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Ven. Ajahn Sumedho

Now is the KnowingNow is the Knowing

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Sabbadānaü dhammadānaü jināti‘The gift of Dhamma surpasses all other gifts.’

Several editions of Now is the Knowing have alreadybeen published, under the direction of the Sanghaof the forest monastery Wat Pah Nanachat inNorth-East Thailand. This edition was retypeset andreprinted in Britain in I989.

Published byAmaravati PublicationsAmaravati Buddhist CentreGreat GaddesdenHemel HempsteadHertfordshireHP1 3BZEngland

© Amaravati Publications I989

ISBN I 870205 05 7Print management byPersonalised Print, Basingstoke, EnglandTel. (0256) 52434

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CCOONNTTEENNTTSS

Buddha Dhamma Sangha 4

Anapanasati 18

Happiness, Unhappiness and Nibbana 32

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FFOORREEWWOORRDDThe Buddha said that the greatest gift is the gift

of Dhamma. This small book represents the wish ofsome of those fortunate enough to have receivedDhamma teachings from Venerable AjahnSumedho to share them with others.

A certain amount of editing of the talks was feltnecessary so as to translate the free form of directspeech into a more ordered printed record. Thiswas always done judiciously and with great respect.The second section, ‘Anapanasati’, is in factcomposed of passages from three or four differenttalks on the subject of mindfulness of breathing. Itseemed very useful to have so much pertinentadvice gathered in a single place.

It is by sincerely using the Ajahn’s teachings as‘tools to reflect on the way things are’ that we canbegin to repay our great debt of gratitude to him.May we all constantly do so.

The Sangha, Wat Pah Nanachat

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YYeesstteerrddaayy iiss aa mmeemmoorryy..TToommoorrrrooww iiss tthhee uunnkknnoowwnn..

NNooww iiss tthhee kknnoowwiinngg..

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BBUUDDDDHHAA DDHHAAMMMMAA SSAANNGGHHAAWhen people ask, ‘What do you have to do to

become a Buddhist?’, we say that we take refuge inBuddha Dhamma Sangha. And to take refuge werecite a formula in the Pali language:

Buddham saranam gacchamiI go to the Buddha for refuge

Dhammam saranam gacchamiI go to the Dhamma for refuge

Sangham saranam gacchamiI go to the Sangha for refuge.

As we practise more and more and begin torealize the profundity of the Buddhist Teachings, itbecomes a real joy to take these refuges, and evenjust their recitation inspires the mind. Aftertwenty-two years as a monk, I still like to chant‘Buddham saranam gacchami’ — in fact I like itmore than I did twenty-one years ago — becausethen it didn’t really mean anything to me, I justchanted it because I had to, because it was part ofthe tradition. Merely taking refuge verbally in theBuddha doesn’t mean you take refuge in anything: aparrot could be trained to say ‘Buddham saranamgacchami’, and it would probably be as meaningfulto a parrot as it is to many Buddhists. These wordsare for reflection, looking at them and actuallyinvestigating what they mean: what ‘refuge’ means,

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what ‘Buddha’ means. When we say, ‘I take refugein the Buddha,’ what do we mean by that? How canwe use that so it is not just a repetition of nonsensesyllables, but something that really helps to remindus, gives us direction and increases our devotion,our dedication to the path of the Buddha?

The word ‘Buddha’ is a lovely word — itmeans ‘The one who knows’— and the first refugeis in Buddha as the personification of wisdom. Un-personified wisdom remains too abstract for us: wecan’t conceive a bodiless, soul-less wisdom, and soas wisdom always seems to have a personal qualityto it, using Buddha as its symbol is very useful.

We can use the word Buddha to refer toGotama, the founder of what is now known asBuddhism, the historical sage who attainedParinibbana1 in India 2,500 years ago, the teacher ofthe Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path,teachings from which we still benefit today. Butwhen we take refuge in the Buddha, it doesn’t meanthat we take refuge in some historical prophet, butin that which is wise in the universe, in our minds,that which is not separate from us but is more realthan anything we can conceive with the mind orexperience through the senses. Without anyBuddha-wisdom in the universe, life for any lengthof time would be totally impossible; it is the 1 The dissolution of the Five Aggregates, in commonparlance the ‘death’, of an enlightened one.

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Buddha-wisdom that protects. We call it Buddha-wisdom, other people can call it other things if theywant, these are just words. We happen to use thewords of our tradition. We’re not going to argueabout Pali words, Sanskrit words, Hebrew, Greek,Latin, English or any other, we’re just using the termBuddha-wisdom as a conventional symbol to helpremind us to be wise, to be alert, to be awake.

Many forest bhikkhus in the North-East ofThailand use the word ‘Buddho’ as their meditationobject. They use it as a kind of koan. Firstly, theycalm the mind by following the inhalations andexhalations using the syllables BUD-DHO, and thenbegin to contemplate, ‘What is Buddho, the ‘onewho knows’?’ ‘What is the knowing?’

When I used to travel around the North-East ofThailand on tudong I liked to go and stay at themonastery of Ajahn Fun. Ajahn Fun was amuch-loved and deeply respected monk, theteacher of the Royal Family, and he was so popularthat he was constantly receiving guests. I would sitat his kuti [hut] and hear him give the most amazingkind of Dhamma talks, all on the subject of‘Buddho’— as far as I could see, it was all that hetaught. He could make it into a really profoundmeditation, whether for an illiterate farmer or anelegant, western-educated Thai aristocrat. Themain part of his teaching was to not justmechanically repeat ‘Buddho’, but to reflect andinvestigate, to awaken the mind to really look into

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the ‘Buddho’, ‘the one who knows’ reallyinvestigate its beginning, its end, above and below,so that one’s whole attention was stuck onto it.When one did that, ‘Buddho’ became somethingthat echoed through the mind. One wouldinvestigate it, look at it, examine it before it was saidand after it was said, and eventually one would startlistening to it and hear beyond the sound, until oneheard the silence.

A refuge is a place of safety, and so whensuperstitious people would come to my teacherAjahn Chah, wanting charmed medallions or littletalismans to protect them from bullets and knives,ghosts and so on, he would say, ‘Why do you wantthings like that? The only real protection is takingrefuge in the Buddha. Taking refuge in the Buddhais enough.’ But their faith in Buddha usually wasn’tquite as much as their faith in those silly littlemedallions. They wanted something made out ofbronze and clay, stamped and blessed. This is whatis called taking refuge in bronze and clay, takingrefuge in superstition, taking refuge in that which istruly unsafe and cannot really help us.

Today in modern Britain we find that generallypeople are more sophisticated. They donÆt takerefuge in magic charms, they take refuge in thingslike the Westminster Bank — but that is still takingrefuge in something that offers no safety. Takingrefuge in the Buddha, in wisdom, means that wehave a place of safety. When there is wisdom, when

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we act wisely and live wisely, we are truly safe. Theconditions around us might change. We can’tguarantee what will happen to the materialstandard of living, or that the Westminster Bank willsurvive the decade. The future remains unknownand mysterious, but in the present, by taking refugein the Buddha we have that presence of mind nowto reflect on and learn from life as we live it.

Wisdom doesn’t mean having a lot ofknowledge about the world; we don’t have to go touniversity and collect information about the worldto be wise. Wisdom means knowing the nature ofconditions as we’re experiencing them. It is not justbeing caught up in reacting to and absorbing intothe conditions of our bodies and minds out of habit,out of fear, worry, doubt, greed and so on, but it isusing that ‘Buddho’, that ‘one who knows,’ toobserve that these conditions are changing. It is theknowing of that change that we call Buddha and inwhich we take refuge. We make no claims toBuddha as being ‘me’ or ‘mine’. We don’t say, ‘I amBuddha,’ but rather, ‘I take refuge in Buddha.’ It is away of humbly submitting to that wisdom, beingaware, being awake.

