CARRYING THE HEAVY BURDEN
( Discourse on the Bhara Sutta )
Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw
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CARRYING THE HEAVY BURDEN( Discourse on the Bhara Sutta )Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw |
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This body, one of the khandhas, is a heavy burden. Serving it means carrying the heavy burden. When we feed and clothe it, we are carrying the burden. That means we are servants to the aggregate of matter (rupakkhandha). Having fed and clothed the body, we must also see to it that it is sound and happy both in the physical and psychological sense This is serving the aggregate of feeling (vedanakkhandha). Again, we must see that this body experiences good sights and sounds. This is concerned with consciousness. Therefore we are serving the aggregate of consciousness (vinnanakkhandha). These three burdens are quite obvious. Rupakkandha says: "Feed me well. Give me what I like to eat; if not, I shall make myself ill or weak. Or, worse still, I shall make myself die!" Then we shall have to try to please it. Then vedanakkhandha also says: "Give me pleasurable sensations; if not, I shall make myself painful or regretful. Or, worse still, I shall make myself die! Then we shall have to hanker after pleasurable sensations to serve its needs. Then vinnanakkhandha also says: "Give me good sights. Give me good sounds. I want pleasant sense-objects. Find them for me; if not, I shall make myself unhappy and frightful. Eventually I shall make myself die! Then we shall have do its biddings. It is as if all these three khandhas are perpetually threatening us. So we cannot help complying with their demands; and this compliance is a great burden on us. The aggregate of volitional activities (sankharakkhandha) is another burden. Life demands that we satisfy our daily needs and desires and for that satisfaction we have to be active. We must be working all the time. This round of human activities gets encouragement from our volition prompted by desire. These activities make threatening demands on us daily, indicating that, if they are not met, trouble and even death would ensue. When human desires remain unfulfilled, they resort to crime. How heavy the burden of the sankharas rests upon us! It is because we cannot carry this load well upon our shoulders that we get demoralized into committing sin that brings shame upon us. Criminal offences are committed mostly because we cannot carry the burden of sankharakkhandha well. When criminals die, they may fall into the nether world of intense suffering or they may be reborn as hungry ghosts on animals. Even when they are reborn as human beings, their evil actions will follow in their weak and punish them. They may be shout-lived; they may be oppressed with disease all the time, they may face poverty and starvation; they may be friendless; they may be always living in danger or in troublesome surroundings. The aggregate of perception (sannakkhandha) is also a great burden: because it is with perception that you train your faculties like memory to be able to retain knowledge and wisdom which can discern good from bad and reject from your mind unwholesome things produced by unpleasant sense objects. If the demands of the mind for pleasant sense-objects are not met, it will take up only evil which does nobody any good. Regrets and anxieties arise because we cannot shoulder the burden of sannakkhandha well. For all these reasons the Buddha declared the five aggregates of clinging (upadanakkhandha) a heavy burden. We carry the burden of our khandhas not for a short time, not for a minute, not for an hour, not for a day, not for a year, not for one life, not for one world, not for one aeon. We carry the burden from the beginning of the samsara, the round of rebirths, which is infinite. It has no beginning. And there is no way of knowing when it will end. Its finality can be reached only with the extermination of the defilements of the mind (kilesa), as we get to the stage of the path of the Noble Ones (arahatta magga). |
"Are you enlightened?" (Part 2) "This question is a nonsense!.." commenced this article in the last Newsletter 4/95. - "I or 'you' or a 'person' principally cannot be enlightened concept is the very opposite of a real enlightenment. In the first part of this essay Ashin Ottama explored the diversity and the multitude of "enlightenments" in different spiritual directions, bringing awareness to the very specific, distinguishing and unique qualities of the Enlightenment and deliverance as taught by the Lord Buddha. The second part of the article reflects upon the genuineness and authenticity of some experiences, which we may consider— perhaps correctly, perhaps incorrectly — to be true 'Magga-Phala'. In the Scriptures the 4 stages of enlightenment are always directly linked to the lasting removal of some of the 10 fetters (samyojana). The first full experience of magga-phala removes three of this fetters. First is the sakkaya ditthi - the personality view, belief, or personality conviction. An ordinary person believes that his body and his mind are the 'I', the 'self, or that the 'I' has a body and mind, or that his mind and body are the seat of his 'I' or his soul, or that the 'I' is a product of his mind body complex, or that his 'I' or self or soul exists somehow apart from his mind and body. Sometimes people identify rather with their body, sometimes with the mental aggregates, or both together so that the idea 'This is 'I' , 'This is mine', 'This is my soul' arises. The sotapanna has seen nama-rupa , he knows that the body, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness are only arising and passing phenomena with nobody in it, out of it or behind it. Sotapanna knows from his own insight that 'I', 'self' or soul is just an illusion. In this way he is free from sakkaya ditthi. However, the sotapanna continues to have the notion or sense of 'I am', he still compares himself with others in the way 'I am better', 'I am worse', 'I am equal'. (This 'I am'- conceit (mana, atimana) can be removed only at the 4th stage of enlightenment by the arahatta magga). The second fetter removed by sotapanna is the doubt or skepticism about the Buddha and his teaching, doubt about the effectiveness of the practice of meditation. We can understand this point easily with the help of following analogy: Uninformed people will not believe that the earth is a ball. Some of them may say 'Yes, the Earth is round' because everybody says so, but still they will doubt it. Those who travel a lot, they already know it, though they do not see it. The insight of a sotapanna is like a look from the window of the space shuttle, when the belief, faith, knowledge and conviction is crowned by certitude and evidence. The third fetter is the adherence to empty rites and rituals (silabbata- paraamasa). This concerns the wrong view that some rites or rituals by themselves can purify a being and cause him to attain real liberation and Nibbana. To complete this list let me briefly mention that on second stage of enlightenment the fetter of craving for sensual pleasures (kama-raga) and ill-will (vyapada) are weakened. Eliminated are these two fetters only on the third stage. The fourth stage then eliminates all the remaining defilements such as craving for fine-material existence (rupa raga), craving for immaterial existence (arupa-raga ), conceit (mana), restlessness (uddhacca) and ignorance (ovikka). In addition to the 'fetters' the commentaries give a list of various defilements, which are abandoned at the progressive stages of enlightenment. The often quoted two mental corruptions abandoned by the sotapanna are envy and stinginess. But let us have a look at the complete list of these 16 upakkilesa. A sotapanna is free from 6 of these impurities:
The third stage of enlightenment relinquishes upakkilesa:
The fourth stage, the arahat, has eradicated:
The seven Reflections Furthermore, in the Kosambiya sutta (majj - 48) the Blessed One enumerates 7 points which distinguish a Stream-enterer (sotapanna ) from a worlding (puthujjana). Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw gave a Dhamma-talk on this subject called 'Maha paccavekkhana ' on the 14th waning day of Myanmar month Tagu, 1314 BE. The objective of this Dhamma-talk is a meditative self-appreciation, meditative self-observation in order to see, if one possesses the qualities of an enlightened ariya, or not yet. The short summary of the sutta and of the Dhamma-talk can be given as follows: Lord Buddha speak to the monks of Kosambi about the developing of the 'ariyan view. This Right View, which leads to the sublime freedom of heart, to the Nibbana, is the knowledge and practice of the Noble 8-fold Path. The first reflection In the meditation, if the mind is obsessed, or dominated by defilements such as sensual desire, ill- will, sloth and torpor, restlessness, anxiety, remorse, skeptical doubt the Dhamma, speculative views about one's existence in present, past or future, quarrelsomeness (these are the pariyutthana-kilesa), the mind can neither see nor perceive the reality as it really is. Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw explains that to see the reality of things means to perceive our experience of various objects as mere momentary arising a passing away of mental and physical phenomena (nama-rupa ). If our mind is dominated by attachment to this world or to the world beyond, our mind is obsessed. Only a sotapanna can dispel this kind of mental hindrances at will so that he can see We arising and passing of nama-rupa. The sotapanna will come to the conclusion: 'Formerly I might not have known correctly the nature of conditioned things because obstructions clouded my vision. Now I am able to remove them. I am established in the Knowledge of 4 Noble Truths.' Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw further comments that in the meditation the mind of a sotapanna is free from the upsurging defilements enumerated above. If the yogi finds that during the meditation his mind is still hovering over so may imagined objects of his desires, he may regard himself as having failed the test. The second reflection While a sotapanna is developing and maturing the ariyan view, he gains calm, he can easily enter the concentration which dispels the defilements in his mind. Mental defilements of a sotapanna are generally diminished. Two of the latent defilements (anusaya ) such as wrong view based on the idea of 'self or soul, and the doubtful skepticism about the effectiveness of Dhamma are abolished completely. My understanding of the first two reflections is as follows: After a yogi has experienced magga phala, his insight immediately recedes back to the level of 'Knowledge of Arising and Passing' (udayabbaya nana), but not lower than that. This means that 5 of the 7 "Purities" (visuddhi) and the 4 initial nana are more or less permanently established in the mind of a sotapanna and anytime within his reach. The initial purities (Visuddhi) and knowledges (nana) are:
(There are altogether 7 stages of purity and 16 stages of knowledge or insight (nana). The number of nana may vary according to the different ways of counting.) |
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