First Tuesday at Berkeley: December 2009

Berkeley Buddhist Monastery

Authentic is the Way to Be in an Imperfect World

From our personal points of view, the world can seem to be imperfect when it doesn’t treat us the way we want it to, whether it’s stormy on a day we had reserved for a picnic or a troublesome relationship with a loved one or an unjust political system. A simple reflection on the fact that our varied desires and needs make it impossible for the world to treat us all the way we want leads to the conclusion that our best chance for happiness lies in some other direction than worldly satisfactions. At the December Sanghapala First Tuesday Gathering in Berkeley, Ajahn Karunadhammo suggested that the term “authenticity” based on “right intention” provides us a clue how to proceed. Ajahn was accompanied on this visit by Ajahn Yatiko and Gunavuddho Bhikkhu. Also present for the informal tea were Tan Gunavuddho’s mother, Anagārika Santussika, and his grandmother, Agnes De Young, who admitted she would not have predicted that her daughter and grandson would become Theravadin monastics.

Dhamma talks at the First Tuesday Gatherings are often inspired by questions that arise during the preceding informal tea, and this night was not an exception. As the senior monk present, Ajahn Yatiko occupied the center seat and presided over the tea. Also as usual, a period of amiable conversation shifted to the application of the Dhamma to practice and daily life, as the monastics responded to questions posed by us partakers of the tea, cheese, and chocolate served in accordance with the proscription against solid foods after the mid-day meal. Working with anger was the theme of several questions, including one toward the end of the tea period expressing a concern about the emotions that arise as the result of perceived injustice and unfairness. When the formal proceedings (chanting, meditation, taking the Refuges and Precepts, and the Dhamma talk) began later in the evening, Ajahn Yatiko and Gunavuddho Bhikkhu had withdrawn, leaving Ajahn Karunadhammo in the teaching seat.

After the formal request for a Dhamma talk, required before Theravadin monastics can expound the Dhamma, Ajahn Karunadhammo confessed that the word “authenticity” kept returning to his attention during the meditation period. Authenticity while facing the hard times of life is difficult in our western culture with its emphasis on consuming and the “consumer ethic.” It is even more difficult during the end-of-the-year holiday season, marked this year by the day after Thanksgiving, now known as Black Friday, on which merchants base their hopes for a shift in the balance book from the red into the black. In contrast to the urge to buy happiness for ourselves and others with goods from the external, conditioned world, a life off authenticity requires moving inward to a quiet sense of stillness where we can reflect on the meaning of our lives and how we are living them.

Ajahn Karunadhammo also revealed that the source of his recollection on authenticity was the tea-time discussion, particularly the question concerning emotions arising in situations perceived to be unfair, which include anger, resentment, and the question “Why does it have to be this way?” During tea-time Ajahn Yatiko had stated that life isn’t always fair and that we have to face up to this fact in a skillful way by first allowing oneself to experience the feelings that arise, then reflecting on why there’s no reason why one should expect the world to be fair, and finally trusting mindfulness to come to a response based on non-harming, honesty, sincerity, and patience in accordance with the karmic principle the good actions lead to good results (although it may take awhile). With this counsel in mind, Ajahn Karunadhammo concluded that the world is not where one should go for refuge and referred us to the Four Noble Truths, which he expressed in this context as (1) the world is inherently unsatisfactory and unstable; (2) we suffer because we are seeking happiness and stability in this world; (3) the way out of suffering is seeking happiness in another way; and (4) the Noble Eightfold Path precisely describes the way out.

The Noble Eightfold path is usually subdivided into three parts: Virtue, Concentration, and Wisdom. These are the qualities we need to cultivate to achieve a peaceful heart. Ajhan Karrunadhammo observed that the second step in the path (Right Intention, which lies in the Wisdom category) is sometimes spoken of less often, but it can be a key to living an authentic life. He explained that despite our practice, we can still have a backlog of unskillful mental habits that make living in the world difficult. Right Intention is the Buddha’s way of helping us to structure our place in the conditioned world. We know what the practices are, but we can lose our way under the weight of our habitual patterns of behavior. Right Intentions provides a set of core values that supports our drive for liberation while living in the world in an authentic way.

Ajahn referred to Sutta 19 (Two Kinds of Thought) from the Majjhima Nikāya (Middle Length Discourses), in which the Buddha divides thoughts into two categories, those leading to affliction of self and others, such as sensual desire (including acquisitiveness) and ill-will (including anger), and those leading to peace and non-suffering of self and others, such as renunciation (including simplicity) and non-harming (including compassion). Guided by Right Intention, when negative thoughts arose, the Buddha realized he had a choice about his thoughts and chose to shift his mind toward positive thoughts.

Bringing the Dhamma talk back to the problem of living in an unfair world, Ajahn noted that renunciation and simplicity have the important sense of a simplifying what we expect from the world in the spheres of work, relationships, and the spiritual life and cultivating a sense of being OK with what we have. With attitudes of kindness and non-contention, we don’t have to fight what is unskillful in the world, but we can make space for letting it be as it is without at the same time condoning it in any way. Accepting the way the world works helps generate loving kindness and compassion, which in turn lead to a long-term contentment when our habitual ways don’t fill the bill and to an internal structure of truth that counterbalances any sense of alienation.

Eventually, Ajahn summed up, we aspire to the unconditioned realm in which these and other skillful means can be set aside, as in the Simile of the Raft (found in Sutta 22 of The Middle Length Discourses), but in the meantime we need to find a place of refuge where we can be content while on the path. With Right Intention, our refuge can be a life of authenticity characterized by the qualities of simplicity and kindness, spaciousness and acceptance with what life offers. And in this winter time of stillness and quiet, we can enter the holiday season with a sense of openness, while taking pleasure in the practices that will take us to our final goal.

At the next Sanghapala First Tuesday Gathering on January 5, 2010, at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery (2304 McKinley Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94703), while the Abhayagiri monastics go into seclusion for their annual winter retreat, we will welcome one or more of the Siladhara nuns (Ajahn Anandabodhi and Ajahn Metta) now in residence at Aloka Vihara in San Francisco. Their visit is a step towards their intention to establish a monastery in a more rural nearby setting in the coming years. In the meantime, the vihara is available this winter for meditation, Dhamma talks, and meal offerings.