Ch. 22 - The Jungle of Samsara and the Riverbank
Nibbana. Peace. Liberation!
The Desire for Deliverance Draws us On
The Dhamma is the Flavour of Liberation
[This discourse was given on an eight day Vipassanā retreat and elucidates the terrain as we start to move towards an understanding of what Nibbāna might be, why we might seek deliverance from saṁsāra and that this process is a gradual evolution that may take many lifetimes.]
Nibbana. Peace. Liberation!
So where are we at? Now we enter into a very interesting part of the equation. Let me see if I can explain it to you in terms of simile.
So it’s like you’re walking through this jungle but you don’t know where you are. But because you’ve been in the jungle for long enough you’ve kind of got an idea about what you think you’re doing. And then suddenly there’s the Dhamma, telling you that you’re walking through this jungle and you don’t know where you are, and you don’t have any idea what you’re doing. First of all, we might feel, “Great. he’s right, I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know where I’m going, and maybe he’s about to tell me where I am and what I’m doing.”
So you start to practise vipassanā and you break down your idea of how you think everything is and it starts to appear as something that you’re not at all familiar with.
So there you are in the jungle where you didn’t know where you were and you didn’t know what you were doing and you couldn’t see where you were going, but it was okay because you were so used to it.
And then there comes a point where now, you’re in the jungle, you don’t know where you are, you have an idea of where you might be going, but you’re not used to it. So before, when you were in the jungle you were completely lost in the jungle, walking around wondering where you’re going, and that goes on for a very long time.
Then suddenly there’s this sort of direction that’s pointing us to a way out of the jungle, but we can’t see out of the jungle yet, and now it starts to feel less familiar than it did before. This is a very difficult or sensitive phase. There’s a point of course where we get to the edge of the jungle and we see a river, the other side of which is, ahhhh, Nibbāna. Peace. Liberation!
But there’s a point when we’re in the jungle and we can’t see the other side of the jungle and we can’t see the river, the other side of which is the end of our suffering. But we see that everything that we knew is now falling apart, and it’s ‘me’ that’s falling apart, and my world. Everything is breaking apart, dissolving. (bhaṅga ñāṇa)
Now this is the point that I explained to you just now. If you haven’t seen no-self clearly enough when you start to see impermanence, it will not be a relief to you. It will be abhorrent, and this we call nibbidā. Nibbidā means abhorrence.
It’s not yet the bliss at the idea of letting go. You have now to be encouraged to keep going through the jungle, keep going until this mass of arising and passing and the, “I don’t know what’s going on”, starts to become clearer, until you start to see this river.
Now there comes a point, at this stage in the jungle, that your perception of this suffering that I want to end is pushing you, even though it’s a little bit scary where you think you are going.So this is suffering pushing you, but a kind of fear of the unknown is pulling you back. And this is where it’s really important that we get encouraged and we work in the right way and that our insight matures in the right way, to keep going to the point where it becomes, “Hold on, wait a minute. I can see something on the other side of the forest.”
“Wow, it’s clear and it’s light and there’s a river. Wow! And there is something on the other side of it.” Now at that point, the flavour of liberation or peace and the cessation of suffering, rather than an idea of it, but a glimpse of it, starts to pull you. You start to think, “This mass of impermanence, this suffering, whatever, it is what it is, but I’m on the road to the other side of it now.” And this feeling starts to pick you up and this fear of the unknown, this nibbidā, is surmounted and the desire for deliverance draws us now.
The Desire for Deliverance Draws us On
But there’s this difficult phase of realising that we’re in the jungle and we didn’t know where we’re going and we don’t recognise what we’re doing any more, where the self is partially broken down but not enough that we are completely able to let it go. And that is a very challenging time and many people will get somewhere towards the edge of the forest and just jump back and take refuge in what is familiar. And many lifetimes, many lifetimes we hear a bit of Dhamma and we will say, “Well okay, tell me how I can deal with the fact that my business didn’t work out, show me how I can deal with the fact that my brother died in a car wreck, show me how I can deal with the fact that, etc....”
So, if we’re looking for a personal resolution to our problems in the Dhamma, if that’s actually what we want, that’s fair enough. So you hear some Dhamma, it goes in and it shows you that decay is inherent in all compound things, it is the nature of all things to change, they are unreliable, that to accept the way of things is how you should be. And that’s fair enough, and that’s where we will stay for many lifetimes, hopefully prompted to keep our virtue in such a way so we don’t fall into a terrible state of loss. This will remain the case until our insight really matures enough to realise that to not experience suffering is extremely rare.
To not experience suffering is always on account of vast accumulation of merit in the past. “My goodness me, I have no idea how long I have worked for this good fortune that I’m relying on. But truly, it’s not the case that all beings can rely on such good fortune as this, surely it is not the case that I can rely on such good fortune as this in the future.”
So we realise that everything stands upon virtue, and we find it really hard to be as virtuous as we should be, because of this idea of ‘me’ with its personal needs. And now some kind of longing for purity and virtue arises in us that is willing to let go that last proud bit of ‘me’, or what we could call this vanity or this vain attachment to myself. “Only through total virtue, from being really pure in conduct and in heart do I avoid suffering, and I find that really hard. Maybe in the past I must have done very well with that, but I’m challenged – there is too much pride and vanity now.” And so there develops now a willingness and a longing to let it go. There is a delight in the idea of purity, instead of a delight in the idea of personal reward. One sees that in a way that purity is the personal reward, rather than gratification or pleasure.