Although in one sense taking refuge issomething we are doing all the time, the Paliformula we use is a reminder — because we forget,because we habitually take refuge in worry, doubt,fear, anger, greed and so on. The Buddha-image issimilar; when we bow to it we don’t imagine that it

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is anything other than a bronze image, a symbol. Itis a reflection and makes us a little more aware ofBuddha, of our refuge in Buddha Dhamma Sangha.The Buddha image sits in great dignity and calm,not in a trance but fully alert, with a look ofwakefulness and kindness, not being caught in thechanging conditions around it. Though the image ismade of brass and we have these flesh-and-bloodbodies and it is much more difficult for us, still it is areminder. Some people get very puritanical aboutBuddha-images, but here in the West I haven’tfound them to be a danger. The real idols that webelieve in and worship and that constantly deludeus are our thoughts, views and opinions, our lovesand hates, our self-conceit and pride.

The second refuge is in the Dhamma, inultimate truth or ultimate reality. Dhamma isimpersonal; we don’t in any way try to personify itto make it any kind of personal deity. When wechant in Pali the verse on Dhamma, we say it is‘sanditthiko akaliko ehipassiko opanayikopaccattam veditabbo viññuhi’. As Dhamma has nopersonal attributes, we can’t even say it is good orbad or anything that has any superlative orcomparative quality; it is beyond the dualisticconceptions of mind.

So when we describe Dhamma or give animpression of it, we do it through words such as‘sanditthiko’, which means immanent, here-and-now. That brings us back into the present; we feel a

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sense of immediacy, of now. You may think thatDhamma is some kind of thing that is ‘out there’,something you have to find elsewhere, butsanditthikodhamma means that it is immanent,here-and-now.

Akalikadhamma means that Dhamma is notbound by any time condition. The word akalameans timeless. Our conceptual mind can’tconceive of anything that is timeless, because ourconceptions and perceptions are time-basedconditions, but what we can say is that Dhamma isakala, not bound by time.

Ehipassikadhamma means to come and see, toturn towards or go to the Dhamma. It means tolook, to be aware. It is not that we pray to theDhamma to come, or wait for it to tap us on theshoulder; we have to put forth effort. It is likeChrist’s saying, ‘Knock on the door and it shall beopened.’ Ehipassiko means that we have to putforward that effort, to turn towards that truth.

Opanayiko means leading inwards, towardsthe peace within the mind. Dhamma doesn’t takeus into fascination, into excitement, romance andadventure, but leads to Nibbana, to calm, to silence.

Paccattam veditabbo viññuhi means that wecan only know Dhamma through direct experience.It is like the taste of honey — if someone else tastesit, we still don’t know its flavour. We may know thechemical formula or be able to recite all the greatpoetry ever written about honey, but only when we

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taste it for ourselves do we really know what it islike. It is the same with Dhamma: we have to tasteit, we have to know it directly.

Taking refuge in Dhamma is taking anothersafe refuge. It is not taking refuge in philosophy orintellectual concepts, in theories, in ideas, indoctrines or beliefs of any sort. It is not takingrefuge in a belief in Dhamma, or a belief in God orin some kind of force in outer space or somethingbeyond or something separate, something that wehave to find sometime later. The descriptions of theDhamma keep us in the present, in thehere-and-now, unbound by time. Taking refuge isan immediate immanent reflection in the mind, it isnot just repeating ‘Dhammam Saranam gacchami’like a parrot, thinking, ‘Buddhists say this so I haveto say it.’ We turn towards the Dhamma, we areaware now, take refuge in Dhamma, now as animmediate action, an immediate reflection of beingthe Dhamma, being that very truth.

Because our conceiving mind tends always todelude us, it takes us into becoming. We think, ‘I’llpractise meditation so that I’ll become enlightenedin the future. I will take the Three Refuges in orderto become a Buddhist. I want to become wise. I wantto get away from suffering and ignorance andbecome something else.’ This is the conceivingmind, the desire mind, the mind that alwaysdeludes us. Rather than constantly thinking in terms

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of becoming something, we take refuge in beingDhamma in the present.

The impersonality of Dhamma bothers manypeople, because devotional religion tends topersonify everything and people coming from suchtraditions don’t feel right if they can’t have somesort of personal relationship with it. I rememberone time, a French Catholic missionary came to stayin our monastery and practise meditation. He felt atsomething of a loss with Buddhism because he saidit was like ‘cold surgery’, there was no personalrelationship with God. One cannot have a personalrelationship with Dhamma, one cannot say ‘Lovethe Dhamma!’ or ‘The Dhamma loves me!’; there isno need for that. We only need a personalrelationship with something we are not, like ourmother, father, husband or wife, somethingseparate from us.

We don’t need to take refuge in mother orfather again, someone to protect us and love us andsay, ‘I love you no matter what you do. Everything isgoing to be all right,’ and pat us on the head. TheBuddha-Dhamma is a very maturing refuge, it is areligious practice that is a complete sanity ormaturity, in which we are no longer seeking amother or father, because we don’t need to becomeanyÆ thing any more. We don’t need to be loved orprotected by anyone any more, because we can loveand protect others, and that is all that is important.We no longer have to ask or demand things from

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others, whether it is from other people or evensome deity or force that we feel is separate from usand has to be prayed to and asked for guidance.

We give up all our attempts to conceiveDhamma as being this or that or anything at all, andlet go of our desire to have a personal relationshipwith the truth. We have to be that truth, here andnow. Being that truth, taking that refuge, calls for animmediate awakening, for being wise now, beingBuddha, being Dhamma in the present.

The Third refuge is Sangha, which means agroup. ‘Sangha’ may be the Bhikkhu-Sangha [theorder of monks] — or the Ariya-Sangha, the groupof the Noble Beings, all those who live virtuously,doing good and refraining from evil with bodilyaction and speech. Here, taking refuge in theSangha with ‘Sangham saranam gacchami’ meanswe take refuge in virtue, in that which is good,virtuous, kind, compassionate and generous. Wedon’t take refuge in those things in our minds thatare mean, nasty, cruel, selfish, jealous, hateful,angry — even though admittedly that is what weoften tend to do out of heedlessness, out of notreflecting, not being awake, but just reacting toconditions. Taking refuge in the Sangha means, onthe conventional level, doing good and refraining fromevil with bodily action and speech.

All of us have both good thoughts andintentions and bad ones. Sankharas [conditionedphenomena] are that way, some are good and some

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aren’t, some are indifferent, some are wonderfuland some are nasty. Conditions in the world arechanging conditions. We can’t just think the best,the most refined thoughts and feel only the best andthe kindest feelings; both good and bad thoughtsand feelings come and go, but we take refuge invirtue rather than in hatred. We take refuge in thatin all of us that intends to do good, which iscompassionate and kind and loving towardsourselves and others.

So the refuge of Sangha is a very practicalrefuge for day-to-day living within the human form,within this body, in relation to the bodies of otherbeings and the physical world that we live in. Whenwe take this refuge we do not act in any way thatcauses division, disharmony, cruelty, meanness orunkindness to any living being, including ourself,our own body and mind. This is being‘supatipanno’, one who practises well.

