What is Enlightenment Anyway?
Why meditate? Why practice? Because it is the only way we can train our minds to directly experience Reality.
(As Ajahn Chah says, there are many good styles of meditation which can lead to liberation. We should choose one,
find a teacher, practice, and stick with it.) It's important to understand that the natural state of mind is
stillness. When the mind moves in attraction or aversion to an object, it becomes conditioned in a relationship
with that object. This is where "birth" occurs which will condition results (kamma). This is how
conventional reality is created, through mental proliferation. In meditation, we "contemplate these
wavering conditions of mind. Whenever the mind moves, it becomes unstable and impermanent (anicca) and
unsatisfactory (dukkha) and cannot be taken as a [permanent] self (anatta). The Buddha taught us to observe
and contemplate these movements of mind" (179).
Ajahn Chah's description of actual experience, as compared to studying text, is apt: It's like falling out
of a tree (as opposed to the step by step analysis we find in Dependent Origination)--"we have no idea
how many branches we've passed on the way down. . . . what we do know is that we've hit the ground with a thud
and it hurts!" (180). How many times have each of us found our minds attracted to or repelled by an object
and immediately proliferated an entire reality before we knew it? (Countless times every day.)
Studying text and teachings is helpful, but meditation practice is the laboratory in which the teachings
become real through direct experience. Concept of any kind will only skirt Reality; Reality cannot be
conceptualized but it can be known through direct experience. "Observe the workings of the mind, but
don't lug the Dhamma books in there with you. Otherwise everything becomes a big mess, because nothing in
those books corresponds precisely to the reality of the way things truly are" (190).
Finally, be patient with the process. Ajahn Chah calls it "working in accord with nature." Put aside goals and
expectation of particular results within a certain timeframe. Practice for its own sake. "Whether the progress is
swift or slow is out of our control. It's just like planting a tree. The tree knows how fast it should grow. . . .
Our responsibility is to dig a hole, plant the seedling, water it, fertilize it, and protect it from insects.
This is our job, our end of the bargain. This is where faith comes in. Whether the . . . plant grows or not is up
to it. It's not our business. . . .Practicing Dhamma is the same way. . . (196).
Offered with metta,
Deb
Ordinary life and Buddhahood have no distinction. Great knowledge is not different from ignorance. Why should one seek outwardly for a treasure, when the field of the body has its own bright jewel?
--Pao-chih, The Nonduality of Buddhahood and Ordinary Life
