Dhamma Diary

We didn’t realise that we were driving right into the middle of the worst affected areas. My brother Tim and I were in his little white van on our way to Wales. I’d been invited to do a retreat on a supporter’s farm. It was July, 2007, the time of the flooding that wreaked havoc in the Midlands and Wales.

We’d been looking at the forecast and severe weather warnings were in place but we thought we’d try our luck. To get from the Hermitage to Wales, taking the most direct route, you have to go through Worcestershire. Worcestershire was one of the worst hit places. We realised things weren’t going to be easy when we found the motorway closed. Map reader Manapo worked out a route that would take us through the countryside. We really had no idea how bad the rain had been in this part of the country.

Our first taste of the severity of the floods came when we approached this roundabout. Our eye lids widened and the atmosphere became one of anticipation as we drew near. It was very eerie. It was like a ghost town. There were abandoned cars everywhere. Clearly people had been caught out and had got stranded in the water. There was no hope of them getting away with their cars so they just left them. There were some very expensive cars there too. By now most of the water had receded so we drove cautiously around the remaining puddles, and continued hesitantly on our route, not knowing what we were going to meet next.

Then over the next two hours we witnessed much of the same. Abandoned cars; closed roads. We went through Pershore on route to Evesham but we were told by Police that Evesham had been cut off. We realised that we weren’t going to get to Wales and our main mission now became getting back to the monastery. But this wasn’t going to be easy. Everywhere we were coming to closed roads. And we really didn’t have a clue where we were. So it was a matter of trial and error as we tried to escape this maze.

But we weren’t alone on this mission. We were amongst many other people also trying to get through, or get out. We’d be in a snake of cars driving slowly along when we’d come to a closed road, or to flood water that was too deep. Then we’d all have to turn around and find another way. We’d be advised by police officers not to go a certain way, and we’d be told by other drivers who had just tried one route that it was impassable. I remember clearly at one point when we were trying to get to Alcester, when again we were in a small group of cars. We were approaching a bridge when a man driving from the opposite direction called and told us the bridge had collapsed. So we all turned around, wondering how we were ever going to get away.

We eventually did get back. And it had been an experience. But it had been a good experience. Why? Because it had helped me to understand a little deeper the Buddha’s teachings on Metta - loving-kindness. Because while we were driving around, trying to find a way through the floods, we were not alone. Others were trying to get through as well. We were all struggling against the impersonal and merciless power of nature. Nature had levelled us. It had made us as one. We were united in our suffering and we were aware of it. There was a great sense of brotherhood and of unity. The masks that we persistently hide behind when we relate to one another had temporarily dropped and we had opened ourselves up to a common sense of our fragility as human beings. We were trying to help each other. People were being nice to each other when they didn’t even know each other! Now it takes something for that to happen in England! The iron curtains of selfishness and hate had temporarily parted and metta and compassion began to show themselves. And how wonderful metta and compassion are! How bright and benevolent! Isn’t it a shame that we cannot remove these iron curtains for good and live with minds of metta and compassion. It brings a tear to my eye when I think back to this occasion and see how it transformed us. If only we could be like this all of the time. If only we could all grasp the deep suffering of life that we share, the suffering that makes us all brothers and sisters, and then we could drop these ugly masks, and tear away these heavy curtains.

But we can live in this way. We can allow metta and compassion to shine forth - by developing wisdom and understanding the First Noble Truth taught by the Buddha: Dukkha – suffering. When we understand suffering we see that we are all one in this respect. We become aware of the inadequacy of human existence and how we all share this. The iron curtains then gradually open and we bask in the light of metta - metta for ourselves and for all.

