Reading Buddha
27/September/2008 08:58 PM
Dear Folks
Taking up your questions and comments, I’d like to begin by reflecting on what we are doing here - or, at least, what I think I’m doing. Which is, reading Buddha. Ken, I liked your comment about chaos reflecting a state of affairs in which we perceive diversity without order, and wish to bring order. This pretty much sums up much of my relationship with the Buddha’s teaching. I find myself wishing to find order in it, to extract some kind of coherent meaning which would, in turn, enable me to read my own experience. And the other way round. In meditation, I seek to find some kind of order in experience, to “read” it, and thus extract meaning from it. For it seems to me that only by finding meaning can I find transformation.
Taking up your questions and comments, I’d like to begin by reflecting on what we are doing here - or, at least, what I think I’m doing. Which is, reading Buddha. Ken, I liked your comment about chaos reflecting a state of affairs in which we perceive diversity without order, and wish to bring order. This pretty much sums up much of my relationship with the Buddha’s teaching. I find myself wishing to find order in it, to extract some kind of coherent meaning which would, in turn, enable me to read my own experience. And the other way round. In meditation, I seek to find some kind of order in experience, to “read” it, and thus extract meaning from it. For it seems to me that only by finding meaning can I find transformation.
And so I read the Buddha’s teachings to find meaning.
But I don’t assume there is only one meaning
to be found, any more than I would expect one meaning
to emerge from reading Shakespeare. But I am looking
for coherency, and something I can apply to my own
life, to make it more satisfactory, somehow. And of
course, since I teach dharma, I’m also looking for
something which would help others to find meaning in
the Buddha’s words.
Anyway, back to your comments. Firstly, I must apologise for rushing to interpret your experience at the station where, as you point out, chaos was absent - until the feeling that you ought to be doing something arose. Until then, you characterise your experience as containing calm and the absence of an agenda, of any demand for things to be other than they were. I would read this as indicating the presence of samadhi (the calm) and the absence of tanha, or “craving.” This second is seen in the absence of an agenda, something missing that needs to be there. For myself, I sometimes experience tanha as a sense of urgent necessity, of something, whether explicit or implicit, that needs to be done or possessed. It may be very minor - got to finish this sentence! - or major - got to get more money!! - but it always has that sense of agitated incompletion, and so dissatisfaction.
But in the absence of tanha and the presence of samadhi it seems to me a good bet that mindfulness was present. Although what exactly mindfulness is, we have not yet arrived at.
Nick, regarding your question about the meaning of a “present encounter which is innocent of any influence from the past,” I am referring to a “here-and-now experience” isolated from past insights. Ken, I think you are correct when you say that we necessarily bring with us a “basic perceptual apparatus” from the past in any present encounter. We “recognise” something to be something. The unfortunate bird recognises a tree out there (which does make more sense than recognising another bird!), and so brings something from the past. But not very much, it seems, for it fails to learn from its mistakes.
So mindfulness, like your idea of long term memory, is like repeating a story from the past in order to give the present a deeper, fuller meaning. Let me give an example. In Kimsuka Sutta (from Salayatanavagga Vagga of Samyutta Nikaya) the Buddha explains the role of mindfulness using the metaphor of a frontier city with six gates.
The city, the Buddha explains, is the body - the sentient body, of course, a body together with consciousness. The six gates are the six senses. The gatekeeper is mindfulness. What mediates between the city and the external world? The gatekeeper, who keeps watch at the six sense doors, checking the traffic to and from the city.
The gatekeeper is described as “wise, competent and intelligent.” His job is twofold. First, it is to “hold back” or “refuse (entrance).” Those who must be held back are aññata, the “unknown,” so “strangers.” Second, it is “to make enter,” “allow to enter,” “usher in,” where those who are to be ushered in are the ñata, the “known, well-known,” so “acquaintances,” “friends.”
Here we find that mindfulness is far more than mere awareness. The gatekeeper is not the silent, non-interfering witness of traffic; s/he is more like a traffic cop. The Buddha associates mindfulness with wisdom, intelligence and learning. It is associated with what can be learned, absorbed, over time. Mindfulness does not just witness, in the present, but actively assesses whatever is at the gate, allowing some things in (and out), and refusing admission to other things. What is allowed in is the ñata, the known, the familiar; and what is refused admission is the aññata, the unknown. So the job of mindfulness is to recognise, and recognition requires memory, and experience over time. During her first day on the job, mindfulness cannot recognise anyone, and so will make mistakes by admitting those who should not be admitted and excluding those who should not be excluded. But over time, mindfulness learns from experience, and becomes increasingly discerning and discriminating. Sati (mindfulness) and pañña (wisdom) go together. And what we find at the centre of their relationship is memory.
