wander alone like a rhinoceros."
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.1.03.than.html
.............................................................................................................................................. 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
# None: Think Like a Thief.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#65~71: Strength Training for the Mind.
Mental food. Watch why you want to eat. Don't take more from the world than you are willing to give back.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#72~89: Mindfulness Defined. Mindfulness, alertness, ardency, appropriate attention, contentment, patience, intelligence. 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#90~94: The Joy of Effort. Diligently keep evaluating your actions with honesty, not as signs of what kind of person you are but as experiments. You don't mature if you demand that the world should please or entertain you. 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#95~102: Head & Heart Together. Goodwill, compassion, equanimity.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
[cf.]
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(i) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1072471653124917&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(ii) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1103963433309072&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(iii) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1104038103301605&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#103~122: The Wisdom of Ego. Mature wisdom requires a mature ego. 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(a) 'Ego' = 'A healthy and well-integrated self'.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(b) If you pursue ego-less-ness, which is a spiritual bypassing, you might become destructive to yourself and others or end up with an enlarged toxic super-ego.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(c) Each person should take a full responsibility for developing a healthy ego and keeping an inner balance/stability. This will benefit the entire world. 
.............................................................................................................................................. 
(d) #118~119: Expecting no return is not the way. The whole purpose of the Buddhist practice is to gain the true happiness of nirvana by paying the cost of walking the eightfold path. Helping others is also a trade between investing one's time and energy and the expectation that the recipients will work to bear fruit. (See #2~27 in this album.)
.............................................................................................................................................. 
[cf.] "You Are Your Own Child, Too"
https://facebook.com/keepsurfinglife/albums/840366193002132/
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#123~124: Ignorance. Craving and delusion.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#125~142: Food for Awakening. No bare attention but appropriate attention.
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#143~193: The Buddha via the Bubble. How the Western tradition of reading the Christian Bible has resulted in a mistaken belief about 'all paths leading to the top of one and the same mountain', especially misrepresenting and distorting the Buddha's teachings. This elucidates why there are so many misunderstandings about the Buddha's teachings. ('Common core beliefs of all great religions'?)
.............................................................................................................................................. 
[cf.] #93~136: The Roots of Buddhist Romanticism. The Western Obsession with Oneness/Nonduality and Interconnectedness.
https://facebook.com/keepsurfinglife/albums/1209061849465896/
.............................................................................................................................................. 
[cf.] #137~159: Perennial Issues. 'Common Core Beliefs of All Great Religions'?
https://facebook.com/keepsurfinglife/albums/1145865939118821/
.............................................................................................................................................. 
#194~210: Freedom from Buddha Nature.
6 posts · 







.

Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

希修 천냥 빚을 갚기도 하고 원수가 되기도 하는, 말 한 마디의 힘

 希修

Favourites · 1d · 



< 천냥 빚을 갚기도 하고 원수가 되기도 하는, 말 한 마디의 힘 >
.
.

1. 여성성이 인간을 구원한다고 하면서 女性을 女神의 위치로 추대하는 듯 말하는 어느 여성학자의 인터뷰를 읽은 적이 있다. 그런데 그 분은 자신이 말하는 여성성이란 반드시 생물학적 여성의 특징들을 가리키는 것은 아니라는 얘기도 덧붙였다.. 나는 마치 외계어를 읽은 듯한 기분이었는데, 그 이유는..
.


1.1. 모든 이들의 인격이 동등히 존중되기를, 그러나 차이 역시 지워지거나 우열로 평가되지 않기를 바라는 것이 페미니즘이라고 나는 생각하고 있었는데, 내가 틀린 것이었나?, 여성을 여신으로 만드는 것이 페미니즘인가?, 여성에게 그렇게 초월적 지위를 부여하면 평범한 인간에 대한 기대를 초월하는 온갖 의무도 당연히 함께 띠라올 텐데 그거야말로 우리가 그동안 저항해 온, condescending한 여성억압의 교묘한 형태가 아니었던가? 싶어서.

