STEPS ON THE WAY


There are three ways to approach the Dhamma. One is by acquiring 
knowledge through study of the Buddha's discourses, trying to remember 
them as faithfully as possible. That is very useful for the 
propagation of the teaching through lectures and books.

Another way is through devotion, offering flowers and incense, 
reciting devotional verses, giving gifts and making merit. Generosity 
and meritorious action were highly recommended by the Buddha, but he 
didn't put any value on just being in the presence of monks and nuns.

Once there was a monk who was so enraptured with the Buddha that he 
never wanted to be out of his sight. When this monk became sick one 
day and was unable to see the Buddha, he became despondent. The other 
monks asked him why he was so unhappy. He explained that he was 
depressed because he could not see the Buddha, who then came to visit 
the sick monk and said to him: "What do you see in this vile form? 
There is nothing to see in that. Whoever sees me, sees the Dhamma, 
whoever sees Dhamma, sees me. "

The third approach to Dhamma, namely practice, has always been the 
one most highly recommended by the Buddha. He said a person with real 
reverence and devotion is one who lives according to the teaching. 
There are a number of steps to be taken when we approach the Dhamma 
through practice. The foundation would be moral conduct, meritorious 
actions, making good kamma. Without such a foundation, we do not have 
enough security within to be peaceful and at ease with ourselves, 
which are prerequisites for meditation. 

This has sometimes been misinterpreted to mean that we should not 
meditate unless we have already complete purity of precepts and gained 
perfect mindfulness. But that doesn't follow, because it's meditation 
that helps us to gain mindfulness, and gives us insight into the 
efficacy of the precepts.

The next practice aspect is to guard our senses. This is frequently 
mentioned by the Buddha, so that it bears repeating and remembering. 
Without guarding our senses, we are always open to being tempted into 
wanting and craving, resulting in turmoil in the mind. Our sense 
contacts are triggers for lust and hate.

Our senses are so permanently engaged that we have lost sight of 
their impact, are taking all that for granted and think that's just 
the way it is. We also believe that what we see, hear, taste, touch, 
smell and think is really exactly as we are interpreting it. That's 
fundamental error. Everyone experiences their sense contacts in an 
individual manner.

Here is an example: The food Westerners eat is considered baby food 
in Asia: food spiced in the Asian way appears like hellfire to the 
Western palate. Even such a basic necessity as food shows up as a 
completely opposite experience. We can infer from that, that we all 
live in our own world. People argue vehemently because they believe 
their world must be the right one and even kill each other because of 
unresolved differences.

The Buddha was often asked such a question as: "Is the world finite 
or infinite, eternal or not?" His answer was: "What is the world? The 
world are our sense contacts." When asked questions such as these, the 
Buddha always brought the questioner back to practice. When we know 
that the world we live in consists of our sense contacts, we have 
something to practice with. When we know that the world is eternal or 
not, what is there to practice with?

Our senses include thinking, which is an almost constantly operating 
faculty. At this moment, we have touch, sound, sight and thought 
contact. Four of our six senses are engaged. Because our senses have 
been at work all our lives we believe that is the only way life can be 
experienced, which creates our deep craving to continue in this form. 
There is danger in this craving, something most people are not aware 
of consciously. Subconsciously we all know about it, because that's 
where our fears originate. If we examine ourselves for a moment we 
will realize that we harbor many fears, all carrying different names. 
Some people are afraid of spiders or snakes, some are afraid of the 
dark, some are afraid of airplanes, others that their loved ones may 
die, or that they might lose all their money. All sorts of different 
names for exactly the same fear; the fear of losing one's 
identifications, the fear of unpleasant, painful sense contacts, 
ultimately the fear of annihilation. Yet losing this existence is a 
guaranteed outcome of being alive. It's just a matter of time.

These fears are caused by our attachment to our pleasant sense 
contacts, identifying with them and believing that apart from our 
senses there is no other reality. Naturally we want that to continue 
then. We take our unpleasant experiences in stride, expecting them to 
cease and the pleasant ones to arise again. If our unpleasant sense 
contacts are in the majority, then we say we are having a lot of 
//dukkha//. Or we might say: "I'm having a problem." As a matter of 
fact we are all having the same problem, namely that of not being 
enlightened. When we come to the realization that our sense contacts 
are very momentary and their inherent satisfaction a matter of 
opinion, we will find it easier to let go of them during meditation.

