Transcription
Tonight, I would like to explore a little bit the area of views -- views in practice, views and freedom. I think they're a large part of the spiritual path. A large part of, in a way, being a fully conscious, conscientious human being is beginning to question, beginning to investigate, beginning to uncover the views we have. Beginning to explore views, and also the effects they have in our life. What do we believe? What do we believe about life? What do we believe about that period moving from between birth and death? How are we seeing it? How are we looking at it? So how am I looking at life? Another level: how am I looking at this moment? And how am I looking at my practice?
At first, this may seem a little abstract, and "Well, okay," but it turns out this has everything, everything, everything to do with freedom. Absolutely everything to do with freedom: the way we are looking, the way we are viewing our life, this moment, and our practice.
The Buddha, of course, addresses the question of view, and he puts what he calls Right View, he put that right at the base of his path. The first factor of the path, Right View, having that in place. And it's also, in a way, a culmination of the path, a goal of the path.
We can talk about view on just the level of the kind of philosophical, metaphysical opinions or whatever that we carry in our life. And they may be completely secular. Whatever the current ones are -- death penalty, or the euro, or some political whatever. And of course, that same range of opinions on what should or shouldn't be comes with whatever spiritual path we have. So Buddhadharma is full of people with opinions kind of butting heads, really -- and so, views around rebirth or reincarnation, or the exact nature of the self, whether there is a self or whether there's not a self. What's the place of deep concentration in the path? Is it a complete wrong direction, or is it really helpful? And so on and so on. What's the actual nature of ultimate reality? [laughter] Small stuff!
Whether it's secular or religious, we can just see in the world, how much argument and war comes out of all this. Different opinions, just butting their heads and fighting and fighting about it. And we can look at that, and we hear this teaching, "Don't get attached to views." It's such a wisdom there. Such a wisdom. And how much war and bloodshed has come from this, just people having different opinions -- and really, if you just go through history, and even nowadays, around really ridiculous things.
So, "Don't get attached to views." But even that, you know, to be a little careful. I mean, I don't know if it made the news here, but a few years ago -- I think it was when Halley's Comet came round again. I think so. There was a religious sect in America, and they collectively committed suicide. And it was something -- they thought a spaceship was on the comet or something, and they were going to get closer to God or something. And they all wore Nike shoes. Did you hear about that? [laughter] It was big news!
So, you know, you can say, "Don't get attached to views." To me, that's not a helpful view. [laughter] A few months ago, a group of friends was sitting around, and we were actually discussing the nature of ultimate reality, as one does, and I had a certain view, and different people had certain views. And then it seemed to me that it was -- oh, how to put it politely? -- a hearty debate! Put it -- that's a nice way. [laughter] It went on for quite a while. Actually, if I remember, about a day and a half. [laughter] I'm not exaggerating! And what it seemed to me, where people were moving towards was, "You say this, and you say this, and you say this, and it's all just views. And it's all just okay. And we can't put one ahead of another, and it's all just okay."
I didn't feel so comfortable with that afterwards, actually. I felt like, well, okay, if someone asks, "Rob, you know, what's the nature of ultimate reality? What's the real nature, the true nature of things?", and I said, "Ah, everything is a big, pink fish called Barbara!" [laughter] It's silly, you know. It's silly to accept or use that. Her name's Brenda. [laughter] To not throw out our intelligence with this stuff. Maybe it isn't that all views are completely equal.
We also hear this teaching, and in the Dharma tradition, we hear the teaching, "Right View is no view." And this can have a real pull on the heart. We hear that, "Ahh." You know, you can feel the relief of that, and the release of that, and there's something in the simplicity and the letting go. "Right View is no view," and it's like, "Ahh, thank goodness! I don't have to go into all that." But despite the heart pull, again, can we keep bringing our questioning to this? Can we keep that integrity alive?
On one level, there is always a view. There is always a view going on. We may or may not realize it, but there is always a view. There is always a way we are seeing what is happening right now. There is a way we are seeing this moment. Are we aware of the way we are seeing this moment? Most of the time, we're not.
