WEALTH
ILLNESS
HAPPINESS
TRIPLE REFUGE
HEAVEN & HELL
There are two more words that we meet frequently in
the texts. They describe two kinds of wealth: the wealth of
the worlding, outward wealth; and the wealth of enlightened
being, inner wealth. We needn't say a great deal about this.
Jewels, rings, silver, gold, land, fields, elephants, horses, cattle,
buffaloes, fame, and power-- you know very well that all these
are outward wealth, the wealth of the worlding. As for inner
wealth, the noble wealth of enlightened beings is Dhamma--
that which brings about the extinction of suffering (dukkha).
The outward wealth of worldlings consists of material things
with which we become infatuated; the inner wealth of enlightened
beings can be perceived only with a superbly refined mind
that is capable of looking deep within.
The relative value of these two kinds of wealth has been
described often; we shall just use one example. Outward
wealth is not part of us and does not really belong to us. It
can be stolen, be destroyed by fire, and fall prey to other
disasters; it is never really ours. And what is more, outward
wealth is potentially harmful to us. Often it turns on us,
creating difficulties and hardships for us. By contrast. the
inward wealth of enlightened beings is free from all of these
bad properties. It never does harm. It never makes people
weep, and it probably never makes people laugh either, because
weeping and laughing both leave us out of breath and cannot
be compared with freedom, voidness, and equanimity. Thus,
the wealth of enlightenment makes us neither laugh nor cry;
it brings only stillness and coolness. That's all! We have to
use mindfulness and wisdom (sati-panna) to penetrate through
the exterior to the within; then we will gain this special kind
of wealth, the wealth that is unique to followers of the Buddhist way.
Now let us talk about illness. We find that a person
who sees only the without is familiar only with illness of the
physical kind: bodily ailments, diseases, aches, and pains. He
is afraid of them and always losing sleep over them. He is
quite unaware, however, of the existence of non-physical illness,
of the mental disorders, which are far more dangerous than
physical disorders. Furthermore, he is unaware that common
ailments of the body are often really due to mental disorders.
If a person is suffering from some mental disorder, he is likely
to develop a physical illness. Certain intestinal complaints,
for example, which are a big problem and very widespread,
are recognized by doctors and medical researchers as being
the result of prolonged anxiety or mental stress. Every time
anxiety arises, the blood circulation to the intestines becomes
inadequate as a result of the excessive demands of the overtense,
disturbed brain. Consequently, the intestines become
disturbed, too. You may have observed yourselves that if you
become very upset about something, you experience abdominal
pains so acute as to prevent you from eating. It could be fatal
to force yourself to eat when in that condition, because the
bowels cannot accept food.
The mental ailment comes first in the form of anxiety.
This anxiety is caused simply by mistaken ideas and false
views regarding things of the world. These false views lead
one to grasp and cling in a way that causes anxiety and mental
illness, and ultimately physical illness also. As soon as the
mind's condition is weakened, the body's power to resist
infection is diminished so that even slight exposure to infection
can lead to serious illness. If we are completely free from
mental disorders, if we have a strong healthy mind as do
forest-dwelling (yogis) and munies (quiet sages), then even considerable
exposure to infection has no effect. Resistance to infection is
adequate so that no illness results and there is no need for
medication. Thus, mental strength and well-being is the foundation
for resistance to physical illness. We ought to look
more closely at this connection between physical and mental
disorders, because the only medicine required and the only
thing needed to completely control mental disorders is Dhamma.
With Dhamma, ninety-nine percent of physical illness could
be eliminated. We find that people who live according to
Dhamma, such as rishis (ascetics) and munis, are strong,
healthy, and never know sickness. If we want long life, this is
how we ought to live, too.
If we look into the matter of happiness, we find another
useful comparison. In the texts, two kinds of happiness are
mentioned. One of these is the kind found in home life, called
gehanissitasukha, the kind of happiness that is derived from
home life and raising a family. This is external happiness,
with which we are quite familiar. Contrasted with this happiness
is a kind called nekkhammanissitasukha, literally, "the happiness
that comes from forsaking the home life." This refers to
a mental forsaking, a state of mind in which there is no longer
the idea of "my home." That is all it takes; that is all we
need to attain the happiness that comes from forsaking the
home life.
Even an old man who can hardly move about and must
remain at home all the time, if he knows Dhamma at this
level, while still living in the home, may attain the happiness
that comes from forsaking the home life. This is because the
term "forsaking the home life" refers to a mental forsaking,
to a state in which the mind transcends worldliness and goes
beyond it. A person who is living at home may experience
the happiness that comes from the home life. Or, he may
experience the happiness that cornes from forsaking the home
life, provided he is capable of looking within using the technique
and method of Dhamma.
