isbell@marvin.DEC (Chris Isbell ) (04/27/84)
[] The following extracts from a talk given by a Buddhist monk are dedicated to the kind people (not all Buddhists) who have sent me mail requesting that I continue posting this sort of thing to net.religion. Chris Isbell. (...decvax!decwrl!rhea!marvin!isbell) Extracts from "Realizing the Mind" A talk given by Venerable Sumedho Bhikkhu at Chithurst Forest Monastery on 18th September, 1982. Realization is what? Think, the word 'real': realizing, recognizing, knowing, direct knowledge of ultimate truth... Now what do we mean by ultimate truth? We can say 'Ultimate Truth'; we can use the Pali word, 'Dhamma', or the Sanskrit word, 'Dharma'; we can say, 'The Absolute'; we can say 'God'. Whatever word one happens to be conditioned with is the word which one prefers. 'Ultimate Truth' might sound a bit intellectual or not have the pull of the heartstrings that 'God' has, but we're not quibbling over terminology anymore. We don't care exactly what word we use. We're not here trying to find the perfect word to describe something which doesn't need any description, cannot REALLY be described but can only be realized. We just do the best we can with whatever language we happen to have, because the point is not to decide which terminology is the most accurate but to get beyond the term to the actual realization! Of 'Ultimate Reality' or 'God' or 'The Absolute' or whatever! ... Meditation is a constant realizing. Realizing the conditions of the mind as just that: as conditions of the mind. Ignorant people do not understand this. They think the conditions of mind are themselves, or they think they shouldn't have certain conditions and that they should have other kinds of conditions. If you are a very idealistic person you would like to be good, saintly, intelligent, noble, courageous, the finest quality of human being. "That's what I want to be. I want to be a very noble and fine person". Well, that's all very good, you have this ideal: "That's what I'd like to be;" 'the noble heart', 'the courageous man', 'the gentle, compassionate woman'; all these wonderful ideals, but then you have to face the realities of daily life. We find ourselves being caught up in getting angry, getting upset, getting jealous, greedy, thinking all kinds of unpleasant things about people who we know, thoughts and feelings that if we were the perfect human beings we would like to be we would never think or feel. So when I start thinking: "I am so far removed from that ideal human being, that wonderful man, that perfect woman, that I'm a hopeless, useless, worthless BUM!" Why? Because the conditions of mind are not always fitting the ideal; sometimes you might be very courageous, very noble hearted. At certain moments we find ourselves doing the most wonderful things, acting in a most courageous way. But at other times the opposite is the case. We wonder, "How do such ugly thoughts come into my mind? If I were really good I would never have such evil thoughts or feelings". Now, what we can realize, without trying to become anything, is that these conditions are just that. Whether they are noble, brave, courageous, or weak, wishy-washy, ignoble and stupid, they are still only conditions dependent on all kinds of factors that we can't predict or control. Begin to realize that on the conditional level everything is affecting everything. There's no way that we can say, "I am going to isolate myself completely from everything so that nothing is affecting me", because everything is affecting everything all the time. So on the conditioned level there's nothing much we can do except recognize, realize; although we do have a choice. We can use our bodies for good action rather than evil; that's where the choice comes. If you're mindful and wise then you skilfully use your body and speech, that which goes out, relates to other beings and to the earth you live on - you use it skilfully, for that which is kind, compassionate, charitable, moral. What goes on in the mind could be anything: maybe the desire to kill somebody. But that is something you don't act upon. You just recognize. You can recognize it's only a condition and not a 'self', not a personal problem. Now have any of you ever had any murderous impulses? Wanting to kill somebody? I have. I can understand murder. I never murdered anybody, never came close, but I have certainly had murderous thoughts. So where do those come from? Is there something really rotten inside me that I should start worrying about, or is it just the natural tendency of a mind - that when you feel totally repelled and averse to something you try to annihilate it? That's natural enough. Murder is a part of nature; it goes on all the time. Animals murder each other. Just listen some nights in the forest. You hear murders going on all the time: rabbits screaming as foxes grab their throats. Murder is a natural inclination, it's nothing abnormal; but for the moral, responsible human being, the religious seeker, we might have murderous impulses but we do not act on them. Instead, we fully recognize these impulses as that: impulses as conditions. What I mean by recognizing is the realization, "They are just that"; not creating a problem, not making it complicated by saying , "We shouldn't have such impulses", or "I am a bad and evil man because such an impulse came through my mind", and so start creating a neurosis around it. Just that clear realization of it as it really is, because that's what we can know directly, without speculation, without belief. So that's realization isn't it? Realizing the conditioned as the conditioned. Now as we are more at ease with the conditioned, rather than deluded, helplessly reacting to conditions, absorbed into them, rejecting or annihilating them, we begin to be aware of the unconditioned, the space of the mind. You think that conditions are everything. Conditions have to come from something, don't they? Since they are impermanent, where do they come from and what do they disappear into? As you watch you begin to feel or experience the emptiness or the wholeness or the unconditioned - whatever word you use isn't quite it. We say "the unconditioned", that which is not born, does not die. ------------------------------------------------------------------------