Luang Por Sumedho - “Everything around us is Dhamma”...What is enlightenment? To me this term means to be able to see clearly the way things are. It’s not the kind of light that blinds us. If we try to look at the midday sun it’ll burn our eyes out. Is that enlightenment? Or is it knowing things as they are. Being able to learn the truth from very humbling and ordinary things of daily life... The purpose of our life as monks is to realize the ultimate truth, the truth of the way it is. The Buddha used the word “Nibbana”, which means “non-attachment”, not being attached through delusion and ignorance to the experiences we have from birth to death in this form as a human being. When we ordain as bhikkhus we do it for the realization of non-attachment (nibbana), for “desirelessness” and fading away (viraga), and for cessation (nirodha). These three terms – viraga, nirodha and nibbana – are quite significant. To realize viraga we have to first understand what raga or desire is. In the second Noble Truth we have the arising of desire and the attachment to it. We can divide desire into three types: kama-tanha, bhava-tanha and vibhava-tanha. Desire is this energy that’s always looking for something or other. If there is attachment to desire, then one is never content. There is always this restlessness, trying to get something or do something or aiming at something or other. We might be picking up this or doing that or just saying anything. Desire, when it’s not understood and seen for what it is, just pulls us around.
Kama-tanha is the desire for sense pleasures. We distract ourselves with the sense world. This can be done in so many ways, can’t it? With just eating, drinking, smoking, taking drugs, sexual activities, watching television or other types of entertainment and on and on. The possibilities for distracting ourselves are endless. In the form of a bhikkhu, the life of celibacy very much restricts our ability for kama-tanha. But sometimes it definitely gathers around, let’s say, food. We can feel tremendous desires for sweets or for listening to music; a chance to distract ourselves with sound, sight, smell, taste or touch.
Kama-tanha is still quite coarse and obvious, but bhava-tanha and vibhava-tanha can be quite subtle. Bhava-tanha is the desire to become and vibhava-tanha is the desire to get rid of. In this life, which can be very altruistic and based on high-minded ideas, we can still have a strong desire to become an arahant or an enlightened person. It seems like a good desire in fact, doesn’t it? We try to become something better, or even to become the best. Or we try to get rid of the terrible things. The desire to get rid of greed, anger and delusion; of jealousy, weakness and fear. They seem righteous kinds of desires. It must be good to get rid of the bad, the obstacles, the hindrances. Our minds can support and defend bhava-tanha and vibhava-tanha on these levels of becoming and getting rid of. But we should remember that tanha is always connected to avijja (ignorance) – avijja and tanha, they go hand in hand. So, as long as there is avijja, there’s going to be tanha, and the desire to become and to get rid of. This is where we really need to understand what desire is, and not just have an idea that we shouldn’t have any desires. Because then we form the desire not to have any desires, or the desire to get rid of the desire to get rid of desires – and it gets complicated. It’s not necessary to get rid of, but to understand. So the second Noble Truth is the insight of letting go. Desires should be let go of. And to let go of something we have to know what we’re holding on to. It has nothing to do with annihilation. Letting go isn’t a kind of throwing away, since there’s no aversion accompanying it. We’re letting it be. It’s not a matter of getting rid of desire, but of letting it cease. We contemplate this word “letting go”, until we eventually realize that desire has been let go of. Then we know letting go.
So kama-tanha, bhava-tanha, vibhava-tanha are to be examined and investigated. Just observe the nature of desire. What does it feel to sit here and want to get rid of something? Or wanting to move or go away, or wanting to do or say something. How much of our formal practice is based on desires to become and desires to get rid of? We should ask ourselves that question.
