Ignorance is the Beginning of the Chain of Dependent Origination
The Beginning of the Chain of Dependent Origination
Ignorance is the Cause of Suffering
The Process of Life is not Personal
Unwise Attention and the Arising of Ignorance Causes us to Experience ‘Self’
[Discourse given on a seven day Vipassana 2011 which introduces how we begin to see dependent origination function as a living process witnessed from within our meditation]
The Beginning of the Chain of Dependent Origination
Perhaps it's worth talking about how you actually start to see dependent origination in your practice. To review:
Paṭiccasamuppāda – Dependent Origination: this is the causal chain of interconnected forces that brings things into being. Furthermore it explains why it is that we cannot break out of the round of life, death and rebirth as an act of will. We are bound to the cycle of saṁsāra (wandering on) by the Law of Dependent Origination and Kamma. It is expressed in different forms in the Buddha’s teachings but the most common formula is :
Dependent upon Ignorance (not knowing truth [impermanence, suffering etc.] or not knowing Nibbāna), wilful/volitional formations (producing kamma) arise (in the mind);
Depending on these wilful/volitional formations (which are clung to by the mind at death), consciousness (in particular the rebirth-linking consciousness) arises (at death);
Dependent on the rebirth-linking consciousness, (kamma produced), mind and matter arise;
Dependent on mind and matter, the six sense bases arise in the body of our next life;
Dependent upon the sense bases, contact (with other objects, external and internal, mental and physical) arises;
Dependent upon contact, feeling arises;
Dependent upon feeling, desire/craving (for the objects producing such feeling) arises;
Dependent upon desire and craving (for objects), clinging and attachment (to such objects) arises;
Dependent upon clinging and attachment (to objects appearing in the mind at death), renewed becoming arises;
Dependent upon renewed becoming, birth arises;
Dependent upon birth, thereafter inevitably follows old age, sickness and death, whereupon the whole process begins again and again and again.
It does not take us very long to learn the links of dependent origination. But in essence it all comes down to the beginning of the chain of dependent origination, where we will see that because of ignorance volitional formations arise within the mind. Once these volitional formations arise within the mind, this becomes kamma, and the process of wandering on, wanders on.
Since our goal is to cut off the suffering rather than just to understand it, we need to go to the beginning, to the root cause of suffering in order to dig it out at the root. The root, the beginning of the chain reaction of suffering is the point at which ignorance arises in the mind. It is not enough to say that because of craving there is suffering or because of aversion there is suffering. We have to see how and why craving and aversion arise in the mind to begin with. We have to see the cause for those states of mind that mean we find our experience to be suffering. The Buddha tells us that all sankhara (volitional reactions of the mind), that create the experience of mental affliction and suffering, arise dependent upon ignorance. When there is no ignorance these afflictive mental states stop arising. So what does he mean by that? He is in essence saying that for as long as there is ignorance there will be suffering. When ignorance ends, suffering will end. If we can dig ignorance out by the root, we will dig out all of our suffering.
So if that is the case, then what is ignorance and what are we ignorant of? This in effect is the question that our entire path and practice sets out to answer. In essence, the Buddha is telling us that it is the ‘seeing’ what we could not see before, that brings our suffering to an end. For as long as we don’t see and know that which before was hidden to us in our unawakened state of mind, we suffer. And as soon as we know, we are free. The seeing and knowing itself performs the function of setting us free. This is what the Buddha referred to immediately after his own awakening when he said, “That for which I came here to do I have done, there will be no more renewed becoming for me.” It is in the seeing and knowing that we free ourselves, and in the not seeing and knowing that we suffer. So what is it that we must come to see and know? It is that very unconditioned state, that state that the Buddha called Nibanna, the knowing of which cuts off at the root our attachment to conditioned states of being and the suffering they cause. The ignorance that is the beginning of the whole causal chain of suffering is the not knowing of the Unconditioned, of Nibanna, of that which is beyond conditioning. In our not knowing we fall into the illusion and delusion of taking conditioned states as ultimate reality and in our clinging to them, we bring ourselves and others to no end of suffering.