When we are aware and mindful, when wereflect and observe, we begin to see that acting onimpulses that are cruel and selfish only brings harmand misery to ourself as well as to others. It doesn’ttake any great powers of observation to see that. Ifyou’ve met any criminals in your life, people whohave acted selfishly and evilly, you’ll find themconstantly frightened, obsessed, paranoid,suspicious, having to drink a lot, take drugs, keepbusy, do all kinds of things, because living withthemselves is so horrible. Five minutes alone with

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themselves without any dope or drink or anythingwould seem to them like eternal hell, because thekammic2 result of evil is so appalling, mentally. Evenif they’re never caught by the police or sent toprison, don’t think they’re going to get away withanything. In fact sometimes that is the kindestthing, to put them in prison and punish them; itmakes them feel better. I was never a criminal, but Ihave managed to tell a few lies and do a few meanand nasty things in my lifetime, and the results werealways unpleasant. Even today when I think ofthose things, it is not a pleasant memory, it is notsomething that I want to go to announce toeverybody, not something that I feel joy when Ithink about.

When we are meditating we realize that wehave to be completely responsible for how we live.In no way can we blame anyone else for anything atall. Before I started to meditate I used to blamepeople and society: ‘If only my parents had beencompletely wise, enlightened arahants, I would beall right. If only the United Sates of America had atruly wise, compassionate government that nevermade any mistakes, supported me completely andappreciated me fully. If only my friends were wiseand encouraging and the teachers truly wise,

2From Kamma, which refers to volitional actions of body,

speech and mind. All such actions give rise to appropriateresults. The ‘Law of Kamma’ is the law of cause-and-effect,seen on the ethical plane.

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generous and kind. If everyone around me wasperfect, if the society was perfect, if the world waswise and perfect, then I wouldn’t have any of theseproblems. But all have failed me.’

My parents had a few flaws and they did make afew mistakes, but now when I look back on it theydidn’t make very many. At the time when I was look-ing to blame others and I was desperately trying tothink of the faults of my parents, I really had to work atit. My generation was very good at blaming everythingon the United States, and that is a really easy onebecause the United States makes a lot of mistakes.

But when we meditate it means we can nolonger get away with that kind of lying to ourselves.We suddenly realize that no matter what anyoneelse has done, or how unjust the society might be orwhat our parents might have been like, we can in noway spend the rest of our lives blaming anyone else— that is a complete waste of time. We have toaccept complete responsibility for our life, and liveit. Even if we did have miserable parents, wereraised in a terrible society with no opportunities, itstill doesn’t matter. There is no one else to blamefor our suffering now but ourselves, our ownignorance, selfishness and conceit.

In the crucifixion of Jesus we can see a brilliantexample of a man in pain, stripped naked, made funof, completely humiliated and then publiclyexecuted in the most horrible, excruciating way, yetwithout blaming anyone: ‘Forgive them, Lord, they

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know not what they do.’ This is a sign of wisdom —it means that even if people are crucifying us,nailing us to the cross, scourging us, humiliating usin every way, it is our aversion, self-pity, pettinessand selfishness that is the problem, the suffering. Itis not even the physical pain that is the suffering, itis the aversion. Now if Jesus Christ had said, ‘Curseyou for treating me like this!’, he would have beenjust another criminal and would have beenforgotten a few days later.

Reflect on this, because we tend to easily blameothers for our suffering, and we can justify it becausemaybe other people are mistreating us or exploiting usor don’t understand us or are doing dreadful things tous. We’re not denying that, but we make nothing of itany more. We forgive, we let go of those memories,because taking refuge in Sangha means, here and now,doing good and refraining from doing evil with bodilyaction and speech.

So may you reflect on this and really seeBuddha Dhamma Sangha as a refuge. Look on themas opportunities for reflection and consideration. Itis not a matter of believing in Buddha DhammaSangha — not a faith in concepts — but a using ofsymbols for mindfulness, for awakening the mindhere-and-now, being here-and-now.

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AANNAAPPAANNAASSAATTIIWe tend to overlook the ordinary. We are

usually only aware of our breath when it’sabnormal, like if we have asthma or when we’vebeen running hard. But with anapanasati 3 we takeour ordinary breath as the meditation object. Wedon’t try to make the breath long or short, orcontrol it in any way, but to simply stay with thenormal inhalation and exhalation. The breath is notsomething that we create or imagine; it is a naturalprocess of our bodies that continues as long as lifelasts, whether we concentrate on it or not. So it is anobject that is always present; we can turn to it at anytime. We don’t have to have any qualifications towatch our breath. We do not even need to beparticularly intelligent — all we have to do is to becontent with, and aware of, one inhalation andexhalation. Wisdom does not come from studyinggreat theories and philosophies, but from observingthe ordinary.

The breath lacks any exciting quality or any-thing fascinating about it, and so we can becomevery restless and averse to it. Our desire is always to‘get’ something, to find something that will interestand absorb us without any effort on our part. If wehear some music, we don’t think, ‘I mustconcentrate on this fascinating and exciting 3 Literally, ‘mindfulness of the in-breath and the out-breath’.

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rhythmic music’ we can’t stop ourselves, becausethe rhythm is so compelling that it pulls us in. Therhythm of our normal breathing is not interesting orcompelling, it is tranquillizing, and most beingsaren’t used to tranquillity. Most people like the ideaof peace, but find the actual experience of itdisappointing or frustrating. They desirestimulation, something that will draw them intoitself. With anapanasati we stay with an object thatis quite neutral — we don’t have any strong feelingsof like or dislike for our breath — and just note thebeginning of an inhalation, its middle and its end,then the beginning of an exhalation, its middle andend. The gentle rhythm of the breath, being slowerthan the rhythm of thought, takes us to tranquillity;we begin to stop thinking. But we don’t try to getanything from the meditation, to get samadhi or getjhana4, because when the mind is trying to achieveor attain things, rather than just being humblycontent with one breath, then it doesn’t slow downand become calm, and we become frustrated.

At first the mind wanders off. Once we areaware that we have wandered off the breath, thenwe very gently return to it. We use the attitude ofbeing very, very patient and always willing to beginagain. Our minds are not used to being held down,they have been taught to associate one thing with

4 samadhi, jhana: meditative states characterized byprofound stillness of mind.

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another and form opinions about everything. Beingaccustomed to using our intelligence and ability tothink in clever ways, we tend to become very tenseand restless when we can’t do that, and when wepractise anapanasati we feel resistance, aresentment to it. It is like a wild horse when it is firstharnessed, getting angry with the things that bind it.

When the mind wanders we get upset anddiscouraged, negative and averse to the wholething. If out of frustration, we try to force the mindto be tranquil with sheer will, we can only keep it upfor a short while and then the mind is offsomewhere else. So the right attitude toanapanasati is being very patient, having all thetime in the world, letting go or discarding allworldly, personal or financial problems. During thistime there is nothing we have to do except watchour breath.

If the mind wanders on the in-breath, then putmore effort into the inhalation. If the mind wanderson the exhalation, then put more effort into that.Keep bringing it back. Always be willing to startanew. At the start of each new day, at the beginningof each inhalation, cultivate the beginner’s mind,carrying nothing from the old to the new, leaving notraces, like a big bonfire.