1.2. 여성성이라는 것이 생물학적 여성의 특징을 말하는 것이 아니라면, 우리가 현재 갖고 있는, 사회적으로 형성된 '여성다움'이라는 이미지를 말하는 것인지? Again, 그 '여성다움'이라는 이미지가 여성억압으로 작용하기에 저항하는 것 아닌지? 대체 무슨 얘기를 하고 있는 것인지? 싶어서.
.

생각할수록 미로로 빨려들어가는 듯 어지러워져서 이해하기를 포기한 기억이 있다.
.
.

2. 한 번은 어떤 다른 페미니스트가 자신의 페북에서 전업주부를 "나같은 싱글/워킹맘들의 피눈물나는 투쟁에 무임승차한"이라고 표현하는 것을 보았지만 그냥 지나친 적도 있다. 
스스로의 경제력으로 집을 마련할 때까지 거주와 식사는 친정 부모님의 집에서 했고 자신이 일하는 동안의 육아 역시 친정 부모님이 해 주셨지만, 그럼에도 불구하고, 
그런 여건들이 충족되지 않아 커리어를 포기해야 했던 많은 다른 여성들의 존재까지 기억하기엔 싱글/워킹맘으로서의 그녀의 아픔이 정말 컸나 보다, 그럴 수도 있지, 싶어서..
.
.

3. 결혼이라는 것을 하고 나면, 특히나 전업주부가 되고 나면 그야말로 친정식구들까지 gang up 해서 온갖 가부장적 폭력을 내게 휘두르는데.. 예를 들면, 모유수유하는 동안은 글자 그대로 24/7/365 아기가 코알라처럼 내 몸의 분신으로 붙어서 지내며, 한밤중에도 아이가 원할 때마다 수유를 하고 아기가 낮잠을 자는 동안에도 내가 안고서 재우는 애착육아 방식으로 아이들을 키운 내 경우 특히, 육아기간 내내 잠도 한 번에 2-3시간 이상 자 본 적이 없기에, 화장실 사용 같은 아주 기본적 생명유지 활동마저 아이의 기분과 편리에 맞추어 해야 했기에 

(우는 아이 달래는 일보다 가급적 안 울리는 게 차라리 편하다는 것이, 소음에 워낙 예민하고 내 자식 우는 소리는 다른 어떤 소음보다 백만배 더 괴로운 내 입장에서의 주관적 판단이었음), 배달이라곤 도미노 피자밖에 없고 내 몸 아파도 도움 청할 곳 없기에 먹이고 안아 주고 놀아 주고 기저귀 갈고 밥까지 다 해 가면서 아파야 하는, 이런 상황을 안타깝게 여긴 남편이 저녁식사 한 끼만이라도 맘 편히 따뜻한 밥 먹으라고 자신이 아이를 안고 있고 나 먼저 밥을 먹게 해 주곤 했었는데, 시댁 식구도 아닌 친정 식구들조차 이런 장면을 보면 나를 나쁜 아내, 세상 편한 어미, 남편은 불쌍한 아범 식으로 묘사하더라는.. 하~~~ (밥상 한 번도 안 엎은 난 정말 너무 순하지 말이다. -.,-)
.
.

