Here is a follow-up conversation
DIALOGUE
ON CHANGE AND CONTROL, PART 2
From
the Dharma perspective the quality of feelings are indicators of
state of mind and images of right/wrong and burden/relief point to
what is happening in your mind. Such mental activity points us to the
fundamental orientation we have to our lives.
In
his first-ever talk, the Buddha said “I come to teach the truth of
suffering and its relief”, so, if you feel some relief, then the
presentation of Dharma has resonated with something in you. In
essence, what the Buddha taught was we are not (spoiler alert!) the
centre of the universe. OMG! What he proposed is that we are located
in an incomprehensible network of cause-and-effect relationships (for
future reading, this is called pratitya samutpada, or
conditioned arising). Our Awakening is to understand that location,
to understand its momentum or purpose and to direct our lives to it.
The amount of control you can experience is determined by how you
understand who this “I” to be.
Q.
.. I've been in a canoe on rapid waters and I appreciate the
challenge of it.
A.
It seems to me that the only place we have much choice or control is
how we lean towards or away from wholesome thoughts, intentions and
actions. The lure and appeal of self-desires is potent, so, yes, it
takes effort and determination.
Q.
However, it also makes me sort of disheartened to think that I can't
have an effective role in changing things I wish to see differently,
particularly the suffering of others. But is that not a major
intention - relief of suffering?
A.
Quite the contrary, you have a decisive part to play in the relief of
dukkha. You are not a passive receptor, nor are you just a cog in a
wheel. The understanding of our true nature as children of the Buddha
is also our awareness that we can express every breath and action for
the relief of suffering beings. Once we start to see that
responsibility and accept that, then we easily trim off all the
wasted effort we make to protect the ego, to hide from truth, pain
and maturity and to delude ourselves that we can live forever in
lives of self-indulgence. Instead of clinging and grasping, life
activities become rich with purpose and focus. What changes is the
knowledge that the context of our every breath is the boundary-less
expanse of the Buddha's loving kindness and compassion. We come to
find the canoe is capsized and we swim in an ocean of compassion.
Q.
And if we are unwholesome, do we not experience dukkha? So in that
way do we not have some form of control?
A.
Yes, unwholesome action (and thought and intention) are causes of
dukkha. Always remember dukkha is not something limited to personal
experience. The Buddha's first teaching was “sarvam dukkham” -
meaning all this is incapable of providing satisfaction. He
points to our identification of who we are as being located in the
endless cycle of birth and death (that cycle of conditioned arising
mentioned above) as the the reason we feel empty or lacking. Dukkha
is not ours, it is the flavour of human experience.
This
question of choice and control is not entirely clear to me. I know it
is different from the current Western obsession with
choice/control/autonomy/self. What I understand so far, and from my
limited perspective of what is known as Pure Land teaching, is that
choice is a perception of the presence of the liberative impulse of
the Buddhas. There is no 'me' and even to the extent that there seems
to be, that 'me' relies on the power of the Buddhas to direct 'me' to
awareness.
Q.
At the same time, though, there seems to be a certain level of
"letting go" that must need to happen in order to focus our
intentions on our movement with the momentum as opposed to working
towards change.
A.
The momentum is always about change anyway. The second teaching of
the Buddha is anicca, impermanence.
The critical detail is that it is not someone making change happen.
Change is the form of reality. It is directed at openness, compassion
and thorough self-awareness. What we can do is align ourselves with
that momentum of change (i.e. wholesome activity) or struggle to
maintain our deluded sense of individual autonomy (i.e. un-wholesome
activity, that which generates more dukkha). The letting go is not
abandoning a commitment to change, but of realizing that we are not
isolated, individually-willed selves but are part of the
compassionate activity of the Buddhas.
Yours
in the Dharma,
Innen,
doshu
om
namo amida butsu
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