One inhalation and the mind wanders, so webring it back again — and that itself is a moment ofmindfulness. We are training the mind like a goodmother trains her child. A little child doesn’t know

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what it is doing, it just wanders off; and if themother gets angry with it and spanks and beats it,the child becomes terrified and neurotic. A goodmother will just leave the child, keeping an eye onit, and if it wanders she will bring it back. Havingthat kind of patience, we’re not trying to bash awayat ourselves, hating ourselves, hating our breath,hating everybody, getting upset because we can’tget tranquil with anapanasati.

Sometimes we get too serious abouteverything, totally lacking in joy and happiness,with no sense of humour, just repressingeverything. Gladden the mind, put a smile on yourdial! Be relaxed and at ease, without the pressure ofhaving to achieve anything special — nothing toattain, no big deal, nothing special. And what canyou say you have done today to earn your boardand keep? Just one mindful inhalation? Crazy! Butthat is more than most people can say of their day.

We’re not battling the forces of evil. If you feelaverse towards anapanasati, then note that too.Don’t feel it’s something you have to do, but let itbe a pleasure, something you really enjoy doing.When you think, ‘I can’t do it,, then recognize thatas resistance, fear or frustration and then relax.Don’t make this practice into a difficult thing, aburdensome task.

When I was first ordained I was dead serious,very grim and solemn about myself, like a dried-upold stick, and I used to get in terrible states thinking,

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‘I’ve got to... I’ve got to....’ At those times I learnedto contemplate peace. Doubts and restlessness,discontent and aversion — soon I was able to reflecton peace, saying the word over and over,hypnotizing myself to relax. The self-doubts wouldstart coming — ‘I’m getting nowhere with this, it’suseless, I want to get something’ — and I was ableto be peaceful with that. This is one method thatyou can use. So when we’re tense, we relax andthen we resume anapanasati.

At first we feel hopelessly clumsy — like whenwe’re learning to play the guitar. When we first startplaying, our fingers are so clumsy it seems hopeless,but when we’ve done it for some time we gain skilland it is quite easy. We’re learning to witness what’sgoing on in our mind, so we can know when we’regetting restless and tense, or when we’re gettingdull. We recognize that: we’re not trying to convinceourselves that it’s otherwise, we’re fully aware ofthe way things are. We sustain effort for oneinhalation. If we can’t do that, then we sustain it forhalf an inhalation at least. In this way we’re nottrying to become perfect all at once. We don’t haveto do everything just right according to some idea ofhow it should be, but we work with the problemsthat are there. If we have a scattered mind, then it’swisdom to recognize the mind that goes all over theplace — that is insight. To think that we shouldn’tbe that way, to hate ourselves or feel discouraged

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because that is the way we happen to be — that isignorance.

We don’t start from where a perfect yogi is,we’re not doing Iyengar5 postures before we canbend over and touch our toes. That is the way toruin ourselves. We may look at all the postures inthe Light on Yoga book and see Iyengar wrappinghis legs around his neck, in all kinds of amazingpostures, but if we try to do them ourselves they’llcart us off to hospital. So we start from just trying tobend a little more from the waist, examine the painand resistance to it, learn to stretch gradually. Thesame with anapanasati: we recognize the way it isnow and start from there, we sustain our attention alittle longer, and we begin to understand whatconcentration is. Don’t make Superman resolutionswhen you’re not Superman. You say, ‘I’m going tosit and watch my breath all night,’ and then whenyou fail you become angry. Set periods that youknow you can do. Experiment, work with the minduntil you know how to put forth effort and how torelax.

We have to learn to walk by falling down. Lookat babies: I’ve never seen one that could walkstraight away. Babies learn to walk by crawling, byholding onto things, by falling down and thenpulling themselves up again. It is the same withmeditation. We learn wisdom by observing 5 B. K. S. Iyengar is a well known contemporary Hatha Yogi.

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ignorance, by making a mistake, reflecting andkeeping going. If we think about it too much itseems hopeless. If babies thought a lot they’d neverlearn to walk, because when you watch a childtrying to walk it seems hopeless, doesn’t it? Whenwe think about it, meditation can seem completelyhopeless, but we just keep doing it. It is easy whenwe’re full of enthusiasm, really inspired with theteacher and the teaching — but enthusiasm andinspiration are impermanent conditions, they takeus to disillusionment and boredom.

When we’re bored, we really have to put effortinto the practice. When we’re bored, we want toturn away and be reborn into something fascinatingand exciting. But for insight and wisdom, we have topatiently endure through the troughs of disillusion-ment and depression. It is only in this way that wecan stop reinforcing the cycles of habit, and come tounderstand cessation, come to know the silenceand emptiness of the mind.

If we read books about not putting any effortinto things, just letting everything happen in anatural, spontaneous way, then we tend to startthinking that all we have to do is lounge about —and then we lapse into a dull passive state. In myown practice, when I lapsed into dull states I cameto see the importance of putting effort into physicalposture. I saw that there was no point in makingeffort in a merely passive way. I would pull the bodyup straight, push out the chest and put energy into

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the sitting posture; or else I would do head standsor shoulder stands. Even though in the early days Ididn’t have a tremendous amount of energy, I stillmanaged to do something requiring effort. I wouldlearn to sustain it for a few seconds and then Iwould lose it again, but that was better than doingnothing at all.

The more we take the easy way, the path ofleast resistance — the more we just follow ourdesires, the more the mind becomes sloppy,heedless and confused. It is easy to think, easier tosit and think all the time than not to think — it is ahabit we’ve acquired. Even the thought, ‘I shouldn’tthink,’ is just another thought. To avoid thought wehave to be mindful of it, to put forth effort bywatching and listening, by being attentive to theflow in our minds. Rather than thinking about ourmind, we watch it. Rather than just getting caught inthoughts, we keep recognizing them. Thought ismovement, it is energy, it comes and goes, it is not apermanent condition of the mind. Withoutevaluating or analysing, when we simply recognizethought as thought, it begins to slow down andstop. This isn’t annihilation, this is allowing thingsto cease. It is compassion. As the habitual obsessivethinking begins to fade, great spaces we never knewwere there begin to appear.

We are slowing everything down by absorbinginto the natural breath, calming the kammicformations, and this is what we mean by samatha or

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tranquillity: coming to a point of calm. The mindbecomes malleable, supple and flexible, and thebreathing can become very fine. But we only carrythe samatha practice to the point of upacarasamadhi [approaching concentration], we don’t tryto completely absorb into the object and enterjhana. At this point we are still aware of both theobject and its periphery. The extreme kinds ofmental agitation have diminished considerably, butwe can still operate using wisdom.

With our wisdom faculty still functioning, weinvestigate, and this is vipassana — looking into andseeing the nature of whatever we experience: itsimpermanence, unsatisfactoriness and imperson-ality. Anicca, dukkha and anatta6 are not conceptswe believe in, but things we can observe. Weinvestigate the beginning of an inhalation and itsending. We observe what a beginning is, notthinking about what it is, but observing, aware withbare attention at the beginning of an inhalation andits end. The body breathes all on its own: thein-breath conditions the out-breath and theout-breath conditions the in-breath, we can’tcontrol anything. Breathing belongs to nature, itdoesn’t belong to us — it is not-self. When we seethis we are doing vipassana.