So there's always a view, and in Dharma teaching, it's always significant. It's never ineffectual. It's never something that doesn't affect life, affect our feelings, our perceptions. We talked, and when Catherine talked in her talk last night, very beautifully about the self-view. And we can see, you can see it, can't you? When the self-story is very strong, what's the view then? "I am. I am a failure. I'm a lousy meditator. I'm a depressed person. I'm an angry person. I am this. I am that." Or "You are this. You are that." And it's the self-view. Or "Life is terrible. Life sucks. Life is suffering. Even the Buddha said that." What is the view going on? How strong is it? How strongly is it operating, and what is actually going on? Even to say, "This is terrible. This situation is terrible," views like that are very potent, extremely potent. But even, I would go even a step further and say, "I am giving a Dharma talk. I am listening to a Dharma talk. There is a Dharma talk" -- it's all view. It's all a way of seeing what's going on right now.
To me, it's quite interesting to wonder: what views have we absorbed from the culture? This really might be in the realm of opinion, but sometimes I wonder -- I'm really saying I wonder; I'm not saying it is one way or another, but -- if, with the sort of movement away from a religious culture that was very strong, say, in medieval times, into our modern secular culture, we have replaced a sort of religious feeling and view with a kind of almost nihilistic one. I don't know if this is true; I wonder sometimes. And there may be a prevailing sense, for a lot of people, without even realizing it, that actually, this life is it. Nothing before, nothing afterwards, complete extinction on death. No real meaning inherent in life, so better try and get as much pleasure as I can, try and avoid as much pain as I can. And maybe that kind of view, stemming from a kind of nihilism, is actually operating at a level that went just below the radar.
I was reading in the newspaper the other day; they did a survey just in terms of views that we get from the culture. They did a survey of, I think it was 10- or 11-year-olds, or children up to that age or something. And they asked them, "What would you need to be happy? You know, what's the most important thing to be happy?" I can't remember the order, but the three most popular: famous, rich, good-looking. You know, where did they get that? How much are we absorbing views from the culture? And how powerful is that influence?
As I said, the Buddha addressed this question. And we might say, "Well, who cares what the Buddha said?", and that's actually fair enough and fine. But he seemed to have said some quite intelligent things, so we might as well at least ask, you know, what he did say. [laughs] He talks about, what is Right View? He says Right View is the Four Noble Truths. There is suffering, okay; there is dukkha. This word, I'll use this word 'suffering.' What it really means is everything from the range of excruciating physical and existential and emotional and mental torment, all the way from that to the most subtlest, subtlest, subtlest sense of unease, dissatisfaction, not complete freedom -- everything in that range. I'll just use the word 'suffering.' It's quite a charged word. He said, "There is suffering." Again, he didn't say life is suffering, which sometimes it gets translated as. "There is suffering."
Second truth: there is cause for suffering. There is a cause of suffering. And the simple cause is when there's grasping, when there's either pushing or pulling. And actually, he gives a more, much more complex explanation. But the basic, the shorthand is, there's grasping, and then because there's grasping, there's suffering.
Third Noble Truth: there is a release from this. There is a release and an end of suffering. And fourth: the path that he describes to move towards that end. And the path involves Right View, Right Intention, the intention towards loving-kindness, towards compassion, towards renunciation. I can't remember the order, but Right Action, Right Livelihood. You know, how are we in the world? What are we doing with our energy? Right Speech. Right Effort, meaning the kind of effort to develop what is beautiful and helpful to oneself and others, develop those qualities of mind and to let go of ones that are not so helpful. [13:18] Right Mindfulness, and then Right Depth of Meditation. All this is part of the path, these Four Noble Truths.
At first, you know, we can hear that and we're kind of like, "Okay. Okay." And it seems maybe a little dry or whatever, the formula stick and stuff. But my experience, and I think it's an experience of many people who travel the path of practice: this simple sort of formula just gets deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, and it's much, much deeper than it will seem on the first hearing. And in a way, the Buddha calls it Four Noble Truths; it's four ennobling truths. To have this view and to take up this view and to investigate with this view is to ennoble the being. And it's really that the being, and the consciousness, in a way, goes on a journey with these truths.