The happiness of home life is called lokiya-sukha, worldly
happiness; and the happiness that goes beyond the home life
is called lokuttara-sukha, transcendent happiness. It all depends
on the state of the mind. If a person's mind is this-worldly,
he may stay in a monastery or in the forest, and yet attain
nothing more than the happiness of home life, because that
person is still yearning and struggling as if his mind were
trying to get out of a cage and return home. Solitude in a
monastery or any other place cannot help him. All that can
help is for the mind to be able to look within.
No matter where we are, we have it in our power to
dwell above and beyond the world, above and beyond the
home, simply by looking within. That is all! If you think
about it you will see that there is a big profit to be made here.
Without having to invest any capital, we receive this special
kind of happiness which appreciates all the time. As the Buddha
said, "Laddha mudha nibbutim bhunjamana. " This sentence
means that nibbana costs nothing; it is free and we don't
have to pay for it. All we have to do is "throw away." It's all
right to use this term "throw away." Just throw everything
away and nibbana arrives. This simply means having a mind
high enough not to remain stuck in the world. That is all
there is to it. Throw away the world completely and nibbana
is here. We don't have to do anything and we don't have to
invest anything. We only have to be uninvolved and empty.
Live rightly and nibbana will come of itself.
The danger of always looking without is that we get a
distorted view of things: we see a snake and think it is just
a fish. Anyone who looks within correctly sees all things in
their true nature; he sees all things for what they are. He sees
a snake as a snake, and a fish as a fish. A person who sees a
snake as a fish is likely to try and pick it up, and we know
how dangerous that can be. Another way of expressing this is
with the saying "seeing a toothed wheel as a lotus flower." *
(The wheel is a dangerous whirling disc with sharp teeth, like a spinning saw
blade. The point of the story is seeing something evil and dangerous as
good and beautiful.)
The meaning is the same, but the danger involved is greater.
There is the story of the man who saw a demon with a toothed
wheel on his head, from which blood was spraying all over.
He mistook the wheel for a lotus flower and begged to have
it placed on his own head. When we say that same people
would misidentify a snake as a fish, or a toothed wheel as a
lotus flower, we mean that they look at all objects the wrong
way, and so fall slaves to those objects, and are worse off
than if they were in prison or suffering the torments of hell.
These two examples that I have given should suffice to
clarify the point. If I were to go on giving examples, we would
be here all day. What has to be seen is, first, the difference
between looking without and looking within, and then, the
importance of looking within so that this mind can liberate
itself from all things.
Now let us look at how we are going wrong, the ways
in which we are behaving incorrectly in respect to this matter.
Let us look at Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha; at hell and
heaven; at nibbana; at religion; at beauty, goodness, truth,
justice, and so on; at all the things that we admire and aspire
to. Let us see how we stand in respect to them, and whether
or not we are as we ought to be.
We shall look first at the matter of Buddha, Dhamma,
and Sangha. The foolish person considers this to be very
simple. It's as easy as peeling a banana and eating it. He just recites:
Buddham saranam gacchami
And there he has them: Buddha, Dhamma, and Smgha. So
he thinks it's very easy; but of course these words are not
the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangba at all. What he
has in mind is merely an outer shell or even something more
superficial than an outer shell.
Dhammam saranam gacchami
Sangham saranam gacchami
I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dhamma.
I take refuge in the Sangha.
Suppose we want to see or reach the "Buddha." If a
person looks without, he may identify a Buddha image as the
Buddha, which is a mistake; or he may think of that compassionate
human being who lived in India over two thousand
years ago as the Buddha, but that would still be a mistake.
The Buddha strongly condemned that kind of ignorance. He
said, "To see the Dhamma is to see the Buddha; to see the
Buddha is to see the Dhamma." To see the Buddha it was
not sufficient just to see his physical body walking about.
Even among contemporaries of the Buddha, people born
right in the same town, Kapilavastu, there were a great many
who never saw the real Buddha. They saw only the outer shell
of the Buddha and did not recognize the real Buddha. This is
why a great many people became the Buddha's enemies and
sought to harm him.
Becoming the Buddha's enemy is the unfortunate result
of not looking at things the right way. There are many of us
like this, and we pass our wrong views on to our children and
those less educated than ourselves. Just what is the level of
university undergraduates in this respect? This is a question
you might do well to think about. Ought we to look for the
Buddha in the Buddha image? Or in the physical body of the
man who lived and moved about in India all those years ago?
We must look for him in the condition of voidncm, in the
condition of being void of "I" and "my," in the condition
of perfect purity, enlightenment, and peace, in which the
mind of the Buddha constantly dwelt-- that is, in the Dhamma.
"To see the Dhamma is to see the Buddha; to see the Buddha
is to see the Dhamma."
