| Forest SanghaNewsletter | July 1997 |
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The Joy Hidden in Sorrow During these days of practice together, we've been reading the names of manypeople - our departed loved ones, and also relatives, family members,friends, who are suffering untold agony and hardship at this time. There isso much misery all around us - how do we accept it all? We've heard ofsuicides, cancer, aneurysms, motor neurone disease plucking the life out ofso many young and vibrant people. And old age, sickness, decay and deathsnuffing the life out of many elderly people who still have a lot of livingthat they want to do. Why does this happen? Death is all around us in nature. We're coming into the season now whereeverything is dying. This is the natural law, it's not something new. And yettime and again we keep pushing it out of our lives, trying our best topretend that we're not going to die - that we won't grow old, that we'll behealthy, wealthy and wise until the last moment. We are constantly identified with our bodies. We think, 'This is me', or, 'Iam my body, I am these thoughts. I am these feelings, I am these desires, Iam this wealth, these beautiful possessions that I have, this personality.'That's where we go wrong. Through our ignorance we go chasing after shadows,dwelling in delusion, unable to face the storms that life brings us. We'renot able to stand like those oak trees along the boundary of the Amaravatimeadow - that stay all winter long and weather every storm that comes theirway. In October, they drop their leaves, so gracefully. And in the spring,they bloom again. For us too there are comings and goings, the births anddeaths, the seasons of our lives. When we are ready, and even if we are notready, we will die. Even if we never fall sick a day in our lives, we stilldie; that's what bodies are meant to do. |
| In meditation we can go deeply into the mind, to investigate: who is it thatwe really are? Who dies?... Because what dies is not who we are. |
| When we talk about dying before we die, that does not mean that we should tryto commit suicide to avoid suffering; it means that we should use thispractice, this way of contemplation, to understand our true nature. Inmeditation we can go deeply into the mind, to investigate: who is it that wereally are? Who dies?... Because what dies is not who we are. Death can be peaceful. A peaceful death is a gift, a blessing to the world;there is simply the return of the elements to the elements. But if we havenot come to realise our true nature, it can seem very frightening, and wemight resist a lot. But we can prepare ourselves, by investigating who it isthat we really are; we can live consciously. Then when the time comes, we candie consciously, totally open, just like the leaves fluttering down, asleaves are meant to do. Chasing shadows... What is it that we are really looking for in life? We'relooking for happiness, for a safe refuge, for peace. But where are we lookingfor these things? We desperately try to protect ourselves by collecting moreand more possessions, having to have bigger and bigger locks on the door,putting in alarm systems. We are constantly armouring ourselves against eachother - increasing the sense of separation - by having more possessions, morecontrol, feeling more self-importance with our college degrees, our PhD's. Weexpect more respect, and we demand immediate solutions; it is a culture ofinstantaneous gratification. So we're constantly on the verge of beingdisappointed - if our computer seizes up, if we don't make that businessdeal, or if we don't get that promotion at work. This is not to put down the material realm. We need material supports, food,clothing, medicines; we need a shelter and protection, a place to rest; wealso need warmth, friendship. There's a lot that we need to make thisjourney. But because of our attachment to things, and our efforts to fill andfulfil ourselves through them, we find a residue of hunger, ofunsatisfactoriness, because we are looking in the wrong place. When somebodysuddenly gets ill, loses a leg, has a stroke, is faced with death, gets AIDSand has to bear unspeakable suffering, what do we do? Where is our refuge? When the Buddha was still Prince Siddhartha before his enlightenment, he hadeverything. He had what most people in the world are running after, as theypush death to the edge of their lives, as they push the knowledge of theirown mortality to the farthest extreme of consciousness. He was a prince. Hehad a loving wife and a child. His father had tried desperately to protecthim from the ills of life, providing him with all the pleasures of thesenses, including a different palace for every season. But he couldn't holdhis son back, and one day the Prince rode out and saw what he had to see: theFour Heavenly Messengers. |
| Some of us might think it's contradictory that a heavenly messenger couldcome in the form of a very sick person: 'What's so heavenly about a very sickperson?' But it is a divine messenger, because suffering is our teacher, it'sthrough our own experience and ability to contemplate suffering that we learnthe First Noble Truth. The second and third messengers were a very old man struggling along theroadside, and a corpse, riddled with maggots and flies, decaying on thefuneral pyre. These were the things the Buddha saw that opened his eyes tothe truth about life and death. But the fourth heavenly messenger was asamana, a monk; a symbol of renunciation, of someone who'd given up the worldin order to discover the Truth within himself. Many people want to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world,but actually there is a Himalaya in here, within each of us. I want to climbthat Himalaya; to discover that Truth within myself,to reach the pinnacle ofhuman understanding, to realise my own true nature. Everything on thematerial plain, especially what we seem to invest