Ch. 21 - The Transition from Personality to Soul
The Buddha’s Goal was to Teach the Path Out of Suffering
What Kind of Happiness are We Looking For?
Surmounting Nibbida
[This discourse was given on a week long introductory retreat and is for the purposes of explaining that if we are not ready to relinquish our ego yet, then that is our personal choice and it is not necessarily wrong if we find that we are not ready to do that yet.]
The Buddha’s Goal was to Teach the Path Out of Suffering
Once we’ve got to a point where we start to do that work that constitutes the cutting off at the root our suffering, it can be quite a painful process because it puts us back in touch with those things that have been painful in the past. There may be a tendency to reflect, “I’m not really sure I want to do this.” And that’s quite a reasonable response and I think quite often a number of teachers might be over-zealous in their wanting their students to push through and dig out these roots of suffering and free themselves from the causes of suffering. So I think it’s important that as you start to engage in the insight stages of the practice, you need to have a reference point that gives you peace now.
As we begin to understand what the true cause of suffering is, and to understand what constitutes the way out of suffering, we realise that it is a serious undertaking to get to the causal cessation of suffering. Yet that was what the Buddha taught, that was his only goal. He wasn’t interested in teaching people only the momentary release from their suffering, he was seeking to cut off at the root the dangers, the tendency and propensity within people to get themselves into states of difficulty, misery and suffering. But you start to see, as your insight begins to develop, that it constitutes the letting go of those things that are clung to. All the negative habit patterns of our mind, even though our higher intelligence is able to show us that they aren’t conducive to our well-being, are aspects that are very much part of who we perceive ourselves to be.
So the Path is a soul evolution, if I can use this word soul – and it is not a word the Buddha used – that we go through as we migrate through this round of life after life, deepening our experience or not, coming to fathom things on a deeper level, engaging more deeply into those experiences at a personal level and allowing our hopes and aspirations to be fulfilled at times, to be disappointed at times. This experience of living the life brings with it a certain lived experience and we get to a point as we migrate through this round of being, one life after another, of realising that those things that we sought satisfaction, gratification and happiness in aren’t in fact reliable.
As individuals practising meditation it may have happened to us but it hasn’t happened to everybody. There will be many people who still perceive that the pursuit and gratification of their desires and the acquisition of those things that they want on a material level or the affection and admiration or respect that they seek from others is satisfaction enough. When we are very personality, or very ego focused or very rooted in the lower aspects of the mind, these are the gratifications that give us reward.
But as we evolve out of this personality aspect into what we might call (and again this is not the Buddha’s language) ‘a soul aspect’, as we start to begin to get access to and relate to some higher part of ourselves, we realise that those things aren’t ultimately satisfying. They are just gratifying. And the only thing that needs gratification is the ego or the lower mind. The soul or higher mind does not seek that kind of gratification.
Now how do we begin to access this deeper part of ourselves? The process of life itself and the lessons we learn and the various experiences we meet along the way give us that access in stages. There comes a time when we make a reflection, “It would be good for me to investigate what is this higher way of being.” This is what causes people to come to seek instructions in Dhamma. We begin to be disappointed by, we feel let down by, or become disenchanted by the pursuits of the ego or personality and all the effort that is invested in upholding this personality and how tiresome it ultimately becomes.
The relinquishing of that ego, however, is something of a battle. At what point do we become willing to relinquish this idea of me and my personal pursuit of admiration from others, and all those other things that my idea of myself needs, for what on a higher level I am starting to perceive to be the meaning, or sense of purpose in my life?
So it will start with a process of inner enquiry and questioning and it can start at any time through the life. And at this point we might seek the instructions that help us to untangle the knot that keeps us wrapped up in this ego sense. And those are the instructions you are receiving now as you start to understand what this idea of myself is made up of.
And then, at some point, we will have to make a choice. It will inevitably be the case at some point that we will make reflection, “I’m not sure if I’m really ready to let that much of myself go.” And then we might shrink back. And we shrink back because we haven’t got a significant enough glimpse of that higher, sublime aspect of ourselves. And this is where the way and the timing at which you receive teachings is so crucial.
Because if you receive the instructions in the dismantling of your lower self without any reference point to this higher, more awakened part of you, and if you have no idea what would present itself if you were to let go this ego, it could be a very terrifying thought. So how do you go beyond that point?
Now as I’m explaining this, some of you are just learning for the first time, and some of you will have been doing this for lifetimes and everybody is at a different stage in that transition out of the ego into the soul aspect and into a more exalted state of being, which is a unified state, it is an impersonal state. Now, there are those people that would find the idea of an impersonal experience abhorrent and there are those people who long to get beyond themselves. And how that arises within you is really the testimony of where you are at.
