First Tuesday at Berkeley: September 2009
A Trustworthy GPS for the Spiritual Path
Arthur Robinson
November 9, 2009
“How do you know when you are enlightened?” someone asked Ajahn Amaro during the informal tea at 5 PM that began the September Sanghapala First Tuesday Gathering in Berkeley. Ajahn Amaro, accompanied this month by Gunavuddho Bhikkhu and Anagārika Sean, delayed a detailed reply to the Dhamma talk during the more formal part of the evening that began at 7:30 PM and for the moment focused on a story about a new arrival at Ajahn Chah’s monastery in Thailand. The newcomer proudly introduced himself as a stream-enterer (the first stage of Enlightenment in which one is free from the first three of the 10 fetters that bind one to the sensuous world). After replying “In the village I’m from, stream-enterer is another word for a mangy dog,” Ajahn Chah watched the new arrival stomp off in anger. “Well, so much for stream-entry,” he commented in so many words. The lesson is that when one is open to listening, spiritual friendship, along with careful self-examination are the most useful guides for assessing one’s spiritual state.
Tea time was also the occasion for distributing copies of the eagerly anticipated and newly arrived book The Island, an anthology of the Buddha’s teaching on Nibbana, compiled with commentaries by Ajahns Pasanno and Amaro. Additional copies were, of course, available throughout the evening, so none had to leave empty handed. Arrival of the book was the occasion for a short recital of its now notoriously long ten-year history that began when Spirit Rock teacher James Barasz asked for a two-hour presentation on the Pali Canon’s teachings about ultimate reality. The final product features a cover photo of a cloud-filled valley with a single island-like mountain peak rising above the clouds and for those with keen eyesight, Ajahn Amaro sitting on a large but distant rock overlooking the valley. The Island has been available for some time online as a downloadable PDF file, and print copies can now also be ordered on the same Web page.
The back cover is more subtle with a photo of the artic sky in Norway at the time that Ajahn Sumedho spoke the introduction to the book into a recorder. A quote on the back cover taken from Ajahn’s introduction gives the Buddha’s answer in the Sutta Nipata 5.10, (“Kappa-manava-puccha: Kappa's Question”) to a question from the Brahmin student Kappa about the location of an island free from suffering not only points to the book’s title but perhaps summarizes the matter:
“There is an island, an island which you cannot go beyond. It is a place of nothingness, a place of non-possession and non-attachment. It is the total end of death and decay, and that is why I call it Nibbana.”
Ajahn Amaro explained that the island is like “the back wall of experience,” which he likened to the awareness that is prior to experience. At the back wall, the mind no longer appropriates experience by attaching a self to it, and so becoming ceases. When one moves away from the back wall, one falls into the world of delusion, not at all beyond. At the back wall, there is no beyond to go to.
In the Dhamma talk, Ajahn Amaro took up in more detail the question of how to know whether one is headed in the right direction, whether one is really on the path toward liberation. He introduced his answer by telling the story of several would-be visitors to Abhayagiri, who blindly followed the instructions of their GPSs to the extent that they traveled several miles up Tomki Road past the monastery into property that was clearly marked as a ranch and vineyard. Should the vineyard sign have caused a moment’s reflection for those heading toward a Theravadin Buddhist Monastery? No matter, the GPS instructions were to proceed!
These events (and there were several repetitions of this scenario that finally resulted in a “please put up a sign at your gate” email from the ranchers to Abhayagiri) show only too well how the mind can get caught up in views, habits, and the like, how easily we can take opinions, rules, and identities as true, while disregarding what we can observe just by looking around. The bottom line, said Ajahn, is that if you’re aiming toward Enlightenment, don’t trust your GPS.
If the same dangers apply to assessing our progress along the spiritual practice highway, wise reflection, including questions like
What am I taking for granted?
What are the effects of my choices?
What are the results of my actions?
How are they affecting my relationships?
Are they beneficial?
Am I actually enjoying this?
Is it leading to Liberation?
undertaken with deep attention, common sense, and intuitive wisdom, will help keep us on track, provided we have the presence of mind to remember to do it. A spiritual friend can be of considerable help in this regard.
Ajahn Amaro illustrated the benefit of guidance from those farther along the path than we are with the story of an experienced monk who in a state of some exasperation confronted Ajahn Sumedho with the complaint that “I’ve been practicing mindfulness of breathing for 20 years, but I’ve gotten nowhere!” It turns out that the monk was really judging himself by his inability to access the jhana states. Spending his time looking for the sequence of signs he expected to appear on the way to the jhanas, he overlooked the various qualities like patience, resolution, and equanimity that he had in fact developed over these two decades. When reminded that mindfulness of breathing was about attention to one inhalation, then one exhalation, and so on, the monk was able to shift his viewpoint to that of moment-to-moment attention to breathing (being with this breath right now is enough) and thereby to a whole new experience.
Ajahn then raised the question of how to know whom to trust for guidance and suggested that in the “Kalama Sutta: To the Kalamas” (Anguttara Nikaya 3.65) the Buddha addressed this issue with the disarmingly simple approach to testing the words of spiritual authorities, whether they be people, scriptures, traditions, or whatever: try it and see if it works; experience is the final arbiter. Note that this advice does not eliminate the need for authorities but makes a place for them along with self-reliance. In his introduction to the “Kalama Sutta,” Ajahn Thanissaro puts it this way:
The ability to question and test one's beliefs in an appropriate way is called appropriate attention. The ability to recognize and chose wise people as mentors is called having admirable friends. [These are said to be], respectively, the most important internal and external factors for attaining the goal of the practice.
Ajahn Amaro concluded the Dhamma talk with a reference to the Buddha’s statement, “I teach suffering and the end of suffering.” Dukkha is thus a guide, the one fail-safe, trustworthy measure of where we’re headed. For the guide to function, however we need to have the courage to risk asking questions like “Is this leading to confusion, discontent, and dukkha or to usefulness, peace, and the end of suffering.” If we find that the answers are “No,” Ajahn Amaro noted, an old Native American saying tells us what to do: “No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong path, when you find out, go back.”
The next Sanghapala First Tuesday Gathering will be on October 6, 2009, at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery (2304 McKinley Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94703). In addition, the Sanghapala weekly sittings on Tuesdays other than the first, which have been on hold for many months, will begin again on October 13. The meeting time and place are 7:30 PM at Julie Schlein’s residence (1983 Yosemite Drive, Berkeley, CA 94707). The format for the meetings includes chanting, meditation, precepts, and tea with group sharing. The group has no leader and all take turns at the helm, leading the chanting, etc. Please contact Julie at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for more information.