The Solution to Our Unhappiness

After attaining enlightenment, the Buddha explained that what he had learned was not the result of any analytical thinking, but of having seen reality. Those who seek the Way should neither immerse themselves in sensual pleasures nor deprive their bodies of essential needs, but follow the path of moderation. He explained that all beings who live in this world are subject to four basic truths.

The first three are that suffering exists, it is caused, and it has an end. The fourth truth explains how to end suffering through the proper practice of discipline, concentration, and wisdom.

It might seem pessimistic for the Buddha to say that in life there is much unhappiness. But he did not leave it at that, for like a good doctor, he diagnosed the fundamental problem of life and declared it: Life involves suffering. Like a good doctor, he wanted to help all beings so that they would attain the understanding that would lead to awakening and, thus, obtain permanent release from this distress. He was not concerned with worldly or spiritual speculation but with how to help all beings achieve liberation.

And like a caring doctor, he optimistically determined that a cure exists, and prescribed the requisite treatment as embodied in the Four Noble Truths: right understanding and proper practice. The Four Noble Truths provide the solution to our unhappiness. We need to understand and abandon suffering and its cause, and embrace the proper way of living. This statement is surely one of optimism, not pessimism.

Let it Flow Into Your Heart

 

When you listen to the Dhamma you must open up your heart and compose yourself in the center. Don't try to accumulate what you hear or make a painstaking effort to retain what you hear through memory. Just let the Dhamma flow into your heart as it reveals itself, and keep yourself continuously open to its flow in the present moment. What is ready to be retained will be so, and it will happen of its own accord, not through any determined effort on your part.

Similarly when you expound the Dhamma, you must not force yourself. It should happen on its own accord and should flow spontaneously from the present moment and circumstances. People have different levels of receptive ability, and when you're there at that same level, it just happens, the Dhamma flows.  The Buddha had the ability to know people's temperaments and receptive abilities. He used this very same method of spontaneous teaching. It's not that he possessed any special superhuman power to teach, but rather that he was sensitive to the spiritual needs of the people who came to him, and so he taught them accordingly.  

~ Ajahn Chah

As If Struck by Two Darts

One time the Buddha spoke to the monks about how both those who had no knowledge of the teachings and those who were knowledgeable experienced pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. What was the difference between the untaught person and the well-taught student?

The Buddha explained that when a person who did not know the teachings underwent painful feelings, this person would become sad and extremely upset, and lament what had happened to him. So this person would feel the pain both physically and mentally. It would be like throwing a dart at someone and then immediately throwing a second. Struck by both darts, the untaught person first would feel the bodily pain and then would become upset and grieve. Thus, he would experience two kinds of feeling: the physical pain and the mental realization of pain.

Feeling pain, this untaught person resents and fights that pain. Seeking to end the pain, he seeks to overcome it with sensual enjoyment—his only known way of relieving painful feelings. But the enjoyment of sensual happiness leads to further craving for such happiness, because he does not understand the feelings or the dangers of his habitual way of reacting to these painful feelings. Such a person also reacts out of ignorance to feelings that are neither painful nor pleasant. So whether the feeling is pleasant, painful, or neutral, this person acts out of, and is thus bound by, ignorance. Birth, aging, death, pain—all suffering binds one who is untaught.

But the well-taught student does not react with sadness and despair, does not bemoan his condition or become upset. This student understands the suffering is physical, not mental. Such a student is like one who is struck by the first dart, but not the second. Experiencing the physical pain, but not the mental pain, this person does not feel despair or grief, does not lament what has happened.

This well-taught student knows the physical pain is there but does not resent it. So he does not fight that feeling in his mind. He does not need to seek sensual happiness to alleviate the painful feeling because he knows a better way to react to such bodily feelings. By not seeking sensual happiness, he does not fall prey to craving. Such a student understands the dangers of reacting imprudently to painful feelings. He does not even react out of ignorance to neutral feelings. So whether the feeling is pleasant, painful, or neutral, this person is not bound by them. Whether birth, aging, death, or pain—the well-taught student remains unfettered.

The Buddha said that this was the difference between the untaught person and the well-taught student in regards to pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings.

I Didn't Mean It

We don't wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “Today, I'm going to be selfish and inconsiderate. I’m going to ignore the feelings of others.” We don't consciously make the decision to do this. And yet throughout the day, we act selfishly in so many ways.

We don’t write that letter to a friend, even though we know he is looking forward to hearing from us. We again postpone that trip to the library to return that best-seller that we took out, even though we know someone is probably waiting to read it. We go shopping with one friend forgetting that we had already told another we’d go with her.

Neither do we wake up and say “Today is the day I'm going to make someone suffer.” And yet that’s what we do—cause pain.

We don't turn the heat down because we'd be uncomfortable if our home was colder.  So we contribute to global warming and people in Bangladesh who never used a light bulb are told their land is being eroded due to planetary warming from carbon emissions. We don’t visit our friend in the nursing home because we’re busy, and so they are alone and feel forgotten.

We get trapped by our habits, our personal inertia, and our wish for comfort.

We don’t mean to be selfish or unkind. But too often, we are.

True Benefit, Part Two

If the Buddha’s teachings are not integrated into our minds, and our minds are still dictated by our afflictions and habits, what is the use of chanting the sutras? Only our verbal karma is good; whereas our minds and behavior still remain unimproved. So while our chanting does plant a seed in our Alaya consciousness, the seed is dormant for now. But even though the benefit is small and not immediate, it is better to chant a sutra than not to chant at all.

Whether you chant with a focused mind or with a wandering mind, you will plant a seed in your Alaya consciousness. If you chant with a focused mind and with sincerity, the vitality of the seed will be strong. If you chant with a wandering mind or with reluctance, the vitality of the seed will be weak.

~ Based on Ven. Master Chin Kung's 2003 lecture series on the Amitabha Sutra