The Art of Investigation

How a closer look at our likes and dislikes can lead to equanimity
By Sayadaw U Tejaniya

Part 2 of 2

Often practitioners pay attention to mindfulness and right effort, but they forget to practice dhamma vicaya. They forget to investigate and to ask questions about experience in order to learn. But mindfulness is about understanding. You have to use wise thinking to decide how to handle things; you cannot limit your practice to continuously being aware. That’s not good enough.

The unwholesome roots are very dominant in the mind. They are very experienced, very skillful, and they will always get their way if we are not aware. If you don’t fully recognize them and bring in wisdom, they will take over the mind.

The equanimity that came when I was listening to my teacher and the visitors talk was the result of true understanding of the nature of liking and disliking in the mind. This arose through observation and investigation of the discomfort that I was feeling.

In this same way, as soon as you recognize any mental discomfort, turn your attention toward it to learn all that you can about it. If you can see subtle mental discomfort, watch it change: Does it increase or decrease? As the mind becomes more equanimous and sensitive, it will recognize subtle reactions more easily.

Always take the arising of an unskillful root quality as an opportunity to investigate its nature. Ask yourself questions! How do the unwholesome roots make you feel? What thoughts arise in the mind? How does what you think affect the way you feel? How does what you feel affect the way you think? What is the attitude behind the thoughts? How does any of this change the way you perceive pain?

The mind needs to be directed, and dhamma vicaya does that. Once you have set a direction for the mind, it will continue in that direction. This is a natural quality of the mind. If you leave the mind undirected, there will be chaos.

Take fear as another example. If there is fear and you decide to investigate this emotion, you are setting the mind in the right direction. If, however, you try to get rid of this fear, you are directing the mind wrongly.

Give yourself time. Go slowly, feel your way through whatever is happening. Try to gather as much information as you can. That’s the function of awareness—to gather information. Whenever you feel there is an issue that needs to be looked into, investigate it. What is going on in the mind will seem rather chaotic at first.

You need to look at the same issues repeatedly and from different angles. As your awareness becomes more continuous, your fear will settle down, and you will be able to understand which issues are important and which are not.

You will see the benefit of the practice more clearly and understand what you have learned at deeper levels. All this will further increase your confidence.

Never get discouraged when you lose awareness. Every time you recognize that you have lost awareness, be happy. The fact that you have recognized that you lost awareness means that you are now aware. Just keep looking at this process of losing and regaining awareness and learn from it.

Life is a reflection of the quality of the mind. If you really understand the mind, you understand the world. You gain this understanding by observing and learning. You don’t need to believe anything you don’t intellectually understand. Just keep investigating. Just keep learning from your personal experience.


Excerpted from Relax and Be Aware: Mindfulness Meditations for Clarity, Confidence, and Wisdom, by Sayadaw U Tejaniya.
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Sayadaw U Tejaniya teaches meditation at Shwe Oo Min Dhamma Sukha Forest Meditation Center in Yangon, Myanmar.
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Part 1 of 2:


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Part 2 of 2:


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Ling Shan Buddhist Monastery, China.

Chapter 5

Bala Vagga
Fools
(Text and Translation by Ven. Narada)



1. Digha jagarato ratti
dagham santassa yojanam
Digho balanam samsaro
addhammam avijanatam. 60.

LONG IS SAMSARA TO THOSE WHO KNOW NOT THE DHAMMA

1. Long is the night to the wakeful; long is the league to the weary; long is samsara 1 to the foolish who know not the Sublime Truth. 60.

Story

King Pasenadi once came to the Buddha and said that he felt that a particular night was too long. Another person remarked that on the previous day he felt that the league was too long. The Buddha summed up by adding that Samsara is long to those who are ignorant of the Dhamma.
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When the Realized One understands the supreme perfect awakening. And then—in this world with its gods, Māras, and divinities, this population with its ascetics and brahmins, gods and humans—an immeasurable, magnificent light appears, surpassing the glory of the gods. Even in the boundless void of interstellar space—so utterly dark that even the light of the moon and the sun, so mighty and powerful, makes no impression—an immeasurable, magnificent light appears, surpassing the glory of the gods. And the sentient beings reborn there recognize each other by that light: ‘So, it seems other sentient beings have been reborn here!’ This is the third incredible and amazing thing that appears with the appearance of a Realized One.

