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You are here: Welcome to sangham.net and an Access to Insight » Welcome at sangham.net [english pages] » A Theravada Library » Contributing Authors and Translators: Biographical Notes » Thanissaro Bhikkhu: (Geoffrey DeGraff) » Meditations 3: Dhamma Talks
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en:lib:authors:thanissaro:meditations3 [2022/03/24 13:19] – dl removed Johannen:lib:authors:thanissaro:meditations3 [2023/07/31 15:02] (current) – html into utf8 é Johann
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 The teaching on equanimity is not counseling cold indifference. It's simply reminding you of where your priorities are, where your limitations are, and that you've got to work within those limitations. In other words, if an issue comes from your past karma, you realize you can't change that. What you can change, what you can shape is what you're doing right now. So focus there. The teaching on equanimity is not counseling cold indifference. It's simply reminding you of where your priorities are, where your limitations are, and that you've got to work within those limitations. In other words, if an issue comes from your past karma, you realize you can't change that. What you can change, what you can shape is what you're doing right now. So focus there.
  
-There's a passage where the Buddha talks about the skillful and unskillful ways of teaching karma and of thinking about karma. An unskillful way is to say that everybody who does evil is going to go to hell; everybody who does something bad is going to suffer. You look back and you realize that you, like everyone else, have done some bad things in your life: the times when you acted on less than noble or less than your best intentions. If you simply brood over your big mistakes, you put yourself into a spiral that goes down, down, down. It doesn't help you at all. What you should do is to remind yourself that even though there's past karma, there's also new karma, a fresh slate. You can choose freely right now to act as skillfully as possible. Whatever you've done in the past that was unskillful, just put it aside. Make up your mind that you're not going to make that same mistake again. And then move on. It's not that you deny your mistakes. You freely admit them. It's not that you're blasé about them. You realize that a mistake's a mistake and you don't want to repeat it. But if you simply brood on the mistakes you made in the past, you don't leave yourself the energy needed to act skillfully in the present moment.+There's a passage where the Buddha talks about the skillful and unskillful ways of teaching karma and of thinking about karma. An unskillful way is to say that everybody who does evil is going to go to hell; everybody who does something bad is going to suffer. You look back and you realize that you, like everyone else, have done some bad things in your life: the times when you acted on less than noble or less than your best intentions. If you simply brood over your big mistakes, you put yourself into a spiral that goes down, down, down. It doesn't help you at all. What you should do is to remind yourself that even though there's past karma, there's also new karma, a fresh slate. You can choose freely right now to act as skillfully as possible. Whatever you've done in the past that was unskillful, just put it aside. Make up your mind that you're not going to make that same mistake again. And then move on. It's not that you deny your mistakes. You freely admit them. It's not that you're blasé about them. You realize that a mistake's a mistake and you don't want to repeat it. But if you simply brood on the mistakes you made in the past, you don't leave yourself the energy needed to act skillfully in the present moment.
  
 It's a matter of priorities: Where are you going to focus your energies to get the best results? The reflection connecting the principle of karma with equanimity is meant to clear the decks so that you can focus right there, on your present actions. That's where the true issue is. That's what underlies the basic structure of reality. When you can focus here, you don't get all caught up in all the "what ifs" about the past: "What if I had done this? What if I hadn't done that?" All those "what ifs" about the past are a massive waste of time. The important "what if" is: "What if I act skillfully now?" Try that out. It's a matter of priorities: Where are you going to focus your energies to get the best results? The reflection connecting the principle of karma with equanimity is meant to clear the decks so that you can focus right there, on your present actions. That's where the true issue is. That's what underlies the basic structure of reality. When you can focus here, you don't get all caught up in all the "what ifs" about the past: "What if I had done this? What if I hadn't done that?" All those "what ifs" about the past are a massive waste of time. The important "what if" is: "What if I act skillfully now?" Try that out.
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 So once the mind is settled down you want to look at the fabricating that goes on in the mind to see how the things you experience contain a very large element of fabrication. The fabrication is your intentional input: That's what the Buddha wants you to see. You might think that if only you could get rid of your fabrication you would see the pristine things as they are, but if you take away the fabrication the things are no longer there. Your experience of the world is a process of fabrication; to gain insight you have to see that fabrication in action. And the best place to see it in action is when the mind is really still, when you're fabricating a state of stillness in the mind. So once the mind is settled down you want to look at the fabricating that goes on in the mind to see how the things you experience contain a very large element of fabrication. The fabrication is your intentional input: That's what the Buddha wants you to see. You might think that if only you could get rid of your fabrication you would see the pristine things as they are, but if you take away the fabrication the things are no longer there. Your experience of the world is a process of fabrication; to gain insight you have to see that fabrication in action. And the best place to see it in action is when the mind is really still, when you're fabricating a state of stillness in the mind.
  
