Ch. 2 - At the Crossroads: Where Serenity Meets Insight
When to practice Samatha and when to practice Vipassana?
The Causal Cessation of Suffering
Seeing Dependent Origination within our Meditative Experience frees us from Suffering
[This discourse was given on a Vipassanā retreat and discusses the field of Samatha and Vipassanā and the Four Noble Truths.]
When to practice Samatha and when to practice Vipassana?
At this point we have a choice, in which direction we would continue? Either we continue to develop what we call the samatha or serenity aspect of meditation, where we continue to deepen our concentration and develop what we call samādhi, or we put our concentration practice on the back burner for a while and start to introduce aspects of mindfulness and insight for the purpose of what we would call cutting off suffering. For many people there comes a point where concentration cannot go further without more refinement of character and purification of mind.
This is the point at which we might first turn towards the practice of vipassanā, or insight meditation. Vipassanā is the operation that we would perform upon ourselves to remove that which is infected within us so that it doesn’t any longer afflict us. The practice of vipassanā or the Eightfold Noble Path is for the realisation of Nibbāna and the causal cessation of suffering. By the causal cessation of suffering we mean that there no longer remains within us the capacity, the propensity, or tendency to create suffering for ourselves or others. The mind is no longer capable of arising with such volition that would create suffering or cause harm to ourselves or others. That is the causal cessation of suffering and that is the result of the practice of insight that cuts off the three unwholesome roots of our mind. It cuts off our greed root, it cuts off our aversion root, it cuts off our ignorance root.
Now this is a permanent process which, once done, does not get reversed if you take it to the point of cutting off those roots. However, if you don’t, if you only go so far with it, as to surmount that greed, that aversion, that ignorance within you that is currently present, but you don’t continue to make the effort to cause these things to not arise, it may well be that we accumulate new habit patterns of greed and aversion and come to further suffering in the future. But generally speaking the practice of vipassanā and insight is for the purposes of cutting off suffering at the root, which is why we call it the causal cessation of suffering.
When we enter into what we call samādhi, which is a unified state of concentration when the mind becomes so one-pointed and absorbed with its object that we experience what we call the unification of the knower, the knowing and the known, in that moment there is also no suffering, no perception of suffering, there is no affliction. This is what we call the momentary cessation of suffering because as long as we remain in our state of samādhi the mind is utterly free of all affliction, stress, worry or suffering.
Now what marked the Buddha’s approach as a breakthrough from what had been the standard approach to spiritual practice prior to him, twenty-five centuries ago, is that before the Buddha’s awakening, on the night that he realised what we now call Nibbāna, spiritual practice had been geared towards the attainment of more and more rarefied states of consciousness, higher states of samādhi that led to deeper and deeper experiences of bliss in the here and now. But he made the reflection, having attained these states; how long could he remain in this state of samādhi?
There is inevitably a moment when we emerge from it and the mind is still afflicted by old age, sickness, death, a tendency towards wanting some things and a tendency towards not wanting others, and all the confusion that this produces. He realised that this state of samādhi is a conditioned state that only appears when the conditions for it appear. Only when our mind is purified enough in the moment, may we enter into samādhi.
If we live extremely virtuously in this life maybe we can live most of our life in such a state of serenity, but what happens when something comes along and pushes our buttons in such a way that we lose our composure and no longer have access to that refuge, that sense of peace? Perhaps becoming so used to it, we are no longer capable of bearing the afflictions and ups and downs of our daily life.
The Causal Cessation of Suffering
So the Buddha rejected these states of samādhi as a path and sought what he called himself the causal cessation of suffering. “I seek to cut off at the root the things that cause me suffering,” and in order to do that he had to understand for himself what actually is suffering. So, it was in the process of this reviewing that attainment of peace which he had already realised and looking into its shortfalls, its shortcomings, that he realised what he called himself the Four Noble Truths and what he called the Eightfold Noble Path.
So what are these Four Noble Truths? The First Noble Truth is the truth of suffering which was an honest appraisal and acceptance of the fact that however we might like to pretend to ourselves that we can avoid suffering, there is no sure way that we can avoid it. Suffering is innate in the fact of being born – we grow old, we will get sick, we will die. Things happen that we don’t want to happen in the life, things don’t happen that we want. It is not possible to avoid suffering. So he made this reflection. That’s quite a straightforward reflection to begin with.
The Second Noble Truth was what then is the cause of suffering? So he looked again. Okay, so we are subject to old age, sickness and death. Things that we don’t want, happen. Things that we want, don’t happen. Is that suffering? Why is that suffering? It is suffering because of attachment to my idea of myself and to these things that arise and pass away. They are not suffering in themselves. It is just a natural order of things. Being born, growing old, getting sick, maybe getting sick is an affliction, but death is an inevitable part of life.