Partial excerpts from AN 4.127: Paṭhamatathāgataacchariyasutta

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Knowing and Seeing (Fifth Revised Edition)
By Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw


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Knowing and Seeing (Fifth Revised Edition)
By Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw

Knowing and Seeing is teachings given by the Myanmarese meditation master, the Most Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw, at a two-month retreat for monks and nuns in Taiwan.

In strict accordance with the standard Pali Texts, the Most Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw gives a practical overview of how you develop absorption (jhāna) with mindfulness-of-breathing, the thirty-two parts of your own body and that of others (near and far), repulsiveness of the body, the ten kasiṇas and four immaterial states. He then explains how you use the 'strong and powerful' jhāna concentration to perfect lovingkindness, compassion, appreciative joy, equanimity, recollection-of-The-Buddha, foulness, and recollection-of-death. Next, he explains how, with the light of jhāna, you penetrate the delusion of compactness and see the sub-atomic particles of materiality, and see the ultimate materiality of your own body, that of others, and throughout the universe; how likewise you see the cognitive-processes of your own mind and that of others; how likewise you examine your materiality and mentality of past lives, your present life and future lives (on this and other planes); and how likewise you develop the remaining knowledges till 'Your mind knows and sees Nibbāna directly: it is fully aware of the (unformed) Nibbāna as object.' The Sayadaw also answers questions from meditators at the retreat, on details regarding meditation, related matters, and the Bodhisatta Path etc. Finally, there is a stirring talk where he exhorts us to 'breathe according to The Buddha's instructions', followed by a talk on the most superior type of offering.

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Big Buddha Bhutan, Timphu, Bhutan. Big Amitabha Buddha statue gilded in pure gold.

Then the Holy One, the Teacher, went on to say:

“When an ethical person with trusting heart gives a proper gift to unethical persons, trusting in the ample fruit of deeds, that offering is purified by the giver.

When an unethical and untrusting person, gives an improper gift to ethical persons, not trusting in the ample fruit of deeds, that offering is purified by the receivers.

When an unethical and untrusting person, gives an improper gift to unethical persons, not trusting in the ample fruit of deeds, I declare that gift is not very fruitful.

When an ethical person with trusting heart gives a proper gift to ethical persons, trusting in the ample fruit of deeds, I declare that gift is abundantly fruitful.

But when a passionless one gives to the passionless a proper gift with trusting heart, trusting in the ample fruit of deeds, that’s truly the best of material gifts.”

Partial excerpts from MN 142 : Dakkhiṇāvibhaṅgasutta

2. Carañ ce nadhigaccheyya
seyyam sadisam attano
Ekacariyam daëham kayira
natthi bale sahayata. 61.

AVOID COMPANIONSHIP WITH THE FOOLISH

2. If, as the disciple fares along, he meets no companion who is better or equal, let him firmly pursue his solitary career. There is no fellowship 2 with the foolish. 3 61.

Story

A teacher reproached his pupil for some misdemeanour. The displeased pupil set fire to the teacher's hut and fled. The Buddha, hearing of the incident, commended a solitary career in preference to companionship with the foolish.
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Sutta Nipata
By Thanissaro Bhikkhu

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Sutta Nipata
By Thanissaro Bhikkhu

The Sutta Nipāta—the Discourse Group—is the fifth text in the Khuddaka Nikāya, or Short Collection, which in turn is the fifth collection.

The Sutta Nipāta differs from its neighbors in the Khuddaka—the Dhammapada, the Udāna, and the Itivuttaka—in that its suttas follow no standard form. All of them contain passages of poetry, but some suttas are entirely in verse, whereas others include prose passages as well.

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3. Putta m'atthi dhanam m'atthi
iti balo vihaññati
Atta hi attano natthi
kuto putta kuto dhanam. 62.

ONE IS NOT ONE'S OWN

3. "Sons have I; wealth have I": Thus is the fool worried. Verily, he himself is not his own. Whence sons? Whence wealth? 62.