4. 본인 자신 가부장적 문화의 폭력을 누구보다 심하게 겪었으면서 자신의 며느리는 군기를 잡으려 했었던 시어머님, 
당신의 아들들은 한국말도 못 하는 '미국놈들'이니 아들들로부터는 기대조차 할 수 없는 한국식 효도를 며느리에게서 마음껏 받아 보고자 온갖 manipulation을 썼던 시아버님. 
'우리 조카 같은 남편을 둘 자격이 너에게 있는지 함 보자'는 듯한 시선으로 나의 일거수 일투족을 감시하던 시이모님 등등.. 
뭐 이런 자잘하고 유치한 투쟁들을 아무런 연대 없이 일대다로 홀로 해 내면서, 
어쨌든 결과적으론 내가 '이겼다'! 
(그 분들의 기대를 현실화해 드리고 서로 타협과 절충의 과정을 거친 후 있는 그대로의 나로서 화목한 관계를 유지한다는 뜻. 
울남편은 한국문화도 모르고 한국말도 못 하고 무엇보다 눈치 코치 1도 없는 사람이라, 
집안 식구들 사이에 오가는 그 무수한 manipulation과 신경전을 알아차리지도 못 하더라는.)
.
.

암튼, 말 한 마디면 충분하다는 은하선 씨의 말에, 눈물이 나오려고 할 만큼, 아주 깊이 공감하게 된다.. 약간의 차이 때문에 함부로 적대부터 하고 들거나, 인간이라고 하는 복잡한 우주의 단 한 면만 보고서 낼름 딱지 붙여 자기 편할 대로 납작하게 만들어 버리거나, 자신의 아픔만 알 뿐 남의 아픔은 알 수 없는, 인간으로서의 어쩔 수 없는 한계를 지나쳐 남의 아픔과 사정을 함부로 무시/폄하하거나 그러지 말고, 가능하면 말 한 마디라도 신중하게, 그러기 어려운 경우엔 때로 그냥 지나치기도 하는 자제력도 좀 있어야, 그래야 연대도 가능하지 않겠는지.. 그렇게 되었으면..
.

그나저나 1번은 제 머리로는 아직도 이해가 도무지 안 되니, 누가 좀 도와 주시기를 부탁 드립니다.. ^^

.

Hasun Eun
1d


모든 운동에 연대할 필요 없고 마음을 쓸 수도 없다. 응원하고 지지한다는 말 한마디면 충분하다.

우리가 현재를 겪으면서 해야할 일은 기록이다. 당장 무엇을 하는 것보다 더 중요한 일은 촘촘한 아카이브일 수도 있다.

'연대는 요원하고 젠더 운동은 망했다'며 뒷짐지는 당신은 그래서 무엇을 하고 있나.

한줌도 안되고 그래서 조용한 '쓰까'들이 아무것도 안하는 것처럼 보이는가?
각자의 자리에서 각자 할일을 하는 것보다 중요한 게 뭐가 있지?

숙대 앞에 가서 기자회견이라도 열어야 연대고 운동인가. 현실을 살아가는 것 또한 연대고 운동이다.

연대와 운동을 축소시켜서 얻어지는 게 무엇인지.



Yoonjin Kim 저도 1번에 동의할 수가 없어서 ㅎㅎ 아직 이해 못하고 있는 상태입니다.
1


希修 Yoonjin Kim 어멋, 다행! 제 머리를 탓하고 있었어요. ^^
1
· 1d

Sungsoo Hong 한 인간으로서 존경해요. 선생님❗
1
Posted by at

Freedom from Buddha Nature | Head & Heart Together

Freedom from Buddha Nature | Head & Heart Together

Freedom from Buddha Nature

NAVIGATIONBooks/Head& Heart Together/Freedom from Buddha Nature

“What is the mind? The mind isn’t ‘is’ anything.” — Ajaan Chah

“The mind is neither good nor evil, but it’s what knows good and knows evil. It’s what does good and does evil. And it’s what lets go of good and lets go of evil.” — Ajaan Lee

A brahman once asked the Buddha, “Will all the world reach release [Awakening], or half the world, or a third?” But the Buddha didn’t answer. Ven. Ānanda, concerned that the wanderer might misconstrue the Buddha’s silence, took the man aside and gave him an analogy: Imagine a fortress with a single gate. A wise gatekeeper would walk around the fortress and not see an opening in the wall big enough for even a cat to slip through. Because he’s wise, he would realize that his knowledge didn’t tell him how many people would come into the fortress, but it did tell him that whoever came into the fortress would have to come in through the gate. In the same way, the Buddha didn’t focus on how many people would reach Awakening but he did know that anyone who reached Awakening would have to follow the path he had found: abandoning the five hindrances, establishing the four frames of reference, and developing the seven factors for Awakening.

