Download Week One: The story of the Historical Buddha and its symbolic

The Path of Non-Belief
If the Buddha were alive today he would probably survey the modern Buddhist world and be amazed to
find that his very simple to understand teachings have been so misunderstood and misinterpreted over the
past 2,500 years. As his message spread around the globe, much of the essence of what he had to say has
been lost to huge institutions that have given birth to a religion, with all of the attached rites and rituals
and inherent dogma and pseudo spiritual hierarchies of mainstream religions. He would equally be
amazed to find his teachings have been turned into some kind of New Age philosophy where
intellectualising and conceptualising is seen as the way forward for authentic development. What actually
arose within the experience of enlightenment under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya 2,500 years ago was the
realisation of the truth of the way things actually are and the development of a way in which we too, by
our own efforts, can realise this for ourselves. Even the words Buddhist and Buddhism were not in
existence in the Buddha’s lifetime. These too have been developed by those who came along many years
after his death. Within the context of this series, when we refer to the teachings of the Buddha we will use
the term Dharma, which broadly speaking refers to the teachings of the Buddha as well as those aspects of
reality and experience with which his teachings are concerned. Dharma practice refers to the way of life
undertaken by someone who is inspired by his teachings.
From the very outset of his teaching life the Buddha encouraged those who came to him not to simply
believe. Not to rely on any kind of blind faith. He suggested that just as the goldsmith tests the purity of
his gold by subjecting it to intense heat, we should also test the purity of his teachings by intense scrutiny.
The Buddha advises us not to be satisfied with hearsay or tradition or what is written in the scriptures and
not to accept the word of anyone who promotes his teachings from any position of authority, religious or
otherwise. It isn’t until we have thoroughly put to the test for ourselves and have found within our own
life experience that his teachings lead to a greater sense of happiness and well-being that we should
accept them as his Dharma.
The title of this course is ‘The Path of non-belief’, so we need to begin by defining what a belief actually
is. Within the context of this series, a belief is something that has arisen within us from our conditioned
experience. Perhaps something to do with the way we were raised, our education, the media or even in
some circumstances a direct or even apparent mystical experience or maybe a combination of a number of
these things. No matter how this belief arose it is with us now. It has become for us some kind of truth.
We don’t know why, but we just know it’s true. We can’t prove it’s true to a third party because their
conditioning factors were different to ours so it becomes an individual truth. The problem with this is that
we have built a wall around this belief. We have become closed to it not being true and when anyone
challenges our belief we react strongly in a negative way. Make no mistake, the Dharma is wholly
confrontational, not in any kind of hostile way but it challenges long-held beliefs and confronts us with
the truth of the way things actually are on an ultimate and universal scale which goes far beyond the
limited relative truths of the individual.
A view, on the other hand is something that perhaps has arisen under the same set of conditioning factors
as the belief, but it is only relevant to one particular moment in time and is subject to change should
surrounding circumstances change. And the difference between a belief and a view is of fundamental
importance within the context of this series. If we remain closed to the inevitability of change we remain
in the world of beliefs but if we stay open to the possibility at least of our individual truth not being a
universal truth we will have the opportunity of awakening ourselves to the way things actually are and
experience for ourselves the freedom and liberation that arise within such an experience.
To begin to try and understand what the Buddha was alluding to in his teaching of the Dharma we have to
go back 2,500 years ago to a time that was very different to today. To a time that was heavily influenced
by Indian religion and culture. It would be fair to say that the Buddha himself would have been deeply
conditioned by his own upbringing, his surrounding conditions, and would have held onto just as many
beliefs as we do now. But there came a point in his life when he began to challenge those beliefs. By the
age of 29, although surrounded by tremendous privilege, with a happy marriage, a young child and a
loving family he felt an underlying discomfort. What we would describe these days as mental anguish.
What seemed to trouble him the most was the futility of human life. If all it meant to be a human was to
be born, get old, get sick and die what was the point of it all. Like us he would experience moments of
pleasure and pain but could never find a permanent sense of satisfaction with anything or anyone.
Eventually he couldn’t take any more of this mental anguish and became determined to find the answer to
his problem. He left his home and his family and spent the next six years of his life wandering from place
to place involving himself with all of the most well-known spiritual teachers in the region. He subjected
himself to depravities, starvation, self-mortification almost to the point of death in search for end to this
underlying sense of mental anguish.
A moment of recollection of a time when he was seated under a tree watching a field being ploughed and
experiencing a heightened sense of awareness is said to be the motivational factor as to why the Buddha
sat down to meditate under the Bodhi tree and it is within the meditation experience itself that the Buddha
came to realise the answer to the human dilemma of mental anguish. And this is a very important thing to
note. After trying almost everything that was available and finding them limited, the breakthrough came
with meditation. For us in the 21st century it is even worse as there is so much out there that promises this
or that that it leads to a kind of consumerist confusion. Perhaps if we used the Buddha as an example we
too will find that is meditation that will bring us the answer we are looking for.
At first he was unsure that he would be able to communicate what he had discovered, but it is said that
out of compassion for others he had no choice but to try and convey what he had discovered. This
experience seems to be very common amongst others who have realised the truth for themselves. There
seems an almost subconscious drive to try and convey that truth to others. It is this first teaching, and
some would argue the only teaching of the Buddha, that has come to be so misunderstood over time. In
his first discourse at the deer park in Sarnath, to a group of five fellow travellers, (who incidentally
disowned him as going soft when he started to eat again) the Buddha declared that he had discovered the
middle path between indulgence and mortification. He described four ennobling truths; those of mental
anguish, its origins, its cessation and the path leading to its cessation. He tells them that mental anguish
has to be understood, it’s origins let go of, it’s cessation to be realized and the path to be cultivated and
that is what he had achieved.
