Experiencing or Understanding Suffering?
`I don’t like what is happening in my space.’ From targeting the outside, it is now aware of its own internal happenings. Aversion and intense discomfort are experienced. The wanting to push them away is so strong. The chattering mind is continuing and the whole experience is uncomfortable and yukky! The mind will continue with its fabrication and proliferation unless awareness shines light on what is actually happening. If it is a repeated happening, the mind may catch, `Hey, something is not right.’
Is this scene familiar to most of us? At first, we think the enemy is outside. `He makes me angry, he shouldn’t have done that, the situation should have been otherwise, so on so forth.’ With more gathering of Right Information through repeated listenings, somehow the mind gets it, `Hey wait a minute. What are you not seeing correctly?’ It then turns inwards to see the inner workings. Aversion is intense as the stories churn and play out. But awareness notices this more and more. Some understanding arises, `Can you stop it?’ Of course, it can’t for all the mental happenings are played out by the deluded mind. Suffering will happen as long as it is experienced and not understood.
Then the next question may arise, `So how to understand it so that it can stop?’ Again, the cause is not seen. It cannot stop because there is a wanting it to stop. The loop of wanting and not wanting will run on its own because strong views are supporting the whole playout. When the mind sees it through repeated familiar patterns, the abandoning happens naturally. Right View arises when wrong view is understood. But it doesn’t happen once for the nature of delusion to lose its power. There are so many many wrong views that the mind has accumulated. This requires persistent observations and learnings for the views to be rectified.
There is no one who can do it. The I which wants to do it, is delusion itself. The nature of ignorance will manifest such patterns of wanting and not wanting. That is the suchness of wrong view. It’s not a person doing it. Attachment to views will perpetuate this loop. When there is Right Understanding each time, the wrong view ceases (at that time). The mind sees repeatedly how unnecessary it is to perpetuate such a vicious loop. The mind sees the urgency of the cultivation (not a practice but Right Awareness as its supportive condition).
To use an analogy, can one prevent the polluted bubbles of dust and chemicals from appearing to contaminate the air? What says they are contaminating the air? Can there be a stepping back to notice the phenomenon playing out? They don’t belong to anyone and is there a need to own them? It cannot be stopped once arisen and when there are meanings of good and bad, the doing will happen. The views perpetuate the happening. When this is seen and understood, the mental suffering subsides or ceases. Instead of experiencing suffering, suffering is understood. The mind sees that there is no need to go further and that what arises will cease when the conditions are no longer supporting it.
Like what the teacher shared this morning, even though the mind may have understanding and the problem is resolved, are we going to stay contented? Yes and no. Yes, if we wish to go on using the same formula to resolve issues and problems of the world. The mind acquires the skill to resolve worldly issues and mental suffering. The mind has grown in the five mental faculties where confidence, effort, awareness have brought forth stability and wisdom. This is worldly wisdom where life becomes better and one is happier. Delusion is still having a great time. The view that issues can be resolved and I have got it is a trap in the spiritual journey. If one wishes to get out of the playout of the mind (which is nature in its different mental factors), then contentment is seen through as a clown-in-disguise. It covers up the reality of existence itself.
Is it possible to get out of this cycle where there is total freedom from this vicious loop? Yes, when the mind grows in wisdom to see that short-term gain cannot guarantee the future, it moves to the five spiritual faculties. This is the Right Path where the mind sees the danger of the cycle of birth and death. The Awakened One’s advice is gradually understood as to why He said, `Avoid all evil, do good, and purify the mind.’
The nature of the mind is to reflect what appears to it. So there is no one to do it. It is cause and effect happening every moment when ignorance is still its operating mode. There is no way we can short-change the mind. We are nowhere in this equation of cause and effect. It is nature doing its job.
This reminds me of the Fifth Patriarch who wanted to pass his lineage to the next person. The chief disciple, Shen Hsiu came up with this verse,
“The body is the bodhi tree,
The mind is like a clear mirror.
At all times we must strive to polish it,
And must not let the dust collect.”
The Fifth Patriarch saw that Shen Hsiu had not attained the true understanding of the nature of reality. When someone read this verse to Hui Neng (he was illiterate), he asked this person to write another verse next to Shen Hsiu’s.
Bodhi originally has no tree,
The mirror(-like mind) has no stand.
Buddha-nature (emptiness/oneness) is always clean and pure;
Where is there room for dust (to alight)?
The Fifth Patriarch knew Hui Neng was worthy of receiving the lineage. However, Hui Neng went through many difficulties. But a well-trained mind that has understood the reality of life will be equanimous and unwavering. It has understood what life all is about and all its actions will be in tandem with this Right Understanding.
Taking the understanding from the two great teachers, this mind understood the journey is not a one-time off. `I know it and I am done,’ is a deluded thought coming from pride. Life itself is its teacher to learn and tame the untrained deluded mind. As long as wisdom is not fully established, the practice has to go on. When the wisdom takes over completely, it becomes the operating mode. Hence every step of the way, it is the untrained mind learning correctly (wrong views are rectified) and for more Right Understanding to unfold as the mind inclines towards the Right Path. The five mental faculties evolve to the five spiritual faculties, then to the five spiritual powers and finally to the waking up from ignorance. (Truth is for everyone and not specific to any religion or faith for the nature of mind is universal so any terminology used is just another word or phrase of expression, not exclusive).
In grace,
Chee Guit Yeng
13 August 2024