An Australian Approach to Buddhism, Life & Reality - Week Thirty One

“NO WORRIES”

(an Australian approach to Buddhism, life & reality - Week Thirty One)

The next stage of the spiral path is insight into the way things are in reality. Reality has, according to the Buddha, three defining characteristics and these now become the focus of our insight practice which moves them from an intellectual understanding into a living reality. These three characteristics are that all conditioned things are impermanent, unsatisfactory and insubstantial. These are three huge areas for exploration that we will take a look at in depth later as they do form the basis of the realization of awakening which is the realization of conditioned causal continuity. But for now so we can move forward exploring the spiral path all we need to be aware of is the very basics.

Because every thing is conditioned, all things can only ever be constantly changing in accord with surrounding circumstances, causes and conditions. Our physical body, our feeling tone responses, our thoughts and emotional reactions or responses are constantly changing. Everything that is experienced is engaged in the process of change. Because of that change there is nothing that can give us this thing we call happiness that most people seem to think is the purpose of life. As a result we can’t find any external thing that can provide us with lasting satisfaction. Leading on from those understandings we will find that because of change and non-satisfaction we will eventually see that no thing in itself has any independent self dependence, including us.

It is this stage of the spiral path where these insights become established and irreversible. In classical Buddhism this is known as the point of stream entry or the point of no return. Once established the path changes from the path towards realization to the path of actualization which becomes the work in progress that leads to the awakening experience in its totality. This initial awakening moment changes everything and nothing all at the same time. What it does not create is this perfect faultless human being. There is just no longer any hiding place from the reality of the way things are, including your thoughts, feeling tones, emotional reactions and responses because those sub-conscious and unconscious elements have become integrated into that reality.

The next two stages of the spiral path are very closely related and are disenchantment and dispassion which arise as a result of that initial awakening moment. When it becomes known that things can never be depended upon, we no longer go off chasing them. The need for gratifying external stimulus falls away and we are more content to simply go with the flow of things as they are. In many ways we can actually enjoy life more because we know for certain that pleasure is not sustainable and therefore we do not experience disappointment when it ends. It is the same with expectations. They just seem to drop away. We all probably have an idea of something that is akin to disenchantment. Think back to when you were young. Maybe you used to have loads of toys and games but eventually you just grew out of them. Maybe you kept hold of them for a long time but you no longer played with them. You may still have one or two items that you keep for nostalgic reasons but that is about it.

So, whilst disenchantment could be said to be the actual process that moves us away from the things that used to create our worries, dispassion could be said to be the mind state that develops as a result. Dispassion has the flavour of letting go which manifests in a lack of being upset, not easily excited, a kind of calm and composed demeanour. To the outside observer it could be seen as a kind of coldness or seemingly standoffish or remoteness but it is nothing like that. The full range of human emotional experiences are present, it’s just that the drama’s that are usually associated with those emotions are not there. The presence of disenchantment and dispassion are a good indication of the initial awakening experience but it can easily fool some as similar things begin to happen as part of the gradual path of development along the Dharma path

The next stage of the spiral path is liberation. This is that moment of surrender. The complete letting go of this idea that there is no fixed or separate and enduring ego-identity, personality, individual, self, soul, spirit, essence, mind-stream, conscience, energy or any other thing than can be identified or established as being you, me or I. This is the moment the mind becomes realized. It no longer clings to or craves the idea of self. It no longer operates in reactive mode of living. It is free to respond creatively and in a way that is appropriate to each circumstance as it arrives and its source is compassion.

The final stage of the spiral path is the awareness that liberation has taken place. The three poisons of greed hatred and illusion have been destroyed. This is the end of the path. Yet, and here is the paradox, there is also an awareness that there is no-one who has been liberated and that nobody has reached the end of the path. In one of the early Buddhist texts there is a description of what full awakening is all about. One understands as it really is. This is worrying. This is the origin of worrying. This is the ending of worrying. This is the path to the ending of worrying. These are the pollutants. This is the origin of the pollutants. This is the ending of the pollutants. This is the path to the ending of the pollutants. As one is knowing and seeing this, one’s mind is liberated from the pollutant of sensuality, from the pollutant of existence and from the pollutant of ignorance. When one is liberated, the knowledge arises in one, I have been liberated, the knowledge arises in one. I have been liberated and one understands that birth is destroyed, the Dharma life has been lived, what was to be done has been done and there is no further existence like this.

Here, we can see that the culmination of the Dharma path is set out in terms of conditioned causal continuity, so that the worrying aspect of all experience that arises of the unrealized conditioned mind ceases with the realization that there is no fixed or separate and enduring ego-identity, personality, individual, self, soul, spirit, essence, mind-stream, conscience, energy or any other thing than can be identified or established as being you, me or I that has ever been born, is incapable of worrying and will never die. This is the knowledge of being liberated. The difficulty, as always, is trying to communicate the direct experience of infinite creativity and freedom to anyone who has yet to realize the experience. It sounds so far fetched, unbelievable and tantalizing and can often inflame a desire to achieve it, gain it, get there or have it. This, I suggest is why it is usually voiced in terms of what is lost along the way and not what is gained as there is nothing to gain. It is just a different way of seeing the way things are.

The Buddha attempted to communicate this experience and its resultant effects in so many different ways. The cyclic wheel of existence and the spiral path are just two. Two of my favourite descriptions of the Dharma path are found in the ancient Buddhist texts. The first is the image of a tall mountain with a natural spring at its uppermost point. The water flows down the mountain side finding its way eventually to the sea. This imagery represents the same twelve link system of the cyclic wheel. On its way down it fills up streams, lakes, ponds, wells and gives life. The second is an image of a tree, which in early Buddhism symbolized the enlightenment experience long before the first images of the Buddha began to emerge. The image of the tree as it reaches maturity and comes into bloom represents the aspect of the path that develops from ethical conduct to freedom from guilt, remorse or shame. The inner core of the tree is where the growth takes place and the outer surface is the result. Eventually that inner core will be replaced with new growth and the previous core will now be in bloom.

However the Buddha chose to communicate his experience of conditioned causal continuity it always arises on the basis of the Dharma path being a progressive model that moves the individual along the path in stages of development with each step supporting the next step. When exploring how to engage with and approach walking the Dharma path, it is helpful to bear in mind advice found in many ancient Buddhist texts. It is not so much the case of making willed effort or simply hoping that it will all be OK if you stick to the formula but in a half-hearted way. What the teaching of conditioned causal continuity is pointing to is to experience directly for ourselves how one mind state simply flows into the next and how the path itself unfolds very naturally as a result of our engagement with its foundational practices of ethics and meditation.

According to the Buddha we need to let go of any idea of trying to get somewhere or trying to achieve any kind of state, be that in meditation or in our everyday life of living the Dharma path. He suggests that if we simply pay attention to our ethical lifestyle in a non rule bound way with openness and integrity, our meditation practice will unfold naturally and reveal insights that will move us along the path towards the realization of conditioned causal continuity. Nobody can force you to walk the path and you cannot force yourself to walk it.