A Lifetime Endeavour (Part 1)

In one of the monastic rules of conduct, monks are forbidden from calling out loudly when they want to get other monks’ attention. They should instead signal with their hands because the Lord Buddha wanted them to have a quiet environment to meditate. During Lord Buddha’s time, the monks took up meditation as their lifetime endeavor. But nowadays, most of the monks and the laity don’t. The Lord Buddha and the noble disciples or sāvakas taught only the practice of walking and sitting meditation, the places that were suitable for the meditation practices and the methods used to eliminate the kilesas, taṇhā and āsava. The main topics of conversation that the monks had during the Lord Buddha’s time were the sallekha-dhamma, which means cleansing or purifying. It’s the cleansing of the kilesas from their conduct, speech and thought. They should only be talking about cleansing and eliminating the kilesas because they took up the robe for this purpose and not to accumulate the kilesas.

Right now you only have the appearance of one who has gone forth. Originally, going forth was for the purpose of destroying all the kilesas, taṇhā and āsava. If you believe in this ideal, but are not doing any practice, you’ll instead accumulate more kilesas and defy the Dhamma-vinaya. As a practitioner, you must strictly adhere to the Dhamma teaching that has been recorded in the scriptures and use it as your guide. The purpose of recording and preserving the Lord Buddha’s teaching is to serve as a guiding light for those who are interested in the practice of mental development. Had it not been recorded, you wouldn’t know how the Lord Buddha and the noble disciples practiced and became enlightened. Nowadays, you only study the scriptures and do not do any practice. All that you have learned are the descriptions of the magga, phala and Nibbāna. If your goal in studying the scriptures and practicing mental development is to become a famous guru, you’ll unknowingly accumulate more kilesas and reject the goal set for you by the Lord Buddha. You should seriously think about this.

You shouldn’t rely solely on your teacher’s instruction because it’s not enough to make you wise. How do you become wise? You have to do a lot of investigation, analysis and reflection and be always mindful of the sense objects that come into contact with your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and heart. If you don’t use your sati and paññā, you’ll never gain any wisdom. The Lord Buddha and the sāvakas gained wisdom through their sati, paññā, saddhā and viriya. They didn’t become wise by being idle and hopeless. When doing walking meditation, they didn’t let their mind think aimlessly like the way you’re doing, which is no different from people who don’t practice walking meditation. Sati and paññā connect to form a formidable weapon to free your heart from the kilesas’ oppression. Saddhā is the belief in the magga and phala, and the belief that having faithfully followed the Lord Buddha’s teaching, you’ll become enlightened. You should always practice with diligent effort or viriya to develop your sati or mindfulness and investigate with paññā. If you always maintain your diligent effort, you’ll never get tired of fighting the kilesas or be discouraged from developing your sati and paññā.

The citta is the real thing. The body is merely a phenomenon. When you practice meditation whilst walking back and forth without any mindfulness, you’re like people who go for a stroll, not like someone who practices meditation. But you’re worse than them if you practice walking meditation without any mindfulness. You mustn’t walk like that. The Lord Buddha’s teaching, which has been recorded in the scriptures, can be very useful for your practice if you reflect on it with your sati and paññā. However, usually you don’t reflect on it but merely chant it like a parrot chirping: ‘Precious stone, precious stone...’ When you give a parrot a precious stone, it doesn’t know what to do with it because it only knows about fruits such as bananas. You’re like a parrot because you don’t know the perils inherent in the kilesas, taṇhā and āsava that you’re passionately obsessed with and never seem to have enough of. You also don’t know the worth of Dhamma which is like a precious stone. That’s why you never want to have anything to do with the Dhamma, like applying your diligent effort.

When you do walking meditation, your knees become weak and when you do sitting meditation it seems as if your bones and your body are bursting apart. When you develop sati and investigate with paññā to remove the harmful kilesas, you become weak and discouraged and let the kilesas trample all over you and knock you out. All you can think is “This is hopeless. I have been striving so hard but I can never enter into calm.” So while you’re doing walking or sitting meditation, your practice just turns in the kilesas’ favor because it’s being driven by the kilesas, not by the Dhamma. So how can you ever become enlightened? This is the way you should reflect if you want to gauge your success or failure. If you think with paññā, you’ll know how far you’ve progressed in your practice. You should think “Today I have walked and sat in meditation. How were my citta and satipaññā? Did I merely walk like people going for a stroll or sit casually? When people sit casually, it’s not as bad as when I sit hopelessly and unmindfully. When I meditate, I should be striving for freedom from dukkha and should always remind myself of this goal.” You mustn’t be complacent because there’s no reason in this world for you to be so.

The Lord Buddha had always taught you to refrain from acquiring worldly possessions and pleasures because they are like fire. He said that they are all aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ and anattā, and are all unreliable, so you mustn’t be attached to them. If you cling to them, it’ll be like clinging to fire. The correct way to deal with them is to always reflect on their aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ and anattā nature. If you’re attached to them you’ll always be afflicted with dukkha. The intensity of dukkha varies with the intensity of your attachment. There is no other endeavor for you but the practice of sitting and walking meditation. You should always watch your heart with satipaññā if you want to catch the kilesas’ tricks and deceptions because satipaññā is an indispensable tool for catching them. With satipaññā you’ll always detect the kilesas in whatever form they might appear in the heart, be it raga or dosa, lust or anger, because the heart is the one who knows and satipaññā is the one who analyzes. You have to focus your attention at the heart in order to see the cause and the effect of dukkha. But you mustn’t merely wish them to disappear, for this is taṇhā or craving. If you want dukkha to vanish, you’ll have to find and remove the cause of dukkha. Otherwise, dukkha will not disappear, but will intensify to the point where you won’t be able to endure it. For this reason, it’s absolutely vital for you to watch your heart.

