Being Dharma

by Ajahn Chah

  If there is wrong view, the mind is always at work, scheming how to find peace. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard that mountain is a really peaceful place, that’s where I will make an end of the afflictions.” It has a part in it, as I’ve said, but it is a condition for only a little bit of tranquility. So you keep on going when the mind is unsettled. Someone tells you, “You really ought to go to such and such mountain.” You will believe this and go there. When it doesn’t work out, you will try other places, always finding disappointment. On and on you go. “You should visit this ajahn, you should study with that ajahn.” It keeps you on the move, until you have gone through all the mountains and all the teachers. Finally, you might decide there is no such thing as enlightenment and quit. But really, where is tranquility to be found? It is in right view. Dwelling in right view, you will be at peace no matter where you are.

  When people stay in quietude, it may be uncertain whether they have finished the afflictions or if something remains. There might actually be a lot left, but they are completely unaware of it and feel fine, enjoying their calm state. They are comfortable only because they are accustomed to the place. If they go somewhere else, they don’t feel right and have to go looking for the so-called right place again.

  Actually, when good people try to practice, it will make them mad. All kinds of suffering and turmoil flare up. I went through this. Mind filled with pride, wandering all over, always wanting things to be other than they were. Everything was always too big or too small, too long or too short. Nothing was ever right; there was no moderation, no middle ground. It was outside the natural balance of Dharma, always in a condition of struggle. You have to practice to stop the insanity in order to feel better.

  5

  BEING DHARMA

  Beyond Cause and Effect

  ONCE IN THE PAST, I was living with a small group of monks. We stayed in the forest, where we had a small sala (meditation hall) and altar without much light. One monk was reading a book there, and when his candle burned down he left the book and went away. Another monk came along and stepped on the book in the dark. He picked it up and thought, Hmm, that monk doesn’t have much mindfulness. Why didn’t he know to put the book away?

  He found the first monk and asked him, “Why didn’t you put the book away? I came and stepped on it.” The first monk replied, “You didn’t have self-control. You weren’t careful, so you stepped on the Dharma book.”

  And the other responded, “Why didn’t you take care of the book and put it away?”

  They went back and forth, one blaming the other for not taking care of the book properly, the other blaming him for not being careful and stepping on the book. It’s like this if you are only looking for logical answers. There will be no end.

  In the matter of real Dharma, you have to discard cause and effect. Dharma is higher than this. The Dharma the Buddha was enlightened to can quell the mental afflictions and remove suffering. It is above cause and beyond effect. There is no suffering and no happiness. The Dharma the Buddha taught can pacify our lives, purge causes and results. If you just rely on the logic of cause and effect, there will be endless dispute, like the two monks arguing over stepping on the book. They could go on forever, logically discussing their reasons. There is no peace this way.

  We who study should learn about cause and effect: happiness comes from such and such causes, suffering comes from such and such causes. We come to know that there is always cause and result in actions. But the Dharma realized by the Buddha is pacification, that which is above cause and result, beyond happiness and suffering, beyond birth and death. But now you have even more doubts when you hear about this. This is something really important. This is the Dharma that brings peace.

  Our desire, our wish to know things quickly, is not Dharma. It is only our desire. If we act according to desire, there is never any end. You know the story of Ananda, the Buddha’s attendant. His faith was as strong as anyone’s. There was to be the Sanghayana (Sangha Council) after the passing of the Buddha, and only arahants would be allowed to attend. Ananda was determined to attain the stage of arahant and began strenuous practice so he could join them. But his mind would not do what he wanted it to. He was in this coarse state, and over and over again he was only meeting with frustration. “Tomorrow is the Sanghayana. All my Dharma friends, the arahants, will be attending, but I am still an ordinary person. What should I do?”

  He decided to meditate from dusk to daybreak. He went at it, but he was only getting fatigued. Coming to the end of his tether, he decided to take a brief rest. At dawn, he set down a pillow and made ready to rest.

  Stupa containing Ajahn Chah’s relics, Wat Pah Pong, Thailand.

  Having made the determination to rest, his mind had already started letting go, putting down his business. Then, lying down, even before his head hit the pillow, his mind let go completely and he saw the Dharma; he was enlightened to the arahant stage.

  Seeking to let go, we can never do it. We could try for years and it wouldn’t happen. But in that moment, when Ananda had decided to stop, to take a rest and put down his burden of wanting attainment, just resting with mindfulness established, the mind let go and he was able to see and awaken. He didn’t have to do anything special. Before, he wanted something to happen, and it didn’t work. There was no occasion to take a rest, no occasion to awaken to the Dharma.