What’s striking about the Buddha’s knowledge is the implied “if”: If people want to gain Awakening they will have to follow this path, but the choice as to whether they want Awakening is theirs. The Buddha’s knowledge of the future didn’t mean that the future was preordained, for people are free to choose. They can take up a particular course of action and stick with it, or not, as they see fit.

The Buddha thus based all his teaching on freedom of choice. As he said, if everything were predetermined by the past, there would be no point in teaching a path to Awakening. The number of people who would reach Awakening would already have been set a long time ago, and they would have no need for a path or a teacher. Those preordained to awaken would get there inevitably as a result of a long-past action or an essential nature already built into the mind. Those preordained not to awaken wouldn’t stand a chance.

But these things are not preordained. No one is doomed never to awaken, but—until you’ve had your first sight of the deathless at stream-entry—neither is Awakening assured. It’s contingent on intentional actions chosen in each present moment. And even after stream-entry, you’re constantly faced with choices that will speed up final Awakening or slow it down. Nibbāna, of course, is independent and unconditioned; but the act of awakening to nibbāna depends on a path of practice that has to be willed. It happens only if you choose to give rise to its causes. This, as the Buddha noted, involves determining to do four things: not to neglect discernment, to preserve truth, to develop relinquishment, and to train for peace.

Assumptions about the Mind

To stick with these four determinations, the mind has to make some assumptions about itself: its power to do the necessary work and to receive the anticipated benefits. But one of the central features of the Buddha’s strategy as a teacher was that even though his primary focus was on the mind, he nowhere defined what the mind is. As he said, if you define yourself, you limit yourself. So instead he focused his assumptions on what the mind can do.

To begin with, the mind can change quickly. Normally a master of the apt simile, even the Buddha had to admit that he could find no adequate analogy for how quickly the mind can change. We might say that it can change in the twinkling of an eye, but it’s actually faster than that.

And it’s capable of all sorts of things. Neither inherently good nor inherently bad, it can do a huge variety of good and bad actions. As the Buddha said, the mind is more variegated than the animal kingdom. Think of the many species of fish in the sea, birds in the sky, animals on the land and under the ground, whether extant or extinct: All of these species are products of minds, and the mind can take on a wider variety of forms than even that.

This variety comes from the many different choices the mind makes under the influence of ignorance and defilement. But the mind doesn’t always have to be defiled. Past kamma is not entirely deterministic. Even though past kamma shapes the range of options open to the mind in the present, it doesn’t have to determine present kamma—the intentions by which the mind chooses to fabricate actual experiences from among those options. Thus present kamma can choose to continue creating the conditions for more ignorance, or not, because present choices are what keep ignorance alive. Although no one—not even a Buddha—can trace back to when the defilement of ignorance first began, the continued existence of ignorance depends on conditions continually provided by unskillful kamma. If these conditions are removed, ignorance will disband.

This is why the Buddha said that the mind is luminous, stained with defilements that come and go. Taken out of context, this statement might be construed as implying that the mind is inherently awakened. But in context the Buddha is simply saying that the mind, once stained, is not permanently stained. When the conditions for the stains are gone, the mind becomes luminous again. But this luminosity is not an awakened nature. As the Buddha states, this luminous mind can be developed. In the scheme of the four noble truths, if something is to be developed it’s not the goal; it’s part of the path to the goal. After this luminosity has been developed in the advanced stages of concentration, it’s abandoned once it has completed its work in helping to pierce through ignorance.

