The Gentle Way of
Buddhist Meditation
Dhamma Talks by Godwin Samararatne
Hongkong, 1997
Day 3: 8th October
1997
Importance of Dhamma
~~~
Godwin Samararatne:
Consumerism
Most people believe that materials are important. Happiness lies in
material things. In fact, the more materials you get, the more dissatisfied you
are; the more dissatisfied you are, the more materials you want to get. Buddha
has given a very powerful simile to describe this condition. He compared this
to a dog with a bone. So the dog doesn't let go of the bone and is just holding
on to it and is still hungry and still dissatisfied and still suffers from fear
in losing that bone. Related to this serious problem of materialism is another
aspect of this, another manifestation of this, now called consumerism. So it's
a real challenge for modern man to live in consumer societies and still how not
to be affected by the consumerism around you. As I see it, consumerism has many
aspects but I see two dangerous aspects in consumerism. One is people are not
clear about what they need and what their greed is. It's interesting, according
to the Dhamma, we need certain things, food, clothing, shelter and medicine,
what is called the four requisites. So the four necessary things are things
that human beings need. So there's a place for material things but then as I
said, when they become our goals and then when you are confused about greed and
need, this is where it can lead to dissatisfaction and suffering as I
mentioned.
Another dangerous aspect of consumerism is that the society that you
live in starts manipulating you, and the danger is that you don't know that you
are being manipulated. So you become like puppets, puppets in the hands of
society that can create your own desires, can create your own greed and it
leads to more and more frustration. So isn't this a sad situation of the human
condition where human beings have the potentialities of becoming free, of
becoming enlightened? We have the Buddha nature in us but this aspect is not
looked at and then we become victims of the society that we live in. The simile
that has come to my mind about this situation is that though we are grown up,
we have become still dependent on what I call "toys". I'm interested to know the toys
that human beings go into in this culture, this country. What I
mean by toys are external things where you think are happiness,
joy, peace and you start acquiring toys and you change one toy
for another and your whole life is being spent on getting toys
and then you are dissatisfied. So can I hear from you some of
the toys that you are interested in acquiring.
We Become Our Own "Toy"
Audience:
Shopping.
Audience:
Housing.
Godwin Samararatne:
In a way houses are necessary but
then you are not satisfied with a small house, so the house
becomes bigger and bigger and then that can become a toy and you
are still dissatisfied. May be a beautiful new house but you're
not happy. May be until you go into a bigger house. That can be
a problem.
Audience:
Computers.
Godwin Samararatne:
Now that toy has even been
introduced to Sri Lanka. Anyway we can draw up a long list of
toys. An interesting question is: is meditation also a toy? Is
there a relationship between these toys and
meditation?
Audience:
Yes.
Godwin Samararatne:
I would suggest that with
meditation, you become your own toy. This is the importance of
the Dhamma. This is the importance of the Buddha's wonderful
teaching. When you become your own toy, you can be happy,
contented, peaceful with yourself. So the need for external
toys, external things drop away because you find the joy and
happiness from within. A very important aspect of this is
learning to enjoy your own company. When mediators come to the
centre I live in Sri Lanka, I tell them to spend some time alone
and see what happens when you are alone and see what happens
when you are alone with yourself. It's interesting. Some of the
people who come there have never spent some time completely
alone with themselves, without any toys. So what happens? They
become lonely, they become bored. What does it show about
ourselves? We cannot stay with us for more than 10 or 15 minutes
at least and we want to escape from ourselves. So the importance
of the Dhamma is that you realize that, you work through that
and as I said, you learn to be your best friend. You learn to be
self-contained, self-contented with oneself. Such a person is
described in the Dhamma as someone who is at home wherever he
is. So such a person can be happy with oneself, being alone, and
such a person can be happy with others.
Not to Create Suffering Because of Making Mistakes
I like to touch on another aspect which shows the importance of the
Dhamma is that with the practice of the Dhamma in any situation in life, you
can see the Dhamma in any situation in life, as I said yesterday, even
unpleasant experiences will become learning experiences. I know in this
culture, people are afraid to make mistake because of the emphasis on wanting
to be perfect. With this model of perfection, what happens is that when we make
a mistake, we beat ourselves, we hate ourselves, we lose our self-confidence,
we see ourselves as worthless. In my language, you see only minuses in yourself
and when you see minuses in yourself, you see minuses in others so that you can
create a hell for only minuses. So the importance of the Dhamma is that it
enables us not to create suffering in this way because of our mistakes but as I
said, we learn to ask the question: what can I learn from my mistakes? What
does it indicate about myself? So that this kind of inquiry has to be done in a
very friendly, gentle, understanding way without any minuses. Then our mistakes
themselves help us to grow in the spiritual path. Isn't that a beautiful way of
living? Learn from our mistakes and then when you see mistakes in others, you
also learn to relate to the mistakes of others in an entirely different way. So
we learn to appreciate our humanness, not the idea of perfection. Then we learn
to appreciate the humanness of others. So the importance of the teaching is
that we see clearly how we create our own suffering and through that
realization, then it becomes clear, only we can be free of the suffering
ourselves. Then we become self-reliant. Then we learn to have self-confidence
that whatever arises, I know how to handle them with the help of the Dhamma.