It is this very point that lies at the heart of all of the misunderstanding that has developed over time and
which has led Buddhism down the road of being the religious belief system it has become today. The
Buddha taught that these four ennobling truths are things to be acted upon and realised for yourself. They
are not to be neatly turned into four propositions of fact to be believed. If you were to open almost any
book on Buddhism you will find ‘The Four Noble Truths’ often simplistically put as 1. Life Is Suffering 2.
Craving is the cause of suffering. 3. Suffering can be ended. 4. This is the path to end the suffering. These
four realisations of the Buddha became over time irrefutable truths in themselves. Truths to be believed
and that belief then forms the basis of a religion that bears little difference to Christianity, Islam and the
rest. To reinforce this misunderstanding learned scholars or revered teachers will point to the Suttas and
use the written word as proof of these truths. The books themselves become something that are not
subject to challenge because it is the word of the Buddha, the enlightened one. But it is likely that the
Buddha himself could not read or write and none of these books began to be created until over 500 years
after his death.
The Buddha was not a mystic. Neither was he a divine being. The enlightenment experience was not a
shattering insight into a transcendent truth that revealed to him esoteric knowledge of how the universe
ticks. In describing his experience he spoke of discovering complete freedom of heart and mind from the
compulsions of craving. He had simply woken up from the human dilemma of mental anguish and
discovered a way to its resolution. He awoke to set of interrelated truths rooted in the immediacy of
experience here and now. He did not present himself as a saviour of the world or a religious leader worthy
of veneration and worship. He found on deeper examination that self-centered craving was the origin of
this mental anguish and also that like everything else it had no degree of permanence and could be
brought to an end and the best way to do this was to embrace a way of life that assists us to let go of the
source of the mental anguish.
The Buddha taught that the true nature of existence is present in every moment of existence. It is not
locked away in a non-existent past or contained within a fantasy of the future. All that exists does so only
in each and every moment of experience itself. He also taught that current experience itself is formed
directly from the previous moment of existence. Within the enlightenment experience he realised that
nothing can exist without a preceding conditioning factor. This teaching of conditionality throws the
world of belief and faith into panic because it denies even the remotest possibility that at any moment, of
this concept we call time, could there ever have existed a sole creator being, divine being, God or any
other term used to keep us contained within the delusory world of faith & belief. That, for most people, is
far too scary to even contemplate. If nothing can exist without a preceding conditioning factor then it
means that no-one is in control and we have to take responsibility for our own actions and experience for
ourselves the consequences of them. It means that there is no-one to judge us & no-one to forgive us and
nothing for us to believe in or have faith in. It is no surprise therefore that the majority of the human
population, including substantial numbers of Buddhists, turn a blind eye to this teaching in favour of the
relative comfort of belief.
According to the universal truth of conditionality, for a creator being to exist there must have been
something in existence to have created it and for that thing to exist there must have been something in
existence to create that and so on. Throughout history the apparent mystery of human existence has been
explored and all manner of theories have been proclaimed as the truth, not just those by religion. Darwin
put forward the evolutionary process, which in its time was quite revolutionary, as it too dispelled to
some degree the existence of a creator being. But it did not go far enough because, like all other theories,
it is bound by the concept of there being a time when something actually started and according to the truth
of conditionality for something to have started there must have been something in existence preceding it
to start it and so on. Science too has come up with theories such as the big bang which has added another
nail in the coffin of there ever being a sole creator. Again this theory does not go far enough because it
tries to find a point in time when something started. So, the question arises how can we test and realise
the truth of conditionality for ourselves.
On one level it is very simple. If we look to our own direct experience we can see for ourselves that
nothing can materialise without a preceding condition. We don’t need to believe that or have faith in it. It
is present in every moment of our existence. Check it out for yourselves. Can you think of anything that
has ever come into being by itself? If you can find just one thing that does not include relying on a belief
or faith, or one thing that is not a view or opinion that has ever manifested within your own direct
experience, without a preceding conditioning factor, you will know for yourself that the Buddha got it
wrong. And the Buddha himself always encourages us to seek the truth for ourselves and to throw out his
teachings with the bathwater if we find them not to be true. If we can just let go of our ingrained belief
system we will find that this very moment of our existence is fashioned from a continuous stream of
preceding conditions. If just one of those preceding conditions did not happen then this moment of
existence could not exist. If we can establish that even from an intellectual or conceptual mind how can
we even begin to fall back on belief and delude ourselves even further even it is more comfortable or
seems somehow safer that way?
A faith/belief prevents us from engaging fully with direct experience. One other aspect of a belief is also
worth mentioning and that is the neurotic belief. According to the doctrines of Christianity & Islam and
others there is something waiting for us after death that is going to be much better than what we have now.
That is the reward for being good people now in this life. Many millions would claim to believe that. But
do they really? If life after death is going to be so fantastic why aren’t people rushing to get there sooner?
The answer lies in the neurotic belief. They don’t truly believe it but they take comfort in the possibility
that it might be true and therefore label it as a belief. The religious institutions then impose this rule that
to kill yourself is a sin and you will be barred from this wonderful after-life experience if you take your
own life and that completes the cycle of dependency on the belief system in question. The tragedy of this
dogmatic approach is that people tend to miss the opportunity to fully engage with their lives now in the
hope that they can have a better life later on.
