Now we shall
examine the method to be used for eliminating clinging.
The method is based on three practical steps, namely
Morality, Concentration, and Insight, known collectively
as the Threefold Training.
The first step
is morality (Síla). Morality is simply suitable
behavior, behavior that conforms with the generally
accepted standards and causes no distress to other
people or to oneself. It a coded in the form of five
moral precepts, or eight, or ten, or 227, or in other
ways. It is conducted by way of body and speech aimed at
peace, convenience, and freedom from undesirable effects
at the most basic level. It has to do with the members
of a social group and the various pieces of property
essential to living.
The second
aspect of the threefold training is concentration (Samadhi).
This consists in constraining the mind to remain in the
condition most conducive to success in whatever one
wishes to achieve. Just what is concentration? No doubt
most of you have always understood concentration as
implying a completely tranquil mind, as steady and
unmoving as a log of wood. But merely these two
characteristics of being tranquil and steady are not the
real meaning of Concentration. The basis for this
statement is an utterance of the Buddha. He described
the concentrated mind as fit for work (kammaniya),
in a suitable condition for doing its job. Fit for work
is the very best way to describe the properly
concentrated mind.
The third
aspect is the training in insight (Paññá), the
practice and drill that gives rise to the full measure
of right knowledge and understanding of the true nature
of all things. Normally we are incapable of knowing
anything at all in its true nature. Mostly we either
stick to our own ideas or go along with popular opinion,
so that what we see is not the truth at all. It is for
this reason that Buddhist practice includes this
training in insight, the last aspect of the threefold
training, designed to give rise to full understanding of
and insight into the true nature of things.
In the
religious context, understanding and insight are not by
any means the same. Understanding depends to some extent
on the use of reasoning, on rational intellection.
Insight goes further than that. An object known by
insight has been absorbed; it has been penetrated to and
confronted face to face; the mind has become thoroughly
absorbed in it through examination and investigation so
sustained that there has arise a non-rational but
genuine and heartfelt disenchantment with that thing and
a complete lack of emotional involvement in it.
Consequently the Buddhist training in insight does not
refer to intellectual understanding of the kind used in
present day academic and scholarly circle, where each
individual can have his own particular kind of truth.
Buddhist insight must be intuitive insight, clear and
immediate, the result of having penetrated to the object
by one means or another, until it has made a definite
and indelible impression on the mind. For this reason
the objects of scrutiny in insight training must be
things that one comes into contact with in the course of
everyday living; or at least they must be things of
sufficient importance to render the mind genuinely fed
up and disenchanted with them as transient,
unsatisfactory, and not selves. However much we think
rationally, evaluating the characteristics of
transience, unsatisfactory-ness, and non-selfhood,
nothing results but intellectual understanding. There is
no way it can give rise to disillusionment and
disenchantment with worldly things. It must be
understood that the condition of disenchantment replaces
that of desiring the formerly infatuating and attractive
object, and that this in itself constitutes the insight.
It is a fact of nature that the presence of genuine,
clear insight implies the presence of genuine
disenchantment. It is impossible that the process should
stop short at the point of clear insight. Disenchantment
displaces desire for the object, and is bound to arise
immediately.
Training in
morality is simply elementary preparatory practice,
which enables us to live happily and helps stabilize the
mind. Morality yields various benefits, the most
important being the preparing of the way for
concentration. Other advantages, such as conducing to
happiness or to rebirth as a celestial being, were not
considered by the Buddha to be the direct aims of
morality. He regarded morality as primarily a means of
inducing and developing concentration. As long as things
continue to disturb the mind, it can never become
concentrated.
Training in
concentration consists in developing the ability to
control this mind of ours, to make use of it, to make it
do its job to the best advantage. Morality is good
behavior in respect of body and speech; concentration
amounts to good behavior in respect of the mind, and is
the fruit of thorough mental training and discipline.
The concentrated mind is devoid of all bad, defiling
thoughts and does not wander off the object. It is in a
fit condition to do its job.
Even in
ordinary worldly situations, concentration is always a
necessity. No matter what we are engaged in, we can
hardly do it successfully unless the mind is
concentrated. For this reason the Buddha counted
concentration as one of the marks of a great man.
Regardless of whether a man is to be successful in
worldly or in spiritual things, the faculty of
concentration is absolutely indispensable. Take even a
schoolboy. If he lacks concentration, how can he do
arithmetic? The sort of concentration involved in doing
arithmetic is natural concentration, and is only poorly
developed. Concentration as a basic element in Buddhist
practice, which is what we are discussing here, is
concentration that has bean trained and raised to a
higher pitch than can develop naturally. Consequently,
when the mind has been trained successfully, it comes to
have a great many very special abilities, powers, and
attributes. A person who has managed to derive these
benefits from concentration can be said to have moved up
a step towards knowing the secrets of nature. He knows
how to central the mind, and thus has abilities not
possessed by the average person. The perfection of
morality is an ordinary human ability. Even if someone
makes a display of morality, it is never a superhuman
display. On the other hand the attainment of deep
concentration was classed by the Buddha as a superhuman
ability, which the Bhikkhus were never to make a display
of. Anyone who did show off this ability was considered
no longer a good Bhikkhu, or even no longer a Bhikkhu at
all.
To attain
concentration necessitates making sacrifices. We have to
put up with varying degrees of hardship, to train and
practice, until we have the degree of concentration
appropriate to our abilities. Ultimately we shall gain
much better results in our work than can the average
man, simply because we have better tools at our
disposal. So do take an interest in this matter of
concentration and don't go regarding it as something
foolish and old-fashioned. It is definitely something of
the greatest importance, something worth making use of
at all times, especially nowadays when the world seems
to be spinning too fast and on the point of going up in
flames. There is far more need for concentration now
than there was in the time of the Buddha. Don't get the
idea that it is just something for the people in
temples, or for cranks.