So our aim and intention when ordaining is to realize Nibbana. But this is not a desire – there’s a difference here. We make our decision not from desire, but from a deliberate choosing. The rational ability to turn towards the realization of complete understanding and freedom from delusion. Whether we think we can do it or not isn’t the issue. Whether we think we’re capable, or anyone is capable, isn’t the point at all. We’re learning how to use our minds, learning how to use what we have skilfully. So we ordain as bhikkhus to realize dispassionateness and non-attachment to the five khandhas, which takes us to the cessation of desire and ignorance. We’re not just doing this when we’re ecstatic and inspired and in a high mood: “I want to realize Nibbana – it’s the most wonderful thing to do!” It’s not that, but something quite deliberate from a very rational and clear place in our minds. We might ask: “Well, are there any arahants these days? Has anybody here realized Nibbana?” This is doubt and the self-view operating. But that’s not the point, whether anybody here has realized Nibbana or not. Our goal for the Holy Life is to be free from all delusion and free from grasping. To see and know the Dhamma and to realize the truth. What’s the point of being a monk otherwise? The whole structure and form, the surrounding conditions support and encourage that. They help to remind us and to recollect. Now that’s done, as mentioned above, from a deliberate, rational position of the mind, not from desire and ignorance, trying to become an enlightened person. But it is right intention if it is grounded in wisdom and clear understanding.
Our practice and mental cultivation in this life is to observe the way things are: suffering and the arising of suffering. We should understand and acknowledge what suffering is, not just react to it. In the second Noble Truth the insight is to let go of desire. The third Noble Truth is the realization of cessation. Cessation doesn’t mean annihilation. It’s not the end of everything, a kind of total destruction, but when we let go of desire it ceases. It’s natural for whatever arises to cease. That’s just Dhamma, the way of things. All conditions are impermanent, so whatever comes into being, falls away. The focus of the third Noble Truth is to realize the cessation of things. This is quite subtle and if we don’t set our minds on practising for that realization, then we miss it all the time. Who notices how things end or cease? We’re much more interested in the arising conditions of life. Like sexual activities, delicious flavours and beautiful sights. We want pleasurable experience, an exciting lifetime with romantic relationships and adventures. So the arising of desire is what we tend to become dazzled and fascinated with. But then it reaches its peak. We can’t stay fascinated, inspired and interested forever, can we? We can only stay that way for a while: it reaches its peak and then we seek another exciting object to follow. This is what samsara is about. The endless seeking after rebirth, some kind of new, absorbing condition to become. And then we get bored, disillusioned, depressed and uncertain. That’s the cessation; what we don’t notice and what we tend to ignore. How many of us, whenever we’re bored, try to find something interesting to do to distract ourselves? We don’t like to be bored, do we? Nobody wants to be bored. The thing is, when we live a life of just one exciting adventure after another, we get incredibly bored. We get bored with excitement. What was exciting yesterday is boring today, so we have to think of something even more exciting than that. There are endless experiments with sex and drugs and rock’n’roll. Just to be reborn into something fascinating, because yesterday’s fascination is boring.
Monastic life is generally quite boring. What could be more boring than our chanting, or sitting for an hour? But it’s through observing boredom that we realize the cessation of suffering. Willing to be bored and to look at our sense of despair, depression or disillusionment. It’s easy to be a monk as long as we’re inspired. We think: “I want to be a Buddhist monk. That’s the most wonderful thing a human being can ever do. To realize the ultimate reality – that’s terribly inspiring. And to dedicate one’s whole life to the Dhamma – that’s really inspiring. And to give up sexual desire – oh, that’s very noble. And to be an alms mendicant, just eating whatever the faithful put into one’s bowl. To wear a rag-robe, to live at the foot of a tree, sitting in the full lotus-posture. To go on tudong and be able to put up with mosquitoes, malaria and stifling heat. And to live out in charnel-grounds and graveyards.” One can make a real adventure out of Buddhist monasticism as an ideal. But then the reality of it, like the reality of anything, is that one usually becomes a monk through some kind of inspiration. Inspiration is the arising side of our experience – and then it expires, or perspires (there’s a lot of perspiration in this place). If we want to be inspired all the time we have to keep going somewhere else. Coming to Wat Pah Nanachat we might be inspired, but we’re not going to stay that way, because we get too much perspiration here. Or desperation. So then we think: “Oh, I’d like to go on tudong. Off to the cave, to the mountains, to the Burmese border, or the islands off in the gulf.” Once the inspiration has worn off, any place looks more inspiring than the place we’re in. Now this is where it’s important not to move at that time – to really determine not just to follow that kind of restless desire for distractions and adventures or simply for a change. To be able just to put up with the desperation, perspiration and the expiration, until it doesn’t matter any more whether we stay or go. Ajahn Chah was always saying: “When you want to go, don’t go.” Because we need to stay and observe our boredom, our disillusionment and our restlessness. Then we might have insight into the third Noble Truth – the cessation of desire.