6 The Pali Terms for impermanence, unsatisfactoriness andimpersonality, respectively.

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The sort of knowledge we gain from Buddhistmeditation is humbling — Ajahn Chah calls it theearth-worm knowledge — it doesn’t make youarrogant, it doesn’t puff you up, it doesn’t make youfeel that you are anything, or that you have attainedanything. In worldly terms, this practice doesn’tseem very important or necessary. Nobody is evergoing to write a newspaper headline: ‘At eighto’clock this evening Venerable Sumedho had aninhalation!, To some people, thinking about how tosolve all the world’s problems might seem veryimportant, how to help all the people in the ThirdWorld, how to set the world right. Compared withthese things, watching our breath seemsinsignificant, and most people think, ‘Why wastetime doing that?’ People have confronted me aboutthis, saying: ‘What are you monks doing sittingthere? What are you doing to help humanity? You’rejust selfish, you expect people to give you foodwhile you just sit there and watch your breath.You’re running away from the real world.’

But what is the real world? Who is reallyrunning away, and from what? What is there to face?We find that what people call the ‘real world’ is theworld they believe in, the world that they arecommitted to or the world that they know and arefamiliar with. But that world is a condition of mind.Meditation is actually confronting the real world,recognizing and acknowledging it as it really is,

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rather than believing in it or justifying it or trying tomentally annihilate it.

Now the real world operates on the samepattern of arising and passing as the breath. We’renot theorizing about the nature of things, takingphilosophical ideas from others and trying torationalize with them, but by watching our breathwe’re actually observing the way nature is. Whenwe’re watching our breath we’re actually watchingnature; through understanding the nature of thebreath, we can understand the nature of allconditioned phenomena. If we tried to understandall conditioned phenomena in their infinite variety,quality, different time span and so on, it would betoo complex, our minds wouldn’t be able to handleit. We have to learn from simplicity.

So with a tranquil mind we become aware ofthe cyclical pattern, we see that all that arises passesaway. That cycle is what is called samsara, thewheel of birth and death. We observe the samsariccycle of the breath. We inhale and then we exhale:we can’t have only inhalations or only exhalations,the one conditions the other. It would be absurd tothink: ‘I only want to inhale. I don’t want to exhale.I’m giving up exhalation. My life will be just oneconstant inhalation’ — that would be absolutelyridiculous. If I said that to you, you’d think I wascrazy; but that is what most people do.

How foolish people are when they want only toattach to excitement, pleasure, youth, beauty and

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vigour. ‘I only want beautiful things and I’m notgoing to have anything to do with the ugly. I wantpleasure and delight and creativity but I don’t wantany boredom or depression.’ It is the same kind ofmadness as if you were to hear me saying, ‘I can’tstand inhalations. I’m not going to have them anymore.’ When we observe that attachment to beauty,sensual pleasures and love will always lead todespair, then our attitude is one of detachment.That doesn’t mean annihilation or any desire todestroy, but simply letting go, non-attachment. Wedon’t seek perfection in any part of the cycle, butsee that perfection lies in the whole cycle: itincludes old age, sickness and death. What arises inthe uncreated reaches its peak and then returns tothe uncreated, and that is perfection.

As we start to see that all sankharas have thispattern of arising and passing away, we begin to goinwards to the unconditioned, the peace of the mind,its silence. We begin to experience suññata oremptiness, which is not oblivion or nothingness,but is a clear and vibrant stillness. We can actuallyturn to the emptiness rather than to the conditionsof the breath and mind. Then we have a perspectiveon the conditions and don’t just blindly react tothem any more.

There is the conditioned, the unconditionedand the knowing. What is the knowing? Is itmemory? Is it consciousness? Is it ‘me’? I’ve neverbeen able to find out, but I can be aware. In

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Buddhist meditation we stay with the knowing:being aware, being awake, being Buddha in thepresent, knowing that whatever arises passes awayand is not-self.

We apply this knowing to everything, both theconditioned and the unconditioned. It istranscending — being awake rather than trying toescape — and it is all in the ordinary. We have thefour normal postures of sitting, standing, walkingand lying down — we don’t have to stand on ourheads or do back-flips or anything. We use fournormal postures and the ordinary breathing,because we are moving towards that which is mostordinary, the unconditioned. Conditions areextraordinary, but the peace of the mind, theunconditioned, is so ordinary that nobody evernotices it. It is there all the time, but we don’t evernotice it because we’re attached to the mysteriousand the fascinating. We get caught up in the thingsthat arise and pass away, the things that stimulateand depress. We get caught up in the way thingsseem to be — and forget. But now we’re going backto that source in meditation, to the peace, in thatposition of knowing. Then the world is understoodfor what it is, and we are no longer deluded by it.

The realization of samsara is the condition ofNibbana. As we recognize the cycles of habit and are nolonger deluded by them or their qualities, we realizeNibbana. The Buddha-knowing is of just two things:the conditioned and the unconditioned. It is an

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immediate recognition of how things are right now,without grasping or attachment. At this moment wecan be aware of the conditions of the mind, feelings inthe body, what we’re seeing, hearing, tasting, touching,smelling and thinking, and also of the emptiness of themind. The conditioned and the unconditioned arewhat we can realize.

So the Buddha’s teaching is a very directteaching. Our practice is not ‘to becomeenlightened’, but to be in the knowing, now.

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HHAAPPPPIINNEESSSS,, UUNNHHAAPPPPIINNEESSSSAANNDD NNIIBBBBAANNAA

The goal of buddhist meditation is Nibbana.We incline towards the peace of Nibbana and awayfrom the complexities of the sensual realm, theendless cycles of habit. Nibbana is a goal that can berealized in this lifetime. We don’t have to wait untilwe die to know if it’s real.

The senses and the sensual world are therealm of birth and death. Take sight for instance: it’sdependent on so many factors — whether it’s dayor night, whether or not the eyes are healthy, and soon. Yet we become very attached to the colours,shapes and forms that we perceive with the eyes,and we identify with them. Then there are the earsand sound: when we hear pleasant sounds we seekto hold onto them, and when we hear unpleasantsounds we try to turn away. With smells: we seekthe pleasure of fragrances and pleasant odours, andtry to get away from unpleasant ones. Also withflavours: we seek delicious tastes and try to avoidbad ones. And with touch: just how much of ourlives is spent trying to escape from physicaldiscomfort and pain, and seeking the delight ofphysical sensation? Finally there is thought, thediscriminative consciousness. It can give us a lot ofpleasure or a lot of misery.

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These are the senses, the sensual world. It isthe compounded world of birth and death. Its verynature is dukkha, it is imperfect and unsatisfying.You’ll never find perfect happiness, contentment orpeace in the sensual world; it will always bringdespair and death. The sensual world isunsatisfactory, and so we only suffer from it whenwe expect it to satisfy us.

We suffer from the sensual world when weexpect more from it than it can possibly give: thingslike permanent security and happiness, permanentlove and safety, hoping that our life will only be oneof pleasure and have no pain in it. ‘If we could onlyget rid of sickness and disease and conquer oldage.’ I remember 20 years ago in the States peoplehad this great hope that modem science would beable to get rid of all illnesses. They’d say, ‘All mentalillnesses are due to chemical imbalances. If we canjust find the right chemical combinations and injectthem into the body, schizophrenia will disappear.’There would be no more headaches or backaches.We would gradually replace all our internal organswith nice plastic ones. I even read an article in anAustralian medical journal about how they hoped toconquer old age! As the world’s population keepsincreasing we’d keep having more children andnobody would ever get old and die. Just think whata mess that would be!

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The sensual world is unsatisfactory and that’sthe way it’s supposed to be. When we attach to it, ittakes us to despair — because attachment meansthat we want it to be satisfactory, we want it to satis-fy us, to make us content, happy and secure. Butjust notice the nature of happiness how long canyou stay happy? What is happiness? You may thinkit’s how you feel when you get what you want.Someone says something you like to hear, and youfeel happy. Someone does something you approveof, and you feel happy. The sun shines and you feelhappy. Someone makes nice food and serves it toyou, and you’re happy. But how long can you stayhappy? Do we always have to depend on the sunshining? In England, the weather is verychangeable: the happiness about the sun shining inEngland is obviously very impermanent andunsatisfactory.