Ajahn Chah was by all accounts a man of immense metta. Luangpor relates how soon after going to stay with Ajahn Chah he had been part of this huge gathering of monks. They stayed up for three nights in a row, meditating and listening to Dhamma Talks. Ajahn Chah’s unmistakable figure was in the centre of it all. It was an inspiring occasion for Luangpor, but also a demanding one as he hardly spoke a word of Thai and he’d never gone three nights without sleep! He says that at one point he was standing around when he became aware that Ajahn Chah was looking at him. And he said it was amazing. He had never experienced anything like it. He said that as Ajahn Chah looked at him he flooded Luangpor with metta. There are many stories that show just how much metta Ajahn Chah had. How did he have so much metta? He was once asked this by a western monk. Ajahn Chah’s reply is very important: “When you see sabbe sankhara anicca – that all conditioned things are impermanent - you cannot not have loving-kindness”. In other words when you have wisdom you cannot not have metta.

Think of loving-kindness and compassion as a great and noble tree. Great and noble trees must have deep and expansive roots. The deep and expansive root of metta and compassion is wisdom.

Real wisdom, and the insight into suffering and the impermanence of things, is a result of meditative development. But we can stir up this understanding by looking around on a less concentrated level and observing the realities of life. Look! On every level we see transiency; we see uncertainty. We see that nothing of this world can be relied upon. People, moods, possessions, the weather! I’ve just been in Thailand. There are the mega-rich and the mega-poor, especially in Bangkok. You drive around and see new ginormous skyscrapers emerging from the ground. You see people financially doing extremely well. You see them driving around in their BMW’s and Porches, on their way to the airport to fly to some luxury destination. They’re living the high life. And some may be envious. But for how long will this go on? The higher you go the further you fall. And they do fall. Think of a house of cards. We are all living in this way. If one tiny thing changes the whole house will fall. We all live with this precariousness. ALL of us.

And death. The great leveller. Birth and Death – what are these about?!! How anyone can believe in a benevolent creator is beyond me. These are the big ones. We’ve been born and we will die. Life ain’t no party. Think of a person you often don’t get on with. Someone you tend to judge and feel aversion towards. Someone who says things that upset you. Now turn back the clock and think of that person as a helpless baby. Sitting in their cot with their innocent eyes searching around them. They’ve just been born. They didn’t choose to be born. Now they are beginning their journey towards death. And you are the same. Strip away the thin veneer that you place on your experience of life and come to understand how we are all locked into the same struggle.

The Buddha’s stock definition of Dukkha is very important: Birth is suffering, old age, sickness and death are suffering. Not to get what one wants is suffering. Birth, old age and death; the floods that we are all struggling against. So tear back the iron curtains and recognise that we are all the same in this respect. Understanding Dukkha we generate this feeling of brotherhood. We will eventually develop the unconditional metta as spoken of by the Buddha that bypasses all appearances and views all with loving eyes.

So remember to think of loving-kindness and compassion as a great and noble tree. Great and noble trees must have deep and expansive roots. The deep and expansive root of metta and compassion is wisdom. And then think of wisdom as a great and noble tree. One of the fundamental roots of wisdom is samadhi - the concentrated and developed mind.

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The next teaching in Dhamma Diary will be given on:

The New Moon Day, Wednesday, 6th February.

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I’ve just got back from Thailand, where I attended the annual Ajahn Chah Memorial Day with Luangpor, so you’ll have to sit on the edge of your seats until tomorrow. (The picture above is of Luangpor with Ajahn Chah about 36 years ago.)

In this practice of the Dhamma there are times of darkness when our minds are clouded and we do not see the progress we are making. In these testing times we may wonder if we’re going the right way. We stand still and scratch our heads wondering which way to go. But these periods pass and the darkness clears. The ways in which the Dhamma works are too subtle for us to see most of the time, and we’re not always aware of how it’s affecting us. And so we must be patient as we allow the Dhamma to work its magic.

It’s like walking up a great mountain on a narrow and winding path. At times the walk is exhilarating, but at others we’re engulfed in fog. When in the fog we cannot see the path clearly. We may doubt we are going in the right direction; we may stumble and fall. But we pick ourselves up and continue patiently through the fog…. But then after a time the fog clears and we can see the path. We look back and we see how far we’ve come. The path ahead is now clear to us and our uncertainty vanishes. And so we walk on with confidence. But then again, after a time, the fog returns. The path disappears from view and we are once more uncertain of our direction. We stumble and fall; we take a wrong turn and come face to face with a precipice, but we turn and continue on. And this is how the walk up this great mountain unfolds. There are periods of clarity and there are periods of confusion. But all the time we push on, understanding that this is how the great walk is.