-To get really familiar with the fabrication process, you have to keep doing it with as much skill as you can. It's like learning about eggs. You could sit and look at an egg for days, but what would you know about it? Not very much, for all you can see is the shell. But what if you can crack it open? You see what's inside. And then you can take what's inside and make it into different things. You can make it into scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelets, soufflés. And the more skilled you are at making different egg dishes, the more you understand eggs: how they react to different kinds of heat, what they do when you put them over low heat, what they do when you put them over high heat, what they do when you mix them with different ingredients. The more you work with the eggs in this way, the more you understand them.+To get really familiar with the fabrication process, you have to keep doing it with as much skill as you can. It's like learning about eggs. You could sit and look at an egg for days, but what would you know about it? Not very much, for all you can see is the shell. But what if you can crack it open? You see what's inside. And then you can take what's inside and make it into different things. You can make it into scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelets, soufflés. And the more skilled you are at making different egg dishes, the more you understand eggs: how they react to different kinds of heat, what they do when you put them over low heat, what they do when you put them over high heat, what they do when you mix them with different ingredients. The more you work with the eggs in this way, the more you understand them.
  
-It's the same with the mind. If you really want to understand the fabrication of the mind, make it into a nice soufflé. In other words, very purposefully fabricate something really good with your mind, like a nice state of concentration with a nice comfortable breath. And in doing so, you learn a lot more about the mind than you would simply looking at it without any knowledge of cause and effect. You've got to manipulate it to see how cause and effect are operating.+It's the same with the mind. If you really want to understand the fabrication of the mind, make it into a nice soufflé. In other words, very purposefully fabricate something really good with your mind, like a nice state of concentration with a nice comfortable breath. And in doing so, you learn a lot more about the mind than you would simply looking at it without any knowledge of cause and effect. You've got to manipulate it to see how cause and effect are operating.
  
 That's when you understand the process of fabrication. You get the mind really still and try to develop an all-around awareness. Then you protect that awareness. That's when you start seeing fabrication in action. As you try to maintain your concentration, what destroys it? At first we think that it's destroyed by things coming in from the outside, but that's not the case. A lot of the inside fabrication comes bubbling up to destroy it as well. Sounds don't destroy your concentration, it's your //reaction// to sounds. What other people do doesn't destroy your concentration, it's what //you// do. As Ajaan Chaa says, sounds don't disturb you, you disturb the sounds. That's when you understand the process of fabrication. You get the mind really still and try to develop an all-around awareness. Then you protect that awareness. That's when you start seeing fabrication in action. As you try to maintain your concentration, what destroys it? At first we think that it's destroyed by things coming in from the outside, but that's not the case. A lot of the inside fabrication comes bubbling up to destroy it as well. Sounds don't destroy your concentration, it's your //reaction// to sounds. What other people do doesn't destroy your concentration, it's what //you// do. As Ajaan Chaa says, sounds don't disturb you, you disturb the sounds.
en/lib/authors/thanissaro/meditations3.txt · Last modified: 2023/07/31 15:02 by Johann

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