Stirring leaves

Suffering flows from unsatisfactory conditions. Just as leaves respond to the stirring wind, so mind bends to the unsatisfactory turbulence of its condition. What does the world look like if all unsatisfactory conditions are removed? From moment to moment the untrained mind busily runs back to reinvent the past, or forward to anticipate the future. It never seems to fix on the moment it leaves behind. Yet it is only in the present moment that thought can be caught and trained to consider itself as a thought; as a fleeting, transient event, one among many, rising and passing in a continuous stream of anicca - impermanence. This is the heart of dhamma - the reality of the universe. This is the impermanent always. This is where the mind is brought to with the enduring and effective technique of anapana and vipassana meditation. The technique is not in any way an end in itself. The intention, the goal and the means is to simply look at the breath rising and falling in order to focus the mind until it is steady, straight, strong and settled. From the calm mind rises equanimity. Faced with the equanimous mind, suffering flees. Craving, aversion and ignorance fade. Dhamma prevails. This is not an intellectual or a philosophical pursuit, nor is it spiritual in the sense of being derived from any religious experience. Awareness in the mind is entirely derived from the  experiential understanding of the elemental, physical nature of the universe: namely that water floods, fire burns, air flows, earth smothers. In the body, moisture rises in tears, drool, sweat; the body burns; cooled by air, its heat dissipates; dusty earth dries on the skin, ready to be washed clean. The leaves on the trees experience this same elemental interaction. However, humans alone are the only beings fortunate enough to be able to deploy the particular consciousness needed to truly articulate this understanding of dhamma.This is our kamma, our debt, our inheritence, it is also our opportunity. Why be troubled by suffering? If, as the Buddha demonstrated, it is simply a matter of taking right action, then these elemental factors that bind us to suffering can be dissected, dissolved, put in their place and finally removed as obstacles to happiness.

The end of craving

"Through countless births in the cycle of existence I have run in vain 

seeking the builder of this house and again and again I faced the suffering of new birth. Oh, housebuilder! Now you are seen! You shall not build again a house for me. All your beams are broken, the ridgepole is shattered. Mind has become free from conditioning; the end of craving has been reached."

These words of the Buddha on reaching enlightenment are beautiful in the original Pali. When understood, they resonate also in English. The house is the body, composed of mind and matter and the source of suffering. The house-builder is not a god or a prime mover in the universe, but rather the accumulated conditions of unsatisfactoriness that prompt suffering. The beams are the passions that bring craving and aversion, hence leading on to suffering. "Association with the loathed is suffering; disassociation from the loved is suffering," as Buddha Gotama said in his first discourse. In other words, we crave to get away from what we don't want; we equally crave to be closer to what we want. Both conditions bring suffering. The ridgepole is ignorance of this contradictory state of mind. These contradictory cravings, pursued in ignorance, build conditioned states- sankharas -that swell up and blossom unexpectedly like ugly flowers, giving off the perfume of hate, greed, envy, jealousy, pride, fear and infatuation. We are each the house-builders of our own suffering. Once this is seen through the experience of observation, guided by the eight-fold path, the mind has the possibility of becoming freed from clinging, freed from suffering. Sankharas continue to arise in every being, even in Buddhas, but seen for what they truly are, as transient states that arise and pass like the breath, they become nothing more than tea leaves floating to the surface of the cup. They can be removed without effort. Like the leaves that made the tea, they have served their purpose. Like the leaves that made the tea, they did not begin as impurities, but as actions taken, as inclinations followed, as desires unrestrained. Take the time to learn more about this as if the matter were urgent. Dhamma will always exist. However, the right conditions for taking this sweet medicine may soon change, perhaps not for the better. Bhavatu sabbe mangalam!