We also discovered that Buddhism over the course of the past 2,500 years has also developed into a belief
system with just as many institutions and resultant dogma as all other religions. So let me emphasise this
point. Buddhism is a belief system. Dharma practice is a course of action. The four noble truths are not
there to believed, they are there to be lived. So let’s now begin to unpack those ennobling truths to see
how we can relate them to our own lives and hopefully learn ways in which we can let go into direct
experience. The first truth realised by the Buddha was that of mental anguish. This is the ultimate human
dilemma. Because nothing is permanent and nothing can provide us with lasting satisfaction we are
thrown into an unbalanced world of pleasure and pain. There is this constant sense of not being whole,
that something is missing. We continually tell ourselves if only I had this, If only this would happen, if
only etc etc… This first truth is a massive challenge for us to understand. It really questions everything
that we have been conditioned to believe throughout our lives. The truth of sickness aging and death are
reflected back to us like a mirror and we can’t avoid them no matter how much we have been kidding
ourselves.
If we were to examine in detail our moment by moment daily lives we would come to see how much of
our time is spent in distracting ourselves from these realities and their implications. If we begin to unpack
fully the term mental anguish we would understand that it has multiple meanings. At the top end of the
scale it would include depression, neurosis, stress and on the other end of the scale we would find concern,
worry, doubt. These are just a few of the words that describe the mental anguish that was realised by the
Buddha. The middle path is when those scales are equally balanced and we find ourselves sitting smack
bang in the middle in the acceptance of the way things actually are. What happens when we worry? We
might try and shrug it off or try to convince ourselves that it’s OK but more often than not we try to find
something else to replace it. We rarely accept the situation and try to understand it. mental anguish keeps
us trapped in the cycle of pleasure and pain only as long as we allow it to intimate us by habitually
regarding it as fearful and threatening we simply don’t get what the Buddha was saying in large letters:
UNDERSTAND IT! If a large wave is heading straight for us at the beach and we try to avoid it we will
find ourselves unbalanced and crashing into the sand & surf but if we dive straight into it we discover it is
only water. Similarly to understand mental anguish is to know it calmly and clearly for what it is:
something that is not permanent. The greatest challenges of this first truth, is to act before habitual
reactions move us once again round the cycle of pleasure and pain.
Just as the truth of the presence of mental anguish is an opportunity for understanding, so the presence of
self-centred craving that underlies it is an opportunity for letting go. Again we can use the example of a
set of scales to try and understand what craving is. On one side is egoism and selfishness, that deep-seated
anxious longing for security moving downwards to the fear of rejection by those we love to the
compulsion to have another glass of wine, bar of chocolate or a cigarette. Whenever mental anguish
arises the habitual reaction is to indulge it or to deny it and either of these actions prevents us from simply
letting go. It needs to be understood that the term letting go does not mean putting an end to it by any
means other than recognising it for what it is and understanding it. Letting go of craving is not rejecting it,
but allowing it to be what it is, simply a state of mind that once arisen will pass away. Like everything
else it has no element of permanence. Instead of trying to force it away we need to realise that its very
nature is to free itself. By continually involving ourselves in the human predicament of I want this, I like
this and I don’t want this, I don’t like this, we heighten the intensity of the hold that self-centered craving
has over us and we continue to experience mental anguish. Instead of being a state of mind that you have,
it becomes a compulsion that has you.
As with understanding mental anguish, the challenge in letting go of craving is to act before habitual
reactions incapacitate us. By letting go of craving it will finally cease. This cessation allows us to realize,
if only momentarily, the freedom, openness and ease of the middle way of the Buddha. This moment of
realization awakens us to the transient, unreliable and conditioned nature of reality. Dharma practice at
this moment relinquishes the last traces of any kind of belief system. It is grounded in authentic vision
born from experience. It no longer requires the support of moralistic rules and religious ritual and reveals
life in all its vulnerability. It reveals oneness, which is the gateway to compassion.
Dharma practice is the cultivation of realization. For most there will be moments of insights into the true
nature of reality but they will be fleeting and although they provide an opportunity for change they do not
bring about authentic awakening. We soon find ourselves back in the cycle of mental anguish, craving,
habit, restlessness and distraction. But these insights at least show us where this track leads to. Perhaps at
these moments we might also realise that we have not really been on the path at all. We have been
following hunches, intuition, taking on board the words of our teachers, exploring blind alleyways. No
matter how strong our resolve has been there has been a nagging unease that we don’t know exactly
where we are heading. Each step of the way feels hesitant and forced and we feel alone. As these insights
with a small ‘I’ move towards insights with a capital ‘I’ our resolve becomes unwavering yet entirely
natural. It is simply who we are and what we do. There is no longer any sense of self-consciousness,
contrivance, awkwardness or hesitation. Enlightenment is no longer seen as something to attain in the
distant future because we realize it is not a thing but a process and this process is the path itself. But make
no mistake this experience does not make us in any way perfect or infallible. It does not create within us
any sense of superiority or specialness. Until fully awake we are quite capable of subverting this process
to the interests of our far from extinct desires, ambitions, hatreds, jealousies and fears.
There is nothing particularly religious or spiritual about this path. It encompasses everything we do. It is
an authentic way of being in the world. It begins with how we understand the kind of reality we inhabit
and the kind of beings we are that inhabit such a reality. Such a vision underpins the values that inform
our ideas, the choices we make, the words we speak, the actions we perform, the work we do. It provides
the ethical ground for mindful and focused awareness which in turn further deepens our understanding of
the kind of reality we inhabit and the kind of beings we are that inhabit such a reality. As with everything
else the Buddha taught these growing realisations are things not to believe but to be acted upon. They
need to be nurtured. Just as a garden needs to be protected, tended and cared for, so does ethical integrity,
focussed awareness and understanding. No mater how deep our insight into the empty, transient and
conditioned nature of existence that alone will do little to cultivate these qualities. Each of these areas of
life becomes a challenge, an injunction to act. There is never any room for complacency for they all have
the letter CULTIVATE ME! written large on them.
