[ Chapter 09]
DUKKHA FOR KNOWLEDGE
AND VISION
The
"twelve-point-dependent-origination" (//paticcasamuppada//) starts with
ignorance (//avijja//) and goes through kamma formations (//sankhara//),
rebirth consciousness, mind and matter, sense contacts, feeling, craving,
clinging, becoming, birth, and ends with death. Getting born means dying.
During that sequence there is one point of escape -- from feeling to craving.
While this is called the mundane (//lokiya//)
dependent- origination, the Buddha also taught a supermundane, transcendental
(//lokuttara//) series of cause and effect. That one starts with unsatisfactoriness
(//dukkha//). //Dukkha// needs to be seen for what it really is, namely
the best starting point for our spiritual journey. Unless we know and see
//dukkha//, we would have little reason to practice. If we haven't acknowledged
the over-all existence of //dukkha//, we wouldn't be interested in getting
out of its clutches.
The transcendental-dependent-origination
starts out with the awareness and inner knowledge of the inescapable suffering
in the human realm. When we reflect upon this, we will no longer try to
find a way out through human endeavour, nor through becoming more informed
or knowledgeable, or richer, or owning more or having more friends. Seeing
//dukkha// as an inescapable condition, bound up with existence, we no
longer feel oppressed by it. It's inescapable that there is thunder and
lightning, so we don't try to reject the weather. There have to be thunder,
lightning and rain, so we can grow food.
//Dukkha// is equally inescapable. Without
it, the human condition would not exist. There wouldn't be rebirth, decay
and death. Having seen it like that, one loses one's resistance to it.
The moment one is no longer repelled by //dukkha//, suffering is greatly
diminished. It's our resistance which creates the craving to get rid of
it, which makes it so much worse.
Having understood //dukkha// in this way,
one may be fortunate enough to make contact with the true Dhamma, the Buddha's
teaching. This is due to one's own good kamma. There are innumerable people
who never get in touch with Dhamma. They might even be born in a place
where the Dhamma is being preached, but they will have no opportunity to
hear it. There are many more people who will not be searching for the Dhamma,
because they're still searching for the escape route in the human endeavour,
looking in the wrong direction. Having come to the conclusion that the
world will not provide real happiness, then one also has to have the good
kamma to be able to listen to true Dhamma. If these conditions arise, then
faith results.
Faith has to be based on trust and confidence.
If these are lacking, the path will not open. One becomes trusting like
a child holding the hand of a grown-up when crossing the street. The child
believes that the grown-up will be watching out for traffic so that no
accident will happen. The small child doesn't have the capacity to gauge
when it's safe to cross, but it trusts someone with greater experience.
We are like children compared to the Buddha.
If we can have a child-like innocence, then it will be possible for us
to give ourselves unstintingly to the teaching and the practice, holding
onto the hand of the true Dhamma that will guide us. Life and practice
will be simplified when the judging and weighing of choice is removed.
No longer: "I should do it another way, or go somewhere else, or find out
how it is done by others." These are possibilities, but they are not conducive
to good practice or to getting out of //dukkha//. Trust in the Dhamma helps
to keep the mind steady. One has to find out for oneself if this is the
correct escape route, but if we don't try, we won't know.
If //dukkha// is still regarded as a calamity,
we will not have enough space in the mind to have trust. The mind will
be full of grief, pain, lamentation, forgetting that all of us are experiencing
our kamma resultants and nothing else. This is part of being a human being,
subject to one's own kamma.
Resistance to //dukkha// saps our energy
and the mind cannot stretch to its full capacity. If //dukkha// is seen
as the necessary ingredient to spur one on to leave //samsara// behind,
then one's positive attitude will point in the right direction. //Dukkha//
is not a tragedy, but rather a basic ingredient for insight. This must
not only be a thinking process, but felt with one's heart. It's too easy
to think like that and not to do anything about it. But when our heart
is truly touched, trust and confidence in the Dhamma arise as the way out
of all suffering.
The Dhamma is totally opposed to worldly
thinking, where suffering is considered to be a great misfortune. In the
Dhamma suffering is seen as the first step to transcend the human condition.
The understanding of //dukkha// has to be firm, in order to arouse trust
in that part of the teaching which one hasn't experienced oneself yet.
If one has already tried many other escape routes and none of them actually
worked, then one will find it easier to become that trusting, child-like
person, walking along this difficult path without turning right or left,
knowing that the teaching is true, and letting it be one's guide. Such
faith brings joy, without which the path is a heavy burden and will not
flourish. Joy is a necessary and essential ingredient of the spiritual
life.
Joy is not to be mistaken for pleasure,
exhilaration or exuberance. Joy is a feeling of ease and gladness, knowing
one has found that which transcends all suffering. People sometimes have
the mistaken idea that to be holy or pious means having a sad face and
walking around in a mournful way. Yet the Buddha is said never to have
cried and is usually depicted with a half-smile on his face. Holiness does
not stand for sadness, it means wholeness. Without joy there is no wholeness.
This inner joy carries with it the certainty that the path is blameless,
the practice is fruitful and the conduct is appropriate.
