The Way It Is
by Ajahn Sumedho
The following teaching is taken from the first two talks given by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho to the monastic community of Amaravati during the winter retreat of 1988.
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The mind of an enlightened human being is flexible; the mind of an ignorant person is fixed.
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Today is the full-moon of January and the beginning of our winter retreat. We can have an all-night meditation sitting tonight to commemorate the auspiciousness of the occasion. It”s very fortunate to have an opportunity such as this to devote ourselves for two months to one-pointed reflection on Dhamma.
The teaching of the Buddha is the understanding of The Way Things Are - being able to look, to be awake. It means developing attentiveness, brightness, and wisdom - developing the Eightfold Path, which we call bhavana.
Now when we”re reflecting on things as they are, we”re ”seeing”, rather than interpreting through a veil of self-view. The big obstacle all of us have to face is this insidious belief in the ”I am” - attachment to self-view. It”s so ingrained in us that we”re like fish in the water: water is so much a part of the fish”s life that it doesn”t notice it. The sensory world we”ve been swimming in since our birth is like that for us. If we don”t take time to observe it for what it really is then we”ll die without getting any the wiser.
But this opportunity as a human being has the great advantage for us of our being able to reflect - we can reflect on the water we”re swimming in. We can observe the sensory realm for what it is. We”re not trying to get rid of it. We”re not complicating it by trying to add to it - we”re just being aware of it as it is. We”re no longer deluding ourselves by appearances, by fears, desires and all the things we create in our mind about it.
This is what we mean when we use such terms like: ”It is as it is.” If you ask someone who is swimming in water, ”What is water like
”, then they simply bring attention to it and say, ”Well, it feels like this. It”s this way.” Then you ask, ”How is it exactly
Is it wet or cold or warm or hot. ..
” All of these words can describe it. Water can be cold, warm, hot, pleasant, unpleasant. But it”s just like this. The sensory realm we”re swimming in for a lifetime is this way! It feels like this! You feel it! Sometimes it”s pleasant. Sometimes it”s unpleasant. Most of the time it”s neither pleasant nor unpleasant. But always it”s just this way. Things come and go and change, and there”s nothing that you can depend on as being totally stable. The sensory realm is all energy and change and movement; all flux and flow. Sensory consciousness is this way.
Now we”re not judging it; we”re not saying it”s good or it”s bad, or you should like it, or you shouldn”t; we”re just bringing attention to it - like the water. The sensory realm is a realm of feeling. We are born into it and we feel it. From the time the umbilical cord is severed we”re physically independent beings; we”re no longer physically tied to anybody else. We feel hunger; we feel pleasure; we feel pain, heat, and cold. As we grow, we feel all kinds of things. We feel with the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body; and with the mind itself. There is the ability to think and remember, to perceive and conceive. All this is feeling. It can be lots of fun and wonderful, but it can also be depressing, mean and miserable; or it can be neutral - neither pleasant nor painful. So all sensory impingement is The Way It Is. Pleasure is this way; pain is this way. The feeling of neither pleasure nor pain is this way.
To be able to truly reflect on these things, you have to be alert and attentive. Some people think that i…
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