This path of the Dhamma is the same. There are times of darkness and uncertainty and there are times of wisdom and joy. Sometimes we wonder whether we’re going the right way. We wonder whether we’re still making progress, and even if we’ve ever made any progress at all! We are uncertain of many things but we keep going; we keep patiently working at our meditation. Of course there are times when we stumble and fall in our practice: we make mistakes; we neglect our meditation; we tell a lie in the spur of the moment. We may take a wrong turn and leave the path for a while. We may even peer into the abyss of wanting to give up - but we turn around and continue on.

We must understand that this is how the practice goes. You should be worried if it isn’t like this sometimes! But as on the walk up the mountain, the fog does clear; the uncertainty does clear. While in the fog we couldn’t tell if we were making progress, but once it has cleared we see just how far we have come. At these times of clarity we are so aware of the progress that we’ve made. We look back and we see what a different person we are from what we used to be. And yet while we were practising in the fog of uncertainty and darkness we couldn’t see this. At times of clarity practising the Dhamma is a joy. We see things that we had never seen before and we begin to know for ourselves what the Buddha was talking about. We feel inspired and we see our commitment strengthen. Our meditation consistently improves and our mindfulness may seem almost faultless. We are mindful for much of the time both of our body and of the feelings and moods that arise and fall. We hardly get run over at all on the motorway of mind. We are thrilled with the Dhamma as we see what it’s doing for us. “Wow!” we think. We may shed tears of joy as we reflect on the Dhamma.

But then what goes and happens? — Fog! “Huh?…. What’s happened?! Where’s it gone?!…. What about that joy and that faultless mindfulness?!” The clarity has gone. Once again we’re on that motorway of mind getting flattened by everything. Our concentration now seems as advanced as a ferret’s and we’re left wondering what on earth has happened. But through all this we keep going! Because we know what it’s like when the fog clears. And we know that it DOES clear, because it has before. And we don’t despair. Our practice is not lost. It has merely changed form.

Don’t cling to the periods of clarity. This is very important. We should never wish our practice to be a particular way (which is admittedly a tad difficult sometimes). If you’re flying - just keep going! If you’re crawling - just keep going! That’s all there is to it. Eventually we understand that this is how the practice goes. And we understand that this is the practice! We just keep on going through the good and the bad, the ups and the downs. We practise when its easy and we practise when its hard. But remember that all the time we are progressing.

I don’t tend to read much, but when I do it’s usually the scriptures and Ajahn Chah. I read a bit by Ajahn Chah and it seems so clear what I need to do. What he says makes so much sense. “This is it!” - I think. “I just need to practise in this way!” And so it’s like I’m flying on Concorde for a while. I seem to have found a way that really works. “The defilements don’t stand a chance! - It seems so clear!”…… “Ha ha haaaaa……..” say the defilements. “You clearly underestimate how defiled and deluded you are young monk!” And then the fog descends. “Oh here we go…” And then I’m in darkness and all that beautiful clarity leaves me and I seem to drop several rungs on the ladder to enlightenment. These minds are so tricky and unpredictable! Having some experience in all this I’m getting used to it and I’m not so upset when things change. I just carry on.

I said ‘good‘ practice a second ago as we tend to think of practising in this way as ‘good’‘. But we should try not to think in terms of good and bad practice. Really it’s all just practice. After all wisdom often arises during the difficult and ‘bad‘ times. All we need to do is keep on practising. That’s all there is to it! The Dhamma will work its magic.

