FOREST SANGHA newsletter April 2001 2544 Number 56 Touching the Meaning From a talk given by Ajahn Sucitto at Cittaviveka, January 1st 2000. ew Year’s Day: It’s been quite a full thin, take on reality – which doesn’t take into N couple of days... and what about tomorrow? account the mind of the observer, and the nature Just notice: when one looks back, or looks of the actual experience. The literal truth is a half- forward; is it pleasant? Enjoyable? Tiring? A bit truth – which excludes the moment of perception, much? Peaceful? Or what? What particular the relational dynamic and the resonance of perception does the mind log on to, and what does things. It’s sad that people can imagine this it make out of that? Such as last night, when we eviscerated version of reality to be the bedrock of placed those tiny wooden boats with prayers on what reality is: stripped of consciousness, stripped their sails into the pond: the lovely image of these of perceptions, stripped of resonance, stripped of candlelit boats bobbing around on the black water. meaning, stripped of anybody who’s in it. It The delicate buoyancy of those things – they’re becomes some bleak, external world in which fragile, and yet they represent a stability, an ability nobody belongs, so we don’t experience light, to float, to be flow, coolness, light among these gathering, quiet, huge elements of celebration, rain, earth, and festivity, sky – a very The literal truth is a half-truth – aspiration, joy – touching image. these things. When there’s which excludes the moment of perception, When there’s something like meaning we’re that, you can the relational dynamic and included in recollect it, use it the resonance of things. something, our as a treasure. living process One of the participates and opportunities in is involved. our lives is to be Meaninglessness able to create particular perceptions that have is when it’s not involved, or when the sense of meaning in them – not that meaning is a literal being involved is hidden beneath a mind that’s truth. People get very one-dimensional on these unwilling, blinkered, or shut down in some way. things: ‘Either it’s true, or it’s not true!’ So we The fact of it is that actually we’re always could say: ‘Well, it’s just bits of wood floating involved, only sometimes we bring into such a around on a muddy old pond in Sussex; so situation a dismissiveness, or a fear of unknowing, what?...’ The mind can work like that – not or uncertainties about our capacity. We stay with realising that much of meaning is metaphorical, a blank reality; a reality that is ‘out there’– mostly rather than literal. The literal is only one, rather indifferent, and occasionally hostile – all flat FOREST SANGHA NEWSLETTER surfaces and planes: ‘But it’s real (out there), and I know minds – the joy, the fear, the love, the sense of where I am – separate from it.’ belonging, the sense of aloneness, the dark, the light – Of course, the sense of participation – of play – is a and how perceptions get assembled; how it is that people risky thing because it brings us to our feelings, and we can be the loved, the blessed, the company – or THEM: don’t really the nuisance, know what the they might be. impingement, It’s an act of the irritation! trust to allow Both of those oneself to will stand up really feel as truth; both what one is of those can feeling, and to have a know that that meaning: a is the negative ‘meaning’ of meaning or a that reality positive right now. But meaning. But when we if we understand acknowledge and are not what occurs frightened of and realise meaning, then that this is we can make perception use of many playing, we different don’t have to things; for be stuck in example, them, we myths or don’t have to legends, externalise religious them as facts. forms, rituals, Perception idols, icons or and feeling are mysteries... what are they make called the sense to us, citta- because they saπkhåra, or involve us, we Candlelit boats bobbing on the black water the things that feel the influence or meaning. They bring out our sense of awe, our joy, and determine the mind. What we take our mind to be at we’re part of something. It goes wrong if we canonise any moment is determined by a perception: an image, a such things, saying that they’re true rather than thought fragment, a memory – and the feeling tone that meaningful, that they’re something that stands apart ‘out goes with it: pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Anything there’ rather than ‘here’. you focus your mind upon, as an object, is a perception; P√jå and ceremonies are meaningful because we can it’s a perceived thing, right? So if you think of yesterday allow ourselves to be part of them. In that willingness to night, or of me, or of home, or of tomorrow – a give oneself into something, to not be embarrassed or perception comes up; and there’s the feeling that goes intense about it, there is a wholeness of heart; we may with it: dynamically pleasant, vaguely pleasant or sort of find ourselves touched in ways that are acute, and even pleasant oscillating into unpleasant with dashes of mysterious. It’s not always that secure, but it is neutral in it! These two together determine what we revealing. We begin to access the core perceptions of our seem to be going through; what kind of a day we’re continued on page 4 2 April 2001 EDITORIAL House Builder fter two months of retreat time, enjoying the are broken; the ridge pole is shattered!’ This is a A luxury of not having to speak to each other or to powerful image for the penetration of that activity of attend to any other than the most essential duties, there consciousness, which is continuously bringing together arises a sense of ease, of inner quietude. Under normal the elements of mind (nåma) and body (r√pa) to give retreat circumstances this is a cause for pleasure – delight meaning or significance to something that, ultimately, even. However, confronted with the task of writing the simply isn’t there. The Self or Person’s existence, and its newsletter editorial, I notice instead a sense of mild relationship with the physical form and all that anxiety, tinged with curiosity: there doesn’t seem to be surrounds it, is brought into existence and sustained anything there... I wonder if anything will arise and, if solely through craving, based on a misunderstanding! anything does, I’m interested to see what that will be. When we clearly see what the Buddha saw in his Bringing things together – raw materials (pencil, awakening, our suffering can end – apart, that is, from paper); a specific occasion; ideas, concepts, teachings; the natural discomfort experienced in the body as it and whatever understanding and volition may have registers physical hunger, the extremes of heat and cold, arisen as fruits of practice – seems a good place to begin. disease, its wearing down with age. It’s actually very The first is here. The second? Well, it’s that sort of time simple, but the power of craving and ignorance or Måra (anyone who has edited – the skill and strength of things will know what that the ‘house builder’ in means); the fourth, such as Through many births I wandered in Samsåra; holding the illusion of Self it is, is here – which leaves Seeking, but not finding the builder of this together – is such that we the third. house, need all the help we can Looking at Ajahn Painful is repeated existence! get (and, even then, it can Munindo’s piece about the Housebuilder! You are seen now, take a long time). We have Sanghamitta project, I am You shall build no house again. different characters and reminded of early days of Your rafters are broken! different needs at different the monastic community at Your ridge-pole is shattered. times, so we are fortunate To dissolution goes my mind. Harnham, when the that the Buddha presented Achieved is the destruction of craving. extremely dilapidated many different strategies (Dhammapåda v. 152-153) structure down the lane, that can help us arrive at with its crumbling stone this understanding that walls, ‘roof’ and sagging frees the heart. Sometimes wooden door frame, would affectionately be referred to it’s phrases like ‘Let go of everything’ or, ‘plunging into as ‘the nuns’ vihara.’ Then, when it became apparent the Deathless’ that can arouse faith, enabling us to make that there was unlikely to be a nuns’ community living a shift away from our ego-centred view of things. there, it went back to being, simply, ‘Number 5 – Farmer Sometimes a more analytic approach as demonstrated in Wake’s birth place.’ Now, some fifteen years on, it’s Ajahn Sucitto’s talk, ‘Touching Meaning,’ is what is ‘The New Retreat House’ and a process of physical needed. This might be a questioning – or challenging – of transformation has begun. Hopefully, in due course our assumptions step by step; or a systematic listing of there will be the completion of this bringing together of factors that sustain a particular awareness. When these physical elements, and something that is clearly mirror our everyday experience (which can of course be recognisable and usable as ‘the new retreat centre’ will be somewhat humbling), this is particularly efficacious.