KNOWING DUKKHA & THE PATH TO END DUKKHA

The way that the Path to end dukkha (suffering) is being practiced the world over as Buddhist meditation is contrary to Buddhist teachings. The Buddha preached to comprehend Dukkha (Suffering) as it is, in order to uproot craving (the cause for suffering) and realise ending of Dukkha (cessation of suffering). He proclaimed the Noble Eightfold Path as the path leading to end suffering. Today’s practices have mixed up this teaching where the practitioners primarily attempt to realise cessation by observing the cause for Suffering first, rather than the Truth of Suffering itself in the order the Buddha has preached, pronouncing the Four Noble Truths.

The Buddha has defined ‘Nibbana’ as discarding greed, hatred & delusion, referred to as roots of evil or three poisons. These defilements cannot be removed after the error has already been made in perceiving & knowing a thing or a person with delusion. The function of ignorance (delusion) i.e. formation has already been completed and confronting the object formed either by observing its impermanence or its composition, as one made of the Four Great Elements or 32 impure parts of the body, does not help in discarding greed & hatred. The effect of these defilements can be subdued temporarily by meditating in this manner, but cannot be eradicated completely. This can be achieved only trough removing ignorance (delusion) in its entirety for which one needs to see how the formation occurred in the first place. ‘One should not make any response to the form seen, heard etc. but observe how the formation originated ’, says Venerable Sudassana.

DELUSION CAUSES FORMATION

When the visual object is not seen as it is, due to delusion (or ignorance), formation takes place erroneously, for instance an image of a particular shape & colour that associates a bundle of aggregates in form of hair, nails, teeth, skin etc. is perceived & formed as a human body. The mind perceives the image as a person and goes onto create relationships as father, mother, son, partner, friend etc. These impressions dwell in the mind and drive one to re-experience the objects as determined (as father mother etc.) and thus one begins to behold accordingly. What is seen is different to what one beholds and the latter that is formed in the mind as an impression is a defilement that progressively get accumulated as fermentations in accordance with our sense experiences which are pleasant, unpleasant or neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Delusion, causes the accumulation of fermentations which in turn condition further delusion in sense experiences.

Venerable Thero proposes an experiment to explain this. Imagine that you are building a brick wall where you order bricks, cement & sand and construct it yourself.  You complete the wall by rendering it to a smooth white finish. Now you buy different colours of paint, paint brushes etc. and engage an artist to paint a picture of a person that you know, say Nimal, on the wall. You can now see the picture (of Nimal) that associates the wall that you built. The wall can exist on its own, but the painting is dependent on the wall. The wall made of bricks & mortar is selfless & so is the painting that associates it. The notion of ‘Nimal’ that arises in the mind, when you see the painting hence, is without self too. You will either dislike or like Nimal (the painting) and may even respond, for instance, by saying that he is a wicked person who should be killed (unwholesome thought -hatred) or else you may say that he is a nice person and reach out to embrace him (wholesome thought -greed). However, you cannot touch Nimal & if you do you only feel the wall. You simply cannot have any physical interaction with (the notion of) Nimal as it is an impression or sign that is formed in the mind and not what exists out there.

Ven. Sudassana Thero, relates this experience to explain the Four Great Elements (wall) & forms that associates them - Upadaya Rupa (painting). He compares this to a visual experience where you note a person when in fact what you encounter is a trace of an image of particular shape & colour where a bundle of aggregates that consist of hair, nails, teeth, skin etc. is present. When you see in person you perceive Nimal the same way you see him on the wall, responding to the image that appears where the aggregates of hair, nails, skin etc. are present. You recognise Nimal in the same manner if you see a picture of him in a newspaper or in a video clip. ‘Which one of this actually is Nimal?’ 