a lot of our energyhungering for, seems very small and unimportant in the face of this potentialtransformation of consciousness. So that's where these four celestial signs were pointing the youngSiddhartha. They set him on his journey. These are the messengers that canpoint us to the Way of Truth and away from the way of ignorance andselfishness, where we struggle, enmeshed in wrong view, unable to face ourdarkness, our confusion, our pain. As Steven Levine said: The distance fromour pain, from our wounds, from our fear, from our grief, is the distancefrom our true nature.' Our minds create the abyss - that huge chasm. What will take us across thatgap? How do we get close to who we really are - how can we realise pure lovein itself, that sublime peace which does not move towards nor rejectanything? Can we hold every sorrow and pain of life in one compassionateembrace, coming deeply into our hearts with pure awareness, mindfulness andwise reflection, touching the centre of our being? As we realise who we are,we learn the difference between pain and suffering. |  |
| What is grief really? It's only natural that when someone we are close todies, we grieve. We are attached to that person, we're attached to theircompany, we have memories of times spent together. We've depended on eachother for many things - comfort, intimacy, support, friendship, so we feelloss. When my mother was dying, her breath laboured and the bodily fluids alreadybeginning to putrefy, she suddenly awoke from a deep coma, and her eyes metmine with full recognition. From the depths of Alzheimer's disease that hadprevented her from knowing me for the last ten years, she returned in thatmoment to be fully conscious, smiling with an unearthly, resplendent joy. Aradiance fell upon both of us. And then in the next instant she was gone. Where was the illness that had kidnapped her from us for so many years? Inthat moment, there was the realisation of the emptiness of form. She was notthis body. There was no Alzheimer's and 'she' was not dying. There was justthis impermanence to be known through the heart and the falling away, thedissolution of the elements returning to their source. Through knowing the transcendent, knowing who we really are - knowing thebody as body - we come to the realisation that we are ever-changing and wetouch our very essence, that which is deathless. We learn to rest in pureawareness. In our relationships with each other, with our families, we can begin to usewisdom as our refuge. That doesn't mean that we don't love, that we don'tgrieve for our loved ones. It means that we're not dependent on ourperceptions of our mother and father, children or close friends. We're notdependent on them being who we think they are, we no longer believe that ourhappiness depends on their love for us, or their not leaving, not dying.We're able to surrender to the rhythm of life and death, to the natural law,the Dhamma of birth, ageing, sickness and death. When Marpa, the great Tibetan meditation master and teacher of Milarepa, losthis son he wept bitterly. One of his pupils came up to him and asked:'Master, why are you weeping? You teach us that death is an illusion.' AndMarpa said: 'Death is an illusion. And the death of a child is an evengreater illusion.' Marpa showed his disciple that while he could understand the truth about theconditioned nature of everything and the emptiness of forms, he could stillbe a human being. He could feel what he was feeling; he could open to hisgrief. He could be completely present to feel that loss. There is nothing incongruous about feeling our feelings, touching our pain,and, at the same time understanding the truth of the way things are. Pain ispain; grief is grief; loss is loss - we can accept those things. Suffering iswhat we add onto them when we push away, when we say, 'No, I can't.' Today, while I was reading the names of my grandparents who were murdered,together with my aunts and uncles and their children, during World War II -their naked bodies thrown into giant pits - these images suddenly overwhelmedme with a grief that I didn't know was there. I felt a choking pressure,unable to breathe. As the tears ran down my cheeks, I began to recollect,bringing awareness to the physical experience, and to breathe into thispainful memory, allowing it to be. It's not a failure to feel these things.It's not a punishment. It is part of life; it's part of this human journey. So the difference between pain and suffering is the difference betweenfreedom and bondage. If we're able to be with our pain, then we can accept,investigate and heal. But if it's not okay to grieve, to be angry, or to feelfrightened or lonely then it's not okay to look at what we are feeling, andit's not okay to hold it in our hearts and to find our peace with it. When wecan't feel what must be felt, when we resist or try to run from life, then weare enslaved. Where we cling is where we suffer, but when we simply feel thenaked pain on its own, our suffering dies... That's the death we need to die. Through ignorance, not understanding who we are, we create so many prisons.We are unable to be awake, to feel true loving-kindness for ourselves, oreven to love the person sitting next to us. If we can't open our hearts tothe deepest wounds, if we can't cross the abyss the mind has created throughits ignorance, selfishness, greed, and hatred, then we are incapable ofloving, of realising our true potential. We remain unable to finish thebusiness of this life. By taking responsibility for what we feel, taking responsibility for ouractions and speech, we build the foundation of the path to freedom. We knowthe result that wholesome action brings - for ourselves and for others. Whenwe speak or act in an unkind way - when we are dishonest, deceitful, criticalor resentful - then we are the ones that really suffer. Somewhere within us,there is a residue of that posture of the mind, that