Ignorance is the Cause of Suffering
Even though we might look like ignoble beings at times, still prone to craving, anger or ill will, the Buddha teaches us that these negative state of mind are not actually innate in us. These days especially, we may look like we are a particularly unvirtuous species, with so much greed and so much craving and so much ill will and anger present, yet this isn’t our natural state. It isn't actually innate; it is our conditioned state. These states are all conditioned by a cause, and the cause of all unwholesome states is confusion or ignorance, forgetfulness or not knowing. The further we get from the ground of our being, the more we fall into the delusion of taking conditioned states as reality, taking the conditioned mind as ‘me’ and the more we experience and create suffering, i.e. the more greed, craving, ill will and aversion will proliferate.
If we look at life today, although we have been able to build more convenient lives for ourselves in the modern civilised world, there has been concurrent to this, a proliferation of greed, anger and all the sorts of frustration and intolerence that we see now in modern society. There is so little patience or humility and so many poor qualities in our mind, compared to maybe our parents or our grandparents. This is in general, I'm not passing comment on any of us individually. Certainly we see more mental suffering and dissatisfaction, even though we appear to have more.
If we look at our society's qualities and humanity's qualities overall, I think we could say that they are probably less noble than they were one generation ago or two generations ago and yet we consider ourselves to be an advancing civilization. So there's a paradox in that, isn't there? While we're advancing, why are we regressing with regard to things like virtue, ethics and values?
We would like to think that we're becoming more informed, but if we understand the law of dependent origination - that because of ignorance there is craving, clinging, anger, aversion and a whole mass of suffering following on from that - then we might be inclined to think that because we are so much more informed nowadays, there should be less anger, less greed, less hatred, less frustration, less depression than ever before.
But is that the case? If these qualities are actually increasing, then does it not imply that ignorance is also increasing? So then what about this advancement in our knowledge, in our understanding? It doesn't compute, does it?
Perhaps we're not coming to understand anything more at all, perhaps we're coming to understand less. With all this mass of information and all these things that we think we now understand, somehow we're behaving as if we were more and more confused. It's important that we contemplate this. For all our deep investigation and scientific exploration in our efforts to understand the apparent, manifest, conditioned display of reality, we have failed to reach an understanding that would break this chain of dependent origination and the suffering that the Buddha called Samsara. So clearly there must be a difference between our idea of ‘understanding’ and the Buddha’s notion of ‘knowing and seeing’.
Dependent origination tells us quite clearly that our greed and our aversion - and all this mass of unwholesome states that produce the fruiting of unwholesome kamma and suffering - is conditioned by ignorance. And yet we like to consider ourselves less ignorant than previous generations. But are we? What are we less ignorant of?
If we look carefully, we have a far more evolved and complex idea of ourselves and our physical universe than our parents did. And they had a more complex and evolved idea of themselves and their universe than their parents. What is this understanding that we think that we are coming to? In their simplicity, our grandparents did not have as many needs as we do. They didn't get as upset about things, they had far more forebearance and tolerance of hardship. Their patience was considerably greater. They were far more easily satisfied and with much less than we are.
You may say, “Not my grandparents, not my parents,” but generally yes, if you look one generation ago or two generations ago, compared to now, what we need to satisfy ourselves with now is infinitely greater than what they needed. So this evolving idea of ourselves is not contributing in any way to our wellbeing. It seems it is harder to make us happy and less easy to satisfy us. So what then is this ignorance ? Are we more ignorant than they were?
What it comes down to is that we don't pay any attention or when we do pay attention that attention is distorted by the complex of views and habit patterns of our minds. Our capacity to pay bare, uncontrived attention to what's going on is so poor now because our minds are so quickly distracted and we are so restless. And this is it: we are not present. We don't immerse ourselves in the simplicity, the suchness of the very experience that we're actually having. Instead we are so distracted, distracted with ourselves. That's ignorance. We're so wrapped up in this idea of ourself that there is very little of us here when we engage in what we are doing. Not all of us, but generally.