And so the main thing is that we’re patient and that we keep going. I said earlier that one of the things we see when the fog in our practice clears is just how far we’ve come. Aren’t we always looking for the profound experiences? What is it that we want? - an earthquake?! This path is profound and it brings profound changes. But these changes, for the most part, take place in a very subtle way. You can’t see them instantly. One example is the fact that you are aware that you need to follow this path. This is a huge and profound step that we often don’t appreciate. Think how many people in the world do not see the need to do this! It’s because you have wisdom that you’re doing this. Ajahn Chah said that to see your defilements and to want to do something about them is 50% of the practice. That’s a lot! The Dhamma is subtle and so are the changes it brings. Think about that simile of the mountain. We practise in the fog for some of the time, especially at the beginning. But then the fog clears and we see how far we’ve come. All the time we were progressing but we didn’t see it. We didn’t see how far along the path we had come. It was only when the fog cleared that we could see this. And so all of the time, as long as we are practising correctly, we are progressing. The changes within us take place in a very subtle way.

There’s a very well known simile that describes this imperceptible change. Say a man or a woman wishes to take a walk. He opens his front door and sees that there is a very fine drizzle. He thinks that the drizzle is so fine that it won’t make him wet and so he doesn’t take an umbrella. And so off he walks through the drizzle. He walks and walks and all the time thinks that he isn’t getting wet; so imperceptible is this rain, so subtle and discreet. And then after a time he stops and examines himself. And he sees, much to his suprise, that he is drenched. He’s soaked through! But he didn’t realise! He didn’t realise he was getting wet. This is how it is with the Dhamma.

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The next teaching will be on the Half Moon Day,

Wednesday, 30th January

Base Camp

In the last teaching we heard about the importance of developing mindfulness and how it can transform our lives.

Our development of mindfulness should begin with the body. If we can establish this well then we will find we’ll be able to be mindful of our thoughts and feelings much more easily. It’s as if mindfulness of the body is base camp. It’s where we can come back to, to stabilise our mindfulness. Once we are experts in being mindful of the body we’ll be able to live comfortably on the motorway of mind, watching the traffic come and go without being run over. Therefore we must train ourselves to be mindful of the body.

It’s like a football player who has to train himself well if he wants to score goals and beat the opposition. If he sits around all day eating hot-dogs and doughnuts he’s barely going to be able to reach his shoe laces, let alone play football.

Our mindfulness of the body is like this. We need to make sure that we train it. If we’re going to be any match for the opposition we need to be in good form. And what’s the opposition? All those things that keep running us over and ruin our lives: our moods and emotions, our negative thought patterns, and all the rest. To deal with them the mind needs to be fit. If we don’t train our mindfulness we’ll be like that footballer who eats doughnuts all day and then finds himself on the pitch against Manchester United.

The First Foundation of Mindfulness

The Buddha taught the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. This is perhaps one of the most important teachings in the Buddhist Scriptures. The four foundations are: 1. Mindfulness of the Body; 2. Mindfulness of Feelings; 3. Mindfulness of Mind; and 4. Mindfulness of Dhamma. Our development of mindfulness can begin with the body as it’s the most obvious thing about ourselves and therefore the easiest thing to be aware of. We can see it, we can feel it, we can hear it (!), and we can smell it (!!).

So mindfulness of the body is the First Foundation of Mindfulness. We need to train it; we need to develop it. The Buddha taught us to be mindful of the body in the following ways: being mindful of the breath; being mindful of our postures; being mindful of our movements; being mindful of the nature of the body; and being mindful of the fact that it’s going to die. These are the ways that the Buddha taught us to be mindful of the body. For now let’s look closely at mindfulness of our movements. The Buddha called this ‘Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension’. This means that we train ourselves to be aware of what we are actually doing NOW. What are you doing now? What position is your body in? Is your back straight? Are you frowning. Just be aware of the body. Being mindful in this way creates a real refuge for the mind.