The refusal to accept this as an inevitable part of life, yes, this brings suffering and vexation. The fact that we want something to happen that doesn’t happen is a cause of suffering. The fact that we don’t want something to happen, that happens, is a cause of suffering. Suffering arises on account of attachment to these things which are impermanent, beyond our control, that are conditionally arisen; that is the cause of suffering.
And of all the things that are clung to, what is the greatest attachment of all? Attachment to a sense of self. The idea that it’s all about me. It is this clinging to ideas of self that is the fundamental cause of suffering. And why do we cling to this idea of me? Why do we cling to anything? It’s because we don’t see it as it is. Instead of being able to just allow things to come into our life as it is without clinging, knowing that they will pass away, letting them pass away with a sense of appreciation and gratitude or acceptance if it was unpleasant, we cling to this and we have aversion to that.
Now, looking further into this, where does this attachment come from? It comes from this extraordinarily elaborate idea of me. Where does all that come from? And this is the pinnacle of his insight – whilst he was breaking down this very attachment that causes suffering, he saw what we call Dependent Origination.
Seeing Dependent Origination within our Meditative Experience frees us from Suffering
Now, Dependent Origination is a very simple notion. It is the notion that everything that appears is conditionally arisen. Literally, it states that, “Because of this, that arises”. If there was no cause for its coming into being, it would not come into being. And that seems quite obvious, but do we live according to that? Have we understood this law of Dependent Origination?
Nothing just happens to come into being. Everything that comes into being comes into being dependent upon its cause. So we are, therefore, wrapped up in a causal chain. Because of those causes in the past, these effects appear now. Because of these causes that are produced now, so effects in the future will come into being. His investigation, as will be our investigation of this, was much more detailed than this simplified explanation. We will actually look to see the linkage in this causal chain so we know for ourselves that what is happening now is a result of past causes and what we do now will become the cause for future events, and this is how the present is connected to the past and to the future.
So, casting his mind into the past and into the future from this present moment the Buddha saw this chain of causes in the past which were the result of present effects and how present causes, (which is basically how we react to present effects, i.e. what’s presenting itself now) become the cause for the arising of future events, future effects. At that moment he realised that I am utterly responsible for everything that has appeared in this moment within me, that it only came into being because the condition for it to come into being was present.
And then looking out across the universe and at everything in it, he realised that there isn’t actually a hair out of place anywhere. That everything that has presented itself everywhere has presented itself the only way it could have, because this law of cause and effect, Dependent Origination, is a pure, perfect process. It is not the case that the condition for A will produce B. The condition for A will produce A every time. It is not the case that the condition for B will produce C. What happens, what arises within us, as a material experience, as a mental experience is conditioned by past effects, past causes.
Now we need to understand this in a little bit more detail, and when we understand how the mind arises we will see this process at work. But for now, I want to just briefly explain this understanding that the cause of suffering now is past causes. The way in which I reacted to that which I experienced in the past, has become the cause for that suffering that I experience now. Meeting that suffering now, how I react to it, with attachment or aversion, becomes the cause for my future suffering or not. If I was to cut off at the root the attachment and clinging to that which presents itself now, and allow it to be as it is, there no longer arises in me attachment or aversion that becomes the cause for future suffering.
So this is how he realised that reaching that state of equanimity, accepting that ‘this is what it is’, not only cuts off the affliction caused by that which is already arising but is not the cause for future arising of suffering. We allow the universe to be the way it is. When we first state ‘it is what it is’, it sounds very trite. Does that mean we don’t engage in the process of being alive at all? It’s a lot more, I would say, profound than that. Are you able yet to accept that it is what it is? This is not a statement of resignation, but one of total acceptance that not only sees what is but why it is that way.
So this is the law of kamma – Dependent Origination, that there is nothing that has presented itself in an arbitrary way, there is always a cause for its coming into being. It is not the action that is kamma. It is what prompts it that is kamma. So your display to the world is an expression of kamma, but that which prompts us to act is the kamma. And that volition that prompts us to act, if rooted in attachment or greed or aversion, anger or ignorance becomes the cause of future suffering as well as the suffering it produces in us right now by the fact we’re overcome with greed and craving, overcome with aversion, overcome with ignorance.
It is that not seeing that if I am angry now, it produces suffering now and in the future. It is that not seeing that if I am greedy, if I am full of craving, if I am full of attachment now, it produces suffering now and in the future. It is not seeing that, that causes us beings to continue to cling to these states of attachment and aversion.