attitude of the heart. In order to release it, to be released from it, we have to come very close.We have to open to every imperfection - to acknowledge and fully accept ourhumanity, our desires, our limitations; and forgive ourselves. We have tocultivate the intention not to harm anyone (including ourselves) by body,speech or even thought. Then if we do harm again, we forgive ourselves, andstart from the beginning, with the right intention. We understand kamma; howimportant it is to live heedfully, to walk the path of compassion and wisdomfrom moment to moment - not just when we are on retreat. Meditation is all the time. Meditation is coming into union with our truenature. The Unconditioned accepts all, is in total peace with all... totalunion, total harmony. As long as we're holding one negative thing in ourhearts - towards ourselves or anyone else - we cannot fully realise our truenature. We cannot be free. How can we really take responsibility for our actions? By reflecting on ourvirtuous, or wholesome actions we are taking responsibility, and this is asupport for the practice in the present moment. We feel the momentum of ourmindfulness, confidence, trust, the energy of purity of mind, and that helpsus to keep going. Contemplating things that I don't feel good about canperhaps bring a dark cloud over consciousness. In fact this is verywholesome; it is the arising of moral shame and moral fear, hiri-ottappa. Weknow when we've done something that was not right, and we feel regret; beingcompletely honest. But then we forgive ourselves, recollecting that we arehuman beings, we make mistakes. Through acknowledging our wrong action, ourlimitation, our weakness, we cross the abyss and free our hearts. Then webegin again. This moral fear engenders a resolve in the mind towards wholesomeness,towards harmony; there is the intention not to harm. This happens because weunderstand that greed conditions more greed, and hatred conditions morehatred - whereas loving-kindness is the cause and condition for compassionand unity. Knowing this, we can live more skilful lives. Once, when the Buddha was giving a teaching, he held up a flower. And theVenerable Mahakassapa, one of his great devotees and disciples, smiled.There's a mystery why the Venerable Mahakassapa smiled when the Buddha heldup the flower. What is it that we see in the flower? In the flower we see the ever-changingessence of conditioned forms. We see the nature of beauty and decay. We seethe 'suchness' of the flower. And we see the emptiness of experience. Allteachings are contained in that flower; the teachings on suffering and thepath leading to the cessation of suffering - on suffering and non-suffering.And if we bring the teachings to life in each moment of awareness, it's as ifthe Buddha is holding up that flower for us. Why are we so afraid of death? It's because we have not understood the law ofnature; we have not understood our true nature in the scheme of things. Wehave not understood that there's non-suffering. If there is birth, there isdeath. If there is the unborn, then there is that which is deathless: 'TheUndying, Uncreated, Love, the Supreme, the Magnificent, Nibbana.' In pain we burn but, with mindfulness, we use that pain to burn through tothe ending of pain. It's not something negative. It is sublime. It iscomplete freedom from every kind of suffering that arises; because of arealisation - because of wisdom - not because we have rid ourselves ofunpleasant experience, only holding on to the pleasant, the joyful. We stillfeel pain, we still get sick and we die, but we are no longer afraid, we nolonger get shaken. When we are able to come face to face with our own direst fears andvulnerability, when we can step into the unknown with courage and openness,we touch near to the mysteries of this traverse through the human realm to anauthentic self-fulfilment. We touch what we fear the most, we transform it,we see the emptiness of it. In that emptiness, all things can abide, allthings come to fruition. In this very moment, we can free ourselves. Nibbana is not out there in the future; we have to let go of the future, letgo of the past. This doesn't mean we forget our duties and commitments. Wehave our jobs and the schedules we have to keep, we have our families to takecare of; but in every single thing that we do, we pay close attention, weopen. We allow life to come towards us, we don't push it away. We allow thismoment to be all that we have, contemplating and understanding things the waythey really are - not bound by our mental and emotional habits, by ourdesires. The candle has a light. That light, one little candle from this shrine canlight so many other candles, without itself being diminished. In the sameway, we are not diminished by tragedy, by our suffering. If we surrender, ifwe can be with it, transparent and unwavering - making peace with thefiercest emotion, the most unspeakable loss, with death - we can freeourselves. And in that release, there is a radiance. We are like lights inthe world, and our life becomes a blessing for everyone. Jelaluddin Rumi wrote: 'The most secure place to hide a treasure of gold issome desolate, unnoticed place. Why would anyone hide treasure in plainsight? And so it is said: 'Joy is hidden in sorrow.' The illumined master Marpa weeping over his child - does his experience ofthe loss of his young child diminish his wisdom? Or is it just the supremehumility of a great man, a great sage expressing the wholeness of his being,of his humanity. I want to encourage each one of you to keep investigating, keep letting go ofyour fear. Remember that fear of death is the same as fear of life. What arewe afraid of? When we deeply feel and, at the same time, truly know thatexperience we can come to joy. It is still possible to live fully as a humanbeing, completely accepting our pain; we can grieve and yet still rejoice atthe way things are. |