Unhappiness is not getting what we want:wanting it to be sunny when it’s cold, wet and rainy;people doing things that we don’t approve of;having food that isn’t delicious and so on. Life getsboring and tedious when we’re unhappy with it. Sohappiness and unhappiness are very dependent ongetting what we want, and having to get what wedon’t want.

But happiness is the goal of most people’slives; in the American constitution, I think, theyspeak of ‘the right to the pursuit of happiness’. Get-ting what we want, what we think we deserve, be-

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comes our goal in life. But happiness always leadsto unhappiness, because it’s impermanent. Howlong can you really be happy? Trying to arrange,control and manipulate conditions so as to alwaysget what we want, always hear what we want tohear, always see what we want to see, so that wenever have to experience unhappiness or despair, isa hopeless task. It’s impossible, isn’t it? Happinessis unsatisfactory, it’s dukkha. It’s not something todepend on or make the goal of life. Happiness willalways be disappointing because it lasts so brieflyand then is succeeded by unhappiness. It is alwaysdependent on so many other things. We feel happywhen we’re healthy but our human bodies aresubject to rapid changes and we can lose that healthvery quickly. Then we feel terribly unhappy at beingsick, at losing the pleasure of feeling energetic andvigorous.

Thus the goal for the Buddhist is nothappiness, because we realize that happiness isunsatisfactory. The goal lies away from the sensualworld. It is not rejection of the sensual world, butunderstanding it so well that we no longer seek it asan end in itself. We no longer expect the sensoryworld to satisfy us. We no longer demand thatsensory consciousness be anything other than anexisting condition that we can skilfully useaccording to time and place. We no longer attach toit, or demand that the sense impingement be alwayspleasant, or feel despair and sorrow when it’s

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unpleasant. Nibbana isn’t a state of blankness, atrance where you’re totally wiped out. It’s notnothingness or an annihilation: it’s like a space. It’sgoing into the space of your mind where you nolonger attach, where you’re no longer deluded bythe appearance of things. You are no longerdemanding anything from the sensory world. Youare just recognizing it as it arises and passes away.

Being born in the human condition means thatwe must inevitably experience old age, sickness anddeath. One time a young woman came to our mona-stery in England with her baby. The baby had beenbadly ill for about a week with a horrible rackingcough. The mother looked totally depressed andmiserable. As she sat there in the reception roomholding the baby, it fumed red in the face and start-ed screaming and coughing horribly. The womansaid, ‘Oh, Venerable Sumedho, why does he have tosuffer like this? He’s never hurt anybody, he’s neverdone anything wrong. Why? In some previous life,what did he do to have to suffer like this?’

He was suffering because he was born! If hehadn’t been born, he wouldn’t have to suffer. Whenwe’re born we have to expect these things. Having ahuman body means that we have to experiencesickness, pain, old age and death. This is animportant reflection. We can speculate that maybein a previous life he liked to choke cats and dogs orsomething like that, and he has to pay for it in thislife, but that’s mere speculation and it doesn’t really

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help. What we can know is that it’s the kammicresult of being born. Each one of us must inevitablyexperience sickness and pain, hunger, thirst, theageing process of our bodies and death it’s the lawof kamma. What begins must end, what is bornmust die, what comes together must separate.

We’re not being pessimistic about the waythings are, but we’re observing, so we don’t expectlife to be other than it is. Then we can cope with lifeand endure it when it’s difficult, and delight whenit’s delightful. If we understand it, we can enjoy lifewithout being its helpless victims. How much mis-ery there is in human existence because we expectlife to be other than what it is! We have theseromantic ideas that we’ll meet the right person, fallin love and live happily ever after, that we’ll neverfight, have a wonderful relationship. But what aboutdeath! ? So you think, ‘Well, maybe we’ll die at thesame time.’ That’s hope, isn’t it? There’s hope, andthen despair when your loved one dies before youdo, or runs away with the dustman or the travellingsalesman.

You can learn a lot from small children,because they don’t disguise their feelings, they justexpress what they feel in the moment; when they’remiserable they start crying, and when they’re happythey laugh. Some time ago I went to a layman’shome. When we arrived, his young daughter wasvery happy to see him. Then he said to her, ‘I haveto take Venerable Sumedho to Sussex University to

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give a talk.’ As we walked out of the door, the littlegirl fumed red in the face and began screaming inanguish, so that her father said, ‘It’s all right, I’ll beback in an hour., But she wasn’t developed to thatlevel where she could understand ‘I’ll be back in anhour.’ The immediacy of separation from the lovedwas immediate anguish.

Notice how often in our life there is thatsorrow at having to separate from something we likeor someone we love, from having to leave a placewe really like to be in. When you are really mindfulyou can see the not-wanting to separate, thesorrow. As adults, we can let go of it immediately ifwe know we can come back again, but it’s stillthere. From last November to March, I travelledaround the world, always arriving at airports withsomebody meeting me with a ‘Hello!’ — and then afew days later it was ‘Goodbye!’ And there wasalways this sense of ‘Come back’, and I’d say ‘Yes,I’ll come back’... and so I’ve committed myself todo the same thing next year. We can’t say, ‘Goodbyeforever’ to someone we like, can we? We say, ‘I’llsee you again,’ ‘I’ll phone you up,’ ‘I’ll write you aletters or ‘until next time we meet’. We have allthese phrases to cover over the sense of sorrow andseparation.

In meditation we’re noting, just observingwhat sorrow really is. We’re not saying that weshouldn’t feel sorrow when we separate fromsomeone we love; it’s natural to feel that way, isn’t

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it? But now, as meditators, we’re beginning towitness sorrow so that we understand it, rather thantrying to suppress it, pretend it’s something morethan it is, or just neglect it.

In England people tend to suppress sorrowwhen somebody dies. They try not to cry or beemotional, they don’t want to make a scene, they‘keep a stiff upper lip’. Then when they startmeditating they can find themselves suddenlycrying over the death of someone who died fifteenyears before. They didn’t cry at the time, so theyend up doing it fifteen years later. When someonedies, we don’t want to admit the sorrow or make ascene because we think that if we cry we’re weak, orit’s embarrassing to others. So we tend to suppressand hold things back, not recognizing the nature ofthings as they really are, not recognizing our humanpredicament and learning from it. In meditationwe’re allowing the mind to open up and let thethings that have been suppressed and repressedbecome conscious, because when things becomeconscious they have a way of ceasing rather thanjust being repressed again. We allow things to taketheir course to cessation, we allow things to go awayrather than just push them away.

Usually we just push certain things away fromus, refusing to accept or recognize them. Wheneverwe feel upset or annoyed with anyone, when we’rebored, or when unpleasant feelings arise, we look atthe beautiful flowers or the sky, read a book, watch

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TV, do something. We’re never fully consciouslybored, fully angry. We don’t recognize our despairor disappointment, because we can always run offinto something else. We can always go to therefrigerator, eat cakes and sweets, listen to thestereo. It’s so easy to absorb into music, away fromboredom and despair into something that’s excitingor interesting or calming or beautiful.

