Path of Meditation

Good Heart - Ajahn Sucitto

If spirituality remains in the realm of ideas, it can’t evoke the feeling that uplifts us. A teaching has to be experienced, felt out, made real and fully experienced for it to work; then it works because one enters it with a sense of faith or trust. So in the Buddha’s Dhamma, one is asked to get in touch with the primary quality of goodness in oneself. We enter through this immediate personal quality that we may have overlooked. Before we get involved in our notions of the goal, we are asked to recognize and trust in our own good heart as the vehicle. And the more we enter with good heart, the more it lifts us up.If spirituality remains in the realm of ideas, it can’t evoke the feeling that uplifts us. A teaching has to be experienced, felt out, made real and fully experienced for it to work; then it works because one enters it with a sense of faith or trust. So in the Buddha’s Dhamma, one is asked to get in touch with the primary quality of goodness in oneself. We enter through this immediate personal quality that we may have overlooked. Before we get involved in our notions of the goal, we are asked to recognize and trust in our own good heart as the vehicle. And the more we enter with good heart, the more it lifts us up.If spirituality remains in the realm of ideas, it can’t evoke the feeling that uplifts us. A teaching has to be experienced, felt out, made real and fully experienced for it to work; then it works because one enters it with a sense of faith or trust. So in the Buddha’s Dhamma, one is asked to get in touch with the primary quality of goodness in oneself. We enter through this immediate personal quality that we may have overlooked. Before we get involved in our notions of the goal, we are asked to recognize and trust in our own good heart as the vehicle. And the more we enter with good heart, the more it lifts us up.If spirituality remains in the realm of ideas, it can’t evoke the feeling that uplifts us. A teaching has to be experienced, felt out, made real and fully experienced for it to work; then it works because one enters it with a sense of faith or trust. So in the Buddha’s Dhamma, one is asked to get in touch with the primary quality of goodness in oneself. We enter through this immediate personal quality that we may have overlooked. Before we get involved in our notions of the goal, we are asked to recognize and trust in our own good heart as the vehicle. And the more we enter with good heart, the more it lifts us up.

Without this uplift that carries one along, Buddhist practice would not be a spiritual matter, it would be mere engineering. As we get in touch with the good heart, we can allow it to carry us in a process in which the personality system doesn’t have to be the leader. It’s not annihilated but put to one side. This is an ecstatic process: the word ‘ecstasy’ literally means ‘to stand outside of,’ to move out of the realm of personality. Yet it is a measured, gentle kind of ecstasy, not a crazy or frenzied experience. Rather like learning to swim: feeling out the water . rst, the currents, knowing the depth, learning trust, then taking one foot off the bottom — then gradually we realise the water does lift us.

The Buddhist scriptures present us with descriptions of the the weaknesses and de. lements which human beings get stuck with; but they are also liberally enhanced with references to bliss, joy, delight, happiness, calm, clarity and peacefulness — to the point where language begins to fail in its ability to articulate the blissful states that are possible for a human being. This goes on to the highest kind of bliss — which 8 blows the fuses on the linguistic system altogether. If we consider the spiritual path like this we can be uplifted with faith and a sense of eagerness; and also see there is a measured way to get in touch with this good heart, to encourage and nurture it until eventually it gets big enough to pick us up. For this purpose, the Buddha taught a structured pro cess called the Graduated Teaching, through which he instructed and encouraged people. It begins from a position that a person can already understand, and draws them into reasoned selfinquiry:

‘Do you think this is good, or this is better?’ ‘If you do this… isn’t it better like that?’ and so on, leading them on from a place where they are already clear in their own minds. So . rst of all his teaching points towards what a person knows to be good and uplifting: generosity — a simple example of good kamma. Generosity can manifest in terms of material things or in terms of heart. Generosity is something that people feel good with, it is expansive, grand and uplifting, and it is both good for oneself and for others. It’s a good feeling that isn’t based on taking something out of a context or a relationship. So it goes in the way of Dhamma, which is towards purity.

Taught in this way a person tunes in to an empathetic way of living: what good one does for others is good done for oneself. This is the basis for good heart. After highlighting generosity, the Buddha would then talk on virtue: the listener is asked to consider what they would not like to have happen to themselves. Then why should we do that to any other creature? Again an empathetic note is struck. And we are also asked to notice the laws of cause and effect. What happens when we drink alcohol? What does it feel like a few hours later? What are the kind of actions or relationships that arise from it? What makes me feel good in the long-term? A person is thus encouraged to re. ect and so develop wisdom.