Story

A wealthy but miserly person was reborn as a hideous-looking beggar. One day it so happened that he entered the house where he had dwelt in his previous life but he was bundled out and was thrown into a rubbish-heap. The Buddha, who was passing that way, noticed him and told the man's son that the beggar was none other than his own dead father.
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Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Heedfulness Is Auspicious Thanissaro

A teaching and personal reflection on the goodness of merit
By Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Part 1 of 2


In Thailand, they have a series of exams for the monks and a corresponding set of exams for laypeople. For the laypeople, they have a special text on the ceremonies for making merit. It divides merit-making ceremonies into two types: auspicious and inauspicious. Auspicious ones have to do with house blessings and other positive events in life; inauspicious ones have to do with death: funeral services or services for making merit for someone who passed away in years past.

The idea that those ceremonies are inauspicious is not a Buddhist one, it’s brahmanical. After all, the Buddha said one of the highest blessings is heedfulness in terms of mental qualities, and when you go to a funeral it forces you to think heedfully—especially when it’s someone close to you. It reminds you that you’re subject to death, too, and that you have to prepare if you want to die well.

This morning we got the news that Kridkanok Taabloka, someone I knew well from Thailand, had passed away. She was a very admirable person, very even in her moods.

Years back, when I was giving a talk as a part of a retreat, I got to the topic of generosity, focusing on right and wrong attitudes to have toward generosity, and I wanted to give an example of an attitude that was really right. I thought of the time we built the chedi, the spired monument to the Buddha, in Wat Dhammasathit. Nok had been involved in the project from very early on.

At that point, she was still a new student of Ajaan Fuang’s. One of her good friends had invited her to come meditate a little bit with Ajaan Fuang in Bangkok. Soon after she started, the construction of the chedi began. It became obvious very quickly that we weren’t going to be able to hire anybody to build it. The workers we tried hiring all ran away when they saw how difficult the work was.

So, many of Ajaan Fuang’s students in Bangkok got together and said, “Okay, we’ll volunteer. We’ll do the work ourselves.” Nok came along with them, every weekend. The group would gather after work on Friday evening at one woman’s house in Bangkok. She would provide them with dinner, and then they’d get in a truck—one of those pickups equipped with bench-seats in the back. They’d drive out to the monastery, arriving usually around ten, eleven o’clock at night, sometimes midnight. In some cases, they’d get right to work because there was going to be a cement-pouring on Saturday night.

They would work and rest, work and rest, pretty much around the clock, until the cement-pouring. Then, on Sunday they’d do a little extra work, spend the night at Wat Dhammasathit, get up at 3 a.m., drive into Bangkok, and go straight to work. They kept this up month after month for a year and a half until the chedi was done. They were all very dedicated, and she was one of the regulars.

In later years, we would talk about this and laugh. We were young at that time: We could do things like that. Now that we were getting older, there was no way we could do that. Of course, now she’s gone on to another lifetime, we don’t know where, but at least she has that fund of the goodness she did when she was able to. This is something that we should all take to heart: Whatever goodness we’re capable of doing we should do now, when we have the opportunity, because the opportunity won’t always be there.

Some people like to put things off. But what are you waiting for? When you get older, things get harder. When you’re young, you can do things that stretch you and you don’t break. So stretch yourself now in doing something really good.

Nok was one of those people, when I would go back to Thailand, with whom I’d sit around and reminisce about how the chedi was built. There was a really strong sense of family feeling around the people who worked together on the project: people coming from all kinds of backgrounds, including a Western monk.

We felt we were all part of the same family because we were working together on something good.

Now there’s one less person who can remember. This is one of the things that strikes you as life moves on and the years add up: how little is left of the earlier years, and how, with the passage of time, fewer and fewer people are around to actually tell from their own experience what exactly happened.

Whatever goodness we’re capable of doing we should do now, when we have the opportunity, because the opportunity won’t always be there.

I went back to Wat Dhammasathit a couple of years back, and they arranged for a young monk to greet me and take me around. We started talking, and he asked me questions: about Ajaan Fuang, about the construction of the chedi and the other buildings there. I told him what I had remembered. At the end, he said that all this was very different from what he’d learned from others.
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