Being Nobody, Going Nowhere: Meditations on the Buddhist Path
By Khema and Zoketsu Norman Fischer
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About this ebook
Khema
Born in Berlin in 1923 to Jewish parents, Ayya Khema was educated in Scotland and China and later emigrated to the United States. The author of twenty-five books, she was ordained as a nun in Sri Lanka in 1979 and established several Buddhist centers, including Wat Buddha Dhamma in Australia, Parapuddua Nun's Island in Sri Lanka, and Buddha Haus in Germany. In 1987 she coordinated the first-ever International Conference of Buddhist Nuns. She passed away in 1997.
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Being Nobody, Going Nowhere - Khema
PREFACE
THIS IS A SIMPLE BOOK for ordinary people who want to find greater happiness and contentment in their lives by following a spiritual path. The Buddha’s path is simple and meant for ordinary people; anyone with goodwill and determination can follow its steps toward freedom of heart and mind. Both heart and mind have to be involved in this journey toward liberation from the self.
The mind understands and concludes, connects and discerns, whereas the heart feels.
When our feelings become free of emotional reactions and dwell in love and compassion as their natural abode, our mind will be open to the great truths of universal significance. And the more we refer to these truths, the closer we will get to spiritual emancipation. Hopefully this book can help to point out some steps on the way, according to the Buddha’s teaching, and facilitate the journey.
A ten-day meditation course in Kundasale, Sri Lanka, was the venue for the talks that are published here. Although my name appears as the author, this book could never have been assembled without the help and support of many people, each making their own special contribution.
The students on the course provided the impetus for the talks, and their questions occasioned many of the points mentioned. Stanley Wijegunawardena was the manager and convener of the course and without him this book would not have been possible.
Barbara Raif transcribed the tapes and Sister Sanghamittā typed the first edited version. Sister Vayāmā proofread the manuscript. Katja and Amāra looked after my physical well-being, and Helga gave me massages and moral support.
All the supporters in Sri Lanka, especially Mr. Arthur de Silva, made it possible for me to have the peace and quiet in my hut to attend to this book.
How can I show my gratitude? If this book helps even one person to find their path to freedom, the effort will have been amply rewarded.
Ayya Khema
Parappuduwa Nuns Island
Dodanduwa, Sri Lanka
1
MEDITATION — WHY AND HOW
WHY IS MEDITATION SO IMPORTANT? You must have realized that it is, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. I’d like to emphasize that meditation is not just something extra to be done in our spare time, but is essential for our well-being.
One of our human absurdities is the fact that we’re constantly thinking about either the future or the past. Those who are young think of the future because they’ve got more of it. Those who are older think more about the past because, for them, there is more of it. But in order to experience life, we have to live each moment. Life has not been happening in the past. That’s memory. Life is not going to happen in the future. That’s planning. The only time we can live is now, this moment, and as absurd as it may seem, we’ve got to learn that. As human beings with life spans of sixty, seventy, or eighty years, we have to learn to actually experience living in the present. When we have learned that, we will have eliminated a great many of our problems.
How simple it sounds; how difficult it is. Anyone who has been trying knows that. Those of you who haven’t tried yet will certainly find out. Such a simple premise and not at all easy to do. There’s no other way to learn to live each moment except through meditation. Meditation has other aspects and facets that also help us to do that.
We are all quite able and efficient in looking after our bodies. We wash them at least once a day, probably even more often. We go out with clean clothes. We rest our bodies at night. Everyone has a bed. We wouldn’t be able to stand up to the strain of living if we didn’t also rest. We have a house where we shelter the body from rain, wind, sun, the heat, and the cold. We wouldn’t be able to function well otherwise. We feed the body with healthy nourishment, not with anything that we would consider poison. We give it the food we consider good for us, and we exercise it. At least we walk. If we didn’t, our legs would atrophy and we could no longer use them. Exactly the same has to be done for the mind.