Then the Buddha leads on with a teaching which is more dif. cult for human beings to hear: that seeking sensory stimulation to . nd a sense of well-being is unreliable. It often isn’t even particularly healthy; and it can be draining and degrading. It may take some sustained introspection before we are able to recognize that the bene. ts of sensory stimulation are less than those of generosity and virtue. The teaching then moves on to renunciation, which is a very dif. cult thing for human beings to take on, at any level, because of the systems and conditioning that we have. Sensory systems are about having, holding and accumulating. We need to realise that the highest kind of well-being comes through giving out, rather than sucking in. This realization is one of the . rst fruitions of goodness, wherein well-being becomes associated with our ethical and empathetic criteria, rather than with the impact of external impressions on our nervous systems. Then renunciation starts to make sense. The Buddha taught in this way. Presenting people with a way of systematically feeling things out, looking for where the highest degree of goodness and completion in themselves is to be found. Then, when their mind was uplifted and ready, he taught the Four Noble Truths: the teaching that leads towards the ending of loss, alienation, and need. The fourth Truth, that of the Eightfold Path, provides a template of spiritual practice that can cover all aspects of our life: our emotional and psychological life, our relationships, the way we think and act, the way our minds work. We may be familiar with the Eightfold Path, but sometimesthe Buddha taught the Tenfold Path1. The two factorsthat follow the normal Eight are Right Knowledge (not intellectualknowledge, but a full spiritual comprehension) and Right 1. e.g. Majjhima Nikàya 117 Aïguttara Nikàya Tens

Release — one is perfectly released, freed, lifted out of suffering. You could use the analogy of a skilled musician: when they learn to play a horn, they know how to . nd the keys, and to blow down it and make the sound. But the note is ecstatic; it leaves the instrument altogether. The Eightfold Path is the tuning and playing. Then what arises from the the Eightfold Path is Right Knowledge and Right Release. So with the eighth Path factor of collectedness (samàdhi) — this has the power to gather and propel the other Path factors to the experience of knowledge and release.

Having the Path as a guide is something to make full use of. Do I practise Right View? Do I practise Right Thought? Do I practise Right Speech? Right Action? Right Livelihood? Do I practise Right Effort? Right Mindfulness? Right Collectedness of mind? This process of systematic enquiry is something that the Buddha encouraged. Do I hold views that are depressing, that don’t lift me up, that make life seem pointless or frustrating; or do I hold views that make me feel that development is possible, that there is good kamma, and skilful results in time? This is Right View: rather than demanding to have it all now, is what I do now good or not? What are its results now or in the future? If you see that you’ve done wrong, can you start to put it right? To acknowledge where one has gone wrong, to try to understand it and then move towards the good is considered a very skilful act in Buddhism. It re-establishes the good heart. Then Right Thought. The Buddha described this in terms of looking into his mind before he was enlightened and considering: which ways of thinking were concerned with cruelty, which ways were concerned with non-cruelty, which ways of thinking and acting were concerned with loving-kindness, which ways were concerned with sourness and illwill? Which ways were about grabbing and holding, which were about letting-go and renunciation? Then he determined 11 to fully recognize the harmful thoughts, feel their distastefulness, and deliberately put them aside. And then pick up their opposites. This is not a complicated process, and yet in putting it into practice, it gives an example of the key feature of the Path: to establish goodness through discernment. What sets up Right Speech? Or, considering these factors in terms of their ‘Path and Fruit,’ am I on the Path towards it? Am I working towards developing Right Speech? If you look at the list of subjects the Buddha determined were not worth talking about, you will notice that these are the things that most people like to talk about — because they provide a warm fuzzy blanket over the here and now of the mind. Talk about football, weather, what life is like on Jupiter, talk of heroes and celebrities etc. These are the things that people like to talk about because they cover up or act as a pleasant padding around the uncertainty of life or the wounds of our hearts and minds. And they allay some of the anxiety which occurs when we meet people and are uncertain of our common ground. Personality systems can be desperately fragile, and have a need to . nd assurance, be welcomed and made to look like they’re going places and so on. They are endlessly hungry for these things. Often the social world is one of tossing titbits to each other’s personalities…. Can we get beyond this? Am I someone who understands the need for Right Effort? One who perhaps recognizes they haven’t ful. lled the factors of Right Effort, but is interested and concerned with ful. lling them? This is the effort to bring up that which is good, to maintain and strengthen what is good, to relinquish what is bad, and to protect oneself from unskilful actions: this vigour, connectedness and commitment. Use the Eightfold Path as a mnemonic, as something you can run through your mind and consider. There are of course a million things that one can be doing in a day, but to re. ect 12 like that is therapeutic. It is not letting the mind dissipate, it provides a container and reminds us of training ourselves in terms of good heart. We can forget this when we get absorbed into doing things or into being somebody; into worrying about ourselves in a useless way, dwelling in guilt, pride or conceit, or dwelling in infatuations or negative thoughts about others. When considering the Path, recognize that it all . ts together. So one’s view or effort will help and support one’s samàdhi; one’s practice of mindfulness will support one’s speech. The Path factors should all line up, rather than some factors go one way and some go another. So the image of the Path is a Wheel. The factors that are mentioned . rst are the ones that are necessary and supportive of the factors that are mentioned later. Consider mindfulness which is a process of clear attention; or samàdhi — collectedness, a calm peaceful mind: how does what we think and say support those qualities? The primary support is the good heart that is born out of Right View. It is something that we begin to recognize and share with others. When we come together in a monastery like this, we can acknowledge this good heart in each other. Instead of seeing each other with a critical eye, we should begin to see:

