The Buddha never claimed that his teaching was an original creation. His first three truths would spark no arguments from most of the shramanas of North India, or from the Upanishadic sages. The Fourth Truth, the Path itself, was presented by the Buddha as an ancient path traveled by others in a distant past, that had been forgotten and which he had simply rediscovered. He said that his insight was into things “as they really are”: this was not a mere theory or philosophical construct; the path was written into the very structure of reality itself. If there was any “lightning flash,” perhaps it was the sudden intuition of the interconnectedness of these four truths, and that they embodied a method that, if put into practice, did indeed lead to liberation.
The answer to how the Buddha’s account may have been transformed into the sheer mysticism of some kind of transcendent revelation of the truth may be found in the historical evolution of what the Buddha taught into a religion. The Buddha was not “a Buddhist”—and neither were his original followers. The Buddha discovered Dharma (as opposed to inventing or creating it), and then he taught Dharma. His followers were practitioners of the Dharma. Over time, after his death, religious interpretations overlaid the basic teachings and instructions. Complexity, as so often happens, was reduced to uniformity. Rather than emphasizing the interwoven complex of truths that the Buddha taught as a method of inquiry and practice, emphasis shifted to a single Absolute Truth, perhaps under the influence of Vedantic and Upanishadic teachings. In such a way a soteriological (salvational) teaching and method of practice became a metaphysical epistemology or belief system.
Of course, the Buddha’s awakening was not merely analytic or rational either. It was deeply existential and psychological, as well. Along with the “Aha!” experience of the analytical process was the “Oh!” experience of intuitive insight. As the modern vipassana teacher S. N. Goenka has pointed out, the Buddha experienced directly what quantum physicists are now realizing about the universe—the insubstantiality (nonself) of matter. The Buddha was liberated by his insight, whereas physicists who merely look outside and quantify reality and stay at the level of intellectual understanding, without internalizing direct realization of what they learn, continue to be miserable.
The Buddha often reiterated that Dharma could not be understood by ratiocination alone, no matter how careful. Dharma revealed its true significance when apprehended directly, and this could only be done through yogic methods and within a moral context. As we shall see, the Four Noble Truths make complete logical sense, but they are not compelling as mere beliefs or propositions of fact. To become really compelling, transformative, and healing, they must be integrated into one’s life. They must be acted upon!
To engage the Four Noble Truths, we are asked not to accept them as dogma or doctrine, not to make them into our religion (although there is nothing inherently wrong in having Buddhism as your religion), but to internalize and live with them as our Dharma practice—as our life. Briefly, in the first Noble Truth, we are asked by the Buddha to see dukkha and not turn away from it. We must see for ourselves how we suffer, and rather than try to deny it or distract ourselves from it, open ourselves to experiencing and understanding it.
As for the second truth, the causes of suffering, we need to see that the causes and the suffering are ultimately not two. In seeing that the causes and the suffering are not separate, we are challenged to let go of the causes. It is in letting go that we touch the timeless dimension, the “emptiness” so often spoken about, but of which perhaps the less is said the better. The third truth is to realize this letting go—this cessation of suffering.
Many of us—perhaps most or even all—at one time or another realize cessation, often spontaneously. Even those who have never heard of the Buddha or of Dharma touch this dimension. It comes as a momentary gap in the clouds, or as an illuminating flash of lightning. And many of us confuse this with total awakening. But the fourth truth—and the whole of the Buddha’s post-enlightenment life—shows us that we need to cultivate the Path. Awakening is not something to attain in the far distant future—some future life. Awakening or enlightenment must not be reified into a thing, for it is not a thing but a process; and this process is not other than the Path itself, which is, ultimately, not separate from our very life itself. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “to be enlightened is to be enlightened about something.”
Debate over whether enlightenment is close or far, sudden or gradual, readily available or only available through supreme effort, has raged for centuries, both within the Buddhist community and among yoga-Vedanta practitioners. For a teaching that epitomizes, in my opinion, the highest and deepest teaching of nonduality, I have often found myself bemused by this dualistic either/or debate. Perhaps, taking a page from Nagarjuna, we can say that it is both/and, neither/nor. We might also ponder this epigrammatic comment of Shunryu Suzuki’s: “Each of you is perfect the way you are…and you can use a little improvement.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE YOGA PRACTICE OF THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
UPON HIS AWAKENING, the Buddha considered not trying to teach what he had realized to others because he felt this Dharma he had discovered was “profound and hard to see, hard to discover…not attainable by mere ratiocination, subtle,” and that it would be difficult for those caught in attachment to see the truth of dependent origination. According to the traditional texts, the god Brahma Sahampati himself beseeched the Buddha to teach the Dharma to humanity. Later texts, however, foregrounded the Buddha’s dilemma as an inner struggle. In the end, the Buddha decided that although teaching the Dharma would indeed be difficult and most people would not understand his teaching, some were troubled enough to search for a resolution to the great matter of birth and death, and among these there would be at least a few who would understand.