So sometimes we hear Dharma, and the teachings go on and on and on about suffering. It can get a bit much sometimes, you know? And it's not just suffering; that's one way of formulating it. Oftentimes the Buddha talked about happiness. I touched on this the other day, and I'd like to, in a way, restate what I said, just come at it from a slightly different angle. You can talk about suffering and the end of suffering. You can talk about, what brings freedom? What brings happiness? What brings a sense of well-being and nourishment? So, in a way, it's just the same question, the flip side of the same coin.
When one asks this, "What brings happiness? What brings well-being and nourishment?", it's not to think, "Oh, what brings me happiness is, I know that I like chocolate ice cream, as opposed to vanilla." We're not talking about personal preferences here. We're talking about universal qualities of being that bring well-being, nourishment, happiness. [15:33]
This question, "What brings happiness?", is part of Right View. It's very much part of Right View. But it's a kind of long-term view. So happiness in the moment may not be possible. Maybe there's just too much difficult stuff going on. The most we can hope for is a kind of ease or peace with what's going on. But as a long-term view, building, building what it is that will lead to this nourishment, this deep sense of well-being. It's a long-term agenda of practice. And if, you know, happiness is a charged word, can we just admit the possibility that that might be possible in the long-term, to move towards cultivating the qualities that have happiness as their fruit?
It's an interesting word. Some people really have the kind of personality and being that they really do experience ecstasy and bliss and overflowing joy. And perhaps it's not as uncommon as we think. I don't know how common it is, really; I have no idea what the percentages are. I know one teacher did a survey, but anyway ... [laughter] And some people, they're just, the nervous system is not wired that way. And that's fine. It's completely fine. But I think, for everyone, there's a possibility of a quiet sense of well-being, just a quiet sense of happiness. Nothing dramatic. No fireworks. Just that quiet sense of well-being. And again, not all of the time.
The Buddha goes into this: what is it that's leading to happiness? And he talks [about the] absolute foundation: sīla, taking care of how we are with other people, which is, as we mentioned, implicit in the eightfold path. Really taking care of that and looking into that. Part of what happens as we progress through the path is we actually become more and more sensitive to this realm of sīla, more and more sensitive to when we're not acting out of love, out of care and concern.
The other day I was speaking to a friend, and she was joking, and she was kind of acting like someone being derogatory. So she wasn't even being derogatory; she was just kind of joking that way. And we were just there, and it suddenly felt really painful. Not really painful, but just there was some, "Mm. That really didn't feel good." And we talked about it, and she actually said, "Oh, well, I remember when I was doing much more practice years ago, I would have actually felt that, and now I've become less sensitive." It was fine for her; she was just saying that. But to realize that a part of what goes on in meditation practice is sensitivity that we develop to sīla, to how we are and what we're putting out into the world. And it's hugely important.
The Buddha talks about what qualities -- always the question is, "What qualities are going to lead to a sense of well-being, a sense of happiness?" And there are these lists, as I said the other day: generosity, hugely important; renunciation; calmness; collectedness. And sometimes it can be very attractive to hear teachings of nothing, nothing to make happen, nothing to develop, nothing to cultivate etc., nowhere to go. In a way, that's true, and there's a real, again, heart pull for that kind of teaching.
I was talking to someone a little while ago, and they were saying how attractive that had been for them, and they sort of went off for a couple of years and stopped meditating and all this. Then they just noticed after a while, "Actually, I'm just much happier when I meditate." Are we, can we make this an experiment, and be honest with ourselves, and not just get attracted to the views that may feel good?
This notion of "all we have to do is be with what is," a hugely beautiful teaching, a hugely important teaching, a lovely teaching. But can only ever be part of the path. So we talk about being with what is, and we also talk about letting go. We talk a lot about letting go. But the capacity to let go is helped so much, so much by what we have cultivated in the way of beautiful qualities. The more that reservoir of well-being and happiness, it's just easier to let go. And I see this over and over as a teacher, over and over with people, and with myself, in my own practice.
