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(Reproduced from the Daily Mirror of December 29, 2001) According to Buddhism we are the sum total of our actions-body, speech and mind. We act in a particular way because we have got into them, Then it also means that we can get out of them. What we do is grab pleasure and avoid pain. When we become constantly aware of the different states of our mind and recognise, by a steady practice of meditation, we can become a different person- Ariya Pudgala or New Man. A person, who is not only self aware, but emotionally positive, responsible, sensitive and creative. It is not an easy task. The main enemy is other people or the group. We are social beings and therefore part of many different groups, for instance, family and work situations. So we become a group member; we are expected to act in a particular way. We begin to role play. You become the husband, the wife, the father, mother, brother etc. We lose our individuality. It does not mean that the concept of family is bad. We have to create space and avoid as much as possible situations where you become a member of the group and always have a role to play. There are many, many gropus that we are part of. There is the political party, trade union, cast, religion and nationality etc. It is not only to avoid them but also we need to find similar-minded people and make strong friendships with them. We need Kalyana Mitras .With them you do not role play. You become fully open to them and communicate with them. This is spiritual fellowship, or the Sangha. Secondly, superficiality. This means displaying a lack of thoroughness and care and it is acting from the surface of ourselves. Why do we do it? -because we are divided. Our conscious rational surface is divided from the unconscious emotional depths. We can experience the divisions between the subconscious and conscious quite easily when we try to meditate. For instance we take up mindfulness of breathing and try to count one to ten. It is a very simple technique, but nearly always, it is hard to count to five, without becoming distracted. One part of us wants to mediate but the other part does not. This means we have not thoroughness or care. We are not acting genuinely and sincerely. We act out of intellectual conviction but do not succeed in carrying these emotions with us. Sometimes, of course, we act out of fullness of our emotions, but only too often rational minds hold us back. It is one of the curses of the modern age. Mathew Arnold more than 100 years spoke of “our sick hurry and divided aims”. “We are in a hurry, “in a sick hurry”, yet our aims are divided. We don’t really and truly do anything” we don’t do it with the whole force of our being. When we love we do not really love, when we hate we do not really hate. We don’t really think. We half-experience all these things. We do not go into detail. This is more common in the East than in the West in every area of our lives. Thirdly, vagueness. We all know what it means and what a vague person is like. Because they are dishonest with themselves. We know the Buddhist life is not an easy task and it is as painful as it is enjoyable. So we remain undecided and so keep our options open. We maintain a number of different interest and a number of aims so that we can fall back on them. We oscillate and drift. So we go on being vague, woolly, cloudy, faint and dim. To break this fetter we need to be willing to think clearly. We need to think things through, to see what alternatives there are and to sort out our priorities. It means being willing to make up our minds and once chosen to act wholeheartedly and without postponing. This is very common among us. We wait until we are retired or perhaps until our children are grown up. We justify and delay action. One can fulfil all these and continue to practice meditation etc. appropriately if we can make a decision. So it seems that these three fetter; habit, superficiality and vagueness can be broken by insight. The “born” Buddhists in traditional Buddhist countries tend to consider that these higher states of consciousness are very remote and difficult to experience. Whereas the converted or rediscovered Buddhists in the post-modern West who take up meditation seriously, we progressively being convinced that after the preliminary states that we can experience higher states of consciousness, or what is called Daynas. We can experience rapture, tranquillity and bliss. Then our minds can become calm. This calmness will lead to insight. Enlightenment is not a blind thing, so when we become calm we begin to reflect. Such reflections can lead us to be a Stream Entrant. The Buddha compared his teaching to the mighty ocean in the earliest Pali Text-Udana (Verses of Uplift). Once he was seated at the day of the full moon with a multitude of his disciples. They sat all night in silence. They did not fidget, or even sneeze. It is likely that the Buddha and the most of the disciples did not even see the sea, as they were far away from it. However, he compared the mighty ocean to his Dharma from what he had heard about the ocean. He showed eight elements of his teachings that are common to the mighty ocean. In the sixth one, he shows the mighty ocean has the taste of slat and his teaching has the taste of freedom. We talk nowadays of freedom in the sense of political and civil liberties: Freedom in the Buddhist sense-Vimutti-goes far beyond that and even far beyond the sense of psychological freedom which we talk about. The goal of Buddhism is usually talked about in a negative manner, such as extinction of desires, cessation of craving and hatred etc. This is depicted in the Wheel of Life, the cyclical nature of our existence’ ignorance leads to volitions. Here the root of suffering is our desires and attachments-and enlightenment comes from total freedom of one’s desires. The goal of Buddhism- attainment of nirvana-is also talked about in positive terms (the Spiral Path) despite this fact it is emphasised much less in the original scriptures. The Buddha’s comparison of his teachings with mighty ocean in Udana can be used to demonstrate this positive approach. It is the gradual unfolding or growth and development. According to what one can call “Positive Nidanas” or links- our experience of suffering will lead to the arising of faith. It means that faith arises when we understand that human life is unsatisfactory and insubstantial and that Buddhism has an answer to this. When we see that there is an answer we can overcome the unhappiness, caused by suffering- in human existence, we begin to experience faith and devotion in the teaching of the Buddha, and from the dependence on faith and devotion and delight. From dependence on satisfaction and delight arises rapture and from rapture to tranquillity and then to bliss. From dependence of Bliss arises Samadi and finally Vimutti. It means that we can break through the three lower fetters mentioned in the original Buddhists teaching i.e. three things that bind us to the lower levels of mundane existence-and become Ariya Pudgala or New Man. These three lower fetters are intellectual. Still we are bound up with emotional fetters and negative emotions such as anger, fear, desire for food and sex. According to the tradition further effort can weaken them. We can look at these three things in very down to earth terms. We can call them; (1) Habit (2) Superficiality (3) Vagueness So, first, i.e. by means of a vision of things as they really are. In other words, in the language of the modern world, we can break them by being creative. We have to be free from the pressure of the group and its demands. We have to think of the life of Prince Siddartha (the Buddha to be). He found living at home painful and did not lead to peace. So, we are told, one day he left his wife, son, father, village and the kingdom. In the post-modern West those who take up the practice seriously tend to think in these terms and try to take the Buddhist practice to the centre of their lives and not keep it on the peripheries. If you close your yes and ask yourself whether you are a Stream Entrant; the answer will come soon. If your priority, or the centre of your life, is your family, or your status etc. you can see that you are not a Stream Entrant. If the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in the sense of Spiritual Friendship is your centre, then you are a Stream Entrant.
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