Should You Stop Caring

M: So, I’ve been thinking about a question. Suppose you recognise the degree to which there is nothing whatsoever that you can care about safely. But your mind still cares about things. Wants to care about things. And it could be good things that you care about. So what should be done, and what should not be done?

N: So, I’m going to ask, what are the good things? What do you mean, more specifically?

M: I mean things like helping other people, being reconciled with people you might have hurt in the past, family, that sort of ‘good thing’.

N: So when you say the mind wants to care about it, does it mean it doesn’t care, but you think you should care? Or does it mean, it cares, but you’re finding a problem with it?

M: It cares, but you know that you have to abandon care for even these good things. And at some point, you have to stop caring about everything.

N: Yeah, yeah. Colloquially speaking. Like, you can’t stop caring.

M: Exactly, yeah.

N: The mind can just lose interest through becoming dispassionate. So that’s really the question, to what degree the mind still cares for things, including good things. And that’s when you recognise that, OK, so you can’t tell it to stop, you can psychologise it as much as you want. So the question is then, why doesn’t your mind obey you? Why is it not completely pliable to turn away completely from things? So why is it, what do you think it is? Why would the mind not be completely pliable even in regard to those subtler things?

M: I think there’s two ways. One is, the reason that the whole gradual training is there is that, yeah, exactly, you can’t just tell your mind to stop caring about things. You need to develop, let’s say, a certain mental strength, develop virtue, develop sense restraint, develop the ability to relinquish things, relinquish care in regard to things. So that has to be done through the gradual training, there’s no other way to do it. And that involves doing it, doing the gradual training, while still seeing that there always has to be further to go. There’s always more of it that you can do.

N: So you just have to then stick to the gradual training, and use the presence of these things as a criteria for, is there still work to be done. So it’s, I don’t deal with them directly, I deal with them through the gradual training, such as virtue, precepts, sense restraint, and then watchfulness of my intentions on a day-to-day basis, not giving rise, not acting toward distractions on a day-to-day basis, and all of that is making the mind more pliable, generally. Making the mind more dispassionate, making the mind turn away from things on its own. And then you recognise, oh, the things I care about are still there, but there is no care. So that was my second question, basically, what constitutes caring about things? Is the experience of care pleasant or unpleasant? Fundamentally.

M: Unpleasant.

N: In its core it’s unpleasant, it’s not quite agreeable. So what is care then? Is it the presence of thoughts, perceptions about people that are close to you, that you know, that you feel like you owe them help, and so on? Or, is it you being affected by the displeasure of it?

M: Exactly. You can still help, or you can still do things, let’s say, you can still have perceptions…

N: So you can still care in that sense, but not really ‘care’ because you’re not affected on the emotional level.

M: Being detached from the things that you’re doing, or the people…

N: You would simply not feel it. Not feel that discomfort on account of it. You can still care. You can look after dogs, you can look after people, you can spend all night not sleeping if they need help, if they’re ill. But you won’t feel that discomfort of care, my care. My burden. And that’s the difference. And the reason why I’m highlighting the difference is because obviously people can easily, again, slot into a view that ‘OK, so I must stop caring’. The mind must stop caring. That means I will not even recognise such thoughts of what used to be my care. No, that can equally remain. I mean you had anāgāmīs, almost virtual arahants basically, in a household life back in the Buddha’s day when they were looking after their parents and so on, and caring for other people. But not really caring, in that sense. So you don’t need to abolish the perception of duty, of paying back what you owe in terms of service, and help and so on, on account of not feeling the discomfort of it.

And that’s that pliability of the mind, where basically you stop feeling, because the mind is not perturbed, even by things such as care. Such as duty. And that’s not something that can be done on that intentional level. So, how do you stop caring should really be rephrased as, how do I stop being moved by care? How do I stop feeling anything on account of even good care? And you stop that by making the mind pliable to that extent, where there is no more passion even to those little degrees. There is no more wanting there left. But we still haven’t answered the first question though. So why is then the mind not pliable? I mean, we answered it broadly, because the gradual training is not developed fully. But, specifically then. How would you make the mind that is not sufficiently pliable, how would you make it even more pliable? Do you take on more precepts or something?