Someone came in the other day, not on this retreat, a little while ago, and she'd been practising for twenty years. [She was] beginning to feel just quite like, "This is just the same old stuff over and over. Twenty years." And she had put a lot of emphasis on two things. One was this just accepting what is, just being with what is. And the other was very deep teachings about emptiness. She had a very bright mind, and she kind of understood. But somehow, it hadn't made much difference. And this whole aspect of cultivation, as we were talking, had not been something she'd paid really much attention to at all. And in a way, it took that level of frustration for her to think, "Mm, maybe there's something there." To me, letting go, freedom, etc., the path, it's like a bird with two wings: the cultivation, and the being with what is and the investigation. Only one of those, the bird is not going to get off the ground. [21:47]
So, first part of Right View, first part, a question: do I know, do I really understand what leads to happiness, what leads to well-being, what leads to a sense of nourishment? Do I know that, really? Am I sure about that? And am I cultivating it? First part of Right View. Do I admit that these kind of developments are even possible? That's part of the view. Do I admit that they're possible? That's one part of Right View. Buddha placed huge emphasis on that. And it's, in a way, we could say, like a longer-term view -- generally, in one's life, with all the ups and downs, etc., moving towards building these qualities. Hugely, hugely significant, to be able to have two wings and to be able to get off the ground and fly.
What about views in the moment? So less long-term, but in the moment. In a way, to me, Right View, this Four Noble Truths business, it's like, it's the view of practice. It's the view that practice is possible. It's the view that freedom is possible, that some degree of freedom is possible with what's going on right now. What do I mean? In our life -- here, it's a very precious environment here. We have nothing to do but look at what's going on, nothing to do but examine our experience. In our busy lives, things happen, and they happen at very inconvenient times, and in very difficult ways. And that's the nature of our life. How often is it that the situation just seems to need addressing? You know, "I need to fix this thing. I need to get my car fixed. I need to sort out my living situation, my money situation, my ..." whatever it is. You know, and just those things that become important to us, that have become important to us.
When something's difficult in a situation, how easy, how often is it that we go to, "I just need to, I just need to fix it. I just need to sort out my money. I just need to sort out a living situation. I just need to sort out ..." whatever it is? And that becomes a priority. Of course it's important. Those things are important. Of course they are. To address them, and to change what needs to be changed, and all that. But how often does that become the priority? And the notion of, "How can I see this differently? How can I move towards freedom?" takes way, way back step, back stage. It happens all the time. So, so easily, and without our even realizing it.
So Right View: how am I looking at this situation? This situation that seems difficult, this moment that seems difficult, how am I looking at it? What's my view of it? Am I making the possibility of practice, of freedom, a priority? Is that there in my view? And when things are difficult, when the housing is difficult, and the relationship is difficult, and the money is difficult and all that -- this is what we go through, you know? The body is having difficulties and illness. Again, what's in the culture? And even in what's being offered from our friends. Of course, to support and empathize and find ways to fix that. Hugely important that we have empathic friends, and that we offer that to others. But is that all that's being offered? Or is there a voice, inside or outside, that's saying, "How can I look at this differently? How can I practise with this? How can I see this so that it moves towards freedom?"
Things break in the world. Things, physical things break, our bodies break. Our cars break. Things we use break. Relationships break. All of this. If when things break, we just see hassle -- "Oh, no, hassle" -- how, what happens then? Or are we seeing in a different way, seeing, "That's the nature of things. It's the nature of things to break. Anicca"? What I talked about the other day, anicca.
With the anicca, there's a whole different view: not that this thing should not break, it should be there [to] make things convenient so I can, whatever, do whatever I need to do. But maybe another view: "It's breaking. Yes. This world, these things, this world, it's not my home. It's not my home. The universe is not created or set up to make self happy and contented, and to have everything work out the way self wants it to be. It's just not set up that way. That's not the deal."
