PERFECT PEACE AND HAPPINESS

Professor Dr. Mehm Tin Mon
ITBMU, Yangon, 1998

The Highest Wisdom

         Wisdom is most essential to perfect peace and happiness. Without wisdom, men are just idiots.

         Ancient Learned Greeks conceive of two kinds of wisdom: practical wisdom and philosophical wisdom. They consider a man practically wise if he judges situations correctly and chooses the means best suited to secure his objectives, which must be morally good.

         They consider a man philosophically wise if he understands the first principles or causes of things. The wisdom in this sense is taken as the highest form of knowledge by philosophers. They regard it as the culmination of man's pursuit of truth and believe that this wisdom will give the one who gains it the peace that accompanies perfect fulfillment.

         Philosophers fail to point out the way how philosophical wisdom can be gained. Lord Buddha shows that this type of highest wisdom can be gained by practising the Eightfold Noble Path or Threefold Noble Training - viz. Training in morality, training in tranquility and training in wisdom.

         This Threefold Training is Logical and practical; it can be easily fabricated into our daily routine. It will immediately bring about justice, harmony, nobility, peace and happiness. It will develop the insight knowledge of all psycho-physical phenomena one after another culminating in four stages of Path-Wisdom, which clearly discerns the first principles or causes of things, and eradicates all the causes of suffering. Thus this highest wisdom will establish ever-lasting peace and happiness along with it in this very life.

Mental Illness

         In worldlings, the mind is usually associated with immoral mental factors, which include ignorance of the realities, greed or craving, anger or aversion, wrong view, conceit, envy, jealousy, sloth, torpor, restlessness, remorse and skeptical doubt. These mental factors defile, debase, inflict, agitate and burn the mind in many ways to give rise to all kinds of evil and suffering. So long as they are present, the mind will never be peaceful, and consequently perfect happiness cannot exist.

         Based on the fact of being tortured constantly by these immoral mental factors, Lord Buddha describes two kinds of illness.

         "O monks, there are two kinds of illness- physical illness and mental illness. There seem to be people who enjoy freedom from physical illness even for a year or two even for a hundred years or more.

         "But, O monks, rare in the world are those who enjoy freedom from mental illness, even for one moment, except those who are free from mental defilements." (Apadana 276)

         The Only Way to Perfect Peace and Happiness

         In order to gain perfect peace and happiness, the immoral mental factors or mental defilements must be totally uprooted and eradicated from the mind. This can be done by only one way - the Middle Way or the Eightfold Noble Path.

         Lord Buddha categorically declares in Mahasatipatthana sutta that the Middle Way is the one and only way for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the abandoning of pain and grief, for the attainment of enlightenment (Path-wisdom), and for the realisatino of eternal peace and happiness (Nibbana).

The Foundation of Happiness

         Morality or good morals or good character is the foundation of all meritorious deeds. It refers to the right behavioral that avoids injustice and immoral acts which cause harm to any living being. It consists of keeping five, eight or nine moral precepts.

         To establish oneself willingly and firmly on these moral precepts, one needs an understanding of the natural Law of Kamma in order to instill the sense of righteousness, moral shame and moral dread into the mind. One also needs to develop one's sublime qualities-viz, loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

         By maintaining good morality, we help every living being to live in peace and happiness. If we give peace and happiness to others, we shall enjoy peace and happiness in return according to the law of action and reaction.

         'Whoever, seeking his own happiness, harms in any way other pleasure-loving beings; he will experience unhappiness hereafter."

         "Whoever, seeking his own happiness, harms not in any way other pleasure-loving beings, he will experience happiness hereafter."

• (Dhammapada 131, 132)

         Morality or character is regarded as a supreme virtue, more valuable than wealth and health. So we have the saying:

         'When wealth is lost, nothing is lost.

         When health is lost, something is lost.

         When character is lost, everything is lost."

         Morality or virtue and wisdom are inseparable twins thus Lord Buddha says in Digha Nikaya. (I: 84)

         "Wisdom is purified by virtue, and virtue is purified by wisdom. Where one is, so is the other."