  Understand that becoming enlightened to the Dharma is a matter of letting go, letting go with wisdom, with knowing. It doesn’t come about through wanting and struggling, but from letting go in full mindfulness. When there is this taking a rest, nothing is bothering the mind. There is no desire to disturb it. Then instantly the mind can awaken, as in Ananda’s case. Ananda was practically unaware of himself. He knew only that he wasn’t getting what he wanted; desire for enlightenment was thwarting all his efforts. So he decided to take a break.

  Enlightenment is not something easy to talk about and make people understand. It’s difficult to practice if people have the wrong idea. For example, the Buddha said this place is not a place for people to dwell. There are the floor and the roof. If there is no roof and no floor, then there is nothing, right? There’s nothing to talk about. The space in between is not the place where people can live—there is no becoming there. Becoming is the upper story or the lower story. If people are going to live somewhere, they must live upstairs or downstairs. “No becoming?” People aren’t interested.

  People are not interested in letting go. With letting go, is there anything being born? When you go upstairs, that is becoming. You may feel it’s nice up there in the high place; coming down is not so pleasing to you. You feel it’s nice, but it is the root of suffering. You don’t want to put down this pleasure and pain and experience normalcy because you prefer the place where there is becoming. The place without becoming is not of interest to you. Even just to try to conceive of it is hard.

  What the Buddha was referring to when he spoke of the place without becoming and birth was just the state of nonattachment. Attachment is the cause for suffering to arise. We can’t let go of this grasping attachment, and still we want peace. But it is not peaceful. We live with becoming. No becoming is something we can’t conceive of. That is the habit of people, the mental affliction of humans.

  Nirvana is said by the Buddha to be beyond becoming and birth. People don’t understand this. They only understand matters of becoming and birth. If there is no becoming, there is no place to live. If there is no place to live, what will I do? How will I exist? Ordinary people think it’s better to stay here. They want to be born again, but they don’t want to die. Is there such a thing? If you want something that cannot be, you will have a big problem. People think like this because they don’t understand dukkha (unsatisfactoriness of life). “I want to be born, but I don’t want death.” It boils down to no more than this.

  The Buddha said that death comes from birth; if you do not want to die, don’t be born. People think, Well, I don’t want to die. I want to be
born again; but I don’t want to die. You might conclude they are stubborn. Speaking with people who are under the sway of desire and attachment is difficult. Getting to the point of letting go will really be hard.

  Defilement and craving are like that. The Buddha taught about the state where things don’t really exist. If there’s no place to set a pillar, how can we talk about building something? That is like no becoming and birth, no place to be born. But when we talk about this, people cannot listen and understand. When talking about self, it is emphatically pointed out that there is no such thing. Self is simply a convention. On the absolute level, the level of liberation, it does not exist. There is just elemental nature arising only for the reason that causes and conditions are manifesting. We suppose that this is a self arising, and we grasp at it. When there is this supposition, we grasp at me, then there is mine arising together with it. But we don’t even know how this is taking place. So people say things like, “I want to be born, but I don’t want to die.”

  Speaking of entering the stream to nirvana, if there is genuine knowing within you, there is no one desiring anything. And further, nirvana is not a matter of wanting. It isn’t something you can desire. This characteristic is not easy to understand.

  This Dharma isn’t something you can explain or give to people. Our parents might want to give it to us, but even they don’t know what it is, and they have no means to do this. This is something to be known within yourself. You can tell others about it, but there is this problem: will they really know what you are talking about? If they don’t have the realization in their own minds, they won’t get it. Thus, the Buddha said, “The Tathagata merely points the way.” Just as I am doing these days—I am one who explains, not the one who does it for you. Having been told, you need to practice and realize. Then the marvelous will arise and be known in your mind. There’s a story in the scriptures of people asking the Buddha about nirvana. When he refused to elaborate on it, they began to say it was because he didn’t know. How could the Buddha not know? The point is that such a thing is to be realized by each individual.

  When I speak like this, if you just hear it and believe me, that is not so good. It’s not yet genuine. Those who believe others are said by the Buddha to be foolish. He said to listen to things and then contemplate to experience the truth of them. You should be able to listen without merely denying. Receive the words, not merely believing but investigating their meaning. It isn’t a matter of believing or not believing. Put those aside for the time being and contemplate to the best of your ability.

  There are the two extremes. We lean toward either side, but we don’t like to stay in the middle. The middle is the lonely way. When there is attraction, we go that way. When there is aversion, we go that way. Putting them down is lonely. We refuse to go there. The Buddha taught that neither extreme is the way of one who is tranquil. We need to be free of pleasure and pain, for neither is the way of peace. Once free of these things, we can be peaceful. Thinking, I am so happy, is not it. That is just happiness for suffering in the future. These are things we have to be wary of. Walking the path, we see the two extremes and keep going. We keep to the middle without desiring them, because we want peace, not pleasure or pain. This is the correct path.

