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What to do after returning from retreat to the
world?
Sayadaw U Pandita
During one of the weekly group interview sessions (6-30-84) with
self-retreatants, the Ven. Sayadaw U Pandita was asked if he could give
some advice to those who are breaking retreat soon to return to the world.
The following is the edited version of a live-translation of his
surprisingly comprehensive response.
There is some sincere advice that the Sayadaw would like to give. He
would like to remind all of us that getting this opportunity to be reborn
as a human being is a very precious one, and having become beings, we
should try to life a conscientious life, cultivating a good heart and
develop wisdom to penetrate into the truth.
All of you must be well aware of sila or virtuous conduct. The basic
five precepts are abstention from taking life, from taking what is not
given, from improper sexual conduct, from lying, and from taking
intoxicants. This is very clear to you. Sayadaw has dealt with sila many
times. Sayadaw has also talked about the benefits of morality.
Purity in conduct ensures that one is able to tame one's wild
behaviour, manifested through speech and action. But sila by itself will
not be able to control the mind. It will not directly be able to deal with
the negative tendencies that arise within us. In order to overcome such
negative mental tendencies, the kilesas, one has to practice concentration
of mind. This can be done through the
cultivation of metta (loving
kindness), karuna (compassion), and mudita (rejoicing in others' success
and well-being). There is a variety of other meditation objects which one
can give attention to, which will help to calm the mind and keep the
kilesas at bay. Also, it is possible to control such negative tendencies
through the practice of vipassana meditation, as you have been doing here,
by trying to be mindful in your daily activities, to have presence of
mind, to be with the moment as much as possible.
When the mind is sufficiently free from the hindrances it will become
calm, clear, and concentrated. Then wisdom will very naturally arise,
gaining insight into the true nature of reality, being able to distinguish
between mind and matter, to comprehend conditionality and the three
characteristics, to go through the various levels of vipassana insight,
and ultimately to realise nibbana, a supreme sort of bliss and
happiness.
Of course Sayadaw understands that when you get back to the world you
have various duties to attend to. You do not have as much time as you
would like to devote to meditation like you have here. You have your
social responsibilities; you have your business responsibilities; you have
your family responsibilities; and you have other things to do with respect
to enjoyment and so forth in life. All these responsibilities can be taken
care of systematically. You can divide your life into sections and put
aside a section for Vipassana practice to be done daily -- perhaps an hour
or two -- as part and parcel of your life, and look at that part of your
life as something essential. Just as you have to eat every day in order to
nourish your body, so too you have to meditate regularly in order to
nourish your mind.
The Buddha gave a discourse on four types of happiness for lay people.
It is really an injunction by the Buddha to those people who have to life
in a society, in the world, and are not free from social obligations and
so forth. It is an injunction to such people to try their level best to
achieve these four types of happiness, which are (i) the happiness of
having, (ii) the happiness of using, (iii) the happiness of being free
from debt, and (iv) the happiness of being free from blame and fault.
For people who are not free from social obligations, and especially
family obligations, it is obvious that they have to work in order to life.
It is essential to learn a trade, to earn a livelihood. If you are
industrious, honest and sincere in what you do, trying to do a job that is
good and within the law, then you can be happy and have a sense of
security when you get your wages. It cannot be denied that money is very
important for people who live in the world, for those who have social
responsibilities and family obligations. Working hard and getting money is
a part of life, and having wealth and property a part of happiness.
So it is clear that this happiness of having -- having the means to
provide necessities and luxuries of life -- is very essential, and indeed
this first sort of happiness leads to the second, the happiness of using.
Precisely because you have the resources, the money, to procure the
necessities of life, you can achieve the happiness of using the things
that you obtain through your money, through your efforts. With the money
that you earn and the property obtained by it, you can support yourself
and your family comfortably, and even luxuriously, depending on the sort
of life you want to lead.
Also, with enough resources, you can have the opportunity to do good
deeds. Depending on your religious beliefs, you can, for example, practice
charity in various ways. You can give donations to charitable
institutions, to welfare homes, to noble projects and so forth. Thus the
sense of satisfaction in being charitable belongs to happiness, the
happiness of using.
