Apply Dhamma in Life
- by S. N. Goenka
(The following has been adapted from Goenkaji”s discourse on Day 30 of the 30-day course.)
The most important thing is to apply Dhamma in life. If you merely take courses after courses—ten-day courses or long courses—and do not apply it in life, Dhamma will become a lifeless rite or ritual. Different religions and sects have their own rites, rituals, and ceremonies. It would be very unfortunate if Vipassana courses also become a rite or ritual for a meditator.
Whenever you join a ten-day course or a longer course, you are eradicating your weaknesses and developing your strength. You have to use this strength in your day-to-day life. In a course, you work at the deeper level of your mind, eradicating layer after layer of complexes. After the course, if you again start accumulating the same complexes, the same impurities, the same defilements, then the purpose is not served. One has not understood what one is doing. The entire life pattern must change. Dhamma must manifest itself in day-to-day life.
One has to keep trying to apply Dhamma in life. “Whatever strength I have gained in a course like this, I will use it to ensure that my life becomes a Dhamma life. I will perfect my sīla, gain mastery over my mind and purify my mind. While facing different situations in life, I will practice Dhamma instead of generating unwholesome saṅkhāras (mental reactions).” In this way, you must keep watch over yourself.
You have a human life and have come in contact with the wonderful Dhamma. You have developed confidence in Vipassana. Now you must make best use of it. Gaining a human life, coming in contact with Dhamma, and learning how to practise Dhamma—this is a rare opportunity indeed.
The goal is clear: to come out of all misery. This is possible only when one eradicates all the defilements. The aim: at least to reach the goal to become an ariya, a sotāpanna. Then Dhamma will take care because one is liberated from the four lower fields.
Before one becomes sotāpanna, one has to develop oneself to becomes a cūḷa-sotāpanna, a minor sotāpanna. A sotāpanna starts flowing in the stream of liberation, and is bound to reach the final goal of full liberation. A cūḷa-sotāpanna starts flowing in the stream of Dhamma and is bound to become a sotāpanna.
There are three important qualities in the life of a sotāpanna:
The first important quality: total liberation from all doubts and scepticism about Dhamma (vicikicchā). How can there be any doubt about Dhamma, about the path after one has directly experienced Dhamma, directly experienced the path, has walked on the path, and experienced the benefits. If one has doubts about Dhamma, about the path, about the technique, and feels that one has become a sotāpanna, it is a big delusion.
The second important quality: total liberation from attachment to all rites and rituals (sīla-vata parāmasa). Every sect, every organized religion has some rites, rituals, and ceremonies. Some people develop tremendous attachment towards these rites, rituals and ceremonies, and feel that they will get liberated by practising them. A sotāpanna is liberated from this kind of delusion and understands that attachment to these rites and rituals cannot take one to the final goal. If one still has attachment towards them and feels that “I am a sotāpanna,” it is a big illusion, a big delusion.
The third important quality: total liberation from the belief of some essence in this mind-matter phenomena (sakkāyadiṭṭhi). For conventional purposes, to deal with people, one has to use these words—“I” and “mine”. However in reality neither the physical structure nor the mental structure nor the combination of the two is “I” or “mine” or “my soul”.
That becomes …
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