We need to sit down for meditation with
a joyous feeling and the whole experience of meditation will culminate
in happiness. This brings us tranquility, as we no longer look around for
outside satisfaction. We know only to look into ourselves. There's nowhere
to go and nothing to do, it's all happening within. Such tranquility is
helpful to concentrated meditation and creates the feeling of being in
the right spot at the right time. It creates ease of mind, which facilitates
meditation and is conducive to eliminating sceptical doubt (//vicikicha//).
Sceptical doubt is the harbinger of restlessness,
joy begets calm. We need not worry about our own or the world's future,
it's just a matter of time until we fathom absolute reality. When the path,
the practice and effort mesh together, results are bound to come. It is
essential to have complete confidence in everything the Buddha said. We
can't pick out the ideas we want to believe because they happen to be in
accordance with what we like anyway and discard others. There are no choices
to be made, it's all or nothing.
Tranquility helps concentration to arise.
//Dukkha// itself can lead us to proper concentration if we handle it properly.
But we mustn't reject it, thinking that it is a quirk of fate that has
brought all this grief to us, or think that other people are causing it.
If we use //dukkha// to push us onto the path, then proper concentration
can result.
Right concentration makes it possible for
the mind to stretch. The mind that is limited, obstructed and defiled cannot
grasp the profundity of the teaching. It may get an inkling that there
is something extraordinary available, but it cannot go into the depth of
it. Only the concentrated mind can extend its limitations. When it does
that, it may experience the knowledge-and-vision-of-things- as-they-really-are.
The Buddha often used this phrase "the-knowledge-and-vision-of-
things-as-they-really-are" (//yatha-bhuta-nanadassana//). This is distinct
from the way we think they are or might be, or as we'd like them to be,
hopefully comfortable and pleasant. But rather birth, decay, disease and
death, not getting what one wants, or getting what one doesn't want, a
constant perception of what we dislike, because it fails to support our
ego-belief. In knowing and seeing things as they really are, we will lose
that distaste.
We will come to see that within this realm
of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and corelessness (//anicca, dukkha,
anatta//), there is nothing that can be grasped and found to be solid and
satisfying. No person, no possession, no thought, no feeling. Nothing can
be clung to and found to be steady and supportive.
This is right view, beyond our ordinary
every-day perception. It results from right concentration and comes from
dealing with //dukkha// in a positive, welcoming way. When we try to escape
from //dukkha// by either forgetting about it, running away from it, blaming
someone else, becoming depressed by it or feeling sorry for ourselves,
we are creating more //dukkha//. All these methods are based on self-delusion.
The knowledge-and-vision-of-things-as-they- really-are is the first step
on the noble path, everything else has been the preliminary work.
Sometimes our understanding may feel like
one of those mystery pictures that children play with. Now you see it,
now you don't. When any aspect of Dhamma is clearly visible to us, we must
keep on resurrecting that vision. If it is correct, //dukkha// has no sting,
it just is. Decay, disease and death do not appear fearful. There is nothing
to fear, because everything falls apart continually. This body disintegrates
and the mind changes every moment.
Without knowledge and vision of reality,
the practice is difficult. After having this clear perception, the practice
is the only possible thing to do. Everything else is only a side-issue
and a distraction. From the knowledge-and-vision arises disenchantment
with what the world has to offer. All the glitter that seems to be gold
turns out to be fool's gold, which cannot satisfy. It gives us pleasure
for one moment and displeasure the next and has to be searched for again
and again. The world of the senses has fooled us so often that we're still
enmeshed in it and still experiencing //dukkha//, unless the true vision
arises.
There's a poster available in Australia
which reads: "Life, be in it." Wouldn't it be better if it said, "Life,
be out of it?" Life and existence is bound up with the constant renewal
of our sense contacts, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and
thinking. Only when we have clear perception, will disenchantment set in
and then the most wonderful sense contact will no longer entice us to react.
It just exists, but doesn't touch our heart. //Mara//, the tempter, has
lost his grip and has been shown the door. He's waiting at the doorstep
to slip in again, at the first possible opportunity, but he isn't so comfortably
ensconced inside any more.
This brings a great deal of security and
satisfaction to the heart. One won't be swayed to leave this path of practice.
When //Mara// is still calling, there's no peace in the heart. One can't
be at ease and satisfied, because there's always something new to tempt
us. With knowledge-and-vision-of-things-as-they-really-are and subsequent
disenchantment, we realize that the Buddha's path leads us to tranquility,
peace and the end of //dukkha//.
//Dukkha// is really our staunchest friend,
our most faithful supporter. We'll never find another friend or helpmate
like it, if it is seen in the right way, without resistance or rejection.
When we use //dukkha// as our incentive for practice, gratitude and appreciation
for it will arise. This takes the sting out of our pain and transforms
it into our most valuable experience.
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DharmaNet Edition 1994
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Transcribed for DharmaNet by Maureen Riordan
Sincere thanks Dr.
Binh Anson for offering us this electronic book. (Thich Nguyen Tang,
12/07/00)
Computer layout: Thieu Manh
Update : 01-01-2002