Look at how dependent we are on watching TVand reading. There are so many books now thatthey’ll all have to be burnt — useless bookseverywhere, everybody’s writing things withouthaving anything worth saying. Today’snot-so-pleasant film stars write their biographiesand make a lot of money. Then there are the gossipcolumns: people get away from the boredom oftheir own existence, their discontent with it, thetediousness, by reading gossip about movie starsand public figures.

We’ve never really accepted boredom as aconscious state. As soon as it comes into the mindwe start looking for something interesting, some-thing pleasant. But in meditation we’re allowingboredom to be. We’re allowing ourselves to be fullyconsciously bored, fully depressed, fed up, jealous,angry, disgusted. All the nasty unpleasantexperiences of life that we have repressed out ofconsciousness and never really looked at, neverreally accepted, we begin to accept into conscious-ness — not as personality problems any more, but

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just out of compassion. Out of kindness andwisdom we allow things to take their natural courseto cessation, rather that just keep them going roundin the same old cycles of habit. If we have no way ofletting things take their natural course, then we’realways controlling, always caught in some drearyhabit of mind. When we’re jaded and depressedwe’re unable to appreciate the beauty of things,because we never really see them as they truly are.

I remember one experience I had in my firstyear of meditation in Thailand. I spent most of thatyear by myself in a little hut, and the first fewmonths were really terrible all kinds of things keptcoming up in my mind — obsessions and fears andterror and hatred. I’d never felt so much hatred. I’dnever thought of myself as one who hated people,but during those first few months of meditation itseemed like I hated everybody. I couldn’t think ofanything nice about anyone, there was so muchaversion coming up into consciousness. Then oneafternoon I started having this strange vision — Ithought I was going crazy, actually — I saw peoplewalking off my brain. I saw my mother just walk outof my brain and into emptiness, disappear intospace. Then my father and my sister followed. Iactually saw these visions walking out of my head. Ithought, ‘I’m crazy! I’ve gone off!’ — but it wasn’tan unpleasant experience.

The next morning when I woke from sleep andlooked around, I felt that everything I saw was

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beautiful. Everything, even the most unbeautifuldetail, was beautiful. I was in a state of awe. The hutitself was a crude structure, not beautiful byanyone’s standards, but it looked to me like apalace. The scrubby looking trees outside lookedlike a most beautiful forest. Sunbeams werestreaming through the window onto a plastic dish,and the plastic dish looked beautiful! That sense ofbeauty stayed with me for about a week, and thenreflecting on it I suddenly realized that that’s theway things really are when the mind is clear. Up tothat time I’d been looking through a dirty window,and over the years I’d become so used to the scumand dirt on the window that I didn’t realize it wasdirty, I’d thought that that’s the way it was.

When we get used to looking through a dirtywindow everything seems grey, grimy and ugly.Meditation is a way of cleaning the window,purifying the mind, allowing things to come up intoconsciousness and letting them go. Then with thewisdom faculty, the Buddha-wisdom, we observehow things really are. It’s not just attaching tobeauty, to purity of mind, but actually understand-ing. It is wisely reflecting on the way natureoperates, so that we are no longer deluded by it intocreating habits for our life through ignorance.

Birth means old age, sickness and death, butthat’s to do with your body, it’s not you. Yourhuman body is not really yours. No matter whatyour particular appearance might be, whether you

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are healthy or sickly, whether you are beautiful ornot beautiful, whether you are black or white orwhatever, it’s all non-self. This is what we mean byanatta, that human bodies belong to nature, thatthey follow the laws of nature: they are born, theygrow up, they get old and they die.

Now we may understand that rationally, butemotionally there is a very strong attachment to thebody. In meditation we begin to see this attach-ment. We don’t take the position that we shouldn’tbe attached, saying: ‘The problem with me is thatI’m attached to my body. I shouldn’t be. It’s bad,isn’t it? If I was a wise person I wouldn’t be attachedto it.’ That’s starting from an ideal again. It’s liketrying to start climbing a tree from the top saying, ‘Ishould be at the top of the tree. I shouldn’t be downhere.’ But as much as we’d like to think that we’reat the top, we have to humbly accept that we aren’t.To begin with, we have to be at the trunk of the tree,where the roots are, looking at the most coarse andordinary things before we can start identifying withanything at the top of the tree.

This is the way of wise reflection. It’s not justpurifying the mind and then attaching to purity. It’snot just trying to refine consciousness so that wecan induce high states of concentration wheneverwe feel like it, because even the most refined statesof sensory consciousness are unsatisfactory, they’redependent on so many other things. Nibbana is notdependent on any other condition. Conditions of

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any quality, be they ugly, nasty, beautiful, refined orwhatever, arise and pass away — but they don’tinterfere with Nibbana, with the peace of the mind.

We are not inclining away from the sensoryworld through aversion, because if we try to anni-hilate the senses then that too becomes a habit thatwe blindly acquire, trying to get rid of that which wedon’t like. That’s why we have to be very patient.

This lifetime as a human being is a lifetime ofmeditation. See the rest of your life as the span ofmeditation rather than this ten-day retreat. You maythink: ‘I meditated for ten days. I thought I wasenlightened but somehow when I got home I didn’tfeel enlightened any more. I’d like to go back anddo a longer retreat where I can feel moreenlightened than I did last time. It would be nice tohave a higher state of consciousness.’ In fact, themore refined you go the more coarse your daily lifemust seem. You get high, and then when you getback to the mundane daily routines of life in thecity, it’s even worse than before, isn’t it? Havinggone so high, the ordinariness of life seems muchmore ordinary, gross and unpleasant. The way toinsight wisdom is not making preferences forrefinement over coarseness, but recognizing thatboth refined and coarse consciousness areimpermanent conditions, that they’reunsatisfactory, their nature will never satisfy us, andthey’re anatta, they’re not what we are, they’re notours.

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Thus the Buddha’s teaching is a very simpleone. What could be more simple than ‘what is bornmust die’? It’s not some great new philosophicaldiscovery, even illiterate tribal people know that.You don’t have to study in university to know it.

When we’re young we think: ‘I’ve got so manyyears left of youth and happiness.’ If we’re beautifulwe think, ‘I’m going to be young and beautiful for-ever,’ because it seems that way. If we’re twentyyears old, having a good time, life is wonderful andsomebody says, ‘You are going to die some day’, wemay think, ‘What a depressing person. Let’s notinvite him again to our house.’ We don’t want tothink about death, we want to think about howwonderful life is, how much pleasure we can get outof it.

So as meditators we reflect on getting old anddying. This is not being morbid or sick ordepressing, but it’s considering the whole cycle ofexistence; and when we know that cycle, then weare more careful about how we live. People dohorrible things because they don’t reflect on theirdeaths. They don’t wisely reflect and consider, theyjust follow their passions and feelings of themoment, trying to get pleasure and then feelingangry and depressed when life doesn’t give themwhat they want.

Reflect on your own life and death and thecycles of nature. Just observe what delights andwhat depresses. See how we can feel very positive

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or very negative. Notice how we want to attach tobeauty or to pleasant feelings or to inspiration. It’sreally nice to feel inspired, isn’t it? ‘Buddhism is thegreatest religion of them all’ or ‘When I discoveredthe Buddha I was so happy, it’s a wonderfuldiscovery!’ When we get a little bit doubtful, a littlebit depressed, we go and read an inspiring bookand get high. But remember, getting high is animpermanent condition, it’s like getting happy, youhave to keep doing it, sustaining it and after youkeep doing something over and over again you nolonger feel happy with it. How many sweets can youeat? At first they make you happy — and then theymake you sick.

