Right understanding conditions more wholesomeness in our life
The Buddha said that we should often contemplate old age, sickness and
death, the variableness of things, kamma and vipka. We should
realize the impermanence of all conditioned realities. Seeing at this moment
is conditioned. There can only be seeing if there are eyesense and visible
object. What arises because of conditions has to fall away again, it does not
last. Everything in life is very temporary. When people pay us compliments
and say nice things to us we are pleased. When they are unkind to us we
are sad. When we look at a beautiful sunset we are pleased, when we watch
an accident we have aversion. The realities of life are beyond control, they
cannot be all the time as we would like them to be. We are so taken in by
the world of conventional truth that we do not know what is really there when
we listen to what people say, when we look at nature or watch an accident.
There are only realities which appear through the six doorways. There are
hearing, sound, aversion, or attachment, but there are no people there.
Realities arise because of their appropriate conditions and then fall away
immediately. When we see something pleasant, it is the result of a deed
committed in the past, it is conditioned by kamma. We cannot avoid
unpleasant results, they are conditioned already. There is no “I” who
experiences an unpleasant result, and there are no other people who cause
that unpleasant result. There is no me, no he, only different namas and
rupas which arise because of their own conditions and then fall away again.
When we develop right understanding we shall be more patient when
unpleasant things happen to us and we shall be more tolerant towards other
people.
How can we develop loving kindness and compassion when there are in
reality no people? We can still think of people as usual, but right
understanding of realities conditions more wholesomeness in our
life. If right understanding is not developed we are absorbed in the world of
conventional truth and this is not beneficial. We often look at people with
attachment, with aversion, with ignorance and wrong view. When people are
objects of clinging we think only of our own happiness. We are expecting
pleasant things from others and at such moments there is no opportunity for
loving kindness and compassion. When we cling to others we actually cling
to ourselves. When we develop right understanding it does not prevent us
from thinking of people, but we realize that there is at that moment thinking
of concepts. At such moments we are not absorbed in concepts with
akusala citta. Right understanding can condition thinking with loving
kindness or compassion.
Topic 223
13 Sep 2013