In a galaxy far, far away

Most of us when we haven’t heard about mindfulness tend to be experts in mindlessness! So what is mindlessness? Say you’re walking down the High Street, past Marks & Spencer and Boots, on your way to your favourite shop. As you are walking there’s a pretty good chance your mind is already at your destination: it’s chosen the new handbag or the new jacket and it’s already waiting at the checkout, waiting for you to hurry up: “Come on!”, it says, “I haven’t got all day!”. So as we go about our daily activities our mind is often in a galaxy far, far away. This is mindlessness; we are not in the present moment; we are not aware of what we are doing as we are doing it. Without mindfulness of the body we are without a refuge.

When we are mindful of the body, however, then we feel at ease. This is a very important thing to develop. If we are well practised in this mindfulness of the body we will be able to stabilise ourselves no matter what’s happening. The mind has a place to anchor itself. We develop mindfulness of the body to keep us in touch with the present. When this awarenss of the body is established we create a forcefield of calm and stability around ourselves. We are confident and collected even as the world around us is going mad (which of course it is).

The Buddha gave a very famous teaching where he said that: “When walking, just walk; when sitting; just sit; when standing, just stand; and when lying down, just lie down.” So simple, yet so difficult. So easy to grasp, yet so profound.

Set up exercises

So we need to train our mindfulness of the body. Obviously in our busy lives this can be difficult. But just set yourself little exercises in mindfulness. When I was a lay-man I used to have a really good little exercise. I used to take the glasses from the dishwasher and place them on the side beneath the cupboard where they lived. Then I would determine to put each glass away without making a sound. It was a real challenge. But it made me so mindful. I had to slow right down and be so aware of what I was doing if I was to succeed. Just five minutes of doing something like this makes such a difference to the quality of our life. Mindfulness is not boring. We can gain a refined, wholesome pleasure from everything we do if we are 100% there as we do it. Even opening a door can be an incredibly rewarding experience.

So try to be mindful of the body. Keep your mind in harmony with your actions as much as you can. Set up at least one exercise a day to help you cultivate mindfulness, as I did with the glasses. So when you are making the tea, do each acion twice as slowly, and try not to make a noise. Or folding the tea towels…. Anything. Slow down and be aware.

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The next teaching will hopefully be on the Full Moon Day, Tuesday, 22nd January.

- I imagine quite a few. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Well, our minds are a bit like motorways. The thoughts, feelings, emotions, moods, views and opinions that we experience are the traffic. And unfortunately we tend to get run over by it all. By ‘run over’ I mean that we get consumed; we get carried away; we get lost in the thoughts and moods. These various mental states arise and we get run over. And so through the seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years, and, if we’re not careful, lifetimes, we live on this motorway of mind and get hit by every darned thing that comes our way. And what’s it like to be hit? – painful!

So what does it mean to be ‘hit’ by thoughts, to be ‘run over’ by feelings and moods and all these things that we experience? Say, for instance, some man in the street yells out at you: “You’re an idiot!”. Then you feel anger or fear. When mindfulness isn’t present we have no perspective on that emotion. Anger arises and it quickly takes over our mind. We get ‘run over’ by anger; we are consumed by it.

Negative thoughts are something else that we get run over by. Very quickly negative thought patterns strengthen and grow, entwining us in their merciless tentacles. We can become thoroughly tangled in these thought processes. By not being able to distance ourselves from thoughts, by being ‘run over’ by them, they dominate and enslave us. It is important that we don’t let this go too far.

Or, (a true story) if I’ve been spending the day at the monastery making a large concrete foundation, spending hours digging and then filling the hole with broken bricks, and then pouring concrete on top of that, and then being told at 8 pm (when it’s dark), that this huge lump of concrete, that we’ve spent most of the day making, needs to be dug up! It’s in the wrong place! And we need to do it now! Because it’s setting! And then we are up until 1 am in the morning, digging out the concrete that is setting beneath us with pick-axes in torch light, concrete that we spent hours putting down, and then wheel-barrowing the remains of all our efforts down narrow paths lined with night-lights, to empty it in a distant corner of the monastery - then you may forgive me for getting ‘run over’ by the odd unskillful state. (I was run over many times that day…)

Or if someone you look up to tells you you’re useless. Dejection, self-doubt and feelings of inferiority invade your mind and you are consumed. You have no perspective. You suffer terribly.