So depending on religious inspiration is notenough. If you attach to inspiration, then when youget fed up with Buddhism you’ll go off and findsome new thing to inspire you. It’s like attaching toromance, when it disappears from the relationshipyou start looking for someone else to feel romantictowards. Years ago in America I met a womanwho’d been married six times, and she was onlyabout thirty-three. I said, ‘You’d think you wouldhave learned after the third or fourth time. Why doyou keep getting married?’ She said, ‘It’s theromance. I don’t like the other side but I love theromance.’ At least she was honest, but not terriblywise. Romance is a condition that leads todisillusionment.

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Romance, inspiration, excitement, adventure,all these things rise to a peak and then conditiontheir opposites, just as an inhalation conditions anexhalation. Just think of inhaling all the time. It’slike having one romance after another, isn’t it? Howlong can you inhale? The inhalation conditions theexhalation, both are necessary. Birth conditionsdeath, hope conditions despair and inspirationconditions disillusionment. So when we attach tohope we’re going to feel despair. When we attach toexcitement it’s going to take us to boredom. Whenwe attach to romance it will take us to disillusion-ment and divorce. When we attach to life it takes usto death. So recognize that it’s the attachment thatcauses the suffering, attaching to conditions andexpecting them to be more than what they are.

So much of life for so many people seems to bewaiting and hoping for something to happen,expecting and anticipating some success orpleasure — or maybe worrying and fearing thatsome painful, unpleasant thing is just lying in wait.You may hope that you will meet somebody whoyou’ll really love or have some great experience, butattaching to hope takes you to despair.

By wise reflection we begin to understand thethings that create misery in our lives. We see thatactually we are the creators of that misery. Throughour ignorance, through our not having wiselyunderstood the sensory world and its limitations,we have identified with all that is unsatisfactory and

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impermanent, the things that can only take us todespair and death. No wonder life is so depressing!It’s dreary because of the attachment, because weidentify and seek ourselves in all that is by naturedukkha: unsatisfactory and imperfect.

Now when we stop doing that, when we let go,that is enlightenment. We are enlightened beings,no longer attached, no longer identified withanything, no longer deluded by the sensory world.We understand the sensory world, we know how toco-exist with it. We know how to use the sensoryworld for compassionate action, for joyous giving.We don’t demand that it be here to satisfy us anymore, to make us feel secure and safe or to give usanything, because as soon as we demand it tosatisfy us it takes us to despair.

When we no longer identify with the sensoryworld as ‘me’ or ‘mine’, and see it as anatta, thenwe can enjoy the senses without seeking sense-impingement or depending on it. We no longerexpect conditions to be anything other than whatthey are, so that when they change we can patientlyand peacefully endure the unpleasant side of exist-ence. We can humbly endure sickness, pain, cold,hunger, failures and criticisms. If we’re not attachedto the world we can adapt to change, whatever thatchange may be, whether it’s for the better or for theworse. If we’re still attached then we can’t adaptvery well, we’re always struggling, resisting, tryingto control and manipulate everything, and then

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feeling frustrated, frightened or depressed at what adelusive, frightening place the world is.

If you’ve never really contemplated the world,never taken the time to understand and know it,then it becomes a frightening place for you. Itbecomes like a jungle: you don’t know what’saround the next tree, bush or cliff — a wild animal, aferocious man-eating tiger, a terrible dragon or apoisonous snake.

Nibbana means getting away from the jungle.When we’re inclining towards Nibbana we’removing towards the peace of the mind. Althoughthe conditions of the mind may not be peaceful atall, the mind itself is a peaceful place. Here we aremaking a distinction between the mind and theconditions of mind. The conditions of mind can behappy, miserable, elated, depressed, loving orhating, worrying or fear-ridden, doubting or bored.They come and go in the mind, but the mind itself,like the space in this room, stays just at it is. Thespace in this room has no quality to elate ordepress, does it? It is just at it is. To concentrate onthe space in the room we have to withdraw ourattention from the things in the room. If weconcentrate on the things in the room we becomehappy or unhappy. We say, ‘Look at that beautifulBuddha image,’ or if we see something we find uglywe say, ‘Oh, what a terrible disgusting thing.’ Wecan spend our time looking at the people in the

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room, thinking whether we like this person ordislike that person.

We can form opinions about people being thisway or that way, remember what they did in thepast, speculate about what they will do in thefuture, seeing others as possible sources of pain orgratification to ourselves.

However, if we withdraw our attention itdoesn’t mean that we have to push everyone elseout of the room. If we don’t concentrate on orabsorb into any of the conditions, then we have aperspective, because the space in the room has noquality to depress or elate. The space can contain usall, all conditions can come and go within it.

Moving inwards, we can apply this to themind. The mind is like space, there’s room in it foreverything or nothing. It doesn’t really matterwhether it is filled or has nothing in it, because wealways have a perspective once we know the spaceof the mind, its emptiness. Armies can come intothe mind and leave, butterflies, rainclouds ornothing. All things can come and go through,without us being caught in blind reaction,struggling resistance, control and manipulation.

So when we abide in the emptiness of our mindswe’re moving away — we’re not getting rid of things,but no longer absorbing into conditions that exist in thepresent or creating any new ones. This is our practice ofletting go. We let go of our identification withconditions by seeing that they are all impermanent and

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not-self. It is what we mean by vipassana meditation.It’s really looking at, witnessing, listening, observingthat whatever comes must go. Whether it’s coarse orrefined, good or bad, whatever comes and goes is notwhat we are. We’re not good, we’re not bad, we’re notmale or female, beautiful or ugly. These are changingconditions in nature, which are not-self. This is theBuddhist way to enlightenment: going towardsNibbana, inclining towards the spaciousness oremptiness of mind rather than being born and caughtup in the conditions.

Now you may ask, ‘Well if I’m not theconditions of mind, if I’m not a man or a woman,this or that, then what am I?, Do you want me to tellyou who you are? Would you believe me if I did?What would you think if I ran out and started askingyou who I am? It’s like trying to see your own eyes:you can’t know yourself, because you are yourself.You can only know what is not yourself — and sothat solves the problem, doesn’t it? If you knowwhat is not yourself, then there is no question aboutwhat you are. If I said, ‘Who am I? I’m trying to findmyself,’ and I started looking under the shrine,under the carpet, under the curtain, you’d think,‘Venerable Sumedho has really flipped out, he’sgone crazy, he’s looking for himself.’ ‘I’m lookingfor me, where am I?’ is the most stupid question inthe world. The problem is not who we are but ourbelief and identification with what we are not.That’s where the suffering is, that’s where we feel

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misery and depression and despair. It’s our identitywith everything that is not ourselves that is dukkha.When you identify with that which is unsatisfactory,you’re going to be dissatisfied and discontented —it’s obvious, isn’t it?

So the path of the Buddhist is a letting go, rath-er than trying to find anything. The problem is theblind attachment, the blind identification with theappearance of the sensory world. You needn’t getrid of the sensory world but learn from it, watch it,no longer allow yourselves to be deluded by it. Keeppenetrating it with Buddha-wisdom, keep using thisBuddha-wisdom so that you become more at easewith being wise, rather that making yourself becomewise. Just by listening, observing, being awake,being aware, the wisdom will become clear. You’llbe using wisdom in regard to your body, in regardto your thoughts, feelings, memories, emotion, all ofthese things. You’ll see and witness, allowing themto pass by and let them go.

So at this time you have nothing else to doexcept be wise from one moment to the next.

TThhee EEnndd