As If Struck by Two Darts

One time the Buddha spoke to the monks about how both those who had no knowledge of the teachings and those who were knowledgeable experienced pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. What was the difference between the untaught person and the well-taught student?

The Buddha explained that when a person who did not know the teachings underwent painful feelings, this person would become sad and extremely upset, and lament what had happened to him. So this person would feel the pain both physically and mentally. It would be like throwing a dart at someone and then immediately throwing a second. Struck by both darts, the untaught person first would feel the bodily pain and then would become upset and grieve. Thus, he would experience two kinds of feeling: the physical pain and the mental realization of pain.

Feeling pain, this untaught person resents and fights that pain. Seeking to end the pain, he seeks to overcome it with sensual enjoyment—his only known way of relieving painful feelings. But the enjoyment of sensual happiness leads to further craving for such happiness, because he does not understand the feelings or the dangers of his habitual way of reacting to these painful feelings. Such a person also reacts out of ignorance to feelings that are neither painful nor pleasant. So whether the feeling is pleasant, painful, or neutral, this person acts out of, and is thus bound by, ignorance. Birth, aging, death, pain—all suffering binds one who is untaught.

But the well-taught student does not react with sadness and despair, does not bemoan his condition or become upset. This student understands the suffering is physical, not mental. Such a student is like one who is struck by the first dart, but not the second. Experiencing the physical pain, but not the mental pain, this person does not feel despair or grief, does not lament what has happened.

This well-taught student knows the physical pain is there but does not resent it. So he does not fight that feeling in his mind. He does not need to seek sensual happiness to alleviate the painful feeling because he knows a better way to react to such bodily feelings. By not seeking sensual happiness, he does not fall prey to craving. Such a student understands the dangers of reacting imprudently to painful feelings. He does not even react out of ignorance to neutral feelings. So whether the feeling is pleasant, painful, or neutral, this person is not bound by them. Whether birth, aging, death, or pain—the well-taught student remains unfettered.

The Buddha said that this was the difference between the untaught person and the well-taught student in regards to pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings.

I Didn't Mean It

We don't wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “Today, I'm going to be selfish and inconsiderate. I’m going to ignore the feelings of others.” We don't consciously make the decision to do this. And yet throughout the day, we act selfishly in so many ways.

We don’t write that letter to a friend, even though we know he is looking forward to hearing from us. We again postpone that trip to the library to return that best-seller that we took out, even though we know someone is probably waiting to read it. We go shopping with one friend forgetting that we had already told another we’d go with her.

Neither do we wake up and say “Today is the day I'm going to make someone suffer.” And yet that’s what we do—cause pain.

We don't turn the heat down because we'd be uncomfortable if our home was colder.  So we contribute to global warming and people in Bangladesh who never used a light bulb are told their land is being eroded due to planetary warming from carbon emissions. We don’t visit our friend in the nursing home because we’re busy, and so they are alone and feel forgotten.

We get trapped by our habits, our personal inertia, and our wish for comfort.

We don’t mean to be selfish or unkind. But too often, we are.

True Benefit, Part Two

If the Buddha’s teachings are not integrated into our minds, and our minds are still dictated by our afflictions and habits, what is the use of chanting the sutras? Only our verbal karma is good; whereas our minds and behavior still remain unimproved. So while our chanting does plant a seed in our Alaya consciousness, the seed is dormant for now. But even though the benefit is small and not immediate, it is better to chant a sutra than not to chant at all.

Whether you chant with a focused mind or with a wandering mind, you will plant a seed in your Alaya consciousness. If you chant with a focused mind and with sincerity, the vitality of the seed will be strong. If you chant with a wandering mind or with reluctance, the vitality of the seed will be weak.

~ Based on Ven. Master Chin Kung's 2003 lecture series on the Amitabha Sutra

"On Hallowing One's Diminishments"

 

"One might say with the Buddhists, that this is an important form of "mindfulness" and try and cultivate the inner posture in which such consciousness can be relatively sustained. Consulting the dictionary I find that for the word "hallowing" the following definitions are offered: 'make holy or set apart for holy use, consecrate; to respect greatly; venerate." It was a new and most encouraging idea to me - that one's diminishments could be "made holy," "consecrated," "respected greatly," even "venerated."

I saw that the first step for me in learning to "hallow" the progressive diminishments in store for me was deep-going acceptance. But the acceptance would have to be positive, not a negative one, if it were to be a real hallowing. I must learn to do something creative with it." *

On her blog “Casaubon’s Book,” Sharon Astyk writes:

“[W]e can come to recognize that sometimes, the point is not whether we can alter events, but how we face them. We can find meaning, even when we cannot change things, in our ability to shape the meaning of things - to do right, even when the right thing is not enough, to face even very hard times with courage and honor, even though it won't make the hard times go away to do so.

Yungblut was writing about Parkinson’s.

Sharon is writing about peak oil, water depletion, and climate change.

We can fight and rail against the things in life that feel so unfair. We can slip into pretending they don’t exist. We can give up in despair. Or we can turn around to face that horror and work to understand why it is so terrifying and how we can face it with honor.

What we are facing are the consequences of our own past actions and decisions. Initially we were unaware of what was happening, but now we know. We have been using up our natural resources and now they are running out. We have exported our style of living through movies, television, and other media. Now people around the world want to live like Americans do. But the reality is that Americans can no longer live as Americans do. The longer we delay making the necessary changes, the harder it will be to face them.

Previously, we did not think of what we were doing. Now we have come up against the reality of our actions. We can postpone what needs to be done or just make token efforts at making some changes. If we fail to make the big changes—the challenging changes—our children and grandchildren will have to try to inhabit a world terribly different from the one we were so privileged to enjoy.

If we can hallow our diminishments, we will find some benefits—a sense of community, a sense of family, a sense of having tried to do the best thing when we realized we had done some of the worst.

If anything in what I have written here strikes a cord, please read Sharon's blog entry "On Hallowing One's Diminishments." She speaks the truth with humanity and eloquence.

* “On Hallowing One's Diminishments,” by Quaker writer John Yungblut

True Benefit, Part One

We want to emulate Buddhas. We should ask ourselves if we are constantly thinking of or observing Sakyamuni Buddha or Amitabha Buddha. Neither Buddha is in this world. How do we observe them? We study the sutras, which have very clear descriptions of them. We can observe their behavior by studying the sutras.

What were the mindsets, attitudes, and behavior of Sakyamuni Buddha and Amitabha Buddha when they were interacting with the people they met; with heavenly and earthly spirits, ghosts, and deities; and with all beings? All beings include the environment, plants, minerals, and natural phenomena, which are formed when many conditions meet. We should learn from these two Buddhas, because their mindsets, their attitudes, and their behavior are pure and correct. They hold correct views, not deviated ones. They are awakened, not deluded. And they maintain a pure mind, not a polluted one.

We chant the sutras every day, but we usually do so with our mouths only, so we do not benefit from our chanting. The ancient sages often taught that when we chant a sutra, our minds should focus on the sutra and absorb the words to truly benefit.

~ Based on Ven. Master Chin Kung's 2003 lecture series on the Amitabha Sutra