Abundant Theory, Lack of Endurance

T: So in terms of not-self. A person can get the idea that… I mean a normal human being knows they are going to die. So they know, without reflecting that much, ‘I’m not in control of my body fully’. So they get that idea, that it’s not mine, I’m not in control. But they don’t understand not-self. They still take things personally, they still take the body personally. Even though you know you’re going to die.

N: So why is that?

T: I would say they haven’t really thought about it deep enough. Contemplated it.

N: Some people do, but they still remain infatuated with life.

T: Because of how they act.

N: Exactly, yeah.

T: They act as though it is theirs.

N: Like, you can have all the ideas you want, but if your behaviour is not mirroring those ideas, that’s where you’re fuelling those wrong assumptions. So on one hand, yes, when you’re thinking clearly, you recognise all these characteristics of existence. But then, out of habits and carelessness, the body still goes towards sensuality, resists discomfort, indulges in food, doesn’t practise sense restraint. And that’s the cesspit. That’s the roots, where your wrong views are being fed from. So although your ideas are different to that, when you’re actually going about things, it’s very much according to that sense of control, and ‘I’m going to live forever’. So, yes, you need to have the right ideas, but now you need to start doing them.

T: You need to start doing the right ideas.

N: You need to start purifying your behaviour, as the Buddha said, to mirror those ideas. And that’s why there were sāmanas and brahmins outside of the Buddha’s teaching who did actually ponder upon ‘I am not anyone whosoever, nothing whatsoever applies to me, nothing whatsoever is here’. Like, it’s basically circumstantial, that’s your sense of control. It can end at any moment. And he said that’s the foremost of the outsiders’ views. And the point was that, now, if you actually not just think that view once a month, or be convinced that you’re a holder of that view, but start, whenever you want to act towards the world, towards him, her, or this, or that, you first put that view. That you’re nothing to anyone anywhere in the world, and nobody’s anything to you. So you would not be able to engage in passion, aversion, distraction. And there were then people who made the effort and their behaviour did start to correspond to those views. And those were the ones the Buddha met in the Suttas who needed very little instruction for final liberation. Because they did a great amount of work already.

T: So for example, I might logically reason that feelings are not mine, because they’re always changing. ‘What do I feel now? I feel pain, now I feel pleasure. Yeah, yeah, I can see that now.’ I can even record all my feelings. Ten o’clock and it was like this…

N: Collect information about it, study it, yeah.

T: …and I can see, definitely, yes. And it kind of mirrors that right view, on paper. In theory.

N: Well that’s in a nutshell Abhidhamma and commentaries, basically. It’s that impersonal take, almost like a scientific collection of observations and facts, about the Buddha’s teachings. It’s always like, lists, and comparisons, and permutations. But that’s not the Dhamma.

T: So I understand in theory that it’s impermanent, or inaccessible to my control, the feeling. And now, as I feel, what do I do when I’m feeling pain?

N: Am I trying to get rid of it? Or am I unmoved by it?

T: I must graft that idea on to…

N: Inevitably, you’ll be trying to get rid of it through using those ideas, yeah. But, if you then really start to understand those ideas, you realise, thinking about the Dhamma does not mean that’s the Dhamma. So you can have all the ideas, but if you’re not actually applying it rightly, there is no Dhamma there. And that’s important to recognise, because otherwise people can easily slip into a view of ‘well, as long as I think about the Dhamma, I am on the path’. But you’re not. You’re on the path when you become a sotāpanna. That’s the beginning of the path. If you don’t see the Dhamma, means you don’t see the path. How can you be on the path if you don’t see the path? And you will not become a sotāpanna just on account of such ideas. You need to actually start applying them, and enduring things on the right level.

T: So you could say feelings are not mine…

N: Great, in theory, you’ve got it. So what do you do?

T: Now I’m feeling a lot of pain, or the prospect of pleasure, or a lot of pleasure. Now let me apply that.

N: So, let’s say there is a prospect of pleasure. What do you do in the face of the prospect of pleasure?

T: I don’t delight in it.

N: And what else? Do you act towards it? Follow it?

T: No.

N: So you endure it. For how long?

T: Forever!

N: Exactly, exactly. So, if those are the truths that you understood, that you accepted, that you intellectually verified as correct, now you start doing it.

T: So this thing is not mine…

N: It’s not in my control, it’s a trap, it’s suffering. OK, great. Now, do it.

T: But say in the beginning, I am faced with feeling it, this feeling is pressuring me, it’s touching me, it does feel like mine. But I have the outside view of the Buddha.

N: So you have an option now. It feels like yours, and the option there is, OK, so what do you do? Do you accept the pressure that it’s yours? Or do you not accept it as mine? ‘Oh yeah, look, this is yours!’ I mean, you know, when the fisherman throws a bait with food, it’s for the fish. It’s yours, take it… so that you get hooked.

T: I accept that there is pressure, that is a bait, but I don’t…

N: Yeah, you might not necessarily see the bait, but you can already understand that by not acting out of pressure, you are safe in regard to the bait. You might not see it immediately, but at least you know, as long as I don’t take this, there will be no bait I’m hooked with. And that’s why I say it’s important to recognise that Dhamma begins with sotāpatti, not with the ideas of Dhamma, and even the clarity you might have. Because if you do, you will be creating that discrepancy between your ideas that you’re convinced are putting you on the path of Dhamma, and your behaviour that is still not matching it. Your lack of endurance, your lack of recognition on that right level, lack of restraint in regard to the need to manage discomfort and unpleasant things. But if you don’t have such a view, and you recognise ‘yeah, these ideas, as clear and as pleasing as they are, they might be very right, and I might verify later on that I was spot on right from the start. But the only way I’ll do that is not through holding these views about the ideas and so on, and feeling safe on account of it. No, let me now do that in regard to sensuality, aversion, and distraction.’ Only three things. You don’t need to seek the verification anywhere else.

T: Because, well that’s how you verify. That’s the only way you will ever be able to verify it. Because I can have a view, and you can agree with my view. We can both agree that feeling are not-self.

N: Yeah, and we can write scholarly papers on it, and dissertations, and pages and pages of references, and create a whole network of information. But that’s not the Dhamma. That’s the information about the Dhamma. Dhamma is when things are endured on the right level.

T: So, I understand feelings are not my self. They don’t belong to me. They just come and go.

N: Great. Now, when things come and go, let them come and go without acting out of them, without trying to get rid of them, without delighting in them, without welcoming them.

T: And keep doing that.

N: For as long as it takes. And it might take forever.

T: The verification that it has worked, is the fact that feelings no longer pressure you.

N: Well eventually, yes, exactly. Of course, even the pressure felt will not be, well, it will diminish. There will be no pressure in the end. That’s why contact, phassa, pressure, whatever you want to translate it as, can not pressure the groundless one, when there is no ground to apply that pressure to for an arahant. An arahant is unable to experience pressure of any kind any more, mentally. He’s beyond pressure, nothing can pressure him.

T: Because there’s nothing ‘for him’ any more. So that determination of self, that thing that determines self, is no longer there.

N: Yeah, but now we’re getting a bit abstract. You can speculate about it, but it’s because he endured things sufficiently on the right level. That’s why nothing can pressure him any more. Because that’s the difference, as I’ve said many times before. When pressure arises, people use even the Dhamma to get rid of the pressure, not to endure it, and understand it through enduring. No, to get rid of it. And that’s why they’re not enduring it rightly, and that’s why that’s not the Dhamma. That’s why that’s management versus uprooting.