We try, though, to set things up so that they go exactly the way self wants them. And maybe what's a little bit different nowadays is that, technologically and sociologically, etc., we have much more of a capacity to actually do that than they did way back. We can get quite close to sort of engineering this illusion that everything will just run along smoothly and suiting me. [27:46]
But nothing is certain. Nothing is certain. So all that stuff -- car, house, body, relationship. Just the other day, a friend went in for a routine medical exam, and the doctor called: "Sorry, some abnormal cells came up. Can you please come in for more tests?" And then the wait, and then the follow-up test, and this period of time just not knowing.
One of my teachers, Ajaan Ṭhānissaro, used to say, "Ageing, sickness, and death," which we are all subject to, what the Buddha called ageing, sickness, death, he used to say, "They play hard, and they play for keeps." Are we practising? Because that's the stuff that we're going to have to practise with. This body is going to decay. Our loved ones are going to decay. They're going to die. We're going to die. Are we practising? Have we got a momentum of practice that when it gets really bad, we have a way of looking, we have ways of looking?
Another question, part of Right View: what actually is my view right now? What is my view right now? Of this situation, of this moment, of whatever. And is it a view that's leading to freedom? Because if I view, "This thing breaks, it's a hassle, it's a whatever," that's not helpful. Can I view it another way that's actually leading to freedom? Realizing something different.
The Buddha talks also about 'ways of looking' -- ways of looking that he encourages that actually lead towards freedom. And he talks about looking in terms of what's called the three characteristics. These are impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self. Viewing things as impermanent, seeing that fact, like what I talked about the other day. Just seeing impermanence, seeing the impermanence of things. When it breaks, it's anicca, not hassle, not "Oh, no!" It's anicca. That's what we're seeing. And seeing that, like I said, that the world is not set up this way. Things are not set up this way. There is an uncertainty there. There is an unsatisfactoriness there.
It's interesting. Sometimes when this goes out, and even from some teachers, it's almost like, hear about the three characteristics, there's something that should make us quake and tremble, and feel really bad and depressed, and have this kind of existential angst. To me, it's something very different. It's a way of -- what I feel that the Buddha was interested in was looking, using these three characteristics as lenses, because there's a freedom that comes from that. There's a letting go that comes from that. And something very lovely, a very lovely sense of freedom comes.
And the not-self that Catherine talked about last night. What would it be to be in the world, and be in this existence, and move through the world, and really not have a view of ownership of anything? Or identification with anything? A house, a home, or anything at all, body, thoughts. Completely radically different way of being in the world. Nothing whatsoever should be clung to as 'I' or 'mine.' That's the Buddha's encouragement to start seeing in a different way.
With this Right View, right questioning, again, it's not really, "Is there a self, or is there not a self?" Buddha wasn't interested in that question. It's more: can I view this moment, this experience, this, whatever is coming up, as 'not me, not mine'? Not me, not mine, this sensation in the body, this vedanā, this emotion, this thought. This hand that I'm looking at, this apartment that I live in. This car, these clothes. Can I start looking at things and seeing 'not me, not mine'? And begin practising that way of looking. It's really a practice. To start practising a certain way of looking because it leads to freedom.
Sometimes when people hear this, they're a bit turned off because there's such an attraction to wanting to be with things as they are, or not do anything, not manipulate experience in any way. But the truth is that we're manipulating experience all the time. Because this 'I, mine, me, mine' goes on all the time. Sometimes we're conscious of it, and sometimes we're not. That's something we're adding to experience. 'My' this, 'my' that. Or certainly in the terms of story -- you can see it on the level when the story gets very strong, we're adding that. But it's even more subtle than that. We're just adding 'me' and 'mine' to experience all the time. What would it be to actually do less, and say 'not me, not mine,' just unhook that?
Four Noble Truths, in a shorthand kind of way of looking, again, it's a kind of lens to look at experience. Is there suffering right now? Okay, I feel some discontent. I feel some dis-ease. I feel some contraction. There must be some grasping around. Okay. When there's suffering, it's alerting me. There's some grasping, some push or pull or struggle with what's going on. Can I relax that, and recognize that it's possible to be free by relaxing that grasping?