We are not all at the same point. We are not all looking for the causal cessation of suffering. Ultimately that’s what we all long for, but we haven’t all made the aspiration that is what we want. Many of us still have the aspiration for one day to become such and such, that I would want to be this kind of person and that the world would perceive me as that. And that is still the development of our lower mind and our personality aspect that drives us.
So on account of the fact that you are receiving teachings that imply, or lead to and explain the practice that leads to, this causal cessation of suffering and the dismantling of the lower mind and ego, and on account of the fact that some of you, whilst wanting to understand life at that level, have not yet necessarily made an agreement with yourselves that you really want to go fully through that process of dismantling the ego, I want to make this clear to you.
What Kind of Happiness are We Looking For?
You need to start to understand the practice in two ways. When I am asking what kind of happiness are we looking for, when I sit here saying, “May all beings be happy”, when I tell you as the Buddha did that the causal cessation of suffering is happiness, my aspirations for all beings to be happy is that they all realise the causal cessation of suffering, which is Nibbāna. But we might think, “May all beings be happy”, in terms of may all beings get what they want. And that’s quite appropriate as long as people get to a point of wanting things that are not harmful to others and not harmful to themselves.
On the first evening I gave a discourse about sīla, about virtue, about how it is the fundamental, most significant part of your practice. This is to make a categorical, deep aspiration and commitment to live virtuously. Because if you still want to play out the personality thread, and be free from danger, you have to be utterly committed to harmlessness towards yourself and others.
This personality focused existence and all its attachments and elaborations is what causes us to get into so much trouble. At a soul level we would never choose to do things that are negligent, harmful, selfish, inconsiderate etc. At a personality level, because of what our wants are, our desires override our deeper knowledge of what is right and wrong and so we do get ourselves into trouble.
So if we are, for a while longer (instead of taking the path that seeks the total transcendence of this personality aspect) going to continue to live at a personality level, then we need to be committed to our virtuous code of conduct in the daily life. And that’s okay because, as I say, this is a deep evolution of our being and no teacher can stand here and impress upon anybody the urgency of doing this or doing that – you are at where you are at.
It would be like a parent telling an adolescent or a child to grow up without realising they are not yet ready to be an adult. Growing up is part of life, and at a soul level the evolution into full maturity may take many lifetimes. You have to make your peace with who you are, as you are, and allow yourself to evolve with love, not just because someone says this is what I think you ought to do. So you have to make your deep connection to the teachings that you receive here and allow them to resonate with who you are. And then apply those teachings appropriately.
And there are two kinds of happiness – there is happiness in the here and now and there is happiness in the future and the feeling of relief in the knowledge that the future is free from danger. It is happiness that is free from future suffering that is ‘the causal cessation of suffering’. Literally, we mean, “There remains in me no cause for future suffering.”
The Buddha realised his enlightenment under the bodhi tree on that night twenty five centuries ago, when he emerged from his meditation, having broken through this round of saṁsāra (this causal chain that binds us into suffering existence life after life). He broke through into what we call the deathless state, this state of the unconditioned, this state of Nibbāna. And he emerged from his meditation and made a reflection, “That which had to be done by me has been done.” He knew in that moment of complete release that he was free from all danger. There was no possibility that he would ever come to suffering again, he had freed himself from the causes of suffering.
But of course, in doing so he had let go all of his lower mind and freed himself from all egoic ideas of self. So no sense of pride would have remained, he would have experienced no sense of personal achievement because those are the elaborations of the lower mind. But the deep sense of release that the soul has, knowing it is freed from that bondage of attachment to all the elaborations of this lower mind, is the most complete release that one will ever experience. This is the securing of our welfare in the future. It is no longer possible for the mind to produce an act of kamma that would lead to a woeful existence, that would cause one to be born into the state of suffering. And eventually it comes to the point where it is not possible for one to produce the kamma that would cause one to be reborn into this conditioned realm of existence again.
So that’s the culmination of the Buddha’s path and within that, as we work our way along this path, through the refinement of our being, through the gradual letting go of the gross aspects of our ego-personality, as we refine that, as we become a more virtuous person at a lower level, there comes a time where we might say, “This job is a serious undertaking and I seek a refuge, and a happiness in the here and now.” And that is a valid response.
So this is why, while you are meditating, while you are reviewing the instructions that I am giving you, I give you the transmission that gives access to the state of pure awareness. This is an aspect of your mind that is not impinged upon by the elaborations of your lower mind. While you rest in that stillness as a calm abiding, you experience a peace in the here and now, even while you have not cut out at the root the propensity within you to cause suffering for yourselves and others. Similarly when you practise loving kindess with a really calm and open heart, you experience peace and happiness in the here and now without having cut off at the root the propensity within you to bring yourself to suffering.
