The Buddha  Enlightenment and The PlaceBuddha
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     "Being" is the same.    There is no need to cling to one's state of being this or that, because in
reality there is no satisfactory condition at all.    All conditions bring about suffering of one kind or 
another.    There is a very simple technigue, which we must have a look at later, known as Vipassa-
na, the direct practice of Dhamma.       It consists of close introspection, which reveals that there is
nothing worth being, or that there is really no satisfactory state of being at all.     Have a look at this
question or state of being.    Being a son?. a parent?  husband? wife?  master? servant?.    Is any of
these agreeable?.    Even being the man with the advantage, the one with the upper hand, the winner
is that ageeable?.    Is the condition of a human being agreeable?.     Even the condition of a celestial
being or a good -would that be agreeable?.   When you have really come to know the what is what.
You find that nothing whatsoever is in any way agreeable.    We are making do with mindlessly get-
ting and being.       But why should we go risking life and limb by getting and being blindly, always 
acting on desire?.    It behoves us to understand things and live wisely, involving ourselves in things
in such a way that they cause a minimum of suffering, or ideally,none at all.
     Here is another point we must bring to our fellow men, our friends, and particularly our relatives
and those close to us, the understanding that this is how things are, so that they may have the same
right view as we have.      There will then be no upsets in the family, the town, the country, and ulti-
mately in the whole world.    Each individual mind will be immune to desire, neither grasping at nor
becoming wrapped in anything or anyone.    Instead everyone's life will be quided by insight, by the
ever-present, unobscured vision that there is in reality nothing that we can grasp at and cling to.  Everyone will come to realize that all things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and devoid of any self-entity, that none of them is worth becoming infatuated with.    It is up to us to have the sense to
give them up, to have right views, in keeping with the Buddha's teaching.    A person who has done
this is fit to be called a true Buddhist.      Though he may never have been ordained nor even taken the precepts he will have really and truly  penetrated to Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.    His mind
will be identical with that of Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.   It will be uncontaminated, enlightened
and tranquil, simply by virtue of not grasping at anything as worth getting or worth being.      So a person can readily become a qenuine, fully-fledged Buddhist simply by means of this technique of
being observant, perceiving impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-selfhood until he comes to
realize that there is nothing worth getting or being.
  The lowest forms of evil originate in and are powered by desire to get and to be; milder forms of evil consist of actions less strongly motivated by desire; and
all goodness consists of action based on the finest, most tenuous sort of desire, the desire to get or
be, on a good level.    Even in its highest forms, good is based on desire which, however, is so fine
and tenuous that people don't consider it in any way a bad thing.      The fact is, however, that good
action can never bring complete freedom from suffering.       A person who has become completely free from desire, that is to say an Arahanta, is one who has ceased acting on desire and has become
incapable of doing evil.    His actions lie outside the categories of good and evil.    His mind is free
and has transcended the limitations of good and evil.    Thus he is completely free of suffering.
       This is a fundamental principle of Buddhism.     Whether or not we are able to do it wish to do
it, this is the way to liberation from suffering.        Today we may not yet want it, some day we are bound to want it.     When we have completely given up evil and have done to our utmost, the mind
will still be weighed down with various kinds of attenuated desire, and there is no known way of 
getting rid of it other than by striving to go beyond the power of desire, to go beyond the desire to get or be anything, bad or good.      If there is to be  Nirvana, freedom from suffering of every kind,
there has to be absolute and complete absence of desire.
      In short, to know what is what in the ultimate sense is to see everything as impermanent, unsatis
factory, and devoid of selfhood.     When we really know this, the mind come to see things in such a
way that it does not cling to get to be anything.    But if we have to become involved in things in the
ways known as  "having and being"  then we become involved intelligently, motivated by insight,
and not by desire.     Acting thus, we remain free from suffering.

GRASPING    AND   CLINGING

     How can we get away from and become completely independent of things, all of which are tran-
sient, unsatisfactory, and devoid of selfhood?      The answer is that we have to find out what is the
cause of our desiring those things and clinging to them.      Knowing that cause, we shall be in a posi
tion to eliminate clinging completely.    Buddhisms recognize four different kinds of clinging or attachment.
     1) Sensual  attachment ( Kamupadana) is clinging to attractive and desirable sense objects.    It is the attachment that we naturally develop for things we like and find satisfaction in colours and
shapes, sounds, odours, tastes, tactual objects or mental images, objects past present or future that 
arise in the mind and either correspond to material objects in the world outside or within the body, or are just imaginings.     We instinctively find pleasure enchantment, delight in these six kinds of sense object.     They induce delight and enchantment in the mind perceiving them.
  As soon as an individual is born, he comes to know the taste 
these six sense objects, and clings to them, and as time passes he becomes more and more family 
attached to them.     Ordinary people are incapable of withdrawing from them again, so they present
a major problem.     It is necessary to have a proper knowledge and understanding of these sense ob-
jects and to act appropriately with respect to them, otherwise clinging to them may lead to complete
and utter dereliction.    If we examine the case history of any person who has sunk into dereliction,
we always find that it has come about through his clinging fast to some desirable sense object.   Actually every single thing a human being does not has its origin in sensuality.      Whether we love,
become angry, hate, feel envious. murder, or commit suidide, the ultimate cause must be some sense
object.    If we investigate what it is that drives human beibgs to work energeticly, or to do anything
at all for that matter, we find it is desire, desire to get things of one kind or another.     People strive,
study and earn what money they can, and then go off in search of pleasure in the form of colours and shapes, sounds, odours, tastes, and tactual objects, -which is what keeps them going.     Even
merit-making in order to go to heaven has its origins simply in a wish hased on sensuality.   Taken together, all the trouble and chaos in the world has its origin in sensuality.
     The danger of sensuality lies in the power of sensual attachment.      For this reason the Buddha
reckoned clinging to sensuality as the primary form of attachment.         It is a real world problem.   Whether the world is to be completely destroyed, or whatever is to happen, is bound to depend on
this very sensual clinging.          It behoves us to examine ourselves to find out in what ways we are
attached to sensuality and how firmly, and whether it is not perhaps within our power to give it up.
Speaking in worldly terms, attachment to sensuality is a way good thing.        It conduces to family love, to deligence and energy in the search for wealth and fame, and so on.      But if looked at from
the spiritual point of view, it is seen to be the secret entrance for suffering and torment.     Spiritually
speaking, attachment to sensuality is something to be kept under control.     And it all suffering is to
be eliminated, sensual attachment has to be done away with completely.
      2) Attachment  to  opinions  (Ditthupadana).   Clinging to views and opinions is not difficult to detect and identify once we do a little introspection.      Ever since we were born into the world,
we have been receiving instruction and training, which has given rise to ideas and opinions.    In speaking here of opinions, what we have in mind is the kind of ideas one hangs on to and refuses to
let go of.     To cling to one's own ideas and opinions is quite natural and is not nomally condemned
or disapproved of.          But it is no less grave a danger than attachment to attactive and desirible objects.     It can happen that preconceived ideas and opinions to which we had always clung obsti-
nately come to be destroyed.     For this reason it is necssary that we continually amend our views,
making them progressively more correct, better, higher, changing false views into views that are closer and closer to the truth, and ultimately into the kind of views that incorporate the Four Noble
Truths.
 
 



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( May ,15,  2008 )