‘This is someone with a good heart, this is my brother or sister with this particular attribute.’ Try to talk to them like that, try to see that in them, rather than: ‘Oh, here’s that creep who is always late,’ or, ‘that incompetent so and so.’ Look for the good heart. If you see this in yourself then you see it within others, and your mind settles into something that feels happy, and has well-being, rather than being unsettled and grumpy — which is not going to lead to mindfulness or samàdhi. Do things that honour and support a good heart, and live up to that in yourself. We can begin to see more clearly and intimately the difference between good and bad, wholesome and unwholesome, not from an abstract judgmental way.

Feel the difference. Whatever makes you feel whole is wholesome, whatever makes you feel bitter, regretful, unsettled, is unwholesome. No matter what people are doing to me, no matter what is going on, does a feeling of resentment make me feel good or not? The next time these things happen, notice the mood, and let go.

The Buddha says he noticed feelings of cruelty in the mind, he doesn’t say ‘I don’t know what cruelty is about.’ Knowing what ill-will, malice and dismissiveness is about, know ing we don’t like them, we can more readily put them aside. Being prepared to keep that going is Right Effort. The Right Effort is not just one hour a week, but to carry on doing it, however simple or mundane it might seem, keeping it simple and steered in the right way.

You can’t take short cuts, you can’t say: ‘I’ll forget about Right View, Right Thought, Right Livelihood, just give me some samàdhi.’ Life soon becomes wretched if you consider the path to be only one factor. If you think like that then most of your day is not relevant. You end up with a little slot at the end of your week when you do your ‘spiritual bit,’ because you have divorced spirituality and stopped taking responsibility for the way you think, speak and act. The humble levels of thought, speech and action — if properly carried out, properly born in mind — are conducive to, and will lead to, the loftier states of samàdhi, Knowledge and Release. Sometimes when we practise meditation we can lose sight of this. We may feel we don’t want to talk, act, speak and so on. We divorce the primary factors from the consequent factors of the path. We become dismissive: ‘don’t bother me.’ When we’re like that then ordinary life is a waste of time, dull and irritating, because we don’t practise with it. I have noticed myself the effects of being willing and having good heart in my actions. I’ll be attending meet-14 ings and dealing with planning and all sorts of conceptual stuff — which we could say isn’t about the here and now — but if I do these things with Right View, and a good heart, then when I stop that activity, it stops there. And the good heart is there. I more readily go into clarity, peacefulness and happiness of mind. When the mind is happy and peaceful it easily concentrates. But if I go through these things in a begrudging, ‘this is all a waste of time’ way, then it doesn’t stop when I get to the end of the work or the meeting. The mind goes on and on moaning about wasting all this time — for another six hours! Or whines: ‘How am I going to get enlightened doing this!’ As if the world should be set up for my own well-being! If you consider the plight of most human beings, let alone the other creatures on the planet, we are living in a very comfy little scene here in Britain, and certainly in this monastery. The big dif. culty for human beings is the vital factor of renunciation. However, as we develop the good heart we . nd we can relinquish. As we feel good in ourselves, we have fewer needs. Also when we feel good in ourself, we don’t mind taking things on. So we can renounce things not in a dismissive or puritanical way, but because the clinging and neediness is alleviated.

There are different kinds of need. One is to have lots of things, to get things; one is to be something; another is to be removed from things. These movements of the mind are known as kàma, bhava and vibhava. Renunciation, which runs right through the process of Dhamma, can eventually curtail these factors. This renunciation is then an expression of ful. lment.