If you look at the way children played thirty years ago, how immersed they would get in what it was that they were doing. Look at how distracted they are now. There is so little of them there. It is this ignorance that is the cause of craving, greed, frustration, anger and aversion. And it's got nothing to do with how much you think you understand. It's about your ability to be there, with what is.
We get confused because we don't see how things are. Normally, we don't see clearly how things are until we really investigate them with discernment, with mindfulness, with concentration. What we are doing here now, practising Vipassana, is trying to do what the Buddha did when he made the determination that he was going to find the cessation of this mass of suffering and would not give up until he found it.
With all his power of insight and discernment, he broke through this compact mass of experience to see this truth of dependent origination. He saw that every aspect of our experience is dependently arising and it was seeing this - which we don't see because we don't pay any attention to it - that caused the fading away and the relinquishing of greed, craving, attachment, aversion, anger and ill will.
So saying we are in an age of enlightenment is a very difficult statement to justify. Is there really any less ignorance? Are we really paying more attention?
Our grandparents knew very little Dhamma, maybe none, but I think they probably paid more attention to what they were doing, and had more time to be with it. They were more present, less distracted and less confused. So we have to spot "Why does this aversion arise in me? Why this greed? Why do I hanker for something that's not there? Why am I unable to be with what is? Why am I so difficult to satisfy, needing so much, so hard to please?"
It's because of this very idea of 'me', and the proliferation of it. The development of it and investment in it until it becomes all encompassing, right at the centre of absolutely everything I do in my search for ‘personal resolution’, my ‘personal’ quest for answers that will satisfy ‘me personally’.
I talk about an evolution out of the fixation with the egoic lower mind to the experience and recognition of higher mind, which is already awake. But it's actually a transition from a spiritually adolescent complex towards adulthood, and it may not happen at all in our life or it may happen very late or right at the end of the life. This spiritual wake up call comes at the point when suddenly we see and realise that life is not about ‘me’, or gradually it stops being about me. That's the point at which we become what we call a 'mature adult' - a functional member of the group, not special and not more important than the next person. We become a contributing, functioning member of the group, rather than this idea of 'special me' wrapped up with this sense of self and all its suffering.
This is what we could call adolescent fixation or some kind of hero complex with a need to be seen, a need to be special rather than a willingness to stand beside the next person as the same. Our ideas of self have become so elaborate, when you think how contrived is the way in which we try to express ourselves as teenagers as we grow up. This is the pantomime we put on for the world, hoping we might be seen as different, as more interesting, as having something more important to say. So long, so deeply do we invest in it, believing that it's all about me!
This is the wrong view, the ignorance that the Buddha is talking about. This fixation with ‘self’ is the ignorance which is the cause of all this greed, craving, clinging, aversion, anger, ill will, frustration, jealousy, pride, arrogance and so on. Because when there's no need to compare yourself to others, when you are merely a functional member of the group, these things will start of fade in you naturally.
So, if we stop and simply say, "There's greed, there's craving, there's anger in me, there's aversion in me, this I should stop, I'll stop that," you will find that you cannot stop it just because you want to. It continues to arise. The only thing you can do is to spot "This anger has arisen and I shall try to make it calm down. This craving has arisen, I shall try to hold back and restrain myself."
This is not the same as the non-arising of greed, or the non-arising of aversion or anger. It's when this sense of 'me' arises in my experience, that I am prone to wanting this and not wanting that. It's when that sense of 'me' has momentarily faded away from my experience that I'm quite happy to engage in the suchness of what's actually there. Just that, needing to add nothing nor take anything away.
Since every moment that you experience contains only what is within it, you won't be happy until what is there within the expereince itself is enough . So the more our sense of self impinges upon our experience, the more our comparison of that experience with what we think we want, how we think it should be, how we think it shouldn't be, will cause us to accept or reject, cling to or dislike what is there.