It is basic common sense that you should try to live a life within the
limits of your wealth. There must be proper utilisation of your resources.
You should just try to be contented with what you have and live within
your means, rather than to try to outdo the Jones's, so to speak. Leading
a very spendthrift life, spending more than what you earn, you will
accumulate lots of debts. This in turn can lead to a lot of suffering,
worry, anxiety, deceit and so forth. Therefore, the third sort of
happiness is the happiness of freedom from debt. If you are able to live a
life of contentment within your means, quite relative to the resources
available to you, then you can have access to this happiness.
There are some people who are not quite content with living within
their means. They are very showy. They have a lot of greed and desire to
life a life of luxury, although they cannot really afford it. So in order
to live that ostentatious sort of life they start to borrow money, buy
loans and so forth from friends, private companies or the government. It
is not uncommon to find people who are unable to repay their debts. This
creates a lot of tension, anguish and anxiety in their minds, causing
psychosomatic diseases like heart disease and gastric illnesses. Some
people may become rather neurotic; some really go mad and others even
commit suicide. You can see how debts can be the cause of so much
suffering and how much ease and happiness you can enjoy through freedom
from debts.
Some people may have a very happy and harmonious family life, but
because of their inability to pay their debts, the situation may turn sour
and cause the break-up of an otherwise happy family. There are also many
cases of people with broken family lives resulting from this problem of
debt, and as a consequence of such a background, they deteriorate in terms
of humanity.
"Contentment is the greatest wealth." (Sayadaw speaking English!) That
is what the Buddha himself said.
Finally, the last kind of happiness is that which is free from fault,
free from blame. It is very important that as long as we exist on this
planet, we should endeavour to maintain a high standard of humanity and
live a life that is free from fault and blame. Basically, there are two
ways in which people live on this planet. The first is the way in which
they want to impress other people. The second way is that of very honest
and sincere living. It is a very noble endeavour to live a life that is
free from fault, free from blame.
Proponents of the first way of living are quite satisfied as long as
people honour them. After all, their whole life is based upon the
motivation of impressing others, of having people honour them, and so long
as they get this honour and respect from others, so long as they are able
to impress others, they are quite contented and happy. But this does not
mean that what they do for the sake of respect, honour and esteem is
wholesome or skilful. They may resort to very unscrupulous means in order
to gain respect. In fact, this is a very dangerous game to play because
the means used to achieve the end, which is honour and respect, may be
something that might catapult back on them. It may be so unskilful that in
the end it may bring about much notoriety, disfame, or dishonour.
But to those who try to live an impeccable life without thinking of
impressing other people, honour, respect and esteem come of themselves
very naturally. If you're able to live a life that is honest, sincere,
full of self integrity and wholesomeness, then the wise will automatically
praise you and give you due respect.
There are two aspects to leading an impeccable life; one is related to
the ways of the world and the other to the Dhamma. Briefly, leading an
impeccable life in relation to the ways of the world refers to the various
mutual responsibilities and obligations that we have. With respect to man
and wife, you should have mutual respect for one another and endeavour to
fulfil mutual responsibilities and obligations. There are also the mutual
obligations pertaining to parents and children: love and gratitude should
be reciprocal as far as both parties are concerned. There are the mutual
obligations in respect to relatives and friends. There are your social
obligations to your country: to live and abide by her laws, her
constitution and so forth. As long as all these mutual responsibilities
and obligations are fulfilled to the best of your capability, then one can
say you are trying to live an impeccable life in accordance with the ways
of the world. In fact there are very many subtle shades with which you can
fulfil these responsibilities.
Leading an impeccable life with respect to the ways of the Dhamma
refers to abstention from the ten types of immoral behaviour. These are
non other than the three types of immoral behaviour through physical
action, the four types of immoral behaviour through speech, and the three
types of immoral behaviour manifested through the mind.