  The practice of Dharma is leading to the point of letting go. But we must have knowledge of things according to the truth in order to let go. When real knowledge arises, there will be endurance in the practice of Dharma. There will be enthusiastic, consistent effort. This is called practicing.

  Once you have gotten to the end, you don’t need to use the Dharma. Like a saw that you sharpen to cut wood. Once the wood is cut, you put down the saw. You don’t need to use it then. The saw is the Dharma. Dharma is the tool to help you attain path and fruition. Once we have accomplished this we put it down; once the job is done, why would you keep holding the saw?

  The wood is the wood. The saw is the saw. This is about stopping, having reached the essential point, the end of all the taints of craving and ignorance. The wood is cut. You don’t have to cut any more; you can put the saw down. One who will practice must rely on the Dharma. That’s someone who is not yet finished. But if the job is done, you don’t have to do any more. You can naturally let go at that point. With no more attachment and giving meaning to things, there is no need for any more doing. It is the state of peace.

  When we hear about it, we are full of doubts. What can it be? It seems so far away, but it’s actually very close. It is something you can discover in your own mind. Things arise, and you come to realize they are not certain. “This is not real. That is not real.” Where is the real? Right there! Trying to surmise—this is like this, that is like that—is not right. Let go of things, put down the judging and guessing. We go back and forth, passing it by again and again, and we are always in a state of suffering.

  End your doubts here. End your doubts and stop. Make an end of it right here.

  Nibbana Paccayo Hotu

  THE PROFOUND TEACHING OF BUDDHISM is that morality is necessary. Morality resides with the intentions of people. If you have the conscious determination to refrain from harmful activities and wrongdoing by way of body and speech, morality is coming about within you. You should know this within yourself. It’s fine to take vows with another person, and you can also recollect the precepts by yourself. If you don’t know what they are, you can request them from someone. It’s nothing very complicated or distant. So really, whenever you wish to receive morality and Dharma, you have them right at that moment. It is just like the air that surrounds you everywhere. Whenever you breathe, you take it in. All manner of good and evil are like that. If you wish to do good, you can do it anywhere at any time. You can do it alone or with others. Evil is the same. You can do it with a large or small group, in a hidden or open place.

  When there is morality, you should pursue Dharma. Morality means the precepts as to what is proscribed and what is permissible. Dharma refers to nature and to humans knowing about nature, how things exist according to nature.

  The Buddha taught Dharma for us to know nature, to let go of it and let it exist according to its conditions. This is talking about the material world. As to the mind, it can’t be left to follow its own conditions. It has to be trained. We can say that mind is the teacher of body and speech, so it needs to be well trained. Letting it go according to its natural urges just makes us animals. It has to be instructed and trained. It should come to know nature, but should not be left merely to follow nature.

  Born into this world, all of us naturally have the afflictions of desire, anger, and delusion. Desire makes us crave various things and causes the mind to be in a state of imbalance and turmoil. It won’t do to let the mind go after these impulses of craving. That can only lead to torment and distress. It’s better to train in Dharma, in truth.

  When aversion occurs in us, we want to express anger toward people, and it may get to the point of physically attacking or even killing someone. But we don’t just let the impulse go according to its nature. We know the nature of what is occurring. We see it for what it is and teach the mind about it. This is studying Dharma.

  Delusion is the same. When it happens, we are confused about things. If we merely leave it as it is, we remain in ignorance. So the Buddha told us to learn about nature, to train the mind, to know exactly what nature is.

  People are born with physical form and mind. In the beginning these things are born, in the middle they change, and in the end they are extinguished. This is their nature. We can’t do much to alter these facts. We train our minds as we can, and when the time comes, we have to let go of it all. It is not within the power of humans to change this or get beyond it. The Dharma the Buddha taught is something to be applied while we are here, for making actions, words, and thoughts correct and wholesome. He was teaching the minds of people so they would not be deluded in regard to nature, to conventional reality and supposition. The Teacher instructed us to see the world. His Dharma was a teaching that is
above and beyond the world. We were born into this world; he taught us to transcend the world, not be prisoners to worldly ways and habits.

  It’s like a diamond that falls into a muddy pit. No matter how much dirt and filth cover the diamond, they do not destroy the radiance, the hues, and the worth of it. Even though the mud is stuck to it, the diamond does not lose anything, but is just as it originally was. There are two separate things.

  The Dharma the Teacher expounded was for going beyond suffering. What is this going beyond suffering all about? What should we do to escape from suffering? It’s necessary for us to do some study; we need to study the thinking and feeling in our hearts. Just that. It is something we are presently unable to change. We can be free of all suffering and unsatisfactoriness in life by changing this one point, our habitual world view, our way of thinking and feeling. If we transform our sense of things, we transcend the old confused perceptions and understanding.