         'The virtuous person has wisdom, and the wise person has virtue. The combination of virtue and wisdom is called the highest thing in the world."

         Morality gives instant happiness. Also it is the foundation of the Eightfold Noble Path. Based on the foundation of morality the superstructures of concentration (tranquillity) and wisdom are built. As this Threefold Training eradicates all mental defilements, and establishes perfect peace and happiness, morality is really the foundation of happiness.

The Mind is most powerful

         Psychologists echo the statement of the Buddha when they declare that the mind is most powerful and that it can accomplish everything. But they do not know how to observe the mind, and thus they do not know what the mind really is, how it works, and how it can be developed to its capacity.

         Lord Buddha knows how to observe the mind, how to analyse it, how to purify it, and how to develop it to its full capacity. Thus he can teach his disciples how to develop supernormal powers such as creating forms, flying through the air, diving into the earth, seeing all beings in the thirty-one planes of existence, hearing subtle and far-away sounds, reading others thoughts; remembering past existences, and knowing future events.

         When the mind becomes highly concentrated it becomes very powerful radiating very bright and penetrative light. With the help of this meditation light, one gains the power of extra sensory perception and remote sensing. One can also observe one's internal organs as well as one's mental stream. One can further analyse the organs into ultimate physical entities and the mental stream into ultimate mental entities.

         After characterizing the nature of each ultimate physical reality and each ultimate mental reality, one can find out the causes which condition their arising. Then one can undertake insight-meditation (vipassana) by reflecting on the characteristics of impermanence, suffering, not-self, and disgustfulness of the ultimate physical and mental realities. The mind becomes more and more powerful, developing insight-knowledge one after another. When Path-wisdom arises in four stages, they are so powerful that they can eliminate mental defilements, liberating one from the round of miseries for every.

What is Meditation?

         Meditation is a simple, practical way of training, developing and purifying the mind to achieve lasting peace and happiness.

         There are two important categories of meditation.

         (1) Tranquility-meditation (Samatha)It controls and develops the mind to build up concentration called samadhi. Mindfulness of breathing is a good example. This method of meditation, if practised properly, can develop the mind up to the fourth Rupavacara jhana, that is the fourth stage of meditative absorption.
The mind, at this stage, is associated with great joy, tranquility, peace and happiness. So the meditator can enjoy a bliss much superior than all sensual pleasures. Besides, the mind becomes so powerful that it radiates very bright and penetrative light which can pass thought clothing, flesh and barriers to observe distant objects as well as one's internal organs, mental stream, and ultimate mental and physical' realities. So this high concentration and meditation light are used as meditation-tools to carry out insight- meditation.

         (2) Insight-meditation (Vipassana)

         'Vipassana' means to see things as they really are. So in insight meditation we have to investigate systematically to find out how body and mind are really made up of ultimate physical and mental entities. These ultimate realities are formless, shapeless and massless. They arise and dissolve extremely rapidly like energy fluxes. They obey the natural law of cause and effect. The two important laws which govern all psycho-physical phenomena are the Law of Dependent Origination (Paticcasamuppada) and the Law of Causal Relations (Patthana).

         The operation of these laws can be found out and verified in insight-meditation. When one can observe all the reasons for the incessant arising and dissolving of psycho-physical phenomena extending in a long chain from one life to another, one has no doubt about the true causes and the true nature of these phenomena.

         Furthermore, when one can observe clearly with one's mind-eye that all the ultimate mental and physical realities are impermanent, and transient, unsatisfactory and painful, not-self and non-age, disgustful and loathsome, one can discard all wrong views including 'personality-belief' (sakkaya-ditthi) and 'ego-illusion' (atta ditthi). Also one can cut off one's craving for sensual pleasure and attachment to all sense-objects.

         Thus the main purpose of meditation is to uncover the veil of ignorance (moha) which blinds our eyes and shields our minds from seeing things as they really are, and to uproot and eradicate ignorance and craving (lobha) once and for all. When these two roots of the round of miseries are eliminated, all other mental defilements are also eliminated, liberating one from all suffering and enabling one to enjoy ever lasting peace and happiness.