Transcendence (Part 1)

When the group of five ascetics abandoned the Buddha, he saw it as a stroke of luck, because he would be able to continue his practice unhindered. With the five ascetics living with him, things weren’t so peaceful, he had responsibilities. And now the five ascetics had abandoned him because they felt that he had slackened his practice and reverted to indulgence. Previously he had been intent on his ascetic practices and self-mortification. In regards to eating, sleeping and so on, he had tormented himself severely, but it came to a point where, looking into it honestly, he saw that such practices just weren’t working. It was simply a matter of views, practicing out of pride and clinging. He had mistaken worldly values and mistaken himself for the truth.

For example, if one decides to throw oneself into ascetic practices with the intention of gaining praise – this kind of practice is all ‘world-inspired’, practicing for adulation and fame. Practicing with this kind of intention is called ‘mistaking worldly ways for truth’.

Another way to practice is ‘to mistake one’s own views for truth’. You only believe in yourself, in your own practice. No matter what others say you stick to your own preferences. You don’t carefully consider the practice. This is called ‘mistaking oneself for truth’.

Whether you take the world or take yourself to be truth, it’s all simply blind attachment. The Buddha saw this, and saw that there was no ‘adhering to the Dhamma’, practicing for the truth. So his practice had been fruitless, he still hadn’t given up defilements.

Then he turned around and reconsidered all the work he had put into practice right from the beginning in terms of results. What were the results of all that practice? Looking deeply into it he saw that it just wasn’t right. It was full of conceit, and full of the world. There was no Dhamma, no insight into not-self, anattā, no emptiness or letting go. There may have been letting go of a kind, but it was the kind that still hadn’t let go.

Looking carefully at the situation, the Buddha saw that even if he were to explain these things to the five ascetics they wouldn’t be able to understand. It wasn’t something he could easily convey to them, because those ascetics were still firmly entrenched in the old way of practice and seeing things. The Buddha saw that you could practice like that until your dying day, maybe even starve to death, and achieve nothing, because such practice is inspired by worldly values and by pride.

Considering deeply, he saw the right practice, sammā-paṭipadā: the mind is the mind, the body is the body. The body isn’t desire or defilement. Even if you were to destroy the body you wouldn’t destroy defilements. That’s not their source. Even fasting and going without sleep until the body was a shrivelled-up wraith wouldn’t exhaust the defilements. But the belief that defilements could be dispelled in that way, the teaching of self-mortification, was deeply ingrained into the five ascetics.

The Buddha then began to take more food, eating as normal, practicing in a more natural way. When the five ascetics saw the change in the Buddha’s practice they figured that he had given up and reverted to sensual indulgence. One person’s understanding was shifting to a higher level, transcending appearances, while the other saw that that person’s view was sliding downwards, reverting to comfort. Self-mortification was deeply ingrained into the minds of the five ascetics because the Buddha had previously taught and practiced like that. Now he saw the fault in it. By seeing the fault in it clearly, he was able to let it go.

When the five ascetics saw the Buddha doing this they left him, feeling that because he was practicing wrongly they would no longer follow him. Just as birds abandon a tree which no longer offers sufficient shade, or fish leave a pool of water that is too small, too dirty or not cool, just so did the five ascetics abandon the Buddha.

So now the Buddha concentrated on contemplating the Dhamma. He ate more comfortably and lived more naturally. He let the mind be simply the mind, the body simply the body. He didn’t force his practice in excess, just enough to loosen the grip of greed, aversion, and delusion. Previously he had walked the two extremes: kāmasukhallikānuyogo – if happiness or love arose he would be aroused and attach to them. He would identify with them and he wouldn’t let go. If he encountered pleasantness he would stick to that, if he encountered suffering he would stick to that. These two extremes he called kāmasukhallikānuyogo and attakilamathānuyogo.

The Buddha had been stuck on conditions. He saw clearly that these two ways are not the way for a samaṇa. Clinging to happiness, clinging to suffering: a samaṇa is not like this. To cling to those things is not the way. Clinging to those things he was stuck in the views of self and the world. If he were to flounder in these two ways he would never become one who clearly knew the world. He would be constantly running from one extreme to the other. Now the Buddha fixed his attention on the mind itself and concerned himself with training that.