Now we come to
the connection between the training in concentration and
the training in insight. The Buddha once said that when
the mind is concentrated, it is in position to see tall
things as they really are. When the mind is concentrated
and fit for work, it will know all things in their true
nature. It is a strange thing that the answer to any
problem a person is trying to solve is usually already
present, though concealed, in his very own mind. He is
not aware of it, because it is still only subconscious;
and as long as he is set on solving the problem, the
solution will not come, simply because his mind at that
time is not in a fit condition for solving problems. If,
when setting about any mental work, a person develops
right concentration, and insight that is, if he renders
his fit for work, the solution to his problem will come
to light of its own accord. The moment the mind has
become concentrated, the answers will just fall into
place. But should the solution still fail to come, there
exists another method for directing the mind to the
examination of the problem, namely the practice of
concentrated introspection referred to as the training
in insight. On the day of his enlightenment the Buddha
attained insight into the law of Conditioned
Origination, that is, he came to perceive the true
nature of things or the "what is what" and the sequence
in which they arise, as a result of being concentrated
in the way we have just described. The. Buddha has
related the story in detail, but essentially it amounts
to this: as soon as his mind was well concentrated, it
was in a position to examine the problem.
It is just when
the mind is quiet and cool, in a state of well-being,
undisturbed, well concentrated and fresh, that some
solution to a persistent problem is arrived at. Insight
is always dependent on concentration though we may
perhaps never have noticed the fact. Actually the Buddha
demonstrated an association even more intimate than this
between concentration and insight. He pointed out that
concentration is indispensable for insight, and insight
indispensable for concentration at a higher intensity
than occurs naturally, requires the presence of
understanding of certain characteristics of the mind.
One must know in just which way the mind has to be
controlled in order that concentration may be induced.
So the more insight a person has, the higher degree of
concentration he will be capable of. Likewise an
increase m concentration results in a corresponding
increase in insight. Either one of the two factors
promotes the other.
Insight implies
un-obscured vision and consequently disenchantment and
boredom. It results in a backing away from all the
things one has formerly been madly infatuated with. If
one has insight, yet still goes rushing after things,
madly craving for them, grasping at and clinging on to
them, being infatuated with them, then it cannot be
insight in the Buddhist sense. This stopping short and
backing away is, of course, not a physical action. One
doesn't actually pick things up and hurl them away or
smash them to pieces, nor does one go running off to
live in the forest. This is not what is meant. Here we
are referring specifically to a mental stopping short
and backing away, as a result of which the mind ceases
to be a slave to things and becomes a free mind instead.
This is what it is like when desire for things has given
way to disenchantment. It isn't a matter of going and
committing suicide, or going off to live as a hermit in
the forest, or setting fire to everything. Outwardly one
is as usual, behaving quite normally with respect to
things. Inwardly, however, there is a difference. The
mind is independent, free, no longer a slave to things.
This is the virtue of insight. The Buddha called this
effect Deliverance, escape from slavery to things, in
particular the things we like. Actually we are enslaved
by the things we disliking too. We are enslaved insofar
as we cannot help disliking them and are unable to
remain unmoved by them. In disliking things, we are
being active, we are becoming emotional about them. They
manage to control us just as do the things we like,
affecting each of us in a different way. So the
expression "slavery to things" refers to the reactions
of liking and disliking. All this shows that we can
escape from slavery to things and become free by means
of insight. The Buddha summed up this principle very
briefly by saying: "Insight is the means by which we can
purify ourselves." He did not specify morality or
concentration as the means by which we could purify
ourselves, but insight, which enables us to escape,
which liberates us from things. Not freed from things,
one is impure, tainted, infatuated, and passionate. Once
free, one is pure, spotless, enlightened, and tranquil.
This is the fruit of insight, the condition that results
when insight has done its job completely.
Have a good
look at this factor, insight, the third aspect of the
threefold training. Get to know it, and you will come to
regard it as the highest virtue. Buddhist insight is
insight that results in backing away from things by
completely destroying the four kinds of attachment.
Those four attachments are ropes holding us fast;
insight is the knife that can cut those bonds and set us
free. With the four attachments gone, there is nothing
left to bind us fast to things.
Will these
three modes of practice stand the test? Are they soundly
based and suitable for all in practice? Do examine them.
When you have another look at them you will see that
these three factors do net conflict with any religious
doctrine at all, assuming that the religion in question
really aims remedying the problem of human suffering.
The Buddhist teaching does not conflict with any other
religion, yet it has some things that no other religion
has. In particular it has the practice of insight, which
is the superlative technique for eliminating the four
attachments. It liberates the mind, rendering it
independent and incapable of becoming bound, enslaved,
overpowered by anything whatsoever, including God in
heaven, spirits, or celestial beings. No other religion
is prepared to let the individual free himself
completely, or be entirely self-reliant. We must be
fully aware of this principle of self-reliance, which is
a key feature of Buddhism.
As soon as we
see that Buddhism has everything that any other religion
has and also several things that none of them have, we
realize that Buddhism is for everyone. Buddhism is a
universal religion. It can be put into practice by
everyone, in every age and era. People everywhere have
the same problem: to free themselves from suffering
---suffering which is inherent in birth, aging, pain,
and death, suffering which stems from desire, from
grasping. Everyone without exception, celestial being,
human being , or beast, has this same problem, and
everyone has the same job to do, namely to eliminate
completely the desire, the unskillful grasping which is
the root cause of that suffering. Thus Buddhism is a
universal religion.
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