The fact that the mind’s own choices can pierce its own ignorance underlies the Buddha’s most important assumption about the mind: It can be trained to awaken, to see the causes of ignorance and to bring them to an end. The primary step in this training is the first determination: not to neglect discernment. This phrase may sound strange—to what extent do we consciously neglect discernment?—but it points to an important truth. Discernment is insight into how the mind fabricates its experiences. This process of fabrication is going on all the time right before our eyes—even nearer than our eyes—and yet part of the mind chooses to ignore it. We tend to be more interested in the experiences that result from the fabrication: the physical, mental, and emotional states we want to savor and enjoy. It’s like watching a play. We enjoy entering into the make-believe world on the stage, and prefer to ignore the noises made by the back-stage crew that would call the reality of that world into question.

This ignorance is willed, which is why we need an act of the will to see through it, to discern the back-stage machinations of the mind. Discernment thus has two sides: understanding and motivation. You have to understand the mind’s fabrications as fabrications, looking less for the what—i.e., what they are—than for the how—how they happen as part of a causal process. And you have to be motivated to develop this discernment, to see why you want it to influence the mind. Otherwise it won’t have the conditions to grow.

The understanding comes down to the basic insight of the Buddha’s Awakening, seeing things as actions and events in a pattern of cause and effect. It also involves seeing how some actions are unskillful, leading to stress and suffering, while others are skillful, bringing stress to an end; and that we have the freedom to choose skillful actions or not. This understanding—which forms the basic framework of the four noble truths—is called appropriate attention.

The motivation to develop appropriate attention grows from combining good will with this understanding. You set your sights on a happiness totally harmless. You see that if you make unskillful choices, you’re going to cause suffering; if you make skillful ones, you won’t. This motivation thus combines good will with heedfulness, the quality that underlies every step on the path. In fact, heedfulness lies at the root of all skillful qualities in the mind. Thus, in encouraging people to awaken, the Buddha never assumed that their Awakening would come from the innate goodness of their nature. He simply assumed something very blatant and ordinary: that people like pleasure and hate pain, and that they care about whether they can gain that pleasure and avoid that pain. It was a mark of his genius that he could see the potential for Awakening in this very common desire.

Building on Discernment

When you stick with the understanding and motivation provided by this first determination, it sets in motion the other three. For instance, the determination to preserve the truth grows from seeing the mind’s capacity to lie to itself about whether its actions are causing suffering. You want to be honest and vigilant in looking for and admitting suffering, even when you’re attached to the actions that cause it. This truthfulness relates to the path in two stages: first, when looking for unskillful actions that keep you off the path; and then, as the path nears fruition, looking for the subtle levels of stress caused even by skillful elements of the path—such as right concentration—once they have done their work and need to be let go for the sake of full liberation.

The determination to develop relinquishment can then build on this truthful assessment of what needs to be done. Relinquishment requires discernment as well, for not only do you need to see what’s skillful and what’s not; you also need to keep reminding yourself that you have the freedom to choose, and to be adept at talking yourself into doing skillful things you’re afraid of, and abandoning unskillful actions you like.

The determination to train for peace helps maintain your sense of direction in this process, for it reminds you that the only true happiness is peace of mind, and that you want to look for ever-increasing levels of peace as they become possible through the practice. This determination emulates the trait that the Buddha said was essential to his Awakening: the unwillingness to rest content with lesser levels of stillness when higher levels could be attained. In this way, the stages of concentration, instead of becoming obstacles or dangers on the path, serve as stepping-stones to greater sensitivity and, through that sensitivity, to the ultimate peace where all passion, aversion, and delusion grow still.

This peace thus grows from the simple choice to keep looking at the mind’s fabrications as processes, as actions and results. But to fully achieve this peace, your discernment has to be directed not only at the mind’s fabrication of the objects of its awareness, but also at its fabrications about itself and about the path it’s creating. Your sense of who you are is a fabrication, regardless of whether you see the mind as separate or interconnected, finite or infinite, good or bad. The path is also a fabrication: very subtle and sometimes seemingly effortless, but fabricated nonetheless. If these layers of inner fabrication aren’t seen for what they are—if you regard them as innate or inevitable—they can’t be deconstructed, and full Awakening can’t occur.