All facets of nature proceed according to their supporting conditions; they aren’t any problem in themselves. For instance, illnesses in the body. The body experiences pain, sickness, fever and colds and so on. These all naturally occur. Actually people worry about their bodies too much. They worry about and cling to their bodies so much because of wrong view, they can’t let go.

Look at this hall here. We build the hall and say it’s ours, but lizards come and live here, rats and geckos come and live here, and we are always driving them away, because we see that the hall belongs to us, not the rats and lizards.

It’s the same with illnesses in the body. We take this body to be our home, something that really belongs to us. If we happen to get a headache or stomach-ache we get upset, we don’t want the pain and suffering. These legs are ‘our legs’, we don’t want them to hurt, these arms are ‘our arms’, we don’t want anything to go wrong with them. We’ve got to cure all pains and illnesses at all costs.

This is where we are fooled and stray from the truth. We are simply visitors to this body. Just like this hall here, it’s not really ours. We are simply temporary tenants, like the rats, lizards and geckos – but we don’t know this. This body is the same. Actually the Buddha taught that there is no abiding self within this body, but we go and grasp on to it as being our self, as really being ‘us’ and ‘them’. When the body changes we don’t want it to do so. No matter how much we are told, we don’t understand. If I say it straight you get even more fooled. ‘This isn’t yourself,’ I say, and you go even more astray, you get even more confused and your practice just reinforces the self.

So most people don’t really see the self. One who sees the self is one who sees that ‘this is neither the self nor belonging to self’. He sees the self as it is in nature. Seeing the self through the power of clinging is not real seeing. Clinging interferes with the whole business. It’s not easy to realize this body as it is because upādāna clings fast to it all.

Therefore it is said that we must investigate to clearly know with wisdom. This means to investigate the saṅkhārā according to their true nature, use wisdom. Knowing the true nature of saṅkhārā is wisdom. If you don’t know the true nature of saṅkhārā you are at odds with them, always resisting them. Now, it is better to let go of the saṅkhārā than to try to oppose or resist them. And yet we plead with them to comply with our wishes. We look for all sorts of means to organize them or ‘make a deal’ with them. If the body gets sick and is in pain we don’t want it to be, so we look for various suttas to chant, such as Bojjhaṅgo, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta and so on. We don’t want the body to be in pain, we want to protect it, control it. These suttas become some form of mystical ceremony, getting us even more entangled in clinging. This is because they chant them in order to ward off illness, to prolong life and so on. Actually the Buddha gave us these teachings in order to see clearly, but we end up chanting them to increase our delusion. Rūpaṃ aniccaṃ, vedanā aniccā, saññā aniccā, saṅkhārā aniccā, viññānaṃ aniccaṃ. We don’t chant these words for increasing our delusion. They are recollections to help us know the truth of the body, so that we can let it go and give up our longing.

This is called chanting to cut things down, but we tend to chant in order to extend them all, or if we feel they’re too long we try chanting to shorten them, to force nature to conform to our wishes. It’s all delusion. All the people sitting there in the hall are deluded, every one of them. The ones chanting are deluded, the ones listening are deluded, they’re all deluded! All they can think is, ‘How can we avoid suffering?’ When are they ever going to practice?

Whenever illnesses arise, those who know see nothing strange about it. Getting born into this world entails experiencing illness. However, even the Buddha and the Noble Ones, contracting illness in the course of things, would also, in the course of things, treat it with medicine. For them it was simply a matter of correcting the elements. They didn’t blindly cling to the body or grasp at mystic ceremonies and such. They treated illnesses with right view, they didn’t treat them with delusion. ‘If it heals, it heals, if it doesn’t then it doesn’t’ – that’s how they saw things.

They say that nowadays Buddhism in Thailand is thriving, but it looks to me like it’s sunk almost as far as it can go. The Dhamma Halls are full of attentive ears, but they’re attending wrongly. Even the senior members of the community are like this; so everybody just leads each other into more delusion.