It's almost like a very shorthand kind of way of seeing the Four Noble Truths, shorthand lens of looking at experience. Is there suffering? Okay. Where's the grasping? Look for it. See what you can find. And then, is it possible to relax that? [34:50] So to go through the meditation, or the day, life, looking at it this way.
As I said, the Buddha, when he talked about the Second Noble Truth, it's not just grasping; it's actually more complicated than that. And we can even, as practice deepens, begin looking in a much more full way, and have a much more full understanding -- all the subtle factors in the mind and the heart that are leading to building suffering in the moment. So what are they? What would they be? Begin really honing in that way and looking that way. What are the subtle factors that are building suffering? Actually, building the very way things appear, or their appearance themselves. Maybe that sounds abstract right now. I'm going to go into it a bit.
Another question that's involved in Right View: what am I putting into the present moment that's leading to suffering? When we feel some suffering and some contraction or some difficult emotion or whatever, it's not a tool to deny the influence of the past and how, of course, that influences the present. But if we look carefully and really honestly, suffering needs some input in the present. It needs us to be seeing or doing or putting something in or reacting in a certain way for suffering to happen in the present. Without that present moment input, no suffering. Again, not to believe me just because I'm saying it, or any other teacher, but just to explore this. Without present moment input, there is no suffering.
Sometimes we're sitting in meditation or in our life or whatever, and we can feel like something's really coming up. A difficult emotion or something's coming up, and it feels like it's coming up, it's bubbling up from the past. And there's a lot of feeling with that, and maybe some very difficult emotions, some grief or sadness or anger or contraction or whatever it is. There's the pain of that, and we feel that, and every encouragement to be with that. Then it moves through, and it feels like it's released. And then it's gone, and we feel lighter: "Ah!" And it really feels like something purified there. Something came up, and it went out.
On one level, that's true. On another level, is there something in the present that I'm putting in that's actually creating that whole experience? That maybe there's no such thing as 'things coming up from the past'? It just seems that way, the notion of purification. It just seems that way. At one level, it's very useful to work at that level and that sense. But as one goes deeper, to really ask, very, very, probing questions: is that really what's going on?
As I said, practice can never be just being with things as they are. It can never just be that. Beautiful as that is, and the beautiful intimacy with experience, with life, that comes from that, it can only ever be just a part of the practice.
A little while ago, I was -- how do I put it? -- I went to see someone. Not really a close friend, and also not someone I'm in a teaching relationship with. She was having a very hard day that day, and she was quite upset, and we were talking. She explained a little bit what was going on, and she explained the difficulty she was having in a relationship with her boyfriend at the time. She explained how, you know, she would say this and he would understand that, and she thought they had agreed this and he thought they had agreed that, and basically this suffering.
Then, at the end, knowing that I was involved in the Dharma, etc., she said, "I know, I know, Rob, I know, I've just got to be with it. I just have to be with it." And I didn't say anything at the time, because I wasn't in a teaching relationship with her, but I thought, "Actually, no, that's not what's needed here. What's needed is looking at how is this suffering being built? By miscommunication. By not agreeing on understandings together." It's not just a matter of being with things, being with things, being with things. It's actually looking at how suffering is getting built.
A little while ago here, someone was on retreat, a few months ago I think it was, a month or something. And I think it was quite a full time at Gaia House, I think so, and a lot of people had colds as well. He was coming into the hall, meditating and practising diligently, and was sitting next to someone with quite some coughing, and finding himself getting really irritated with this person disturbing his meditation. And there was suffering. Noticed: "This is suffering. This relationship I have to what's going on is suffering. I feel it." And very wisely, I thought, [he] began looking in that practice period, "How can I see this differently? How can I see this differently that takes the suffering out of it?" And he began using the reflective mind and remembering. This person was coughing and fidgeting and stuff. And just remembering, "Oh, yeah, I used to be like that. I used to be very restless and unable to sit still." And then this separation that had come in that was building the suffering, he just saw the common humanity: "Oh, yeah, I used to be exactly the same. And it's only because I've been practising a little longer that I'm able to be a bit more still." Saw the humanity, and the suffering went out of it. And love came, and love began to flow there.