I’ve tried my best to provide you with the opportunity to practice. I’m very protective of you and really care for you. I truly cherish the reclusive life and the meditation practice which I’ve devoted my entire life to. The results are really satisfying because it released me from dukkha after I eliminated all of the kilesas from my heart with my satipaññā, something not beyond your own ability. I’d really like to see you realize all levels of Dhamma attainments, beginning with samādhi. What is samādhi really like? What kind of calm and coolness? If satipaññā is constantly focused at the citta and observing it, then the citta won’t have time to produce any harmful thoughts to hurt you and will eventually enter into calm. When the citta becomes reckless and stubborn, then you must use the various techniques of satipaññā to restrain it because satipaññā is superior to the kilesas. This is paññā develops samādhi. When the kilesas are extremely wild, you must put all of your effort into taming the citta. It’s a life and death situation. You must subdue the kilesas with your satipaññā until the citta withdraws inside and calms down.

I can confidently relate to you the experience realized from my meditation practice. When the citta became very reckless with lust or rāga, I had to subdue it with my satipaññā until I was in tears before I could see its harmfulness. When I sat for a long time until the pain became very excruciating, I had to use satipaññā to investigate the body. If I was using a mantra or being mindful of my breathing I had to stop doing it when the dukkha-vedanā attacked with its full force. I had to continually investigate dukkha-vedanā with my satipaññā like two boxers punching each other. You can’t afford to be off-guard because when you are, you’ll be vulnerable. It’s the same way with your investigation. You must probe and analyze until you find and eliminate the cause of dukkha. After you’ve achieved this, how can the citta’s spectacular nature not appear? There is nothing in this world that could be more spectacular than a developed citta. On the other hand, there is nothing in this world that could be worse than an undeveloped citta. The citta is very important because it’s the indispensable container for all the different levels of Dhamma, especially the magga, phala and Nibbāna. You must, therefore, strive to develop the citta.

When you fast, you should really concentrate on your meditation practice. Your exertion should be more strenuous than it would normally be. Fasting or reducing your food intake is a means of developing your mindfulness, or sati. If fasting suits you, it’ll make your practice easier and more fruitful than when you eat normally. If it doesn’t suit you, it won’t help your practice, because you’ll be thinking about food all the time rather than about your practice. When you fast your body will become light, your citta nimble and alert, your mindfulness ever-present, and you will experience no sleepiness. You’ll see that your sleepiness comes from eating a lot of food. After fasting for two or three days, there’ll be no drowsiness left. You’ll sit erect like a post, and your citta will enter into calm very easily. There is nothing to bother your citta. When you develop paññā, it will flow very easily, spinning round and round. Regardless of the Dhamma level you’re in, the methods of practice like fasting will always promote your progress, if they suit your temperament. If they don’t, they will become a hindrance.

You shouldn’t speculate about things that you haven’t yet experienced in your heart, like imagining what khaṇika samādhi is like, what upacāra samādhi is like, what appanā samādhi is like, or what the citta’s convergence into complete concentration is like. This is just imagination that will lead you away from the heart who is the one to experience and develop them, be it any kind of samādhi. The point is never to speculate what khaṇika samādhi, upacāra samādhi or appanā samādhi are like, other than experiencing the truth of these samādhis yourself because this is the correct way to do it. It’s like describing what a particular dish of food is like. Whether it’s sweet or not really doesn’t matter. Even a child who hasn’t had any schooling about culinary matters will know if the food is delicious or not when he eats it. It’s the same with samādhi. You have to experience it by developing it yourself. It doesn’t depend on your speculation; that is useless and wastes your time. Be it any kind of samādhi, you’ll get to know it yourself. You’ll know what kind of samādhi suits you when you’ve developed it with your mindfulness and strenuous effort. After you’ve entered into calm, you’ll know what it’s like and how to achieve it.

Normally the citta likes to think a lot because it’s always restless and agitated like a monkey. But when you’ve developed sati to control your citta, like when you’ve continually concentrated on your mantra or any other meditation object, then the citta won’t have the chance to think aimlessly and will calm down. Whatever kind of calm it may be, you’ll know it, as well as the happiness, ease and comfort that accompany it, be it khaṇika, upacāra or appanā. The important point is never to speculate about them, because it’s a waste of time and a hindrance to your meditation practice, especially when you’re investigating for the truth. What you’ve studied from the scriptures or heard from your teacher, are all speculation. If you apply it in your investigation, you’ll ruin it and never become enlightened. The citta will unknowingly think that it’s the truth. Therefore, you mustn’t let your speculation interfere with your investigation. If you want to become enlightened, you must always attentively watch your citta. You’re practicing cittabhāvanā or mental development. You’re not practicing for the development of mental delusion. If you constantly study the citta, you’ll clearly see that the citta is the knowingness or “the one who knows.”

(Ajahn Maha Boowa “Forest Desanas”)