No Innate Nature

This is why the Buddha never advocated attributing an innate nature of any kind to the mind—good, bad, or Buddha. The idea of innate natures slipped into the Buddhist tradition in later centuries, when the principle of freedom was forgotten. Past bad kamma was seen as so totally deterministic that there seemed no way around it unless you assumed either an innate Buddha in the mind that could overpower it, or an external Buddha who would save you from it. But when you understand the principle of freedom—that past kamma doesn’t totally shape the present, and that present kamma can always be free to choose the skillful alternative—you realize that the idea of innate natures is unnecessary: excess baggage on the path.

And it bogs you down. If you assume that the mind is basically bad, you won’t feel capable of following the path, and will tend to look for outside help to do the work for you. If you assume that the mind is basically good, you’ll feel capable but will easily get complacent. This stands in the way of the heedfulness needed to get you on the path, and to keep you there when the path creates states of relative peace and ease that seem so trustworthy and real. If you assume a Buddha nature, you not only risk complacency but you also entangle yourself in metaphysical thorn patches: If something with an awakened nature can suffer, what good is it? How could something innately awakened become defiled? If your original Buddha nature became deluded, what’s to prevent it from becoming deluded after it’s re-awakened?

These points become especially important as you reach the subtle levels of fabrication on the more advanced stages of the path. If you’re primed to look for innate natures, you’ll tend to see innate natures, especially when you reach the luminous, non-dual stages of concentration called themeless, emptiness, and undirected. You’ll get stuck on whichever stage matches your assumptions about what your awakened nature is. But if you’re primed to look for the process of fabrication, you’ll see these stages as forms of fabrication, and this will enable you to deconstruct them, to pacify them, until you encounter the peace that’s not fabricated at all.

Exploring Freedom

So instead of making assumptions about innate natures or inevitable outcomes, the Buddha advised exploring the possibility of freedom as it’s immediately present each time you make a choice. Freedom is not a nature, and you don’t find it by looking for your hidden innate nature. You find freedom by looking at where it’s constantly showing itself: in the fact that your present intentions are not totally conditioned by the past. You catch your first glimmer of it as a range of possibilities from which you can choose and as your ability to act more skillfully—causing more pleasure and less pain—than you ordinarily might. Your sense of this freedom grows as you explore and exercise it, each time you choose the most skillful course of action heading in the direction of discernment, truthfulness, relinquishment, and peace. The choice to keep making skillful choices may require assumptions, but to keep the mind focused on the issue of fabrication the Buddha saw that these assumptions are best kept to a bare minimum: that the mind wants happiness, that it can choose courses of actions that promote happiness or thwart it, that it can change its ways, and that it can train itself to achieve the ultimate happiness where all fabrications fall away.

These assumptions are the Buddha’s starter kit of skillful means to get you on the path of good will, heedfulness, and appropriate attention. As with any journey, you do best to take along only the bare essentials so that you don’t weigh yourself down. This is especially true as you test the limits of freedom, for the closer you come to ultimate freedom, the more you find that things fall away. First the nouns of natures and identities fall away, as you focus on the verbs of action and choice. Then the verbs fall away, too. When the Buddha was asked who or what he was, he didn’t answer with a who or what. He said simply, “Awakened”: a past participle, a verb that has done its work. Similarly, when the suttas describe the Awakening of an arahant, they say that his or her mind is released from fermentations. But when they describe how this release is experienced, they simply say, “With release, there is the knowledge, ‘Released.’” No comment on what is released. Not even, as it’s sometimes translated, “It is released.” There’s no noun, no pronoun, just a past participle: “released.” That’s all, but it’s enough.

Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)