M: No.

N: So you keep the precepts, that doesn’t change. Guarding of the sense doors, can you do more of that, or less of that, or can that be improved?

M: I would say it’s not about adding specifically, like OK it’s more precepts, or it’s more guarding sense doors, or it’s more this, or it’s more that. It’s just that these things have to be complete and unbroken, basically. So it’s not about doing more of certain things, it’s more about not feeding it.

N: Basically, it’s not quantity, it’s quality. But it could be both. OK, you don’t need to add more precepts and so on, but you could start refining the principles behind them. Like, yeah I’m guarding my sense doors, but then start refining even that. Not in the sense like, ‘OK so I will not move, I will not speak, I will not blink, I will not this or that’. But just, when I do choose to do intentional acts within what I deem to be already guarded sense doors that don’t go towards greed, towards aversion, towards distraction. Well, can I now refine discernment of those intentions within that? Because there might be some distraction still going on, to some extent. There might be still some ill-will going on, not going on as in arising, but I’m still choosing to act out of it, at least to some degree. So you refine there. So you do kind of do more in that sense, but within what you’re doing, not adding more in the form of external behaviours and observances. So that’s what it always comes down to. Like, sure, you might not be engaging with coarse actions rooted in lust, or anger, or distraction, but am I engaging in subtle ones? Am I engaging in subtle forms of distraction, or desire? And as I said, engaging in means acting out, not like ‘do I have these fleeting thoughts that pass’. They’re not my problem. The problem is when they linger around, and I choose to welcome and act upon them.

M: Exactly, and I mean, that’s why I asked about this. Caring, it’s the only reason that, let’s say you have a fleeting thought that arises, but even then ‘oh, let me think about this now’. That constitutes acting, in a way.

N: It could be, exactly, yeah. ‘Let me think about this now’, that’s another fleeting thought, but then you can ask yourself ‘OK, but before I think about this now, why?’ I need to know where my intentions are rooted, so why do I want to think about it now? Is it because I already felt that fleeting discomfort that now I try to explain, justify, get rid of, make it fit, sort it out? So in other words, I’m acting out of trying to get rid of the pain, no matter how fleeting it might be. So then you don’t do it for that reason, because you recognise where the intention is rooted.

M: And that’s the thing too, that I think at one point you mentioned as you were talking there. Because, again, there are things that are just taken for granted as ‘oh yeah, this is a good thing, this is worth thinking about’. But the only reason it’s taken for granted like that is because there’s already care in regard to it. So just even to question that, ‘wait a second, this isn’t necessarily worth thinking about,’ and the only reason you want to think about it is because, you want to think about it. And because it’s yours, and it’s important to me. That has to be relinquished.

N: And also sometimes the mind maybe is already pliable enough, but you’re just overlooking the immediate presence of care. You’re just overlooking the fact that what you really want to do there is get rid of that discomfort. And once you recognise that, you stop caring. Like, in that sense, you stop being moved by it. You don’t need to deny the thoughts of care and help and so on, but ‘oh, the only reason I was still pressured by care is because to that extent I haven’t understood it’. I haven’t understood the phenomenon of care, whether it’s actually rooted in simply that discomfort, a subtle one, but it’s still uncomfortable, and I want to deal with it.

M: And then the other thing I observed that I found interesting in regard to this is that, that discomfort or whatever feeling is involved in care, you can see that that feeling, or even that thought, or that object, could not be there without this body. That could be very abstract, let’s say, but if it’s actually being felt or being seen, then that’s immediately undermining the whole basis of the pair.

N: Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s like contemplation of death, your own death. Undermines any concern you might have in regard to the world once you start feeling the weight of the contemplation of death. Of the liability to it.

M: And the interesting thing is that that initially could seem very… When you care about something, you don’t want to lose it, and the idea of totally abandoning the care is almost, from the point of view of really caring about things, is not pleasant. But when you reflect that even that care could not exist without these senses, the eyes happening to be there working, the ears happening to work, the mind happening to work normally, it’s like you can’t care about it, even if you want to.