Ignorance fails to notice that this perception of ‘me’ is a figment of my imagination. This is the ignorance that is the initial cause at the start of the chain of dependent origination. It is not seeing this idea of myself to be an illusion, sitting right there, centre stage, right in the middle of that which I'm experiencing, conditioning how I experience it, smothering it and crowding out its immediacy, its simplicity and its suchness.
The Process of Life is not Personal
It is not easy to see that this idea of 'me' is an illusion. Normally, when we have a problem, when things aren't working well in our lives, we go to someone for advice and they ask us what our problem is. We tell them what is wrong and they help us find the solution to it. And the idea of 'me', that has a problem with how things are, is right at the forefront of the issue. The resolution that we're looking for is personal. But life isn’t persponal. Whilst you might be engaging in a uniquely personal experience of life, life itself is not personal. It is not about ‘me’.
This wrong idea of 'me' is so hard to surmount. It's because it is so hard to see that life is not about 'me' that it is so difficult to free ourselves from the suffering that this craving and this aversion causes. To come out of the suffering caused by being dissatisfied with what is, not wanting what is, wanting what we don't have, is a huge endeavour. And this is why we practise Vipassana.
So, when you come to see "This craving is causing me great suffering and this anger of mine isn't doing me any good," don't be surprised that just seeing that doesn't make it go away. Even telling yourself to stop being angry will not stop you being angry. When you start to understand that your greed and anger are dependently arising, you see that you simply not wanting it to be there is not the condition for it not being there. You see that your ignorance is the condition for it being there.
It is when you remove that ignorance, which is this idea of 'me', from your experience, there will be no cause for the continued arising of that greed, that restlessness, that jealousy, that pride, that anger or that ill will that was the cause of your suffering.
How Unwise Attention and the Arising of Ignorance causes us to Experience ‘Self’
So, we go to the beginning of the chain of dependent origination to try to see "At what point does that ignorance arise in me? At what point does this idea of 'me' smother my experience? At what point does it first start to not be there?"
Now during our meditation, in the moment of being deeply concentrated and attentive with the body as it is; in that moment of being completely present with what you are experiencing, just for a moment there is no gap between the knower, the knowing and the known. We become absorbed in the experience itself. And in that moment of being absorbed in the experience itself, suddenly there is no room for this idea of me to smother it. In that moment of being completely absorbed and present with that simple - apparently irrelevant - experience, equanimity arises momentarily, and momentarily the grasping stops. And that is a milestone.
And you might remember, or you might reflect, "Goodness me, it was like that when I was a child and I was digging that hole in the garden. I spent all morning doing it and I completely forgot about myself. I was so immersed, so completely present with what I was doing that I was utterly satisfied, needing to add nothing nor take anything from that simple experience."
That is actually all that you are doing when you are practising Vipassana. You bring yourself to a point of such immersion in your experience that there's no room for yourself, your ego, your idea of yourself. Now of course, we are also breaking it down into its discrete parts, and seeing that there's no 'me' in the body, there's no 'me' in the feeling, there is no 'me' in perception, there is no 'me' in the reaction. We see this whole process arising conditinally. What we see for ourselves when we pay close enough attention is that whenever there is no reaction (sankhara) there, no perception of ‘me' arises. Whenever I'm just engaging in this experience with equanimity, or when I am truly resting in Awareness itself, the sense of ‘self in the centre of the experience’ is gone.
Similarly whenever I'm not just engaging in my experience with equanimity, whenever any reactive mental state arises, be it some form of craving or aversion, the sense of me appears again. And in that moment the experience is not satisfying. Why does that happen? It happens because when the mind is equanimous the heart base is undisturbed by our reactive mind and bhavanga momentarily stops arising. When bhavanga stops arising, the sense of ‘me’ or self within the experience momentarily fades. It is the momentary arising of bhavanga that prompts the appearance of the illusionary perception of self. We will explore in more detail how and why that is in due course. It will be a central theme throughout the book and a key to unlocking our deep understanding of the Dhamma. For now it is enough to make the reflection, that when the sense of me is present within my experience, I experience a sense of something lacking or wanting more, when the sense of me momentarily fades, in that moment I feel satisfied with the experience and do not experience dissatisfaction or wanting more.
