First Tuesday at Berkeley: August 2009
Just Who Do I Think I Am, Anyway?
Arthur Robinson
September 24, 2009
A joke about an over-entitled airline passenger at the check-in counter trying to get a better seat ends with the passenger asking the gate attendant imperiously “Do you know who I am?” At which point, the attendant picks up the PA telephone and calmly announces “There is a passenger at the podium who does not know who he is. Is there somebody here who can help him out?” More often than not, we think we know all too well who we are and unlike the passenger, we don’t like all that we see. At the monthly Sanghapala First Tuesday Gathering in Berkeley on August 4, Ajahn Amaro explained how a patient examination of what actually is so about ourselves can place us firmly on the road to liberation, a much more welcome reward than an aisle seat on a crowded jetliner. Ajahn Amaro was accompanied by Ajahn Yatiko, Bhikkhus Cunda and Kaccāna, and Anagārika Sean.
The theme of Ajahn Amaro’s Dhamma talk was inspired in part by a question asked during the informal tea at 5 PM that begins each First Tuesday Gathering. The questioner judged that “all my personal relationships have been shallow and failures” and was looking for a way to address this perceived insufficiency. Ajahn Amaro recommended that the questioner begin by being aware that the judgmental conclusion was “just” a perception: “This is how life feels.” In other words, we start by learning through watching our experience what the material is that we’re working with. Watching in this way leads to the ability to recognize such judgments as thoughts that come and go, nothing more than stories that one tells oneself repeatedly, so that they become patterns. Noticing that the pattern is not present much of the day further robs it of its solidity. Extending the investigation to all the statements one uses to characterize oneself results in the realization that what I think I am is often just a collection of patterns, which themselves are not permanent and are subject to change. In this way, ease and compassion can arise out of simply watching; one can be at home with oneself whatever arises.
In his Dhamma talk, Ajahn Amaro elaborated on the theme of how we see ourselves by weaving together the concepts of self-perception, patience, impermanence, and not-self into a path culminating in liberation. We learn early in life, and unthinkingly continue the practice, to make statements about who and what we are based on convention and perceptions. “I am American; I can’t meditate well; I don’t like vegetarian food” and on an on. We repeat our names, qualifications, family roles, and the like until they become taken for granted. Then we say “I can’t change who I am!” What we fail to see is that by taking these conventional truths as absolute, we are inviting discontent, insecurity, incompleteness, and alienation, in other words dukkha.
The Buddha, said Ajahn Amaro, placed this kind of self-view (sakkāya-ditthi) at the top of his list of 10 fetters that bind us to the wheel of existence. Liberation from this fetter begins with the realization that all statements that begin with “I am” are constructed views based on conventions of society or habitual behavior patterns. Be suspicious whenever you hear “I am,” Ajahn recommended. In more than one Sutta, the Buddha discussed conceit (māna) based on judgments about oneself relative to someone else. Whether we judge ourselves better, the same, or worse and whether we actually are better, the same, or worse, it is all conceit. Moreover, such conceiving is like a poisoned arrow, an affliction because reality cannot be contained in words, as stated for example in the Samyutta Nikāya (The Grouped Discourses) 22.49 Soṇo Sutta:
"Whatever recluses and Brahmans, Soṇa, [the householder’s son] hold views about the body, which is impermanent, unsatisfactory and subject to change, such as 'I am better [than you],' 'I am equal [to you],' or 'I am worse [than you]' [likewise 'feeling,' 'perception,' 'mental formations,' 'consciousness'], what else are they but folk who do not see things as they really are?
The road to liberation continues with recognizing that all the conventional truths we hold about ourselves are habits created over a lifetime. There is no personal fault in this regard; it is the same with all human beings who are dissatisfied with “this” as it is now and look toward “that” in the future. But to free ourselves we need to put a little bit of distance between us and the momentum built up over the years that pulls us toward an ever newer and better “self construction,” the momentum of bhava (becoming). The same process even operates in our spiritual life as, for example, when we look forward to the next retreat to finally get down to real practice and really become more spiritual rather than experiencing the present as it is.
At this point, patience enters the picture. Rather than a begrudging acceptance of ourselves in a unhappy state, patience entails a liberating just seeing, just feeling, just knowing what is so right now without leaning into the future. Ajahn quoted the late Master Hsuan Hua of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas along the lines of: “Patience of non-production means a mind not creating anything, a mind not leaning toward the future.” Patience as a tool for working with self-view means letting go of time, not always so easy to do, as Ajahn reminded us with a quotation taken from “The Dry Salvages,” the third of the poet T.S. Eliott’s Four Quartets:
“Men's curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
In a certain sense, however, we are in fact always exhibiting a kind of patience. Ajahn recalled Ajahn Sumedho’s telling of a meditator with legs on fire and back wracked in pain complaining “I can’t bear it!” Actually, while complaining, the meditator was in fact bearing it moment by moment. Seeing this and letting go of time and the consequent fear of the future results in a spaciousness, even as the discomfort persists on the physical level. This is a tough message to absorb in today’s culture with its “I want it, and I want it now” mentality as exemplified by an electronics advertisement Ajahn saw in an old Time Magazine “Take the waiting out of watching.” The voice of Mara, indeed, he commented.
Further unpacking the virtues of patience, Ajahn Amaro referrred to the Buddha, who once told an assembly of 1250 arhats that patient endurance is the supreme practice, and to Ajahn Chah, who would repeatedly ask complaining students, “Can you endure it?” When the student found that it was in fact possible to endure it, s/he experienced the truth of Ajahn Chah’s statement that patience is the mother of all virtues because it opens us up to a deeper resource that we can draw on. We find that our heart is bigger than we thought and exhibits a strength and stability derived from a growing groundedness and non-reactivity. And we find an increase in our capacity to let go, an act of self-surrender and the essence of insight meditation.
Fleshing out this last point, Ajahn Amaro referred to Meghiya, a monk who thought he was ready for some serious meditation in a secluded mango grove (as told in Udana (“Exclamations”) 4.1 Meghiya Sutta: About Meghiya). Refusing to be discouraged by the Buddha, after the traditional three requests, Meghiya headed for the mango grove but soon found hinmself assailed by unskillful thoughts and was unable to settle down. Returning to the Buddha, he was instructed on how to patiently develop the maturity needed for meditation practice, which itself concludes with the perception of impermanence and the consequent removal of the conceit “I am.”
For when one perceives impermanence, Meghiya, the perception of not-self is established. When one perceives not-self one reaches the removal of the conceit “I am,” which is called Nibbana here and now."
The next Sanghapala First Tuesday Gathering will be on October 6, 2009, at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery (2304 McKinley Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94703).