The three types of immoral physical behaviour refer to the taking of
life, stealing, and committing adultery. To live an impeccable life in
accordance with the Dhamma, you should try to abstain from these three
unwholesome activities and be contented with what you have. If you are
able to successfully abstain from committing such unwholesome, unskilful
actions, then you are actually cultivating very noble attitudes of mind.
For example, you are cultivating a lot of loving care (metta), and
compassion for other beings (karuna) if you always make it a point to
abstain from succumbing to the urge to torture, harm, or kill another
being. You are also cultivating a very good sense of considerateness
towards other people if you refrain from taking what is not given. Because
you exercise control over greed you are able to cultivate that attitude of
considerateness. Things which belong to others we should not take, for
people are attached to their property. Understanding this makes it easier
to be considerate. Moreover you are cultivating a deep sense of control
over lust, greed or desire, and also a sense of contentment with what you
have by refraining from committing adultery, from participating in immoral
sexual relations that will hurt or harm another party.
The four types of unwholesome behaviour manifested through speech have
been talked about very often, but as a final reminder before you return to
the world, Sayadaw would like to repeat them. These are (i) lying, (ii)
instigation to cause disharmony, (iii) harsh, crude speech that will hurt
others, and (iv) useless chatter, frivolous talk. Having abstained from
these four types of unwholesome speech, you can learn to cultivate the
four types of wholesome speech. Firstly, you can practice speaking only
what is true, being committed to the truth, being honest whenever you
speak. Secondly, you can also cultivate the quality of always speaking
words which do not cause disunity but, on the contrary, foster friendship,
goodwill, fellowship and unity. Thirdly, through abstaining from crude
language, you can speak in a very polite and refined way so that your
words will be pleasing to other people's ears. Fourthly, refraining from
frivolous talk will help you cultivate a sense of realising the importance
of speaking only that which is beneficial.
The final category of unwholesome behaviour manifested through the mind
comprises (i) covetousness, (ii) destructive and aggressive thoughts, and
(iii) wrong view with respect to the law of kamma, a very strong opinion
that the law of kamma does not exist, that whatever good is done will not
give rise to good result and whatever evil that is committed will not
result in corresponding evil consequences. If you are able to transcend
such unwholesome mental behaviour, then you can rechannel your energy into
thoughts of charity, thoughts of wanting to help others rather than
thoughts of covetousness. You can also begin to pervade your mind with
thoughts of loving care and compassion for others in opposition to
destruction and aggressive thoughts. You can correct your wrong views,
change your opinions with regards to the law of kamma, and try to
understand and appreciate that whatever good or evil that is done will
give rise to corresponding good or evil consequences.
For one who lives an impeccable life in accordance with the ways of the
world and the ways of the Dhamma, the scriptures tell us that the life
will be very stable. Just as a die thrown upwards into the air will land
on the ground and sit on its flat surface in a very stable manner, so too
the life of such a person in the present existence as well as in future
wanderings through samsara, will be very stable. Thus, if you are able to
reflect on your life and appreciate the good things you have been doing,
your sincere endeavour to live an impeccable life, and how successful you
have been in that respect, you can feel very satisfied and joyful, for you
will have gained access to the final sort of happiness, the happiness of
being free from fault. No matter how much material wealth you may have, no
matter how high a social status you may enjoy, as far as this last type of
happiness is not achieved, you are still vulnerable to the many types of
suffering awaiting you. There are many occasions for remorse, regret,
anxiety and so forth. On the other hand, you may not be materially
wealthy, nor belong to a high social status, but if you are very honest
and have a lot of self integrity, being devoted to leading an impeccable
life in accordance with the ways of the world and that of the Dhamma, then
you will always have the opportunity to be filled with a deep sense of
fulfilment and satisfaction, joy and happiness, when you reflect on how
impeccable your life is.
On top of this happiness that you experience by reflecting on the
impeccability of your life, you will have access to higher levels of
happiness if you are further able to develop your mind through samatha or
vipassana meditations. Samatha meditation provides happiness by
tranquillising your mind, while vipassana brings about the happiness of
realising the true nature of things as they really are. Sayadaw would like
to conclude his answer to your question by hoping all of you will be able
to practise in this way to achieve all these types of happiness. |
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