If we tend to think of nirodha in black-and-white terms it sounds like annihilation. This is where we need to see what grasping is and letting go, and then the cessation that follows. Because it’s not a rejection in consciousness of anything. It’s a realization, where desire, based on ignorance, is let go of. We can actually see desire, then it ceases and there is the realization of the cessation of desire – when there is no more desire, what is our mind like? This we have to really observe. Mindfulness is the way to the deathless. We sit and watch, being able to observe desire – not suppressing or trying to get rid of it, not following it blindly and just believing our mind as being ultimately us. We turn towards that cool, calm position of “Buddho”, knowing and seeing, witnessing and recognizing the way things are.
With anapanasati it’s the same pattern. I’ve always contemplated that: there’s inspiration with the inhalation and then there’s the expiration with the exhalation. When we inhale there’s this sense of the spirit rising up in a way. We tend to be drawing and pulling in the air and the body fills out. It’s like inspiration. When we’re really proud and full of life, we have that sense of being inspired, being full of breath of life. But we can only inhale to a certain degree, we can’t just keep inhaling, even though it’s a nice thing to do. Imagine yourself only inhaling and never exhaling. What would that be like? What is an exhalation then? The breath is leaving the body and we can observe, when we can’t exhale any more, there’s a real desire to inhale again. We can’t stay exhaled for very long either and just stop there without a kind of almost panic and desire to inhale again. To fill ourselves up with air again. I’ve noticed it’s easier for me to concentrate on my inhalation than it is on my exhalation. My mind more easily wanders on the exhalation. So much of life is like that. The boredom, the disillusionment – that side of life is where we wander, looking for something else. It’s not easy just to stay with being bored, the other side of happiness and pleasure, the other side of inspiration. To be mindful of that, to stay with that, we have to determine to do so. We determine to stay with the exhalation from the beginning to the end of it: just that is not terribly significant in its seeming appearance, but we can use the pattern of anapanasati as a reflection. We try and contemplate the very experience we all have of inhalation, exhalation, inspiration and disillusionment. When we’re born we start to grow up and develop. We have youth and vigour and reach a peak of physical maturity, then we get old and feeble. Our society doesn’t want to get old, does it? We see so many old and ageing people trying to remain young, youthful and vigorous. There’s so much money now in cosmetic surgery. People can have their wrinkles taken out, their double chin, their sagging jowls, their crowsfeet around their eyes. They try to make the nose more attractive, and the lips more full and the teeth white and straight. A youthful complexion is really desirable.
Let’s take a look at flowers for example. I used to contemplate roses in England, because they are so beautiful and have such a lovely fragrance. What is the perfect rose? It’s the day when the rose reaches its perfect fullness in colour, form and fragrance. From a bud it opens out and then it reaches this point where it’s perfect. But after that peak, what happens to it? It starts to get old and wilt. Its perfection and peak have passed and so it starts getting a little bit worn looking. The next day it’s definitely old, but still attractive enough. Finally it starts turning brown and looks pretty horrible. So we throw it away and get rid of it. This is one way of reflecting on life and sensual experience – always arising and passing away. We just learn from watching roses, ourselves and the people around us, the day and the night and the seasons of the year.
In England with its four seasons we can observe that sequence. The days are very long now. And they keep getting longer until the summer solstice. Then they gradually get shorter and the nights get longer. So we have this reflection on the days being very short, the nights being very long. Then the light-element increases until the days are very long and nights are very short, and it reverses. Just this experience we all have of living in the sensory realm with seasons and changes, and a body that was born, grows up, gets old and will die. Everything is based on that pattern where all conditions are impermanent. The inhalation and exhalation is something we can observe right now; to observe the winter solstice and the summer solstice takes six months. But right here and right now we can observe the inhalation, exhalation and reflect on it. Not just become kind of mesmerised by our breath, but really contemplating it, noticing and observing the way it is.