Are we practising this kind of investigation, this kind of intelligence? When we say, "What am I putting into the present moment?", it can be extremely subtle. This goes subtler and subtler and subtler. If we take up the theme that Catherine talked about last night, this not-self, what happens -- you may have noticed this already on the retreat -- what happens when there's a lot of self-story about something, the mind is just spinning with proliferation of self-story? And then we see that. We see, "Oh, I don't have to do that." And somehow it just goes. The self-story goes. What happens to the experience of what's going on? The experience actually lessens in intensity. What happens to experience if I begin to look at it, look at this moment and what's happening, through the lens of 'not me, not mine'?
It begins to fade. Its intensity fades. Its prominence in consciousness fades. What happens if I completely let go of all self-identification? Not even identified with awareness. Self is not building any story; it's not identified with anything at all, including awareness. The degree of impression or intensity of something happening depends on how much self there is, how much self-view there is at that time. If there's no self-identification at all, things completely fade from experience. They completely fade. They disappear. They cannot sustain themselves if there's really, truly, at that moment, no self-identification.
Obviously, I'm aware this is probably not most people's experience right now, but I just want to point a little bit where the practice is going -- potentially anyway. I want to point out some possibilities, because I do feel it's important to point out what the possibilities are.
If how things appear, or whether they appear at all, depends on whether I have a self-view -- when there's this much self-view, they appear this way; when there's this much, they appear this way; when there's none at all, they maybe don't appear at all -- which is the real amount? Which is the real amount of the way things are? Which is 'things as they are,' this phrase that's so lovely and we're so fond of? Which is things as they are? Which amount of self is the real amount of self through which to look at experience?
Self-view, any kind of self-view, is a builder of experience. It's what the Buddha called exactly that, a builder of experience. A view of self builds our experience. What does all that mean? Where does it ... [audio cuts out briefly at 44:46]
"Follow no paths. All paths lead where? Truth is here." And I remember reading that as a teenager, and feeling very, "Ah, that's right on. That's lovely." [laughter] But again, are we really interested in truth? Are we really interested in truth, and not just this nice feeling of what might feel nice? So it has this heart pull, but what this teaching, if we're really following this question of view and the Noble Truths, there's no 'here' either. Truth is here, but there is no here. I can't find it. [audio cuts out, words repeat as above from "Follow no paths"] What is here? Here is completely not existing independent of the view I have of it. There's no here. No now. That's also just a concept that depends on view. No here, no now. And that's not to say that truth is there, some other there either.
Again, sometimes we have notions of nowhere to go, nothing to do. And again, that's very lovely, and it can really speak to us. At certain junctures of the path it can be very liberating, very healing and very helpful to hear that. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. It's like, "Thank goodness!" And it can open a lot, and open the heart a lot. But how much integrity do we have of the ongoing journey, of the questioning? [47:41]
So it is true, ultimately speaking, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. But for most people, what that means is, hearing that, "nowhere to go, nothing to do," and we come back to what? Me, here, with the world as it is, and emotions and thoughts and feelings. And that's not 'true' either. We're giving the world and the self and all of that a kind of reality which it doesn't have. So our view has not gone deep enough at that point.
Another one that we can feel very attracted to: just want to be. Don't want to do. Being versus doing. So much doing in the world. Just want to be. And again, you know, can be hugely helpful and important. But if we're really following, we see the subtlest view, the subtlest view at all is a kind of building of experience. And building is doing. So, this whole duality between being and doing turns out to be a complete non-event, really. It's just, it's not real.
