Continuing the Work

Cause and effect chain

A yogi in one of my retreats had some questions surrounding free will. When we talk about the process of conditioning, remember there’s a stream of minds in the conditioned process. The conditions in one mind bring the effect into the next mind and then, whatever the mind chooses to do in the next moment adds a little to that quality, or takes away from that quality. It then passes away and then this condition gives rise to the next mind and then it passes away and the effect is given to the next mind. Every mind begins with something, a condition, but that mind has a moment in the present to choose its contribution to the moment in terms of action or non-action, before that mind passes away. “Everything is conditioned” just means that there is a stream that’s going on and the present moment has been conditioned by the past. At the same time, there is an element of choice in the present through wisdom because wisdom has free will. As a result, that wisdom has the ability to choose to take whatever action or non-action it would like. All things are conditioned but also you cannot imagine the vastness of kamma that you have accumulated that has the potential to flower in every moment.

If somebody has developed a lifetime habit of anger, the person will become angry with a little trigger. If the person has studied meditation, starts practicing and understands the benefits of meditation in the present moment, this person may gradually develop to the point where, with awareness + wisdom, the person may possibly be able to consciously decide what to do. This person could decide whether to continue to be angry, on the one hand, or try to be aware of the anger and grow in wisdom as a result, on the other. This choice constitutes free will.

If only delusion were present, then the conditioning is set and this person would act entirely according to that conditioning. When this kind of mind is not interested in wisdom, the mind is just a push-button system that is triggered by external forces. Conditioning will dictate all outcomes.

Awareness allows the mind to choose. You might hear someone talk about something or you might come across a book that opens up a bit of wisdom. You may borrow some wisdom from a book or person, consider it, and apply it to your life to bring about more wisdom. In this way, we can see how awareness + wisdom yields freedom of choice.

While I’ve said all this, I also don’t advise yogis to reflect too much on these matters. It’s easy to get lost in conceptualization and abstraction on these topics, and thus to drift far from the present moment. One of the conditions for wisdom to arise is to think deeply about the Dhamma, but it absolutely needs to be grounded in Right View and Right Thought.

Building up insights

When we are experiencing an emotion, we can both be with the emotion and understand the nature of the mind that is feeling aversion or craving for this emotion. This is a more powerful realization than just being relieved of the emotion for a moment. Understanding that this is just mind, and there’s no one here, but only conditions is an insight.

Often, insight minds are momentary and this is normal. We allow these insights to arise repeatedly and gather all these little insights many, many times. The repeated arising of insight impresses that understanding into the mind and each mind that arises then passes along its qualities to the next mind. When insights arise repeatedly, the inheritance of that insight for each successive mind becomes stronger. That’s how we get lasting insights.

Effortless awareness

We always need to remember the difference between personal exertion and the energy of the dhamma taking over. If you are personally very involved in trying to do the practice, you will not be able to see what is going on naturally. When you step back you are able to see that the process of awareness is already happening quite naturally. That’s why I sometimes ask yogis: Can you notice that you can hear even though you are not listening, that seeing is happening even though you are not trying to look at anything? Can you notice that even though you are not paying attention, your mind already knows things?

I would like yogis, especially for those who have been practicing for years, to get to the point where they realize that without focusing or paying attention, that knowing is happening. After many years of meditating, their practice must have gained momentum and they need to step back in order to see that this is happening. At that point, you need to switch from doing to recognizing. When the dhamma takes over, there is just a doing of what is necessary.

Of course it is not possible to just switch, to immediately change the paradigm. But it is good to have this information because this will enable you to sometimes switch into this new mode. This way you will slowly understand what is actually happening and this will enable you to let go of the old paradigm. That’s why momentum is so important, when things continue under their own steam and you can really see that you are not involved. If you just practice continuously and correctly, understanding will arise. Once you gain some understanding that this process is just happening, the mind will start seeing things more and more from this perspective.

Gathering momentum, collecting gold dust

If you reflect on this life alone and add up the amount of time that you have spent trying to be aware, to grow the practice, and wisdom, you will find that it is a small amount of time. Ignorance and defilements have been our companions from the time we were born. Things may seem impermanent but defilements always seem to be permanently there! If you understand cause and effect, however, you’ll see that defilements have always had their way. They are the ones whose impressions have run very deep. They are very strongly impressed in the mind and they leave a very long shadow to carry on their work through cause and effect. If our practice is intermittent, then we will not become any more skillful and any understanding will come to a standstill. If we neglect our practice altogether, delusion will begin to grow again and cloud over all the things that we once understood.

So long as we continue meditating, we can maintain a certain level of understanding. Awareness is the ground that allows wisdom to arise over and over again and that’s why you have to be aware moment to moment. Any new understandings or wisdom passes away, just like everything else. The understanding of anicca (impermanence) and anatta (not-self, non-ego) are also impermanent. However, while that understanding may arise and also pass away, it will leave an impression for the next mind, which picks it up and in turn leaves an impression as it passes away.

It is a zero sum game: You are either doing this or you are doing that. If this is not present, then that is present. You are either moving forward or you are moving backward; there is no standing still. Wholesome minds will support each other just as unwholesome minds support each other. When something is burning and you throw in more water, the fire will go out. If flames are more intense, the fire will continue to burn.

I want you to use your wisdom to continue the work. You collect this gold dust a bit more each day, day by day. You learn from it all while this and that goes on in your lives. Mindfulness is a lifetime commitment, not a part-time job. It is something that you really, really need to do all the time. All the time. Only when you see the nature of the mind will you understand the nature of dhamma. The mind is just arising and passing away, is so ephemeral, and the only input you can have to this process is the quality of awareness. When awareness becomes natural, it means that you have been putting in the effort to keep it going: persistence is right effort. Awareness starts staying. Effort remains and it becomes much more natural and much more useful.

Vipassanā wisdom cannot come about through intellectual thinking. It simply cannot be comprehended. Vipassanā insight is not something that can be conceptualized through images; it is a wholly new understanding and insight into principles, into nature.

As we practice diligently and continuously, we will keep having these small understandings and insights over and over. Over the long haul, insights will become so persistent that they will work in tandem with awareness. Once wisdom starts working together with awareness, our meditation moves to a higher level of understanding. We begin to have bigger insights.

These bigger understandings have a life of their own; they have more power. They are not so dependent anymore on awareness. Once we have had such insights, they will always be available and wisdom will always be there. At this stage, awareness will step back to play a secondary role. It will always be present because wisdom cannot exist without awareness, but at this level of understanding, wisdom begins to have a life of its own. Awareness will keep feeding wisdom and our understandings will grow in strength. At this stage, the mind always knows what to do, and it can happen that the practice becomes so easy that it will keep going even if we are not making any effort to practice. The more we practice, the more the mind understands how to practice and it doesn’t have to think about how to practice. It finds its way when wisdom starts to operate.

The real benefit of the Dhamma is not to stop engaging with life issues but to approach the same tasks with wisdom instead of defilements, having understood how they work.

May All Beings Be Happy!