So understand what you are being taught here in two ways: First, there is that practice that is for the purposes of serenity and the feeling of peace now, you should learn to find your refuge within that. Secondly, there is that work, that effort, that is put forth in a timely way to gradually cut off at the root the attachment to self at a lower level, which carries with it its dangers. If you do not have that refuge, that access to this higher state of your mind, that innately peaceful, deeper part of you that is already within, but just obscured, then as you start to dismantle that ego, if there isn’t any other reference point than to that ego itself, it’s inevitably the case that we get to this point of feeling overwhelmed that everything should be so impermanent and that there is no refuge for the ego anywhere.
Surmounting Nibbida
This is a stage we call nibbidā in the practice of vipassanā, where everything appears to be abhorrent. It is a state that everyone will get to along the path. Once you have perceived things to be arising and passing away, once you have perceived the dissolution of all those things that you previously perceived to be tangible, things that you can grasp and hold on to, when you perceive the very things that you sought comfort and refuge in to be falling away before you; the normal response to that is one of abhorrence. It is a milestone, an evolutionary turning point in the face of that truth, or we turn back and once again seek refuge in the ego. If we go on and don’t turn back the next stage on the path is to get to this stage of deep equanimity towards formations, which brings an overwhelming feeling of peace and relief, because we’ve let go of the clinging.
So whilst we still cling, impermanence produces a sense of abhorrence. Once let go, impermanence gives this extraordinary feeling of release. “Wow, there was little point in holding on to that, because it was always impermanent.” But until you can perceive where it might leave you if you do let go, it is quite a fearful experience. This happens in everybody at some point, and it can be overwhelming if you do not have a refuge of peace in samādhi, or the practice of loving kindess, or more importantly recognising that that is not your mind as such that is experiencing suffering but only your ego or idea of self.
Our true nature of mind is just awareness itself, which is utterly unimpinged upon, no matter how impermanent everything is. If we do not have that access to that basic, pure state of mind then it is a frightful battle that we have between this holding on for dear life to this ego and this realisation that we have to let it go, to go through to that state of saṅkhār’upekkhāñāṇa, which is the highest stage of the vipassanā practice prior to the realisation of Nibbāna. We have to have a refuge that will prompt us, there needs to be a blissful feeling of joy to apprehend impermanence from, because if we apprehend impermanence with a sense of woe and foreboding in our mind, the mind is shrunk and our unwholesome mind-door is open.
The path to deliverance from suffering is not a path of suffering, it is the path out of suffering. This is so often misunderstood. There is often a misunderstanding that there needs to be a gnashing of teeth along the way. But it is the path out of suffering. The wholesome mind-door must open as we look at what was the cause of our affliction, bliss arising within us and joy and a sense of happiness. So if one does not have that bliss at the sense of release, the mind shrinks and will never get beyond nibbidā. And then we are left with nothing to do but tolerate this oppressive state of impermanence instead of be liberated by it.
So be sure that you put enough time into developing your happiness in the here and now, through the practice of loving kindess, through the practice of resting effortlessly within yourself in that clear state of mind, so that you know that that will always be there when you do finally let go what the ego is clinging to. And this is so key, because I have met people who have been practising vipassanā twenty years, thirty years and they are battling away with it as a sense of duty that must be performed, because all they can perceive is the suffering that they’re going to come to if they don’t let go. Yet they can’t let go because it’s such a terrifying thought.
Put in enough effort, balance your practice between that serenity and insight. Develop that peaceful abiding that brings happiness now, so that you can recognise that the pure state of mind, that state of pure awareness was always there. It was there when you were born, it will be there when you die, and it has never been anything but perfect. It is only that lower mind and its sense of self that has gone through this suffering so that you know when you let go that ego, that personality, that lower mind, it’s only to come to rest in that blissful state of ease that has always rested in the background. Then when you approach the total dissolution of things, when you see impermanence, really see it, your mind will gladden. You will think, “Truly, it’s time for me to let go,” as opposed to this nibbidā that causes you to shrink back.
Now I am saying this now because this is such an important understanding. You may never come on retreat again with me, and you may go off and may seek other teachers and they may teach you how to practice vipassanā and they may not explain this to you. So that when you get to that point where the window of opportunity to let go presents itself and you feel afraid, you may shrink back and say, “No, despite all the effort that I have put into this, it’s not for me,” then only, in the next life, to do it again and again. This is the most important discourse you’ve ever heard, or that you’ll certainly hear from me on this retreat.
Listen to it again. This is beyond where most of you are practising, take a recording of this home and every now and then when you practise the basic practice that you are learning here and you remember stillness in the morning and you start to fathom really what this is, and you practise loving kindess and you review impermanence through your body and in your mental states, play this every now and then, just to bring back your understanding. And your understanding of what I have just explained will deepen over months, over the years and hopefully you’ll make blissful progress rather than painful progress.