Then you learn to be your own teacher. And as the Buddha said, you learn to be
a light unto yourself.
Life Becomes Your Teacher
One last point on this point. I have had the good fortune to meet
many masters, many gurus, many teachers from many traditions. Do you know which
master, which guru has inspired me? It is life itself. Life becomes our best
teacher. So thanks to the Dhamma, when you realize the importance of the
Dhamma, life becomes your teacher. And sometimes life can be a very hard
teacher also, but it is always a good teacher. It can indicate to us what we
are really are. So now I will stop and if you have any questions, please ask
them. In the last few days, you have been asking very good practical questions
relating to life, so I hope today also. I touched on some areas which are
related to your life here, so please feel free to ask any questions and let us
see how the Dhamma, how the Buddha's teachings can help us to work with these
problems.
Q&A
Audience:
I remember
in the Nikaya or Agamma, Buddha always taught his students to be
their own uniba, it means an island. Even when he was dying, the
last lesson he gave his students was: be your own island. I
think this bears very direct similarity to what you told us. We
always have to learn form ourselves.
Godwin Samararatne:
Yes and also and I said, from life.
So it means that when we live, if you are really sensitive and
open, and if you are really practising the teaching, then as I
said, you learn how to relate to everything, what happens to you
in life, what happens in relation to others, to the teaching. So
as I said these experiences we have in life, they are used for
our spiritual growth. There's a teacher who said that compost.
Compost have things which are not considered useful, considered
as dirty which we throw away. So all these things, if we can
collect them, they can be used for the growth of vegetables and
fruits. So I would say that what we learn from life, our
mistakes can be seen as compost, that they can be used for our
own spiritual growth. It's only then, as it was said, that we
can be an island to oneself, that you can be self-reliant on
oneself but what is important is if you have the conclusion that
you know everything, that is the end of learning. So it is very
important to have this "don't know" mind whereby we can learn from anything and we can learn from anyone. This is
something very very important in the Buddha's teaching. Any other questions?
Audience:
How can we
be our own toy and be satisfied with ourselves, how can we be
our good friends?
Godwin Samararatne:
It is interesting that for different
reasons, we become our own enemies. And then we think that the
enemy is outside ourselves. So we are trying to find the enemy
outside ourselves without realizing the biggest enemy is inside
ourselves. One aspect of being your enemy is as I said, seeing
only your mistake, seeing only your shortcomings, seeing only
your minuses. This can be a very very self-destructive aspect
where you are your own enemy.
Another aspect related to this point is that you don't see the
positive side in you, you don't see the good things that you have been doing. I
meet many good people and they are following the spiritual path, but because of
this tendency to be self-destructive, they don't see their own worthiness, they
don't see their value, they refuse to see the Buddha nature in them. So when
you realize this, when you know this, that you are your own enemy, then you
learn to work on this condition, on this situation. This is the importance of
awareness which we discussed yesterday. So with awareness, you catch yourself,
you realize what you are doing to yourself, that you are your own enemy.
And another aspect is this very beautiful meditation of loving
kindness. I emphasize this meditation very much. On Friday, I think I will be
talking about meditation on loving kindness and it is psychologically very
interesting. This meditation of loving kindness begins with oneself. So it
shows that we cannot be friendly to others unless we are friendly to ourselves.
So meditation on loving kindness helps us to be our own best friend, it helps
us to make a connection with ourselves.
Another aspect of meditation on loving kindness is it helps us to
forgive ourselves. As I said earlier, accept our humanness and when we learn to
accept our humanness, then we learn to accept the humanness of others. So then
it helps to be friendly with ourselves and friendly to others.
Another aspect of being your best friend is that we don't realize how
we affect our own body in a unwholesome, unskilful way with our behaviour. So
when you make this connection with yourself, there is a change that takes
place, a transformation takes place so that whatever you do, your words, your
thoughts, will be always be related to the skilful, the wholesome way, which
should be helping you in your spiritual path. I'll be speaking more about this
on the day I will be speaking on loving kindness and on that day, we will be
distributing a very very important little booklet on the practice of loving
kindness. Any other question?