The first people he thought he could teach the Dharma to were his two yoga teachers, but they had died. He then resolved to teach the five shramanas in Benares with whom he had practiced austerities for much of his six years on that path. As a group, they had left the Buddha when he began again to eat and take care of his body, thinking he had fallen into indulgence. So when they saw him approaching, they were less than pleased, and they decided among themselves not to pay him any homage.
And yet, as soon as the Buddha arrived, they could not keep themselves from rising and arranging a seat for him, setting out some water, a footstool and a towel, and bowing to him. They were all moved by the radiance and serenity he exhibited. Despite this, they still found it difficult to believe his pronouncement that he had attained “the Deathless and become fully enlightened” after he had given up his austerity practice and sat under the Bodhi Tree. Finally, in response to their skepticism, he asked them if they had ever known him to lie. The five had to admit that they had not, and consented to listen to what the Buddha had to say.
And what he said has come down to us as one of the most famous of the sutras: The First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. In this discourse, the Buddha sets out his teaching as a Middle Way between the extremes of sensual indulgence and asceticism. He called this way the Noble Eightfold Path. It consisted of right view (understanding), right thinking (intention, resolve, aim, aspiration, motive), right speech, right action (conduct), right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness (awareness), and right concentration (meditation, contemplation).
The Buddha then went on to enumerate what could be called his central teaching, upon which all schools of Buddhism, whatever their differences, agree: the Four Noble Truths. And yet, as I mentioned earlier, these truths themselves are based upon the Vedic-based diagnostic model of Ayurveda, namely the four-part formulation consisting of: (1) diagnosis, (2) etiology, (3) prognosis and (4) prescription.
First, there is a diagnosis of an “illness,” which the Buddha called dukkha. Then the causes of the illness, samudaya, must be determined. Once the diagnosis is complete, the physician has to offer the patient a prognosis, and here the Buddha offered a positive prognosis fo
r the human condition, nirodha (cessation). Dukkha could be alleviated. Finally, the doctor prescribes a course of treatment, and the Buddha offered the Eightfold Path (Sanskrit: marga; Pali: magga) as his prescription. Let’s take some time to look a bit deeper into these Noble Truths in order to see their relevance to our yoga practice.
The first Noble Truth is the presence of dukkha. This Sanskrit word is most often translated as “suffering,” and when we hear that the Buddha is alleged to have said, “All life is suffering,” we may understandably feel a bit disheartened. But let us look at the original meaning and use of the word at the time of the Buddha. Dukkha means “bad” or “wrong space” and was used to describe an axle that was misaligned from the center of a wheel. It was off-center, literally in a bad space. If that wheel were a wheel of a cart, we can imagine the bumpy and disorienting ride we would have. If the wheel were a potter’s wheel, it would be very difficult to give a beautiful and balanced shape to the form we were shaping. Now, when we think of the shape of our own lives and of society, we may feel that the Buddha was onto something!
If we are honest with ourselves, we will have to admit that for most of us, and for all too much of the time, our lives do feel off-center, out of kilter, and at least a bit unsatisfactory. Suffering is kind of a heavy word, and for most of us, suffering may not seem so pervasive. But dukkha, understood as this sense that our lives are just not in balance—that something is off in the way we live and relate to each other and the environment—well, that would be hard for any of us to deny. And of course, dukkha also applies to all that we do normally think of as suffering.
Dukkha can take the form of physical imbalance. Everything from a mild bellyache after eating something that just didn’t agree with us to a painful toothache or a broken leg, to feeling too cold on a winter’s night, to the ravages of cancer or heart disease, is dukkha. It can be mental imbalance manifesting as depression, anger, loneliness, or any of the almost countless ways we can be in psychological pain. It can be the simple disappointment of not getting something we were counting on or getting something else we really would rather not have. And it can be that more subtle existential sense of ennui, alienation, angst, or plain boredom and dissatisfaction that seems to arise whenever we’re not distracted.
In the Mindfulness Yoga practice I discuss later in this book, dukkha can appear as the self-judgment and criticisms we may have about our practice, where we yearn to go farther in a forward bend, or to be able to stay longer in a headstand—like that woman across from us in class! It may take the form of the fear of going into a backbend, or our irritation when we lose our balance in one of the postures. One of the wonderful things about asana practice is that it offers us such opportunities, because the practice of the first noble truth is that we must first recognize where—in our bodies, in our relationships, in our behavior, in our lives—we suffer and how we in particular suffer. As we work with this truth, we already begin to recognize our conditioning—our habitual patterns of behavior and thinking.
The Buddha said that to have dukkha and not recognize it, or be unaware that dukkha is present, is an even worse condition, an even worse dukkha than dukkha alone. Like any good doctor, we need to identify our dukkha. We need to know where we are getting caught and pinned. Most of the time, when dukkha begins to arise, we try to deny it, or mask it with some form of entertainment and distraction or push it away forcefully. The yogic way is to recognize, identify, and acknowledge it with kindness and nonaggression. We need to be with our dukkha and honor it. So often we feel shame at even having dukkha—adding yet more dukkha to the original dukkha—but there is a reason why the Buddha called it the Noble Truth of dukkha. It is because of our dukkha, and through opening ourselves to it, that we can begin to truly awaken. For once dukkha is recognized, we need to look deeply into its true nature and understand its causes. Once understood, it is already well on the way to being transformed.