What we need to do to cultivate these things is the basis of what Dharma practice is all about. By
understanding mental anguish we can learn to let go of craving which leads to its cessation which in turn
leads to cultivating the path. These must not be seen as four separate activities but four phases of the
development within the process of awakening itself. Understanding matures into letting go: letting go
culminates in realization; realization impels cultivation. We do not leave behind an earlier stage in order
to advance to the next rung of some kind of spiritual hierarchy. All four activities are part of a single
process and cannot be separated. As soon as understanding is isolated from letting go it degrades into
mere intellectuality. As soon as letting go is isolated from understanding it declines into spiritual
posturing. The very fabric of Dharma practice is woven from the threads of these interrelated activities,
each of which is defined through its relation to the others.
Much of what the Buddha taught was never committed to writing until many years after his death and
although we are told that we can rely on the strength of the oral tradition that passed down the teachings
we are all familiar with the game of Chinese whispers so it is important not to come to rely on the written
word alone, otherwise we just get caught up with a kind of bible-bashing approach to Dharma study.
When you read the teachings one thing sticks out very quickly and that is the amount of people back then
that came to awakening themselves. It was a very common thing. Quite often at the end of a Sutta it will
say how many people awoke and to what degree, having heard a particular teaching. So let’s just refresh
our minds with what it means to be awake. They have understood mental anguish, let go of craving,
realized cessation and begun developing the way of life that accords with that experience. As Buddhism
began to become institutionalised as a religion we see that the awakening experience becomes less
common and over time it has become lost within all of the attached dogma that has surfaced during its
journey to the present moment in time.
Now, enlightenment is reserved for those who consider themselves or are considered by others to be the
spiritual elite. Those perhaps, who adhere to the monastic discipline or those that claim some kind of
reincarnate lineage. But even in those circles it is rare. One explanation given for this rare experience is
that we now live in a time where there is just too much to overcome as those that lived in the Buddha’s
time had a much lesser degree of social conditioning and were more open to spiritual matters. This is
what institutionalised religion does. It creates a system of dependency. It creates the need for belief and
faith and modern day religious Buddhism is no different in this respect than Christianity, Islam and the
rest.
So, the big question that has consumed Buddhists throughout modern times is this: Is enlightenment close
by or far away? This throws up a bit of a dilemma because if its ease of access is emphasized there is a
danger of trivializing the significance of the experience and if we place it out of reach it turns into a kind
of icon of perfection to be worshipped from afar. The problem with this big question is that like many
other things it deceives us because we come at it from the intellectual mind of logic and reason which
tells us that only one option can be true. The answer to the question I would suggest is that the
enlightenment experience is readily accessible but it takes a great individual effort to realize it. It is in
effect far away but readily accessible.
On his travels around India 2,500 years ago whenever the Buddha was asked what he taught he replied
“mental anguish and the end of mental anguish”. When he was asked questions about the origin and end
of the universe, or the about differences between body and mind, or existence or non-existence after death
he often remained silent. He said that just as the sea has one taste, that of salt, the Dharma had just one
taste, that of freedom. Before he died he refused point blank to name a successor although apparently
there would have been many awakened beings to choose from. This fact seems to indicate that he was
opposed to the institutionalisation of his teachings and was against creating spiritual elitism. What he is
reported as saying in that last teaching at Kusnigara is that people should be responsible for their own
freedom and that Dharma practice would suffice as their guide. His last words, it is said, were “With
mindfulness, strive on”.
Throughout history there have been many challenges to the institutionalisation of Buddhism. I’m thinking
here of Indian tantric sages, Zen masters, the yogins of Tibet, the forest monks of Thailand & Burma and
now individual Westerners who have realised awakening for themselves. But such is the power of
organised religion to deliver up to sovereign states a method to control the populace into enforced moral
suppression and thereby create a dependency on the institution for guidance that it is very quickly
knocked back or put down. This results in the religion of Buddhism that we find today. We see a monk
and we subconsciously think priest, holy person, special person. But as with everything else it is a selfinflicted delusion.
Let’s turn now to the central theme of the Buddha’s teaching, that of mental anguish. From the moment
we are born our world circles around this underlying sense of mental anguish. It is always there and at its
epicentre is little more than a fear of non-existence. In one way or another we play the game of avoidance.
We treat birth and death as physical events in time and space, the first in breath and the last out breath.
They become isolated facts kept at a distance from the present moment where we feel safe and secure in
the business of getting through the day. Our lives become about trying to arrange it in such a way that we
feel secure. We surround ourselves with what we like and try to protect ourselves from what we don’t like.
Once we’ve got our material worth in some kind of order we perhaps begin working on our psychological
disturbances, our sense of self-worth, trying to find our real selves etc. Of course when all of this comes a
bit too much to bear we can always reach for the odd glass of wine, line of cocaine or retail therapy to try
and numb the senses. But no matter how well we convince ourselves of our own well-being we are still
kidding ourselves. We still don’t get what we want and still get what we don’t want. Of course, we
experience moments of pleasure, joy, success, love etc but in the end we find ourselves back where we
started in the realm of mental anguish. It may seem so obvious to us at times but do we really understand
it? Do we really give ourselves the opportunity of letting go? Our conditioned habitual tendencies are
very powerful and it is very easy to do what we always do, just ignore it or put it out of our minds. But if
we were to fully understand it even for one moment it will change everything.
Those of us who practice meditation regularly will be aware of how difficult it is for the mind to come to
rest on one thing. No matter how strong our resolve is to be present and concentrated the mind will
wander off to seek some other form of entertainment. It will become engaged in an edited version of the
past or begins to plan an uncertain future or we’ll be off with the fairies or simply running on auto-pilot.