While you are desperately wanting something you haven’t got, your desire for it is strong enough that you would forebear the affliction that that craving produces in you now. The agitation of wanting something you haven’t got is bearable on account of your desire for it. Somebody does something wrong to you … your anger and the affliction it produces in you right now by being angry is bearable on account of it being justified because that person did you wrong.
This is ignorance. This is what we call the ignorance that is at the beginning of the chain of Dependent Origination. Because we don’t see the past rolling out in the present, and how the present rolls out in the future, we justify our actions, our craving and our aversion, our judgement, our jealousy, our pride, our ill will. All of these things, however we justify them, are rooted in attachment to our sense of self and our not seeing the effect that it has on us in the future.
Just because you want something, does not mean you will get it. The universe does not work like that. If you wanted what you do not have and there is no condition for it to arise, then there is bound to be disappointment. Wanting what you don’t have is suffering. But if we stop and say, “Well, it’s because of attachment, aversion, ill will that we are suffering. Clinging to these things that are inevitably arising and passing is suffering”, we haven’t seen far enough into the truth of Dependent Origination.
The truth of Dependent Origination is that it is ignorance, i.e. not seeing how things are, that is the cause of clinging, craving, wanting this, not wanting that, aversion etc., and because of this there is this whole causal chain that I have just explained, which is this round of suffering, cause and effect, cause and effect, etc. So it’s not the attachment alone that is the cause of suffering, it is inevitable that we would be attached to these things that we perceive to be ours. It’s the ignorance in that view of me and mine, self and other that is the cause for the arising of attachment. So what do we need to do if we are going to realise the Third Noble Truth, which is the truth of the cessation of suffering? What is the cessation of suffering?
So, the Third Noble Truth is the truth of the cessation of suffering, which is what? At an ultimate level cessation of suffering is Nibbāna, but it’s also the non-arising in us of craving or greed, aversion and ignorance. Digging out the three unwholesome roots of our mind brings about the cessation of suffering not only in the moment, but in the future. How do we bring about the extinction of craving and greed, aversion and anger and the ignorance and confusion that is the root of these other two?
That’s the Fourth Noble Truth, which is the truth of the way or path leading to the cessation of suffering. And that is what became called, even by the Buddha himself during his life, the Eightfold Noble Path, which is the development of, as I explained before, sīla, samādhi and paññā. Paññā is the pāḷi word for wisdom and it is that wisdom that cuts off at the root, the causes of suffering. Sīla is virtue, that is the foundation for concentration, and samādhi is that concentration that gives us the capacity to see how things are. Coming to that understanding of the law of Dependent Origination, cuts off at the root the causes of suffering, and it is because of not knowing the cause of suffering that we continue to end up in such a state of suffering.
I will talk this evening in more detail about this Eightfold Noble Path. There are eight branches to it but they basically break down into these three aspects of virtue, concentration and wisdom. We have previously looked at concentration. How far you can go with concentration, I explained, will depend upon your current non-arising of suffering, how well balanced the aggregates in your body are now and how well-organised your mind is now. If your mind is not well-organised because unwholesome states arise habitually in the mind and the body is disturbed by this, then you would need to do some work to create the conditions for concentration.
Concentration is a conditioned state and it only arises when the condition for it to arise, appears. So whilst you might want to practise your meditation in a straight line, thinking; “I am just going to develop concentration until I realise samādhi”, you might find that you can only go so far before a certain degree of purification of your mind is necessary. And this is where we begin the preparatory work for the practice of vipassanā, in our first efforts to change our negative habit patterns and refine the quality of our mind.
So that’s the ground of our practice. We could spend the whole week developing concentration and I could invite you to come back in the future to practice vipassanā. But what we do now is use what concentration we can to develop what insight we can. Whether or not you’ll get to the point where you can see the links of Dependent Origination arising within you, at this stage maybe not, but hopefully you might see enough of the law of cause and effect to begin your healing process.
So, we start to investigate. How does this body work? How did it come to be the way it is? I am trying to meditate and what I want to do is feel comfortable, what I want is my mind to be settled and yet my mind is charging around like a wild rhino, and my body feels like I am in a boxing ring. Why is it like this?
Maybe we can start to understand and see for ourselves and that will give us some insight. Perhaps the first insight into this law of Dependent Origination might be that it didn’t just happen to be the case that your body is full of pain now and is full of restlessness. If you can’t sit and concentrate now it will be because your chaotic behaviour in the past is conditioning this state you now find yourselves in. If you can sit and concentrate, and you do feel comfortable now, there is a cause for it. That which you brought into this moment from the past is the supporting cause for how you experience this moment.
So, have a break and we’ll take our meditation on one step more – and slowly we will develop our equanimity and wisdom to start the healing process in preparation for further insight work that will eventually culminate in the practice of vipassanā.