One who sees this will know that the true practice is almost opposite from where most people are going; the two sides can barely understand each other. How are those people going to transcend suffering? They have chants for realizing the truth but they turn around and use them to increase their delusion. They turn their backs on the right path. One goes eastward, the other goes west – how are they ever going to meet? They’re not even close to each other.

If you have looked into this you will see that this is the case. Most people are lost. But how can you tell them? Everything has become rites and rituals and mystic ceremonies. They chant but they chant with foolishness, they don’t chant with wisdom. They study, but they study with foolishness, not with wisdom. They know, but they know foolishly, not with wisdom. So they end up going with foolishness, living with foolishness, knowing with foolishness. That’s how it is. And regarding teaching, all they do these days is teach people to be stupid. They say they’re teaching people to be clever, giving them knowledge, but when you look at it in terms of truth, you see that they’re really teaching people to go astray and grasp at deceptions.

The real foundation of the teaching is in order to see attā, the sense of self, as being empty, having no fixed identity. It’s void of intrinsic being. But people come to the study of Dhamma to increase their self-view; they don’t want to experience suffering or difficulty. They want everything to be cosy. They may want to transcend suffering, but if there is still a self how can they ever do so?

Suppose we came to possess a very expensive object. The minute that thing comes into our possession our mind changes. ‘Now, where can I keep it? If I leave it there somebody might steal it.’ We worry ourselves into a state, trying to find a place to keep it. And when did the mind change? It changed the minute we obtained that object – suffering arose right then. No matter where we leave that object we can’t relax, so we’re left with trouble. Whether sitting, walking, or lying down, we are lost in worry.

This is suffering. And when did it arise? It arose as soon as we understood that we had obtained something, that’s where the suffering lies. Before we had that object there was no suffering. It hadn’t yet arisen because there wasn’t yet an object for us to cling to.

Attā, the self, is the same. If we think in terms of ‘my self’, then everything around us becomes ‘mine’. Confusion follows. Why so? The cause of it all is that there is a self; we don’t peel off the apparent in order to see the transcendent. You see, the self is only an appearance. You have to peel away the appearances in order to see the heart of the matter, which is transcendence. Upturn the apparent to find the transcendent.

You could compare it to unthreshed rice. Can unthreshed rice be eaten? Sure it can, but you must thresh it first. Get rid of the husks and you will find the grain inside. Now if we don’t thresh the husks we won’t find the grain. Like a dog sleeping on the pile of unthreshed grain. Its stomach is rumbling ‘jork-jork-jork,’ but all it can do is lie there, thinking, ‘Where can I get something to eat?’ When it’s hungry it bounds off the pile of rice grain and runs off looking for scraps of food. Even though it’s sleeping right on top of a pile of food it knows nothing of it. Why? It can’t see the rice. Dogs can’t eat unthreshed rice. The food is there but the dog can’t eat it.

We may have learning but if we don’t practice accordingly we still don’t really know; we are just as oblivious as the dog sleeping on the pile of rice grain. It’s sleeping on a pile of food but it knows nothing of it. When it gets hungry it’s got to jump off and go trotting around elsewhere for food. It’s a shame, isn’t it? There is rice grain but what is hiding it? The husk hides the grain, so the dog can’t eat it. And there is the transcendent. What hides it? The apparent conceals the transcendent, making people simply ‘sit on top of the pile of rice, unable to eat it,’ unable to practice, unable to see the transcendent. And so they simply get stuck in appearances time and again. If you are stuck in appearances, suffering is in store. You will be beset by becoming, birth, old age, sickness and death.

So there isn’t anything else blocking people off, they are blocked right here. People who study the Dhamma without penetrating to its true meaning are just like the dog on the pile of unthreshed rice who doesn’t know the rice. He might even starve and still find nothing to eat. A dog can’t eat unthreshed rice, it doesn’t even know there is food there. After a long time without food it may even die, on top of that pile of rice! People are like this. No matter how much we study the Dhamma of the Buddha we won’t see it if we don’t practice. If we don’t see it, then we don’t know it.

(The Teachings of Ajahn Chah)