N: Yeah, yeah. It’s inaccessible. And that’s another irony, exactly. From the point of view of care, giving up care is unpleasant. But the only reason you’re caring is because it’s unpleasant. It’s already felt unpleasantly, so you care more, and you get more involved with it, and you act further, because it’s already unpleasant. And that thread of unpleasantness remains.

M: And that’s also why you have to go forth, basically, at some point. It’s much harder to do this completely while still being involved on a day-to-day basis with the things that you’ve always cared about.

N: That’s what the Suttas often say. It’s hard to live the holy life unblemished, so, free from any blemishes, however subtle, if you’re in a household setting. Yes, you can restrain yourself from coarse things, and keep a lid on other stuff, but fundamentally, the whole environment is still tarnishing. Because it’s all about these things, it’s all about these ownerships, and intimacies, and connections. And the way to deal with it is to not be in it. A great deal of impurities would be cleared in that way.

T: This kind of reminds me of that Sutta in Majjhima Nikāya 87, ‘Born of Affection’. “On one occasion there was a certain householder whose only son, who was loved by him and pleasing to him, had died. Because of that death, he did not work or eat. He would go to the cemetery and cry. ‘My only son, where are you? My only son, where are you?’ Then that householder approached the Blessed One, paid respects to him, and sat to one side. When the householder was seated, the Blessed One said to him: ‘Householder, you do not appear to have a stable mind. You appear to be deranged.’”

[Laughter.]

N: Subtly put.

T: He says: ‘But how could I not be deranged, bhante? My only son, who I loved and I was pleased by, has died. Because of that death I do not work or eat, I go to the cemetery and cry.’ And then the Buddha replies: ‘That’s how it is, householder, that’s how it is. Householder, sorrow, grief, pain, dejection, anguish are born from affection, they come from affection.’ I won’t go into the rest, because that’s the key point there.

N: And what is the affection born of?

A: Ignorance.

N: More directly, more specifically.

A: Acting out.

N: More specifically.

M: Pleasure.

N: Pleasure, yeah. You would not be affectionate with something that’s unpleasant. His son was pleasing to him, so a feeling of pleasure has to be a basis for any form of affection, and proliferation, and intimacy, and dearness.

T: Some people might say, well, if I abandoned affection for my mother, my parents, then I don’t care for them any more. Are you saying I mustn’t care for them?

N: No, I’m saying you must abandon affection.

T: But that’s like, if I don’t have affection, I just don’t help them in any way. I don’t think about them, I don’t do any duties towards them.

N: Yeah, so then the person needs to learn the difference. As we just said, that’s not what care is, even to begin with. Care is being emotionally affected. That’s what care means. You abandon that, and you can still help people and act. People can’t distinguish that, obviously, because they most likely don’t even keep the precepts. Let alone tame their mind on a higher grade.

T: Because it’s either affection or hate. You hate them then.

N: Nothing in between is seen, because those are the categorical modes that a mind hardens into. So it’s either this or that. It’s like, OK, sure, but I’m telling you, there is something in between. And if you, out of faith, practise the Buddha’s Teaching and start taming your mind through the gradual training, that whole domain of in-between will become apparent. And then you can understand how you can have intentions without craving. How you can care for your parents, without feeling anything towards them. But you can’t understand that while you’re still at the bottom of the mountain, in a swamp of sensuality. It’s just impossible. You can say ‘no no, there’s nothing at the top there’, well, how would you know? You’re not there.

A: So that’s, in a way, similar to seeing the difference between feeling and craving.

N: Yeah, all of these nuances, so to speak, would become apparent. Because it all comes down to the feeling not being seen as impermanent. Feeling not being understood as suffering, just in and of itself, even if it’s a pleasant feeling. Just presence of feeling means suffering. And that’s exactly how craving is in regard to the feeling. By not understanding feeling, you crave when it’s felt. That’s it.