The second Noble Truth pertains to the origins of the arising of dukkha. One very common interpretation of the Buddha’s teaching is that craving is the cause of all dukkha. Craving was usually placed first on the list of afflictions (Sanskrit: kleshas; Pali: kilesas) that include anger, fear, arrogance, ignorance, and many others. The second Noble Truth encourages us to be as clear as possible as to just what causes the dukkha in our lived experience. In the Discourse on Right View (Sammaditthi Sutta) the Buddha asked us to look deeply into our dukkha in order to see the kinds of nutriments that have helped it come to be and that continue to nourish it.
The first and perhaps most obvious nutriment he describes is edible food. I will have something to say about the yogic diet later on, but for now, let it suffice to say that certain foods are more conducive than others to the maintenance of a healthy body and mental ease, and we need to know which foods they are. The second nutriment includes the various sense impressions. We take in sensory impressions through our six sense organs (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind), and these impressions are the food for our consciousness. The third kind of nutriment is volition, intention, or will. This is the ground of all our actions. We need to look into our motivation and volition, even our volition to practice yoga, meditation, or mindfulness, in order to see clearly whether it is pushing us in the direction of freedom and happiness or in the direction of dukkha. For instance, if our motivation for doing asana is to be “the best,” we may overwork and injure ourselves, as well as strengthen our pride and egoism.
The fourth kind of nutriment is consciousness. Our consciousness is made up of all our past actions as well as the past actions of our ancestors and society. Our consciousness creates our body, our mind, and our world. As the Dhammapada states: “Our life is shaped by our mind; all actions are led by mind, created by mind. Dukkha follows an unskillful thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it. Our life is shaped by our mind; all actions are led by mind, created by mind. Happiness (sukha) follows a skillful thought as surely as one’s shadow.”
The second Noble Truth’s challenge is to see clearly that our dukkha is not really different from the nutriments that cause the dukkha. We need to really see for ourselves, and not merely intellectually, that freedom is available if only we would stop ingesting the nutriments that cause dukkha. In seeing dukkha clearly, and in truly understanding the way out from it, we cultivate the strong intention to let go of its causes. When we can see that a particular thought pattern, behavior, or food causes us dukkha as clearly as we can see that grasping a hot iron poker causes pain, we immediately will let go of that thought pattern, behavior, or food quickly—and with as little regret or conflict as we’d have in letting go of the burning iron poker.
With awareness our actions are liberating and creative. When we are unmindful, we become caught in our conditioning and reactivity, and this conditioned reactivity keeps us bound to the cycle of dukkha. In asana practice, we can begin to see how reactive we are. As we go deeper into a stretch, and the sensations become more intense, just because they are different, we may find ourselves tightening up our muscles, holding our breath, and constricting our mind in aversion. Or we may begin to see how quickly we get attached to pleasant sensations, and how we seek to prolong them and struggle to get them back when they are lost. These reactive behaviors are all the cause of dukkha, and in our practice we can learn how to let them go.
The third Noble Truth states that the transcending or ending of dukkha is completely possible. Now obviously, just believing this does us no good. To relate to this truth (indeed to any of the Four Noble Truths) as just something to believe is like supposing that it’s enough to put the medicine the doctor gives on the shelf and not actually taking it! The third truth’s challenge for us is to realize cessation.
When we begin to work with the third Noble Truth, our first step is to develop the understanding that the cessation or containment of dukkha—well-being (sukha)—is available if we know how to see it when it is present, and to enjoy the precious gifts we already have.
The third Noble Truth, Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, tells us that suffering is not enough. We must look deeply at our present situation and see the conditions for happiness that are already there, and then nourish those conditions.
Even though the Buddha taught the truth of dukkha as the first Noble Truth, his central teaching is the truth of “dwelling happily in things as they are” (drishta dharma sukha viharin), found in the third Noble Truth. Happiness is possible. In touching the things that bring joy and peace, we see that just to sit, to walk, to wash the dishes, and simply breathe is a miracle worth celebrating. This is not to say that we run away from that which is unpleasant in order to embrace that which is pleasant. We must model our practice after the Buddha’s and face our dukkha directly.
This leads us to the deeper practice of the third Noble Truth: in facing our dukkha, we do not discriminate against it. If we try to push it away, the resistance alone intensifies it. Rather, facing and embracing our dukkha, we come to the realization that suffering and happiness are not two. Our joy becomes real joy, and not simply the conditioned reaction to ever-changing circumstances.
In our asana practice, we can taste the liberation of letting go of dukkha and connect with the joy that is present: the joy of simply being alive, breathing in this moment. We can truly know the joy that arises when we finally let go and embrace our dukkha instead of wasting so much energy in trying to suppress, deny, and run away from it. Dwelling happily in things as they are includes dwelling with no resistance while opening to our fears, our sadness, and our judgments, without adding the burden of anguishing over them. We embrace the lived experience of every moment without self-aggression, because resisting any aspect of any moment is ultimately aggression against ourselves. This is a practice of unconditional acceptance and nonrejection.
Mindfulness Yoga Page 5