..續本文上一頁 to go beyond fabricating the producing and consuming self, which is why the concluding insight of the path is: “All dhammas”—constant or not—“are not‐self.”

　　When this insight has done its work in overcoming any passion or delight for the Deathless, full Awakening occurs. And at that point, even the path is relinquished, and the Deathless remains, although no longer as an object of the mind. It”s simply there, radically prior to and separate from the fabrication of space and time. All consuming and producing for the sake of your own happiness comes to an end, for a timeless wellbeing has been found. And because all mind‐objects are abandoned in this happiness, questions of constant or inconstant, stress or ease, self or not‐self are no longer an issue. This, then, is the context of Buddhist insight into change: an approach that takes seriously both the potential effects of human effort and the basic human desire that effort not go to waste, that change have the potential to lead to a happiness beyond the reach of change. This insight is focused on developing the skills that lead to the production of genuine happiness. It employs the Three Characteristics—of inconstancy, stress, and not‐self—not as abstract statements about existence, but as inducement for mastering those skills and as guidelines for measuring your progress along the way. When used in this way, the Three Characteristics lead to a happiness transcending the Three Characteristics, the activities of producing and consuming, and space and time as a whole. When we understand this context for the Three Characteristics, we can clearly see the half‐truths contained in the insights on the production and consumption of change that are commonly misattributed to the Buddha. With regard to production: Although it may be true that, with enough patience and persistence, we can produce just about anything from the raw material of the present moment, including an amazing array of self‐identities, the question is: what”s worth producing

　　 We”ve imprisoned ourselves with our obsession for producing and consuming changeable pleasures and changeable selves, and yet there”s the possibility of using change to escape from this prison to the freedom of a happiness transcending time and space. Do we want to take advantage of that possibility, or would we rather spend our spare hours blowing bubbles in the sunlight coming through our prison windows and trying to derive happiness from their swirling patterns before they burst

　　This question ties in with wisdom on consumption: Getting the most out of our changing experiences doesn”t mean embracing them or milking them of their intensity. Instead it means learning to approach the pleasures and pains they offer, not as fleeting ends in themselves, but as tools for Awakening. With every moment we”re supplied with raw materials—some of them attractive, some of them not. Instead of embracing them in delight or throwing them away in disgust, we can learn how to use them to produce the keys that will unlock our prison doors.

　　And as for the wisdom of non‐attachment to the results of our actions: in the Buddha”s context, this notion can make sense only if we care deeply about the results of our actions and want to master the processes of cause and effect that lead to genuine freedom. In other words, we don”t demand childishly that our actions—skillful or not—always result in immediate happiness, that everything we stick into the lock will automatically unlatch the door. If what we have done has been unskillful and led to undesirable results, we want to admit our mistakes and find out why they were mistakes so that we can learn how to correct them the next time around. Only when we have the patience to look objectively at the results of our actions will we be able to learn, by studying the keys that don”t unlock the doors, how finally to make the right keys that do.

　　With this attitude we can make the most of the processes of change to develop the skill that releases us from the prison of endless producing and consuming. With release, we plunge into the freedom of a happiness so true that it transcends the terms of the original question that led us there. There”s nothing further we have to do; our sense of “my” and “mine” is discarded; and even the “long‐term,” which implies time, is erased by the timeless. The happiness remaining lies radically beyond the range of our time‐ and space‐bound conceptions of happiness. Totally independent of mind‐objects, it”s unadulterated and unalterable, unlimited and pure. As the texts tell us, it even lies beyond the range of “totality” and “the All.” And that”s what Buddhist practice is all about.

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