It is this discernment that starts to see and experience that it is true; when the perception of myself and the ideas of myself enter into my experience, that experience becomes unsatisfactory and prone to suffering. When perception of self fades, whatever may be the conditions for that happening, our conflict with the experience fades also, and so too our suffering.
Our goal is to see those moments where there is no ignorance as those moments when the mind is completely undisturbed. You will notice that they could be moments when you're sitting there, and even though your body is quite uncomfortable, and you're hungry and it's lunchtime, and you would normally think about going to do something far more interesting than this, there's a moment when you're completely absorbed in what you are doing and at rest with it, satisfied just to be doing it. Then, some idea of yourself arises and all of a sudden, this mass of restlessness arises, "When's this meditation going to end? What are we going to get for lunch? I'm hungry!" And suddenly, you're not satisfied. This is the insight that starts to impress upon us gradually in stages, that informs us that whenever I smother my experience with my idea of self it is far less easily satisfied. When I can just enter into what I'm doing and be with it, even the simplest things become satisfying, and our hardships become much more bareable.
So it is not enough simply to contemplate dependent origination as "It's because of ignorance - which is not knowing Nibbana, or which is not knowing dependent origination, or not knowing the truth of impermanence, suffering and no self - that there is attachment, craving, greed, aversion and ill will in the mind. Nor is it enough to simply reflect “because the Buddha told us, that if there are volitional formations in the mind at the moment of my death, there will be a rebirth-linking consciousness that will bring about a renewed existence…" We see for ourselves that contemplating it deeply, has changed very little because we are just as prone to aversion, just as prone to attachment, just as prone to restlessness as we were before. In stead we must try to look at what it is we are experiencing. Look at how we are experiencing it, until we see dependent origination. Learn to see this process at work; see how any arising of the sense of self within the experience makes it unsatisfactory. See also how the arising of self is caused by the shaking of the heart base and the arising of bhavanga, triggering and conditioning a chain of conditioned reactions (sankhara) with the unwise attention that follows. When we see that, we will know that it is ignorance that is the fundamental cause of our being dissatisfied. We see that not paying wise attention to what's going on, and being too obsessed with the idea of what we think is going on, is what causes our suffering.
Right there, with the arising of ignorance, come volitional formations and the mass of kamma. With the fading away of ignorance and the arising of wise attention, one abides in a state of equanimity, allowing things to be as they are. This is what the Buddha means by ‘kamma-free’; in that moment neither fruiting more past kamma nor producing more kamma that might fruit in the future. In that moment we abide free from suffering, even if it is only momentarily. Look there and spot that it was the arising of ignorance that smothered our experience. The moment we are fully attentive and with things as they are, we see the experience is complete within itself.
We will not always have to scrutinise our experience in such depth as this, and always have to break it down into four elements and feeling and perception and reaction. Once your mind has seen these things, it knows it as the truth, and it will begin to look out at everything around it and just know it as such. And be with it as such. And be completely immersed and present with it as such. And there won't be any sense of ‘me’ there. And so we finally see for ourself that the experience has not been robbed of something by our absence. We will find it will be deeply enriched by our capacity to enter completely into it, and stay out of the way.
Very good.
It's not difficult to understand when you see things as they are. This delicate moment of the arising or non-arising of ignorance and with it the arising of equanimity or its loss is so key to come to see clearly. This is the delicate area where, if you can truly enter into it and see this dynamic, you will really see that it is the impinging upon your experience with the sense of 'me' or the sense of 'self' that is the beginning of and the fundamental cause of suffering. This is the very direct way to cut off your attachment at the root, with sharp insight, rather than gradually relinquishing it.
Ultimately it is often just our pride, our idea of ourself, that keeps us doggedly hanging on whilst we think we are trying to let go. We like the idea of being free from suffering but we cannot accept the idea of ‘me’ not being there at the centre of the experience of it. It’s not easy, nor is it that complicated once you start to truly see.