In fact it’s even more important because the mind is the master and the body is the servant. The best servant in perfect condition, young, strong, and vigorous, having a weak and dissolute master who doesn’t know what to do, will not be able to work satisfactorily. The master has to direct the servant. Even when the servant isn’t so strong and vigorous, if the master is efficient and wise, the household will still be in order.
This mind and body is our household. If this inner household is not in order, no outer household can be in order. The one we live and work in is dependent on the order that we have created in our own inner household. The master, the one in charge, has to be in the best possible condition.
Nothing in the whole universe is comparable to the mind or can take its place. Everything is mind-made. Yet we all take our minds for granted, which is another absurdity. No one takes the body for granted. When the body gets sick, we quickly run to the doctor. When the body gets hungry, we quickly feed it. When the body gets tired, we quickly rest it. But what about the mind? Only the meditator looks after the mind.
Looking after the mind is essential if life is to grow in depth and vision. Otherwise life stays two-dimensional. Most lives are lived in the realities of yesterday and tomorrow, good and bad, I like it
and I don’t like it,
I’ll have it
and I won’t have it,
this is mine and this is yours.
Only when the mind is trained can we see other dimensions.
The first thing we need to do with the mind is wash it, clean it up, not only once or twice a day as we do for the body but in all our waking moments. In order to do that, we have to learn how. With the body it’s very simple, we use soap and water. We learned to do that when we were small. Mind can only be cleansed by mind. What the mind has put in there, the mind can take out. One second of concentration in meditation is one second of purification because, luckily, the mind can only do one thing at a time. Although, as the Buddha said, we can have three thousand mind-moments in the blink of an eyelid, we don’t usually have that many and we don’t have them all at once. Mind-moments follow each other in quick succession but only one at a time.
When we concentrate, the five hindrances, our defilements, don’t get a chance to arise because the mind can only do one thing at a time. And as we get better at enlarging our periods of concentration, the mind gets cleansed of its rough spots.
Our mind, that unique tool in all the universe, is the only one we have. If we owned a fine tool we would obviously look after it. We’d polish it and remove any rust. We’d sharpen it, we’d oil it, and we’d rest it from time to time. Here we have this marvelous tool with which everything can be accomplished, including enlightenment, and it’s up to us to learn to look after it. It won’t function properly otherwise.
During meditation we learn to drop from the mind what we don’t want to keep. We only want to keep in mind our meditation subject. As we become more and more skilled at it, we start to use the same faculty in our daily lives to help us drop those thoughts that are unwholesome. In this way our meditation practice assists us in daily living and our attention to wholesome thoughts in everyday life helps our meditation practice. The person who becomes master of his or her own thoughts and learns to think what he or she wants to think is called an arahant, an enlightened one.
Don’t be surprised if this letting go of thoughts doesn’t work all the time; it will surely function some of the time. It is an immense release and relief when one can think, even for one moment, what one wants to think, because then one has become master of the mind instead of the mind being the master of oneself. Being involved in whatever thoughts arise, unhappy or happy ones, in constant flux and flow — this is what we learn to drop when we manage to stay on the meditation subject.
Our second step is exercising the mind. An untrained mind is like a wavering, fluctuating mass that runs from one subject to the next and finds it very difficult to stay in one spot. You have probably had the experience when reading a book of coming to the end of a page and, realizing you don’t know what you’ve just read, having to read the whole page over again. The mind has to be pushed to stay in one spot, like doing push-ups, like weightlifting, developing muscles in the mind. Strength can only come from exercising the mind to do exactly what one wants it to do, to stand still when one wants it to stand still.
This also creates power in the mind because it’s connected with renunciation, with letting go. All of us, not being arahants, have sizeable egos. The me
and mine
syndrome and if you please, I’ll keep it and you stay out
attitudes create all the world’s problems. We can only be sure that the ego is affirmed when we’re thinking, talking, reading, seeing a movie, or using the mind in the interests of ego. The great renunciation that arises in meditation is to drop all thoughts. When there’s nobody thinking, there’s no ego confirmation.