It’s only the mental impression that’s being recalled at each instance providing the visual identity, in other words a mental defilement or fermentation that persists even if Nimal is dead. Though one can contemplate on the said impression and attempt to see its composition by breaking the image into components (hair, nails, skin etc.) or even into group of matter (Rupa Kalapa), that want be helpful to see the form as it is since the impression is a formation, a fruit of delusion. “If defilements arise due to erroneous formations, for not seeing the objects as it is, can the errors made originally be fixed just by removing defilements attached to the impressions?”

Ven. Sudassana says, we need to go back to where the impression was formed in the mind first (due to not seeing & knowing the visual object as it is) and comprehend that where there is a group of aggregates (hair, nails, skin etc.) we have developed a notion of a person. In the same way, we can see how the impression will be formed again when we meet the person in the future. We need to grasp this dhamma in terms of both the past (origin) & the future.

Similarly, we can substitute ‘Nimal’ with our self & see insights of the notion of ‘me’ that seems to exist. It’s a mental fabrication identical to the notion of Nimal seen externally. The teachings require that one must see this phenomenon in relation to both the external & the internal in this manner (The Foundations of Mindfulness Meditation).

ABANDONING DELUSION: THE RIGHT VIEW

The error can only be corrected by gaining the Right View of seeing the object as it really is, discarding ignorance. To elaborate this further Ven. Sudassana relates to an interesting parable.

The story is about a chief monk in a rural temple, an acolyte and a bad neighbour. The acolyte is innocent, kind & sincere but the neighbour is vicious and hates him. This neighbour is experienced in occult practices and has supernormal powers thus plan to break the trust the chief monk has on the acolyte. Whenever the man goes away from the temple the neighbour appears in front of the monk disguised as the acolyte and abuses him badly behaving in an evil manner. When the acolyte returns to the temple the neighbour disappears. Soon the monk loses faith on the acolyte & begins to see him as an evil person, being distracted from the person’s true nature. He simply fails to see that there are two people.

“The real acolyte is like the object that we encounter through senses, harmless and innocent”, says Ven. Sudassana. He further adds that the neighbour’s role is similar to that of our mind, for instance, a visual object comes in front of our eye and the interaction passes away quietly but the mind substitutes it by recreating the captured image with false information (slanders) making us to respond according to our likes or dislikes. We are ignorant of the true nature of the object and thus get deceived by the ‘slandering’ the mind projects on the image.

‘By understanding arising ceasing nature of the clinging aggregates we can discard ignorance and see the two phases apart’, says the Venerable. In the above analogy, if someone can advise the monk of what is going on and if he doesn’t believe, perhaps suggest him a way to distinguish the difference between the real acolyte and the fake one, for instance, that the real one being human should cast a shadow on ground and blink eye lids while the fake (inhuman) one will not cast a shadow or blink eye lids, the monk will accept & will be able to see the two persons apart.

Similarly if we need to see the contact bases and the mental formations apart, we need to identify the characteristics of the two phases, the five clinging aggregates & the subsequent mental volitions, as those arising due to causes i.e. nutriments. The former arises from edible foods (Form) & due to contact (feeling, noting & knowing), the later (mental volitions) due to above (Name-Matter). The mental volitions are projected on the external objects to define & determine (with slandering) & to know it, so that we can respond with thought, speech & action accordingly.

THE NOBLE PATH

By observing the sense bases which are unsatisfactory by nature and susceptible to clinging (Suffering or Dukkha), with insight, we can remove the potential they carry to arise again (Cause for Suffering or Dukkha Samudaya). Meditating on the 32 impure parts of the body (Kayagathasathi) alone, as preached by the Buddha is sufficient in this regard, says Ven. Sudassana.

One need not contemplate on disintegrating the form into components or even groups of matter as said before. One need not attempt to comprehend this dhamma by observing the thought processes either. Mere observation by disintegrating the form is considered as the materialist approach which hinders comprehending the Truth of suffering. The eternalists approach which is built upon the notion of continuity of aggregates: name-matter, thwarts uprooting of the craving, the cause for suffering.