Audience:
You warned
us of the dangers of consumerism and materialism, obviously
there is certain renunciation to those things. Could you give us
some advice on how to begin the renunciation so it's not all at
once and such an overpowering obstacle?
Godwin Samararatne:
As I said, these are one of the
greatest challenges we have: how to live in a materialist
society where there is consumerism and still not be affected by
them. So I'll try to offer some practical suggestions. So one
suggestion that I would like to offer is that when you see
things which you think you need them, again this is the
importance of awareness, to catch yourself and to ask the
question: do I really need it? And ask the very profound
question: Why do I need this? When this obsession comes to
possess something, we never ask the question: do I really need
it? Why am I needing it? So when you are living in a consumer
society and when you raise this question, you realize that it is
because others are using them, and because others are using
them, you want to be like them. So without your knowledge, you
get caught in what is called the rat race. So your whole life
becomes a competition, to compete with others.
Another practical suggestion I like to offer is learning to say "yes" to some things
and learning to say "no" to certain things. What happens to
us is that due to different reasons, we have been used to
pampering ourselves. Pampering is always saying yes to whatever,
the body or the mind. So what is important in the practice is
again finding out that you're pampering yourself and then to say
no in a very gentle friendly way. So it is very important in
life, learning to say no to certain things. This is the only way
to work on some other things that we have become dependent
on.
The third suggestion I like to offer is, in a way, an indirect one.
So with more and more practice, as I said, when you learn to be your best
friend, when you have made a connection with yourself, then naturally you don't
have to make an effort. You can live in a consumer society but then you are not
affected by the environment. In this connection, there is a beautiful Buddhist
symbol. The Buddhist symbol is being like a lotus. Where does the lotus grow?
In muddy water. Now the lotus flower is able to grow in that muddy water
without being affected by the muddy water around it. So this is the importance
of the Buddha's teaching, that when you live within society, within the
environment, you will be able to steady your way and not be affected by what is
happening externally because a shift has been taking place inside you.
I think there is time for one more question.
Audience:
I always
feel bored when I'm alone. Can you tell us your actual
experience on how you enjoy your life alone?
Godwin Samararatne:
To give a brief answer, when we are
alone, when we feel lonely, when we feel bored, so what we do
is, when these states of mind would arise, we give in to them,
we try to change that by doing something. So the simple answer
is hereafter when you have loneliness, when you have boredom,
don't escape from them, go through the loneliness, go through
the boredom. Yesterday I said a very important aspect of
meditation is learning to go through unpleasant experiences,
whether it is physical or mental. So in the beginning, it will
be very unpleasant but then, this is the importance of the
practice. So you have to go through the unpleasant experience
and then, when you go through that, then from loneliness you
experience what is aloneness which is entirely different from
loneliness, thereby we learn to enjoy our own
company.
So thank you very much for asking very useful practical questions. So
now let us take a small break. So today the break I would like to suggest, to
reflect. Reflection can be a very important part of meditation. So the
reflection I would like to suggest is to reflect on the things that we have
discussed today. And in that reflection, to see what was discussed, how it can
be relevant, how can it relate to yourself. So I like to suggest that during
the break, to use reflection in this way. And then after that, after some time,
I will ring the bell, and when you can come back, I will present a very
important meditation today. So you can do this reflection whilst seated or even
when walking, whichever you prefer, you can just start the reflection.
[Break]
Please sit in a comfortable position because it is very important
that in meditation not to move when we are meditating. Please have your spine
erect but relaxed.
Please allow the mind to do what it likes. If thoughts are arising,
let any thoughts arise, thoughts about the past, thoughts about the future.
So let us learn to make friends with thoughts and just know from
moment to moment what thoughts are arising in your mind. So it is very
important to be alert and to be awake from moment to moment.
Now can you allow any emotion to arise, especially emotions we don't
like, that we push away, that we repress, that we control. Can we allow such
emotions to arise? If they are arising, can we just allow them?
If you are having any such unpleasant experience, can we learn to
make friends with them, can we learn to relate to them without a minus?
And if there are no unpleasant emotions, just to know there are no
unpleasant emotions.
So thoughts, emotions, sensations, learning to see them just as they
are, like a mirror-like mind. No plus, no minus, just being with whatever is
happening. Be alert and awake.
Learning to feel friendly towards our thoughts, learning to feel
friendly towards our emotions, learning to be friendly towards our sensations
whatever the sensation is.
Now please open your eyes slowly and when you change the posture,
please do it with awareness. And please do not think the meditation is over.
Let us now do some chanting. It is very nice that a group of
spiritual friends can chant together, so please everyone just join the chanting