The first things we feel we don’t require so much are the sensual objects; . ne clothes, entertainment, and sexual activity. When I . rst entered the monastery it was easy to relinquish entertainment and relationships, I’d had enough of all that 15 anyway, at least for the time being! But in the monastery one also has to give up one’s own time to following a routine, which is a testing thing. Giving up one’s space and sharing it with other people, renouncing the need to be special, private and left alone — these are also challenging practices. But the thing that many people miss out on is giving up their views and opinions. This is the last hand-hold, which can be held extremely tightly! If you have lived with monks and nuns for a while, then you realize that the strength of character that allows them to give up sensuality makes for holding strong opinions about things!

People . nd a tremendous sense of positioning through holding views. In my own practice I found it quite easy to give up things, even to be quite austere, but then I’d develop critical views about everyone else. I hadn’t relinquished that conceit, that way of positioning myself by judging others. So rather than going into debates about who is right and who is wrong; which is the right meditation practice for me and so on, it’s good to put down the text-book and consider: what does it feel like to look for, or hold a view? What does it feel like when I look at someone from behind the fence of a view? And what are the results? I have found that having views about other people is conducive to having views about myself. Views that one has about other people are actually far more tolerant than views one has about oneself. If one makes judgements about other people, then my experience is that one does the same to oneself.

The critical mind is then in a judgmental mode: there’s no happiness, there’s no gladness, there’s no love, there’s no trust. I am either trying to appease that factor of the mind that holds the view, live up to the view I have of myself, or trying to get a better view of myself. So meditation is not an easeful open experience. It is a performance to become and sustain 16 what my view-thinking mind says I should be. This is a miserable experience.

As much as one can justify, and think that one’s views about other people are correct — even when they are (as views) — try feeling the mind-state, the conceit that accompanies them. Then when doing it to oneself, notice how ‘I am…’ leads to ‘I never will be…’ and ‘I always am….’ It’s a trap. The contemplative process then gets used up in conceiving and evaluating in terms of self. That valuable system that should actually help us to collect in terms of good heart and Path factors, collects in terms of self. And this ‘self-view’ sustains a process of fragmentation.
Relinquishing a view is made possible by fully knowing it to be that, knowing what it feels like. Knowing the good heart, kindness and generosity on one hand; then feeling the judging, the criticising, and the forming of opinions on the other hand. Consider which feels better. Take the time to do it, rather than either suppress one’s views, or justify them, or think they are irrelevant to one’s practice. Views appear to be about other people, but they create the realm that one’s own heart has to live in. We can learn a lot by exploring this experience.
This relinquishment stabilises and calms the mind. Ask yourself: is the mind steady and endowed with con. dence in itself? Or is it jittering, going this way and that, frantic and then slumping down? What are the ways of behaviour that are conducive to a steady heart and mind? What about giving up and relinquishing a lot of the ifs, ands, maybes, if only’s, what should, could and might be and so on? Then with the independence and the trust in oneself that comes from renunciation, calm arises. Having your mind zip around, speculating and bantering, can seem harmless enough — but why is it so unsettled?

If you support your mind in zipping around, then when you sit down quietly, it will continue to do that. It will keep up the patter, the zig-zagging, the memories about this, the worrying about that, restlessly picking at this, fantasising about that, feeling irritated with oneself for a little while, then trying to do something else, then trying to meditate… that doesn’t work, so back to the fantasy for a while, get irritated, form an opinion about oneself…. The mind whose energy has not been properly protected and collected is like a . y on a window pane. It just buzzes, it doesn’t get out, nor can it settle where it is. It’s out of touch with the good heart.

So for true well-being we have to give up a lot of the speculations, choices and mental trips we can get into. If we can put things aside with a good heart, then we can dwell in good heart. The mind’s ability to conceive can then be directed, and used in attending to a meditation object. We may feel that meditation is something that we can’t do. However, that thought is not a skilful thought to sustain. Meditation entails . rst removing mental activities from what is unskilful; this gives the openness and energy to focus and sustain the mind on a meditation object. So, let’s get to know what Right Thought feels like. ‘Every good action, or every good thought I bear in mind will go along the right Path.’ This feels like a skilful thought to sustain: it leads to an interested joyfulness, then a sense of ease and ful. lment. ‘My act of peeling a carrot with a caring heart will help me to meditate.’ ‘My action of forgiving someone or being grand-hearted, will give me calm and ease.’ This direct good-heartedness is the means that gives us the strength, the persistence and confidence to stay with the Path as it unfolds.