Meditation will only happen when the sense contacts, particularly 
the thinking, are suspended. If, for instance, the touch contact in 
the sitting position is recognized and attended to as unpleasant, the 
mind starts working on that. Remembering what someone said yesterday, 
last week or even ten years ago, can start the mind churning. This is 
all due to our attachment to our senses and our identification with 
them.

From all sense contacts feelings arise, there is no way that can be 
altered, but we can stop ourselves from reacting to such feelings, and 
believing that they belong to us. To get our meditation to a 
concentrated state, we must refuse to react to feelings arisen from 
sense contacts. The more we practice this in daily life, the easier it 
will be to become concentrated in meditation. We don't have to go 
along with this natural reaction of human beings. Meditative 
absorptions are supermundane and therefore require supermundane 
qualities in us. Whenever the Buddha described the way to Nibbana he 
included the meditative absorptions as part of the practice, to lead 
us to the inner realization of the Dhamma.

Guarding our senses is not only important in meditation, but equally 
valid in daily life. In a meditation course, where there isn't as much 
input as in ordinary situation, it is a little easier to protect our 
minds from liking or disliking what we see, hear, taste, touch, smell 
and think. In order to facilitate this, we need to practice hearing 
only sounds, without explaining to ourselves what it is we heard. When 
the mind starts telling its story about the sound, at least we will 
know what we are doing, namely investing sound with a reality which 
gives it importance.

The same applies to eye contact. If, for instance, we are looking at 
a bush, our mind will say: "Oh, a cinnamon bush; who planted it? I 
wonder if we can use it?" Or any number of other ideas. Instead of all 
this, we can look at that which we call "bush" and be aware that our 
eyes are touching upon a form and thereby stopping the mind from 
making up stories. If we can manage to do this once or twice outside 
of meditation, we can use the same method of handling sense input in 
meditation. When we guard ourselves against the mind-made details of 
sense contacts, we are in less danger of falling into greed and hate. 
We will find this a great help in becoming concentrated in meditation.

Our lives are governed by our senses, but we do not have to continue 
with that. It is not compulsory. Within the operation of our six 
senses, it is not possible to find continued and unadulterated 
happiness. If it were possible, we would already be blissfully 
contented, since we have been having sense input day after day, life 
after life. The answer does not lie in improving our sense contacts, 
even though most people do try that, but rather in improving our 
reactions, so that eventually equanimity becomes our mode of living. 
This is the promise the Buddha made to us, namely that we can get out 
of all //dukkha//, all problems, but not by having only wonderful 
sense contacts and not a single moment of unpleasantness. Such a thing 
has never been possible, not even when the Buddha himself was alive. 
But we can have moments when we are actually able to do just that. 
That one moment gives us the initial experience what it is like to be 
free, which is the only kind of freedom to be found in human life. 
There is no other. Anyone who understands the Buddha's explicit 
instructions, especially those who meditate, can practice in this 
manner.

The next step to be taken is mindfulness, accompanied by clear 
comprehension (//sampajanna//). Mindfulness is the mental factor of 
just knowing, clear comprehension the one of understanding. We need 
both. That too can and should be practiced in daily life. Mindfulness 
of the body was praised by the Buddha as leading to the "deathless," a 
synonym for Nibbana. When we watch our body's actions and realize that 
it can only follow the mind's instructions, this is our first step 
into insight. Usually we take mind and body for granted. Most people 
are more interested in their body than in their mind and are looking 
after the body very well. Very few people are looking after their 
mind. 

Being aware of our body's movements gives us a chance to be alert 
without thinking, just knowing. Clear comprehension is our 
four-pronged mode of discrimination described previously.