The present moment hovers between past and future just as life hovers between birth and death and we
respond to both in similar ways. Just as we run away from the reality of birth and death into the apparent
safety of a manageable world we also flee from the present moment into a world of fantasy. There is
something within us that clings, no matter what, to the notion of a fixed self, a separate ego identity that
will either survive death intact or be painlessly annihilated.
Only with the dedication of prolonged practice will we be able to bring the distracted mind under some
kind of control. We will create the opportunity to discover for ourselves, without having to rely on belief
or faith that everything is in a constant state of flow. That nothing can be relied upon for security. If we
understood that mental anguish arises when we want things to be other than they are we would be heading
in the right direction. It is the very clinging to the notion of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ that underpins this mental
anguish. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if life did not bring change, if it could be relied upon to bring
happiness? But since this is not true because there are no conditions that are permanent or reliable we go
round and round in a never ending circle on a rocky ride that is constantly hitting moments of pleasure
and pain.
With concentration we begin to see the world as it is and this is both familiar and mysterious. There are
many mysteries in life and they bring with them inherent dangers. What we tend to do with a mystery is
to attach to it some kind of meaning that makes sense to us. We turn something that is a mystery into a
kind of individual truth and you can’t do that because by its very nature a mystery is just that. The
moment we give to it any kind of meaning, it becomes a belief and then, as we perhaps discovered earlier,
the belief itself becomes fixed and closes us off to our direct experience and the possibility of awakening.
When we stop running away from birth and death, the grip of anxiety is loosened and existence reveals
itself as a question. When the Buddha came across sickness, old age, death and a wandering ascetic for
the first time he was not only struck by the tragedy of mental anguish he was thrown into a world of
questioning. Yet the questions that were raised were not the sort he could stand back from, reflect on or
arrive at a rational answer to. He realized that he himself was subject to disease, ageing and death. In
effect the questioner became the question itself. The pivotal moment of human consciousness becomes a
question for itself. Such a question is a mystery, not a problem. It cannot be solved by meditation
techniques or through the authority of a text or upon submission to the will of a guru. Such strategies
merely replace the question with beliefs in an answer to an unsolvable mystery. As this kind of question
becomes clearer it becomes more puzzling too. The understanding it generates does not provide consoling
facts about the nature of life. This questioning probes ever deeper into what is still unknown.
It is said that what lies behind all fears is the fear of non-existence. We say we’re scared of heights but
really we’re scared off falling off and dying. We say we’re scared of spiders but we’re actually scared of
being bitten and dying. We say we’re scared of flying but really we’re scared of crashing and dying etc
etc. It is this fear of non-existence that leads millions of people into the belief and faith religions in the
hope of there being something a little more comforting than the thought of dying. Tied in with that belief
system is a set of moral rules in which you are compelled to live by, otherwise you don’t get to go to this
heavenly afterlife place. They all work on a classic punishment and reward system. Like all religions,
over time, Buddhism has gone much the same way. We now have teachings such as re-birth and a belief
that you will be born again in some other form. But let’s be clear about this. The Buddha never taught that.
When you read the suttas or the story of the Buddha you will find that during his awakening experience
he apparently recollected all of his previous lives and this misunderstanding has given rise to this
misinterpretation of what the Buddha taught. Even if this was part of his experience it does not make it
true. It was after all just an experience of mind within the meditation process. When questioned about
death he would either stay silent or say that his physical body would eventually break down and return to
the earth but as for anything else he had no idea and let’s face it neither does anybody else. Whatever
ideas, views or beliefs people have and hold onto they are just conjecture. The only time we will ever find
out or not is when we die.
Generally speaking death is a very morbid subject and not one that we choose to think about very often.
We know from within our own experience that it is a very painful and emotional subject. But the Buddha
urges us to contemplate and reflect on this subject often, almost to the extent of keeping it foremost in our
minds. In effect the closer we can get to fully realizing the truth and certainty of death and that its timing
is uncertain the closer we can get to the freedom to live our lives right now in each moment. The
contemplation of death within the meditation process is a way forward to do this but it has inherent
dangers if we are not living in positive mind states and should not be undertaken lightly. I would
recommend that if you wish to begin doing this you should combine it with big doses of the Metta
Bhavana practice. If you do wish to try doing this please speak to me and I will supply you with an
outline of how to do this type of reflective practice, but only if I consider you are ready.
The subject of life, death & rebirth is an area that provides a real opportunity to fully understand the
difference between a belief and the direct experience of awakening. But because of the underlying fear
surrounding the whole subject mater it is one that is usually top of our list of things to avoid. If we really
are seeking to be awaken from the delusion that we are a fixed ego-identity and be liberated from mental
anguish we really have no option. It has to be understood that in teaching the Dharma the Buddha had to
find a way of communicating it within a particular time and place in history and it seems clear to me that
in adopting the prevailing Indian view of rebirth as a basis for his ethical and liberating teachings was a
very valid way to do this. Subsequently, religious Buddhism emphasized that the denial of rebirth would
undermine the basis of ethical responsibility and the need for morality within society. Similar fears are
expressed by other religions to this day who believe that a loss of faith in heaven and hell will lead to
rampant immorality but those viewpoints come from the minds of those who still live within the deluded
world of relative truth.