And now we glimpse across this river at something which is not subject to suffering, not subject to arising and passing away, the idea of that which is not afflicted by this mass of clinging and entanglement. And so we get drawn out of the forest to the edge of the river, and from here, still in this conditioned realm with our virtue intact, our mind almost free of defilements we look across the riverbank to see what we call Nibbāna.
But we only see it from a distance. We cannot experience it or know what it feels like or tastes like. Nibbāna is unconditioned, and we may spend many lifetimes standing on the riverbank, keeping our virtue, delighting in living virtuously, but until we actually realise: “Gosh, whilst I still cling to the idea of myself as a virtuous being, it is really hard to uphold this virtue, and I often fall back and find myself in the jungle and it’s such a struggle to get myself out again. For as long as I cling to this idea of myself, even with all my efforts and total conviction that I long to be a pure and virtuous person, I find it hard to be like that. Maybe I am willing now to let go this residual clinging to this idea of myself and go into that state that is beyond ‘me’, that is beyond arising and passing, that is beyond conditions.”
And so how long we stand on the bank contemplating jumping across to the other side is a very personal experience even though it’s anatta (no-self). Sometimes we will come out of the forest running, “Ah, Nibbāna,” and fall into the river and end up back on the shore because we were running away from our suffering with aversion to it and not enough purity, and we landed in the river and crawled out onto the bank thinking, “Oh dear, I’m still only on this side.”
But one day you look clearly enough into how things are and you will see clearly enough and with a conviction. “This I am willing to relinquish for the experience of the cessation of suffering, to know what is peace here and now.”
And only when you come to the realisation that that peace in the here and now only comes when I am willing to let this attachment to myself go, do we jump and cross the river and land on the other bank.
Because while we think we are jumping across and taking our idea of ourselves with us, we always end up in the river and back on the bank. And how much of you lands on the other bank depends on how much of you is willing to let go.
But this knowing of Nibbāna, this seeing this unconditioned state that is peace, that is not suffering, then becomes your teacher. Before you know Nibbāna, Dependent Origination, arising and passing, impermanence, suffering, no-self, the Dhamma is your teacher, the Eightfold Noble Path is your teacher. Once you see Nibbāna, Nibbāna becomes your teacher, “Because this peace that I know prompts me to continue to bring the rest of me, that is still left on the other side, in stages, across the river.”
So I’ll explain this process over the next couple of days. But what’s very important is that when you start to see impermanence, and you realise you are in the jungle and it’s not clear where the river is yet, whilst you’ve got a sense of, it is only a vague sense that there’s some light over there and that in that direction is the end of the jungle. But while the taste of the peace of it is only distant, there can arise in you this feeling of nibbidā which calls you to turn back towards familiar territory, safe ground, ‘me’ with my attachment to my idea of myself, “I’ll make do with that and see if I can muddle on through.” And then we would stop short, and many times we would stop short.
And this is where the Buddha was such an expert, because he would always find that skilful way of throwing something out that would just prevent the audience from stopping short and bring them to the river to cross over.
The Dhamma is the Flavour of Liberation
And it’s the Dhamma itself that has the flavour of liberation, until we have seen liberation for ourselves. Hearing the Dhamma, reflecting on the Dhamma, seeing the Dhamma, is the first flavour of knowing that there is something cool that is not hot, there is something smooth that is not rough, there is something soothing that is not uncomfortable, there is something peaceful that is not agitated and in that direction we want to go.
So even though we are starting to see that things are anatta (no-self), for you individually it’s a very personal journey. You have to take stock of this, and maybe over a lifetime you will hear the Dhamma many times, coming to a point with it, letting it carry you some way, staying there, falling back, staying there, being satisfied, then not being satisfied.
It’s a very delicate process. It’s not linear. The way in which insight arises, this explanation of vipassanā is quite linear, quite direct. But what we actually go through and how long it takes us, and where we stop for a while along the way to take a breath is not linear, it’s very personal.
So reflect upon this while you are meditating. Sometimes you are illuminated with extraordinary amounts of light that you have never seen before, and the faith and confidence is so strong. And sometimes it’s very dark, because even though your insight’s there, there is all the investment in this idea of me that is being challenged and it can be quite fearful sometimes.
And all of these things we have to surmount with love, kindness and patience. So we bring this clear light of insight everywhere, right the way through every step out of the jungle, it is lit up for us, lit up, lit up, until we’re clear, that that’s where we want to go. My recommendation is at least you work until you get out of the jungle, you see the river, you can see the far shore. I recommend it thoroughly, that you jump headlong across the river and land on the other side!
But I do recommend that when you get into that shaky state in the jungle, this is the time to have faith and confidence because this journey out of the jungle has been walked by others and if it is done by others it can be done by you. So keep, keep going, because you are not way back in the jungle now. And even quite close to the edge of the jungle, at times it can feel dark. Dark as in, I can’t see yet where I’m going. So just keep going…