And don’t forget the good moods! They run us over too. We get consumed by them. Now these are much more difficult to be mindful of because the suffering they cause isn’t so apparent at first. But we should still be aware of them and ’step back’. After all they aren’t permanent; we can’t rely on them. Some people get thrown around by their moods as if they were a rag doll in the jaws of a raging tiger. Whooooshh! – they’re on cloud nine. Then Wooompf! - they’re flat on the ground. Up and down, up and down. Stop getting run over!

And so the list go’s on and on.

But there is another way. We don’t have to suffer like this: we can be mindful. We can step off the motorway of mind and watch the moods and feelings pass without getting hit. Mindfulness enables us to step out of the way of the mental traffic and to watch it all go by without being hit. Using meditation and mindfulness we train ourselves to be aware of whatever feeling there is in the mind. We then don’t feed it; we don’t encourage it. This is an important point: we don’t feed it. We have a choice. When we can step back in this way then the emotion will fizzle out. You take its power away and it dies. We don’t feed the emotion or mood and then it quietly passes away. And if we’re really mindful, we will never see it again.

Mindfulness makes us less impulsive. It ‘cools’ us down. We will be able to deal comfortably and serenely with anything that happens when mindfulness is fully developed. There is a very special photograph of Ajahn Chah at the Hermitage. It’s probably my favourite photo of him. It’s his facial expression; and mainly his eyes. He looks so at ease; but also so unshakable. He looks a though he could handle anything. And I mean anything. Ajahn Chah once asked a young monk who he often took the mickey out of, whether this monk ever got angry at him. The young monk replied that there would be no point. It would be like getting angry at a mountain.

I’ve just had to go and attend to a little disturbance at the monastery gate. Undisciplined youths like to drive their cars past and bang their horns. It’s happened sporadically ever since the monastery has been here. Thankfully my mindfulness is a lot stronger than it used to be. I know this because I have so much more perspective on the various thoughts and feelings that arise in my mind. I don’t get run over so much by the emotions of fear and anger. I mentally step back out of the way and watch that desire (to throw a brick at the blinkin’ idiot’s car) and that fantasy (that a hundred foot tall rottweiler with glowing red eyes and teeth dripping with blood would appear from a flaming chasm in the ground in front of them, pick their car up in his mouth, and deliver them home – telling them not to come back) fizzle out. There isn’t so much emotion now. I feel quite cool. Of course there is a lot more going on in the mind beneath the surface, and I’m still suffering. But the suffering has been reduced, thanks to mindfulness; mindfulness that is supported by good moral conduct, a consistent meditation practice and the other factors of the Eightfold Path.

Just as the Buddha said that by practising the Dhamma, by practising morality, meditation and wisdom, we create for ourselves ‘an island that no flood can overwhelm’. What else is there for us to do other than to create this island, where we will no longer experience suffering in any form. Mindfulness enables us to create this island.

But this is a skill which doesn’t come overnight; it takes training. And we will still keep getting run over as we develop it. But that’s all part of the training. It takes effort, but it’s worth it. Because we will reach the state of happiness that doesn’t come and go: Nibbana.

The Buddha was called the Great Physician. His Dhamma is a medicine that we take to get better. But just as with a course of antibiotics where you have to take the whole course, so we must practise the Noble Eightfold Path fully for it to work. Mindfulness is but a fraction of this Dhamma medicine. We have to practise morality. Concentration has to be developed and effort put forth. With the factors of the path complementing each other mindfulness blossoms. As we begin to experience the unsurpassed freedom of mindfulness we are propelled forward as we see how wonderful it is. And so bit by bit we develop our mindfulness in harmony with the rest of the path.

What we are really talking about here is developing wisdom. That’s what it all boils down to. Real mindfulness produces wisdom. And with wisdom we will end all of our problems.

The next teaching will be given on the Half Moon Day, Tuesday 15 January.