Upāsaka Cattasallā (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cattasalla) wrote2018-12-29 10:15 pm
cattasalla) wrote2018-12-29 10:15 pm
how to end all dissatisfaction
The Buddha's teaching starts from the problem of the fundamental unsatisfactoriness of life. None of the various experiences we have, the thoughts and feelings, can bring a lasting, perfect happiness. Pleasures can be enjoyed while they are present, but when they are not present, the default orientation of the human animal is to seek them out. Discomfort and displeasure is similarly avoided. We are kept constantly in motion by our craving and clinging. Indeed, it is this craving and clinging that causes this dissatisfaction to be woven into the fabric of our lived experience. The Buddha took the Pāli word for physical pain, dukkha, and extended it to refer to this dissatisfaction, to refer everything from the slightest frustration or annoyance to the most traumatic suffering.
The thing he saw is that it is our actions, our kamma (Sanskrit: karma), that brings about this dukkha. These actions may be of body, speech, or mind. When we take actions that are motivated by greed, hatred, hostility, craving, covetousness, selfishness, conceit, or other forms of attachment or aversion, then we create this dukkha for ourselves and for others. The solution is simple: STOP. Stop taking actions that generate dukkha. Take actions that cease dukkha. Fundamentally, that means to stop clinging.
This requires being aware of what actions will accomplish this, and having the will and desire to take those actions. Taking these actions, making these choices, is the essence of ethical or moral behavior (sīla in Pāli). In order to do this, we need to have an understanding of what the ethical, suffering-ceasing actions are, and more importantly what intentions are motivating the action. This understanding is wisdom, or paññā. And it isn't something so simple as evaluating behaviors according to a moral sense. It is an insight that penetrates to the very nature and reality of experience itself, and shows us that no lasting happiness can be found among the constantly changing, interdependent web of thoughts and ideas and sensations and perceptions and feelings, and thus nothing is worth clinging to, nothing is worth craving. It is this insight that brings about liberation. This is what awakening is.
However, our ability to access this wisdom is clouded over by layers of other mental activity, from fleeting thoughts to deep-seated beliefs about who we are. In order to achieve the awakening that leads to liberation, this mental activity must also be ceased. Thus we are taught to train our minds with what is called in English "meditation". Through mindfulness and concentration, our perception is clarified, and with the clarity of awareness borne of this meditative training, insight arises, showing us reality and enabling us to make the ennobling choices that bring about the end of dukkha.
The thing he saw is that it is our actions, our kamma (Sanskrit: karma), that brings about this dukkha. These actions may be of body, speech, or mind. When we take actions that are motivated by greed, hatred, hostility, craving, covetousness, selfishness, conceit, or other forms of attachment or aversion, then we create this dukkha for ourselves and for others. The solution is simple: STOP. Stop taking actions that generate dukkha. Take actions that cease dukkha. Fundamentally, that means to stop clinging.
This requires being aware of what actions will accomplish this, and having the will and desire to take those actions. Taking these actions, making these choices, is the essence of ethical or moral behavior (sīla in Pāli). In order to do this, we need to have an understanding of what the ethical, suffering-ceasing actions are, and more importantly what intentions are motivating the action. This understanding is wisdom, or paññā. And it isn't something so simple as evaluating behaviors according to a moral sense. It is an insight that penetrates to the very nature and reality of experience itself, and shows us that no lasting happiness can be found among the constantly changing, interdependent web of thoughts and ideas and sensations and perceptions and feelings, and thus nothing is worth clinging to, nothing is worth craving. It is this insight that brings about liberation. This is what awakening is.
However, our ability to access this wisdom is clouded over by layers of other mental activity, from fleeting thoughts to deep-seated beliefs about who we are. In order to achieve the awakening that leads to liberation, this mental activity must also be ceased. Thus we are taught to train our minds with what is called in English "meditation". Through mindfulness and concentration, our perception is clarified, and with the clarity of awareness borne of this meditative training, insight arises, showing us reality and enabling us to make the ennobling choices that bring about the end of dukkha.