To start with, dropping thoughts will only be possible momentarily, but it is a step in the right direction. The spiritual path is all about letting go. There is nothing to achieve or gain. Although these words are used frequently, they are only ways of expressing ourselves. In reality a spiritual path is a path of renunciation, letting go, constantly dropping all we have built up around ourselves. This includes possessions, conditioned habits, ideas, beliefs, thinking patterns. It is difficult to stop thinking in meditation because that would be like renunciation, and it is a moment when the ego doesn’t have any support. When it happens for the first time, the mind immediately reacts with, Oh, what was that?
— and then, of course, one is thinking again.
To be able to keep the mind in one spot creates mind muscles, gives the mind strength and power. The teaching of the Buddha is profound and extraordinary, and only a profound and extraordinary mind can actually understand the inner vision of what he meant. Therefore we need to train the mind toward that goal.
The body’s strength makes it possible to accomplish what we set out to do with the body. The mind’s strength makes it possible to do the same with the mind. A strong mind does not suffer from boredom, frustration, depression, or unhappiness — it has learned to drop what it doesn’t want. Meditation practice has given it the necessary muscles.
The mind, being the most valuable and intricate tool in the universe, also needs a rest. We have been thinking ever since we were very small and innumerable lifetimes before that.
All day we think, all night we dream. There isn’t a moment’s rest. We may go on holiday, but what goes on holiday? The body goes on holiday. It might go to the beach, to the seaside or the mountains, or to a different country, but what about the mind? Instead of thinking about the work one has to do at home, one thinks about all the sights, sounds, and tastes at the new place. The mind isn’t getting a holiday. It just thinks about something else.
If we didn’t give the body a rest at night, it wouldn’t function very long. Our mind needs a rest too, but this can’t be had through sleeping. The only time the mind can have a real rest is when it stops thinking and starts only experiencing. One of the similes used for the mind is a blank screen on which a continuous film is shown without intermission. Because the film — the constant play of thoughts — is continuous, one forgets that there has to be a screen behind on which to project it.
If we stop that film for a moment in meditation we can experience the basic purity of our mind. That is a moment of bliss — a moment that brings the kind of happiness not available anywhere else, through anything else, a happiness that is independent of outer conditions. It’s not unconditioned, but conditioned only by concentration. It’s not dependent upon good food or climate, entertainment or the right relationships, other people or pleasant responses or possessions, all of which are totally unreliable and cannot be depended upon because they are always changing. Concentration is reliable if one keeps practicing.
Once verbalization stops for a moment, not only is there quiet but there is a feeling of contentment. The mind has at last found its home. We wouldn’t be very happy if we didn’t have a home for this body of ours. We are equally not very happy if we don’t have a home for the mind. That quiet, peaceful space is the mind’s home. It can go home and relax just as we do after a day’s work when we relax the body in an easy chair and at night in a bed. Now the mind, too, can take it easy. It doesn’t have to think. Thinking is suffering, no matter what it is that we think. There is movement in it, and because of that, there is friction. Everything that moves creates friction.
The moment we relax and rest the mind, it gains new strength and also happiness because it knows it can go home at any time. The happiness created at the time of meditation carries through to daily living because the mind knows that nothing has to be taken so seriously that it can’t go home again and find peace and quiet.
These are the main reasons why life can never be fulfilling without meditation. It may bring outer conditions that are enjoyable, but the fulfillment that one gets from inner conditions has more scope. The letting go, the renunciation, brings insight, namely the understanding that the ego is constantly wanting and therefore also wanting to think. When the ego stops wanting, it doesn’t need to think. When the ego stops wanting, all unsatisfactoriness vanishes. This is why we should meditate. Now we’ll look at the how
of meditation.
We’re going to employ mindfulness of our in-breath and out-breath. This is ideally experienced at the nostrils. Breath is wind, and, as it hits the nostrils, there’s a feeling. That feeling helps us to focus at this small point. In the beginning it is difficult to do so.