Even now within Buddhist circles it is said that if you do not accept the doctrine of rebirth you cannot
really be a Buddhist. But as we’ve already discovered there is a significant difference between what a
Buddhist is and what a Dharma practitioner is. From a traditional Buddhist point of view it is problematic
to suspend belief in the idea of rebirth but if we follow the Buddha’s teaching of not accepting things
blindly, then that orthodoxy should not get in the way of our search for the truth. One difficulty that has
beset Buddhism from the very start is the question of what is there to be reborn. Other religions can get
round this problem because they have adopted a belief system that claims that although the body and
mind may die the self, soul or consciousness continues. But in accordance with the Buddha Dharma we
can see for ourselves that no such fixed self can be found. We find that such a deep rooted sense of
personal identity is just part of our delusional existence and just a tragic habit that lies at the root of
craving and anguish.
Different schools of Buddhism have come up with different ways to approach this question which in itself
suggest that their views are based on mere speculation and belief rather than the truth. Some claim that
the force of habit-driven craving immediately re-appears in another form of life; others point to a kind of
non-physical mental consciousness that may spend several weeks searching for a suitable womb to resurface within. The trouble with all of this speculation is that it takes us further and further away from the
truth that we simply don’t know. Even if irrefutable evidence for rebirth were to appear one day it would
only raise other more difficult questions. If rebirth is ever found to be true it still would not provide any
linkage between one existence and the next. Demonstrating that death will be followed by another life is
not the same as demonstrating that a murderer will be reborn in hell and a saint in heaven.
There is another approach we can take in dealing with the subject of rebirth and this is more in keeping
with the Buddha’s approach to Karma, another key Indian doctrine. But the Buddha’s teaching on karma
is very different to the Indian approach to the subject. Whilst the traditional Indian teaching of karma
relates to you as an individual whose actions will follow you to your next life the Buddha emphasised that
our actions will effect our current life on a moment by moment basis. Each movement of the mind which
occurs each time we think, speak or act will have a direct consequence on our next moment of existence.
In effect we are in a constant flow of death and rebirth or re-becoming in accordance with our previous
actions.
All of this has nothing to do with the compatibility or otherwise of Buddhism and modern science. It
seems odd that a practice concerned with mental anguish and its end should be obliged to adopt ancient
Indian theories and as a result accept as an article of faith that consciousness cannot be explained in terms
of brain function. Dharma practice can never be in contradiction with science, not because it provides
some mystical validation of scientific findings but because it simply is not concerned with either
validating or invalidating them. Its concern lies entirely with the true nature of existence. So, at first
glance is seems that we are left with two options. Either we believe in rebirth or not. But there is a third
option that is consistent with the Buddha’s approach and that is to acknowledge that we simply do not
know. We neither have to adopt the literal versions of rebirth given to us by the religious institutions nor
fall into the extreme of regarding death as final. Regardless of what we believe, our actions in this life
will reverberate beyond our deaths. Irrespective of our personal survival, the legacy of our thoughts,
words and deeds will continue through the impressions we leave behind in the lives of those we have
influenced or touched in any way.
Dharma practice requires the courage to confront what is means to be human. All the pictures of heaven
and hell or cycles of rebirth serve to replace the unknown with an image of what is already known. To
cling to the idea of rebirth can deaden our search for the truth. Failure to summon up the courage to risk a
non-dogmatic stance on such crucial existential matters can also blur our ethical vision. If our actions in
the world stem from an encounter with what is central in life, they must be unclouded by dogma.
Agnosticism is no excuse for indecision. If anything, it is a catalyst for action, for in shifting concern
away from a future life and back to the present moment we only then can actually begin to live in the only
moment of existence we can be actually certain of from within our own direct experience. Right here,
right now, this very moment. It demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope
which is the basis of all religions including religious Buddhism.
One of the biggest questions that people appear to be searching for an answer to is “What is the meaning
of life?” This seems to be the big question that lies behind this continual feeling that something is missing
from our lives or that we don’t somehow feel complete. But it is a question that doesn’t really have an
answer other than in reality life is neither, meaningful or meaningless. These terms are given life by
language and imagination because we are linguistic beings who inhabit a reality in which it makes sense
to make sense. But for life to make sense it needs a purpose and this is where we are heading, to try and
find a sense of purpose. Even if our aim in life is just to be totally in the here and now, free from past
conditioning and any concept of a goal to be reached, we still have a clear purpose. The problem is not
that we lack resolve, but that it so often turns out to be misplaced. In our materialistic society it is a very
common thing for people to want to be rich or famous but even this sense of purpose in the end results in
an understanding that they cannot provide that permanent sense of well-being. However rich and famous
we become we still have to get old, sick and die.
In a changing and ambiguous world it is really difficult to find anything that is worthy of our full
attention or commitment. Perhaps this is why so many people take comfort in the belief systems of
creator beings. It seems much easier just to settle down and kid ourselves that whatever may happen we
can be sure it is simply God’s will. But this kind of approach has a serious setback. If we adopt the beliefs
of religion we will never come to see that in reality whatever happens is the direct result of a preceding
condition. No matter what happens in the world it only manifests when the conditions to create it are in
place. If the conditions are not there then it won’t happen. How we are and how we feel is entirely the
result of our preceding thoughts, speech or actions and not dependent on any other thing.
Dharma practice is all about resolve. It’s not an emotional conversion, a kind of a devastating realization
of the error of our ways or a desperate urge to be a good person, but an ongoing heartfelt reflection on
priorities, values and purpose. It is the taking stock of our lives in an unsentimental or uncompromising
way on a moment by moment basis. The problem is that we are often content to drift from day to day,
following routines, indulging habits. We know this is insincere and unsatisfying but still we do it. Even
with our meditation practice we may go through the mechanics of practice, lapse into fantasies or get
bored. We might even become self-righteous and pious after all hasn’t everybody else got it wrong and
we have got it right. Dharma practice is the process of enlightenment itself; the thoughts, words and deeds
that weave the unfolding fabric of experience into a coherent whole and this process is a participatory one.