As for the "Dhamma," if we look within, we are in a
position to perceive the Dhamma, which is a source of joy to
the mind. If, however, we look without, we lose ourselves
in the books and manuscripts of the Tipitaka (the "three
baskets" of Buddhist scripture); or in the sound of monks
chanting and preaching, which is thought of as the sound of
the Dhamma; or in the rites and rituals, the outward poses of
Dhamma practice. Even the practice of insight meditation
is usually a kind of pose. We lose ourselves in the poses of
Dhamma and fail to penetrate to the Dhamma itself. This
happens to many people. How well are we succeeding in
penetrating to the Dhamma? The essence of the Dhamma,
the real Dhamma, is the condition of freedom from "I" and
"my," the condition-of complete purity, enlightenment, and
peace, identical with the mental condition attained by the
Buddha himself.
Considering the "Sangha," if we look without, the
Sangha is people, someone's son or grandson ordained at this
or that monastery and having this or that title. Worse than
this is to see only the yellow cloth and identify that as the
Sangha. There are some people who do identify the Sangha
with men dressed in yellow robes. This is just the shell, but
there are a great many people who grasp at the shell in this
way. For example, some people take a dislike to certain monks
and then try to make out that the entire Sangha is the same.
This is just ignorance and it is the worst form of slander
against the Sangha, because the Sangha is not to be identified
with yellow robes or with people who ordain as monks. The
real and genuine Sangha is the Dhamma: the condition of
freedom or near-freedom from "I" and "my," the condition
of complete or nearly complete purity, enlightenment, and
peace. The true Sangha is identical with the essence of the
Dhamma, the Dhamma that exists in the mind of the Buddha.
So anyone who has looked deeply and perceived the
real truth of the matter knows that the real Buddha, Dhamma,
and Sangha are not three different things; they are one and
the same thing. Outwardly there may be three different things,
but these are just the shell. The real kernel and essence of
them is one simple thing-- namely, the condition of freedom
from selfhood, the Dhamma which consists in purity, enlightenment,
and peace, totally uncontaminated. This is what we
call "voidness." Even in the scriptures we find statements
such as, "In terms of externals, Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha
are three different things; in terms of absolute truth, in essence
and real nature, they are one and the same thing."
"Heaven" and "hell" are usually viewed in physical
terms. People are interested in hell as it is depicted on temple
walls with its various kinds of toments. In fact these were
originally nothing other than the thirty-odd forms of punishment
meted out to criminals in India at the time of the Buddha.
You can read about them in the history books. At least at the
time of Asaka (c. 250 B.C.) these forms of punishment for
criminals were still in use, so people depicted the worst of
these forms of punishment in their illustrations of hell. This
is the superficial view of hell. This is hell as seen by people
looking without. Some people who are a little more perceptive
identify hell with prison, but this is still hell without. It dosen't
burn the mind like the hell within. The hell that is within is
stupidity, greed, and anger; delusion, desire, and hatred; fear,
worry, and anxiety. They are a kind of hell that is much more
to be feared, a kind of hell that is much more difficult to
avoid. The kind of hell that is depicted on temple walls is
easy to be bold and unconcerned about; we think that no
matter what we might do, we would never fall into it. But no-one
can be bold and unconcerned about the real hell, the hell
within that I have just spoken about. If we look within and
truly examine it, we find it is something really terrible. It
burns us without there being any sign of fire; it ties us up
without appearing to; it binds and ensnares us without our
knowing. This is the real hell, the hell we see when we look
within. Seeing this we become frantic, desperate, and start
seeking a safe refuge from it; and that refuge is easy to find
and easy to put into practice. But if we go on foolishly looking
only at the hell without, we just go on forever lacking a refuge.
It is the same with heaven. The real heaven is contentment,
that state in which we are content with what we get and with
what we have, the state in which we have Dhamma. When we
are content with what we have, that is heaven. As for the
heaven that is depicted on temple walls, that is just another
case of addiction to external forms, sounds, odours, tasters,
and tactile sensations-- total subjection to sense objects. Celestial
beings are smarter than we human beings, and millionaires
have the means to do more than we poor people. At each
level we think that the level above must be heaven, owing to
our limited understanding. But all this is the kind of heaven
that burns us with anxiety. It is all the kind of happiness that
cooks us till we are well-done.*(Here the original has an
untranslatable pun on the homonyms suk
(well-done, cooked) and sukh(happiness).) It boils, grills, roasts, and
bakes us till we are well-done. There is nothing peaceful and
cool about it. Contentment consists in knowing how to be
satisfied and pleased with what we have and what we get. To
have this is to have real riches, to be really in heaven. A person
who does't know how to be content with what he has and
with what he gets is in hell; he is a perpetual pauper. Even if
he is a millionaire, with millions or hundreds of millions in
the bank, he is the poorest of paupers, because he suffers
from chronic and incurable thirst. So let us not go looking
for heaven in the wrong place. Let us seek it intelligently and
with right understanding.