Breath means life, and it is ideally suited as a meditation subject because we always have it with us, and we can’t leave it anywhere else. Yet we take it for granted. We never take a good look at it unless we lose it — unless we choke, or drown, or suffocate. Then all of a sudden breath becomes important. But as long as we have it, we never think of it. Yet it means life, which is the dearest thing each one of us has. Breath is directly connected with the mind. When one is excited or in a hurry, the breath goes fast. When the mind becomes calm and tranquil, the breath becomes equally soft and tranquil. When the breath becomes so fine we can’t find it, that’s the moment when we actually enter into a concentrated state. Having the breath as one’s meditation object is the training period for that. It’s the only bodily function that is both self-regulating and subject to intention. We can make it deeper, longer, or shallower and even stop it altogether for some time.
There are many other methods of paying attention to the breath. We can follow the breath as far in and as far out as we become aware of it. Don’t make the breath anything special, but just follow its course. This provides a wider base of attention. It is not as exact as keeping the mind at the nostrils, and therefore it’s a little easier.
Or you can use breath plus a word, for instance, Buddha.
Budd
on the in-breath, ha
on the out-breath — breath plus syllable, both together. It’s very effective for people to whom Buddha
is meaningful.
You can also count the breaths: one on the in-breath, one on the out-breath, two on the in-breath, two on the out-breath — no less than five, no more than ten. When you reach ten, start at one again. Every time the mind wanders, start at one. In the beginning it doesn’t matter if you don’t get any further than one.
All minds are alike. You don’t have to think: I am especially unsuited for this.
Who’s I
anyway? It’s just an untrained mind as opposed to a trained one. Anyone who enters a marathon can run well and quickly if they have trained for it. It is silly to think, I’m useless, I can’t run fast,
if you haven’t trained for it.
Counting, saying Buddha,
attention at the nostrils, observation of the breath as far in and out as possible: find which method you feel most comfortable with and then stick to it. If you have practiced attention on the rise and fall of the abdomen and you have managed some concentration, then continue with that. Keep your legs in a position you can stay in for some time. The back should be straight but relaxed. Shoulders, stomach, and neck should be relaxed. When you find yourself slumping forward, sit up again. The same goes for the head. When you’re aware of the head going down, bring it back up. Slumping and letting the head fall forward are postures of sleepiness, or at least drowsiness, the very opposite of meditation. Meditation needs total awareness.
You will probably find that the mind just won’t stay on the breath no matter what you try, whether it’s Buddha
or one-one, two-two
or whether you concentrate at the nostrils or follow the breath in and out. The mind just will not do it unless you’ve been practicing for some years. The thoughts — the projected movie — will be there. The way to work with that is to quickly label the thought, but if that is too difficult, just call it thinking
or confusion
or remembering
or even planning
or nonsense.
It doesn’t matter. The minute you give it a label, you are stepping back to look at it. Unless you do that, you become the thinker and are totally distracted. You are at home worrying about the cat that might have gotten locked in the bedroom or about the children not getting their proper dinner. Whatever it may be, you’re thinking and worrying about it, and it’s all rationalized in the mind as Yes, but I have to think about that.
One doesn’t have to think about anything when meditating. Life keeps on happening and doesn’t need us to think about it. It’s constantly arising and ceasing every single moment.
When thoughts arise, look at them, give them a name. Whether it’s a correct label or not doesn’t matter. Any label during meditation means the thought needs to be dropped. When you have learned to label in meditation, you will be able to label thought as wholesome, profitable, skillful, or otherwise, in daily living also. When you know it’s not skillful or wholesome, you can let go of it. You learn to think what you want to think and when one learns that, one need never be unhappy again. Only a fool becomes voluntarily unhappy.
This is the usefulness of labeling in everyday life, but in meditation it means that you have become mindful. This practice is all about mindfulness. The Buddha said: The one way for the purification of beings, for the destruction of unsatisfactoriness, for entering the noble path, for realizing freedom from all suffering, is mindfulness.
Knowing I’m thinking,
I’m not meditating,
I’m worrying,
I’m anxious,
I’m dreaming about the future,
I’m hoping, wishing
; knowing only — then returning to the breath. If you are having a thousand thoughts, then give them a thousand labels. That is the way to real mindfulness. Knowing the thinking process as