No-one can do it for us. No God, no teacher, no guru. Of course being around like-minded individuals,
others who are treading the same path is something that has great value but at the end of the day only we
can do it.
The process of enlightenment is like walking on a footpath. When we find the path after hours of
struggling through the bush, we know at least we are heading somewhere. We find that we can move
more freely. We settle into an easy pace. We can sense the connection that this well worn path has been
tread by others who continue to walk along it. And of course the path itself will only exist all the time that
people are walking it. By walking it ourselves we ensure that it is there for others who come along behind
us and what counts most of all is not the final destination but simply the resolve to take the next step.
Walking this path embraces a range of purposes. Sometimes we may focus on our material existence,
perhaps creating a livelihood that is in accord with our deepest values and aspirations. At other times we
may choose to take ourselves out of the busyness of the everyday world into retreat conditions so that we
may spend deeper periods in meditation and reflection or study. At other times we might engage in the
world of empathy for others doing charity work and such. It needs to be understood that there is no
hierarchy with these purposes. One is not better than the other and we do not move up some kind of
progress ladder. They each have their own time and place. If we seek inner detachment and clarity whilst
our outer life is a mess we may enjoy periodic escapes from turmoil but find no lasting equanimity. If we
devote ourselves to the welfare of the world while our inner life is full by irrational ideals and unresolved
compulsion we can easily undermine our own resolve.
Commitment itself is of little value if we lack confidence in our ability to realize it and this has been a
major problem within Buddhist circles where, because of the introduction of the religious aspect and all
of its attached dogma the goal is forever out of reach and preserved only for the elite few who fully
engage with the institutions of the religion itself. But the path of awakening as taught by the Buddha is
right here, right now, right before our very eyes. But to see it for ourselves we have to stop believing and
start realizing. We need to let go of intellectual and conceptual thinking into the world of direct
experience. Tragically what usually happens is that we console ourselves with the idea that at some future
time awakening will happen as a reward for having believed in it long enough or as a result of our
ethically pure existence. We might realize it at the moment but that longing for consolation is very deep
rooted within our conditioning as it enables us to feel good about ourselves without having to do a great
deal. But can we really afford the luxury of consolation in a world where death is the only certainty, its
time utterly uncertain and the hereafter a hypothesis.
A commitment to Dharma practice keeps us on our toes. We can notice when our resolve eases into
complacent routine and observe how we seek to justify ourselves by seeking approval from others. We
can be conscious of how we tend to ignore or try and escape anguish rather than understanding it and
accepting it. We can be aware that even when we gain insight into these things, we rarely behave
differently in the future. Despite our overt resolve we are still creatures of habit always seeking what we
think is the easy option which only drives us round the circle of life once again.
Resolve is activated by self-confidence, which in turn depends on the kind of self-image we have. If we
see ourselves as insignificant and always in the shadow of others, then the slightest hardship will seem
daunting. We will find ourselves drawn to those who insist awakening is a distant goal, accessible only to
a privileged few. On the other hand if we see ourselves as superior to others then while outwardly
disdainful of hardship we are tormented by humiliation when it defeats us. We shun the friendship of
those who might help dispel the conceit that traps us in yet another cycle of mental anguish. Selfconfidence is not a form of arrogance. It is trust in our capacity to awaken. It is both the courage to face
whatever life throws at us without losing balance and also the humility to treat every situation we
encounter as one from which we can learn.
But all of this is dependent on one thing. We have to stop believing that any experience is real. We need
to stop attaching ideas, meaning or beliefs to any experience and just validate the experience as simply an
experience. We need to be constantly letting go of fixed views and beliefs as they just lead us in the
opposite direction of awakening. We might end up a nice person, or a better person but we will still be
firmly stuck in the world of mental anguish and never be liberated and free until we realize fully that all
that we have been doing is building on to the delusion that we are a fixed ego-identity that is separate
from everything else.
Nobody ever said that Dharma practice was easy. Without the support of mentors or like-minded people it
can become very abstract. The Buddha is reported as saying once “Just as the dawn is the forerunner of
the arising of the sun, so true friendship is the forerunner of the arising of the noble eightfold path”. But
this term friendship or true friendship or spiritual friendship is frequently misunderstood and what is
really going on in most cases is little more than friendliness, which in itself is not a bad thing, but genuine
friendship is something very different. My own definition of real friendship would include an element of
not wanting anything from the other person except friendship itself. A situation where there is no
subconscious hierarchical thing going on. Where there is no clinginess or expectation of anything. It takes
years to develop such a level of trust so we need to begin where we are with our relationships and build
on them slowly and surely just as we do with any other part of Dharma practice.
Much of our time is spent absorbed in feelings and thoughts we can never fully share. Yet our lives are
nonetheless defined through relationships with others. We are participatory beings who inhabit a
participatory reality, seeking relationships that enhance our sense of what it means to be alive. In terms of
Dharma practice, a true friend is more than just someone with whom we share common values and who
accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone whom we can trust to refine our understanding of
what it means to live, who can guide us when we’re lost and help us to find the way along the path,
someone who will never collude with the unhelpful aspects of us. Such friendships occur quite naturally
between peers with similar aspirations and interests and certain crucial friendships are also formed with
those we respect for having achieved a maturity of practice greater than our own. But in our search for
authentic friendship there lies many inherent dangers. We live in the age of celebrity and there are many
charismatic teachers or gurus out there who spend as much time, if not more, promoting themselves rather
than the Dharma itself. So often, it seems clear to me, that it is about the messenger and not the message
in these situations. In one Tibetan Buddhist group its followers are actually banned from reading Dharma
books by any other teacher than their own. I can recall the time when this edit was issued and there
suddenly came onto the market a dearth of second-hand Dharma books. You will see advertised talks and
lectures by this kind of individual. All manner of empowerments and blessings are offered up for the
spiritual seeker in an attempt to hook you into a limited approach to the exploration of the Dharma. It has
almost become bit of a circus and it always ends in people being hurt when their expectations of the
infallibility of their teacher is rocked when their indiscretions are exposed.