So we could “be here now,” but if we are not using this present awareness in such a way as to enable wisdom to arise, then mindfulness must be weak, or absent. And wisdom comes from experience over time - things remembered, and learned from.
Next time I’d like to look at Ken’s suggestion of the role of short term memory. That book on memory sounds interesting. Would it help, do you think, to unpack this notion of mindfulness?
Anyway, back to your comments. Firstly, I must apologise for rushing to interpret your experience at the station where, as you point out, chaos was absent - until the feeling that you ought to be doing something arose. Until then, you characterise your experience as containing calm and the absence of an agenda, of any demand for things to be other than they were. I would read this as indicating the presence of samadhi (the calm) and the absence of tanha, or “craving.” This second is seen in the absence of an agenda, something missing that needs to be there. For myself, I sometimes experience tanha as a sense of urgent necessity, of something, whether explicit or implicit, that needs to be done or possessed. It may be very minor - got to finish this sentence! - or major - got to get more money!! - but it always has that sense of agitated incompletion, and so dissatisfaction.
But in the absence of tanha and the presence of samadhi it seems to me a good bet that mindfulness was present. Although what exactly mindfulness is, we have not yet arrived at.
Nick, regarding your question about the meaning of a “present encounter which is innocent of any influence from the past,” I am referring to a “here-and-now experience” isolated from past insights. Ken, I think you are correct when you say that we necessarily bring with us a “basic perceptual apparatus” from the past in any present encounter. We “recognise” something to be something. The unfortunate bird recognises a tree out there (which does make more sense than recognising another bird!), and so brings something from the past. But not very much, it seems, for it fails to learn from its mistakes.
So mindfulness, like your idea of long term memory, is like repeating a story from the past in order to give the present a deeper, fuller meaning. Let me give an example. In Kimsuka Sutta (from Salayatanavagga Vagga of Samyutta Nikaya) the Buddha explains the role of mindfulness using the metaphor of a frontier city with six gates.
Suppose, bhikkhu, a king had a frontier city with strong ramparts, walls, and arches, and with six gates. The gatekeeper posted there would be wise, competent, and intelligent; one who keeps out strangers and admits acquaintances.
The city, the Buddha explains, is the body - the sentient body, of course, a body together with consciousness. The six gates are the six senses. The gatekeeper is mindfulness. What mediates between the city and the external world? The gatekeeper, who keeps watch at the six sense doors, checking the traffic to and from the city.
The gatekeeper is described as “wise, competent and intelligent.” His job is twofold. First, it is to “hold back” or “refuse (entrance).” Those who must be held back are aññata, the “unknown,” so “strangers.” Second, it is “to make enter,” “allow to enter,” “usher in,” where those who are to be ushered in are the ñata, the “known, well-known,” so “acquaintances,” “friends.”
Here we find that mindfulness is far more than mere awareness. The gatekeeper is not the silent, non-interfering witness of traffic; s/he is more like a traffic cop. The Buddha associates mindfulness with wisdom, intelligence and learning. It is associated with what can be learned, absorbed, over time. Mindfulness does not just witness, in the present, but actively assesses whatever is at the gate, allowing some things in (and out), and refusing admission to other things. What is allowed in is the ñata, the known, the familiar; and what is refused admission is the aññata, the unknown. So the job of mindfulness is to recognise, and recognition requires memory, and experience over time. During her first day on the job, mindfulness cannot recognise anyone, and so will make mistakes by admitting those who should not be admitted and excluding those who should not be excluded. But over time, mindfulness learns from experience, and becomes increasingly discerning and discriminating. Sati (mindfulness) and pañña (wisdom) go together. And what we find at the centre of their relationship is memory.
So we could “be here now,” but if we are not using this present awareness in such a way as to enable wisdom to arise, then mindfulness must be weak, or absent. And wisdom comes from experience over time - things remembered, and learned from.
Next time I’d like to look at Ken’s suggestion of the role of short term memory. That book on memory sounds interesting. Would it help, do you think, to unpack this notion of mindfulness?
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