Everything around us is Dhamma; it’s teaching us about the way things are. Reflecting on the Four Noble Truths is an ongoing process, working with things that we can actually observe in daily life. Watching the breath we notice that actually the body is breathing, we aren’t breathing. After the last exhalation, when somebody dies, the body doesn’t inhale again. We never see a corpse inhaling. When the body is about to die, there’s one last exhalation, and then – finished. That’s the death of the body. As long as the body is alive it will breathe. That’s the nature of it. It’s a physiological function that sustains the life of the body. Breathing is much more important than eating. We can ask ourselves: “Who is it that breathes?” Even when we are sleeping our body is breathing, isn’t it? We don’t have to be awake and make our body breathe. So we can observe the breath of the body because it’s not-self. The breath isn’t something that we feel possessive of or identified with. It doesn’t arouse vanity in our minds. At least in my mind. I’ve never considered myself as somehow breathing better than somebody else, or envy somebody else’s breathing. Men breathe better than women, or maybe the king of Thailand breathes in a way vastly superior to me – it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Because breathing is just the way it is. It’s a physiological function, like the heart beating and the metabolism operating. It functions quite on its own without our thinking about it or identifying with it.
With anapanasati we can tranquillize the mind by concentrating on the inhalation and exhalation at the tip of the nose. The more refined our breath becomes, the more tranquil we are. One can use anapanasati only for tranquillity or also for reflection. To really understand something we have to examine it thoroughly. So that’s why we reflect on the inhalation, exhalation – to know that pattern. All that arises, ceases and to realize the letting go of the arising. When we let go of desire and are no longer attached to the arising, then what arises, ceases. That’s the natural way of things. That’s Dhamma: “Sabbe sankhara anicca, sabbe dhamma anatta (All conditions are impermanent, all conditions are not-self).” Sometimes it seems to be more interesting to develop jhanas and have magical powers. Things that are more attainment-oriented where we can feel we’re getting somewhere. Being someone who has attained something, or can do something special. Because just contemplating the exhalation doesn’t seem like we’re doing anything of much significance at all. But notice this reflection on Dhamma. To understand the way things are is the way out of suffering. Not by becoming superman, or being able to do miraculous things.
What is enlightenment? To me this term means to be able to see clearly the way things are. It is not the kind of light that blinds us. Light can be so strong that it blinds us and we can’t see anything. If we try to look at the midday sun it’ll burn our eyes out. Is that enlightenment? Or is it knowing things as they are. The amount of light needed to see things clearly isn’t a blinding light, is it? So what kind of light is that? The light of wisdom and reflection, being able to learn the truth from very humbling and ordinary things of daily life. We don’t need to know the ultimate purpose and meaning of everything in the whole universal system, the macrocosm in its totality. We learn just from watching the breath, the way the body breathes, the ageing process of the body itself. The hope and the despair in life, the happiness and the suffering – all of this. We learn from seemingly very subjective, personal and insignificant details of daily life, and we can arrive at the ultimate truth: being able to see and know things as they are. When we reflect like this we’re not putting Nibbana and enlightenment on a pedestal. This is what happens to a lot of Buddhists. It becomes something exalted and fantastic: “Nibbana! That’s the most difficult thing. Is there anybody in Thailand who has realized Nibbana? Are there any enlightened monks? They must be supermen with radiant auras, most fantastic and elevated, exalted above everyone else.” The human mind tends to idealize or idolize. But if we examine how the Buddha used the term “Nibbana”, we see it doesn’t mean much of anything. It’s certainly not an exalted term. It means “cool” actually. Like American slang: “Be cool, man.” The Buddha’s advice is to cool it. But through human ignorance the word is put up on a pedestal and worshipped as something so beyond anyone’s reach that we have no inspiration even to try. What was meant to be a very skilful teaching and useful convention for getting beyond ignorance, gets made into an idol and worshipped.
This is where teachers like Ajahn Chah really bring our attention to how to use these conventions in the way that the Buddha intended. Because they are for freedom and liberation; for seeing clearly and understanding things as they are. This we can do. It is not beyond our ability. It is a teaching for human beings.