We might think that such discrimination would slow us down unduly, 
that we won't be able to get our work done. Actually it has the 
opposite effect, because we will not do anything that is unnecessary. 
When we use mindfulness and clear comprehension again and again, they 
will become a habit, which will enhance our abilities to attain calm 
and insight. When we experience our mind ordering our body around, 
this is different from just knowing about it. We become intimately 
acquainted with our dual aspect of mind and body and can begin to 
investigate where is "me" in that. We may eventually find that "me" is 
our wish to be eternal, not to be annihilated.

Most people would like to experience calm, bliss and tranquillity in 
meditation. But those, whose minds are very active need to gain 
insight first in order to become calm. Those, whose minds are more 
peaceful in any case, find it easier to become calm first and gain 
insight later. A little calm creates a little insight and vice versa. 
In practice we work on both these aspects to give ourselves the best 
chance to develop both simultaneously. When we watch the breath going 
in and out of the nostrils, we try to achieve a calm and peaceful 
mind. When the mind strays to thinking, we first realize "I'm 
thinking," and then see the impermanent nature of each thought, and 
how it so often rolls along without any purpose. This is a valuable 
insight, because we can infer that our thoughts are frequently not to 
be believed, are unimportant, have no solidity and do not provide a 
secure foothold for us.

Without such an experience, we might continue to believe all our 
thoughts and try using them as solid foundations for our life. but 
when we see in meditation, that we can't remember what we were 
thinking from one second to the next, that belief is shattered, never 
to arise again. When we start doubting our thoughts, that doesn't mean 
we start doubting ourselves. It refers to doubting our views and 
opinions, which is a most valuable practice.

In the discourse on living-kindness (Karaniya Metta Sutta) an Arahat 
is described as being totally free from all views. What the Buddha 
expounded to us were his own experiences. Viewpoints are always based 
on our wrong assumption that there is a "me" and are therefore 
discolored by this underlying error. When we realize what our minds 
are up to, we will eventually stop having so many viewpoints and 
thereby let go of some of the mind's clutter. Most minds are full of 
ideas, hopes, plans, memories and opinions. Right and wrong are often 
based on culture or tradition and have no ultimate validity. They 
clutter up the mind and leave no space for a totally new outlook upon 
ourselves and the world.

An important step in this sequence is self-conquest, which the 
Buddha described as the way to Nibbana. As long as we react to our 
feelings created through sense contacts, we must admit that we are 
"reactors" rather than "actors," victims rather than masters. We like 
to think of ourselves as more exalted than that, yet when we observe 
reality, that is all we can find. As soon as we have overcome this 
habitual reacting, we have taken a step towards conquering ourselves.

We do not force ourselves into unpleasant situations, which we 
haven't learned to cope with yet, because the mind will again react 
negatively, which doesn't help us on the path. We need not sit in 
excruciating pain in meditation, but we need to observe our mind and 
its activity. This will assist us also in daily living when unpleasant 
feelings and dislike arise because of words we hear or sights we see. 
When we learn to accept things the way they are, self-conquest has 
taken place which releases us from views and opinions.

//Dukkha// arises from the fact that we don't like the law of 
nature, to which we are subject. We don't like our loved ones dying, 
we don't like physical pain or lack of appreciation, we don't like 
losing what we prize. If we could just accept the way it is it would 
go a long way towards looking at the world more realistically, with 
less passion, which is the way to freedom. Our passionate desires keep 
us in bounds.

When we have the opportunity to sit quietly and watch ourselves, new 
insights about ourselves may arise. We are the prototype of 
impermanence. But when our mind veers toward the past and starts 
rehashing old movies, it's time to turn it off. The past cannot be 
changed. The person who experienced the past, no longer exists, is 
only a fantasy now. When the mind strolls to the future, imagining how 
we would like it to be, we can let go by remembering the future has no 
reality either. When it happens, it can only be the present, and the 
person planning the future is not the same one, who will experience 
it. If we stay in this moment, here and now, during meditation, we can 
use that same skill in daily life.

When we handle each moment with mindfulness and clear comprehension, 
everything functions well, nothing goes amiss, our mind is content and 
inner peace can arise. Keeping our attention focused on each step on 
the way will eventually bring us to the summit.

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