Monthly Archives: December 2024

THE VIEW

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Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Our happiness and the happiness of those around us depend on our degree of Wise View. Touching deep reality, knowing what is going on inside and outside ourselves is the way to liberate ourselves from Dukkha which is caused by wrong perceptions. Right View is not an ideology, a system or even a path. It is the insight we have into the reality of life, a living insight which fills us with understanding, peace, and love.”

The Noble Eightfold Path is the Buddha’s treatment for the problem of suffering, and it works really well, if we choose to practice it. In the time he spent learning about the causes of suffering he also learned about its cure and in his great compassion for us, taught it for 45 years. Of course, it’s up to us. We are responsible for our practice. He said, “You yourselves must strive.  The Buddhas are only teachers.”

He said that Wise View view means: first, to see and to understand things as they really are; second, to realize the Four Noble Truths; third, to see life through the Dharma—to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of life, to understand “not self and inter-being,” and, fourth: to understand nirvana. In its fullest sense, Wise View involves a “wise understanding” of the entire Dharma itself.

The Rohitassa Sutta

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Nati Garcia wrote on Cultural Survival, “On this day in the northern hemisphere, the shortest period of sunlight occurs. It is a moment to settle into the bedding of the Earth, tucked beneath the layers of the cold darkness, and to draw in the warmth of the breath to share stories. Storytelling is most prominent during this dark period as it sparks the imagination, generates laughter and truth, and warms the heart, mind, and spirit.”

For me, finding the practice was like coming home. And when I began to study the Dharma, it was like I already knew those truths. They were already in my body! I just had to be reminded of them. One of the things I love is all the great stories of the Buddha and Ananda and so many other great Bodhisattvas and other beings.

One of my favorite stories from the Pali Canon is Rohitassa Sutta. Rohitassa was this beloved deva–a spirit being. He said he had a special power… he was a fast walker. Wherever he wanted to go, all he had to do was think of it and he would be there. He said, “My speed was as fast as that of a strong archer, well trained, a practiced hand, a practiced sharp shooter shooting a light arrow across the land. My stride stretched as far as the east sea is from the West. And to me endowed with such speed, such a stride, there came the desire, “I will go traveling to the end of the world.” I spent 100 years traveling but without reaching the end of the world!

He got so frustrated! He kept running an running around the world and never got where he wanted to go! So, finally, he went to the Buddha, and said, “World Honored One, is it possible, through travelling, to reach the end of the world?”

And the Buddha replied, “I say Rohittasa, it is not possible, through travelling, to reach the end of the world, because, I also say Rohittasa, the world… the beginning of the world… the end of the world… the whole of the world… is in this fathom-long body, with its sensations, perceptions, and cognition. The whole world is in here.”

What a relief?! It’s all here in the body. The practice is here in the body! The freedom we’re looking for … is already here NOW in this body. The beginning of the path… the end of the path… enlightenment itself.

EGO

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Adyashanti said, “Ego is a movement. It’s a verb. It is not something static. It’s the after-the-fact movement of mind that’s always becoming. In other words, egos are always on the path. They are on the psychology path, the spiritual path, the path to get more money or a better car. That sense of ‘me’ is always becoming, always moving, always achieving. Or else it is doing the opposite—moving backwards, rejecting, denying. So, in order for this verb to keep going, there has to be movement. We have to be going forward or backward, toward or away from. We have to have somebody to blame, and usually it’s ourselves. We’ve got to be getting somewhere because otherwise we are not becoming.”

Does that make sense? Our mental states are constantly changing and flowing, just like a river. Thoughts, emotions, and perceptions arise and pass away ksana to ksana, without a fixed or permanent “self” to anchor them. Everything is impermanent—especially thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. Buddha taught that because the “mind is always becoming” it is anatta—not-self. Since there’s no inherent, unchanging self, only constantly arising and passing phenomena—each moment is distinct from the last and constantly moving forward with us. There’s no going back… although we often live in the past… review, review, review… endlessly going over and over what happened. Revising, reworking, endlessly. We are actually only moving forward. No matter how much our thoughts are stuck in the past.

By practicing the Dharma and mindfulness meditation we can stay present, not only noticing but experiencing the arising and passing of all kinds of mental states… and even sometimes not getting caught up and identifying with them. Having a deeper understanding of the impermanent nature of the mind.