And again -- not probably here, people who come on retreat, but sometimes one meets people and they say, "I'm not really into meditation. Relationship is my path," or "Parenting is my path," or "Dancing is my path," or "I play the cello," or whatever. And all these things -- beautiful parts of human existence, really lovely. Potentially, some of it anyway. [laughter] Some of the time. And sometimes even in the midst of this dancing, or whatever it is, making love, or playing music or whatever, sometimes even the self disappears. And we say, "Yeah, that's really spiritual then!"
But can this activity, whatever it is we're taking as a path, can it lead to that same understanding that I just talked about, that it's all empty? It goes beyond. Practice does have an agenda. It does have an agenda. And it's to understand that. And can what I'm taking to be practice, can it take me to that level or not? And if it can't, then, well, it may be a lovely part of existence, but it basically won't do as a sort of ultimately deep practice.
So, Right View. Buddha talks about Right View. One way of stating that, and it's going to sound maybe quite strong, I don't know: if there is suffering, if there is dukkha, discontent, it means I am seeing with ignorance right now. If there is suffering, it means I am seeing wrongly. Now, that may sound pretty hardcore. I think it is pretty hardcore. And I don't mean it in any judgmental way, and of course, not for a second to abdicate ourselves from responsibility for what goes on in the world in terms of economic and social conditions of others, etc. "Oh, well, they just need to view it differently" -- not at all saying that for a second.
But at a whole other level in terms of our practice, when there's suffering, it means that we're looking wrongly. I remember Joseph Goldstein, one of the senior teachers, saying, I think it was years ago, I remember him saying, "When there's suffering, that kind of tweaks my interest. That's when I ..." [laughter] You see, you have to be quite -- have done quite a lot of practice, for him, at that point. It's like, "Oh, no." [laughter] But I remember him saying that, I think it was quite a long time ago. I don't remember even where it was. But when there's suffering, it's like, the suffering, it's telling me, "Ah, I need to look at something differently. I need to see it differently."
The question, again, the question of Right View: what do I need to understand about how suffering arises? What do I need to understand about that? How is suffering being built in the present? How is suffering being built? And is it possible to remove some of the builders? You know, like -- I don't know the name of it. That game where you put sticks, and you build a thing, and then you pull -- or a house, a house of cards. Suffering is being built like that, and we can just remove some of the things. [52:32]
I don't know; maybe all that sounds very complex too. I don't know. Maybe it does. But again, another view that can creep in or that we can feel very attracted to: "Truth is so simple," and we love the simplicity, and it's a relief because often our lives are very complicated. Some people are really attracted towards complexity, and they want all this Buddhist psychology and theories and Abhidhamma and all this. Most of us are hungering for a kind of simplicity, and we feel very attracted to simplicity and the beauty of that. But maybe the truth is not complex and not simple. Maybe those are just our particular preconceptions or desires, and has nothing to do -- it's not even in that realm.
We might say, "Truth is beyond concepts. It's beyond concepts, so let's just ditch concepts." But what happens if we ditch concepts too early is we just end up with the same old default concepts: self, world, thing, emotion, time, thought, all of it, me, you, here, there. So to me, one of the huge, really profound skills of the Buddha was to take a few concepts and say, "Pick up these concepts, use these concepts, because they will lead to freedom." They are concepts that lead to freedom, and they also lead beyond concept. They lead beyond themselves. It's an enormously skilful teaching when you really start to see that happening.
These Four Noble Truths, that view has the capacity of really leading to a completely radical, radically different understand of things. Completely something utterly, utterly radical, this understanding of emptiness. And it even has the capacity to transcend itself. So it goes beyond notions of a path. Goes beyond notions of time, or goes beyond notions even of suffering and freedom. Completely goes beyond itself.
The Buddha did say something like, "One who has seen emptiness has let go of all views." Has let go of all views, one who has seen emptiness. But it's not to let go too early. Because there are views, the Four Noble Truths, that kind of view, that's actually leading towards freedom. And to ask ourselves: are my views leading toward freedom? And the Buddha does talk, and many of you are familiar with the analogy, of letting the raft go once one has reached the other shore. But not too early.
Shall we sit quietly together for a minute?