An authentic friend is someone who does not seek to coerce you, even gently and reasonable. An
authentic friend is someone who does not seek to make themselves indispensable. They seek to make
themselves, if anything, redundant. They are a vital link to past and future. They too would have been
nurtured through friendships. The essence of Dharma practice has survived through a series of friendships
that stretches back through history, ultimately to the Buddha himself. This should not be misunderstood
to refer to this thing you may have heard something about called lineage. This is just another blind alley
that is used to promote authenticity and has more to do with the religious trappings of institutions rather
than anything else. Dharma practice flourishes only when friendships flourish. It really has no other
means of transmission. These Dharma friends are a vital link to a community that lives and struggles
today. Through them we belong to a culture of awakening, a matrix of friendships that expands in ever
widening circles to embrace not only Buddhism but all who are actually or potentially committed to the
values of Dharma practice.
The nature of authentic friendship has changed over time as the Dharma has passed though social and
ethnic cultures with different ideals of what constitutes true friendship. Two primary models seem to have
emerged. The first is what I would describe as the fellowship model of early Buddhism and the second is
the guru-disciple model of later traditions. In both cases, sad to say, friendship has become entangled with
issues of religious authority. Before the Buddha died he is said to have said that the Dharma itself would
suffice as one’s guide but following his death in the early Buddhist communities friendship became
founded in the common adherence to the rules of discipline that were devised to apparently support
Dharma practice, although I would add that whenever I find that a set of hard and fast rules being
imposed there will always be those seeking to find a way round them and this seems to be common to all
religion including religious Buddhism.
This early community of friendships were formed under the formal guidance of a preceptor, even the
name seems to denote a kind of authority figure ie someone who makes sure the precepts are adhered to
and keeps people in line. This was very much in keeping with the ways of the traditional Indian extended
family where everyone defers to seniority and age or length of service becomes the authority rather than
the level of progress along the path. You can see this is still evident within Buddhist groups today even in
the West. I was once told that even if the Dalai Llama wanted to join one particular Order he would have
to spend many years waiting to be Ordained so that his commitment could be tested. I know of several
instances where insightful and awakened people have been prevented from joining such groups for very
little reason other than it would disturb the status of others who have been firmly stuck in their heads for
many years.
Then came the guru-disciple model which was adopted by several Buddhist schools. Here the teacher
became a kind of heroic figure to whose will the student surrendered as a means of accelerating the
process of awakening. Within this system there arose quite naturally in my view elements of dominance
and submission and with them coercion. That is the nature of the un-awakened mind. You can end up
believing your own publicity when the message itself is superseded by the persona of the messenger. In
this model if you accepted someone as your teacher, then you were expected to revere and obey them. In
varying degrees the authority of the Dharma was replaced by the authority of the guru, who came, in
some traditions, to assume the role of the Buddha himself. Despite the apparent contrasting nature of
these two models, in practice they co-existed and to some extent still do to this day.
In the contemporary world of Buddhism in which the Dharmadatu Sangha was founded there is a need to
find a balance that is more consistent with the message of the Buddha by creating a matrix of friendships
that share common values but has no element of leadership or control. By encouraging people to become
authentic individuals within a system of Dharma practice that acknowledges each others potential for
awakening we provide the freedom to explore the Dharma from every aspect without restraint. We create
the opportunity to belong to a group but a group that is made up of individuals all striving to walk the
same path. In creating this opportunity I should not be considered any different from anyone else. I am
just a bloke who at a particular time in history, when the prevailing conditions were all in the right place,
at the right time, experienced something that altered the way the world is experienced. It does not make
me into anything special. I claim no spiritual greatness or expertise. You won’t find me going out on the
celebrity awakened being circuit. All I offer and have only ever offered is an opportunity for friendship
along the way and little else. Am I infallible? Of course not. Will I make mistakes? Of course I will. Will
I upset people? Not intentionally although it would be fair to say that people will be upset by what I have
to say and what I do. The Dharma is not for the feint hearted spiritual aspirant.
Whenever Buddhism has become a religion, true friendship has tended to be compromised by issues of
power and control. Both the fellowship model and the guru-disciple models have given rise to large,
impersonal, hierarchical and authoritarian bodies governed by professional elites. In many cases, these
institutions have become little more than established churches, sanctioned and supported by sovereign
states. This has led to rigid conservatism and intolerance of dissent. But this process is not inevitable. It is
also possible to imagine a community of friendships in which diversity is celebrated rather than censured.
In which smallness is regarded as success rather than failure. In which leadership does not adopt a sense
of power or authority invested in a minority of so called long-standing experts. In which questions are
valued more than answers.
Always keep close to your mind the message of the Buddha. Don’t just believe. Test, challenge, seek the
truth from within your own direct experience. Walk the path. Realize the truth for yourself. You can light
as many candles and sticks of incense along the way as you like. You can make as many offerings along
the way as you like. You can have your head shaved, wear robes, carry a begging bowl. You can live in a
cave, a monastery, chant until you are blue in the face but know that these things in themselves are just
religious trappings and your attachment to them will take you further and further away from the
experience of awakening. True Dharma practice is a thing in action. It is a thing to do. Work to be done.