We all like to live happily. This is everybody’s main hope in life. But how many of us succeed in this? Generally speaking none of us! How can that be? What about those with material wealth and influence? Don’t they live happily? Why do we value happiness so much? Many questions arise. The answer lies in the Dhamma upon which the Buddha was enlightened.
The Buddha found that why we cannot live happily is because there is suffering in this world. It is universal. Every one of us with no exception has to undergo suffering. Both the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich have to experience this curse in different degrees. This is why all of us value and so concerned of happiness. Everything we do has one single target – happiness. This may be making a profit, acquiring some material thing, winning the heart of someone you like or gaining status. Everybody wants it but nobody gets it forever. So suffering is the greatest obstacle to happiness. Why is it so difficult to beat suffering? To answer this you must have an understanding of the nature of suffering.
Occurrence of suffering
We are equipped with a remarkable and a powerful set of organs which have the capability to capture external entities and provide us with images of these. These are the sense organs - eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body. We are able to see, hear, smell, taste and feel because of these. How do these processes work? Suppose you see a beautiful flower. Your eyes have to see the flower first. That is a contact has to occur between the eye and the flower. Once this happens you come to know that you are seeing something. In other words a sensation arises. Along with the sensation you recognize the object of vision as a flower. This is perception. The perception identifies, labels and also evaluates the object as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. That is it makes the judgment. Once the sensory input due to an object is evaluated as pleasant or unpleasant an immediate reaction starts to play. In this case as the input is pleasant a wish occurs to intensify and prolong the experience. You want to see more of the flower. But if the input signal is evaluated as unpleasant you begin to dislike it wanting to put an end to it. Suppose somebody scolds you, this is evaluated as unpleasant and you want to hear no more of it; want to stop it. The same process occurs with the other sensory inputs of sound, smell, taste and touch. For instance, after identifying the flower as such, you would like to know what smell it has. Now you smell it with the nose. The same processes as for the vision with the eye, contact, sensation, perception and reaction takes place. Also you might want to see whether the petals feel soft, leathery or fleshy. Sense of touch with the body occurs here. Further, you would like to taste any nectar the flower may have. These two sensory inputs also follow the same route ending in the reaction.
The processes with regard to perception and reaction occur lightening fast and repeat with each subsequent occurrence of contact. Because of the rapidity you don’t recognize it happening. You will come to know of it only after the reaction has been repeated over a long period and has developed into an intensified and a pronounced form. This is when it has come to the consciousness level. Here the information gathered is stored. That is consciousness is the database of the mind. It should be noted however that this is the discriminative consciousness. It differs from the pure consciousness which is the mind completely purified of defilements or the Supreme Mind. The Supreme Mind has no discriminative consciousness as this has been completely eliminated. When an object previously encountered is contacted by a sense organ evaluation by perception takes place by obtaining recorded data from this consciousness. This is how the mind works with sensory inputs from external sources or objects formed by the sensory organs. It is because of this process that one feels that there is a ‘person’, ‘self’ or ‘I’. This is what causes all the trouble. The fact an individual is basically a collection of various physical elements bonded together along with the mind energy is not realized. Thinking that there is a permanent being called ‘I’ one develops craving or attachment. This is how discriminative consciousness brings suffering to us.
In addition to these there are various thoughts arising in the mind momentarily. These also originate from the discriminative consciousness. The data accumulated through the five sense doors, eye, ear, nose etc. are stored here as explained before. The process is the same as for the external inputs. Whatever thought arises gets back into discriminative consciousness and arises again from here. This cycle is repeated rapidly and the thought gets intensified. It happens so fast we don’t recognize it. We think it is a one stream of thought. These thoughts appear in image form in the mind. To understand this suppose someone insulted you in the past, say the day before. The thought of this happening comes out from the discriminative consciousness and arise in the mind. You see the person and hear him speaking the words of insult in your mind. Now you feel disturbed, embarrassed and angry. You respond by developing a repulsive and hateful attitude towards this particular person. You would want to punish him or her; take revenge. You would think of planning a way to implement this. Now you cannot concentrate on anything you have to attend to. You are confused. Suddenly this cycle of thoughts will pass away and you will find some relief. But unfortunately it recurs and every time this happens you undergo the same agony. And whom did you confront? The person concerned is not with you now but you are dealing with an image of him. And who gets affected? Who loses? Not that particular person but you. The result is immense pain in the mind i.e. suffering for you. Now it is clear that it is futile and also harmful to you and others to receive and respond to evil thoughts which are only images that arise from the discriminative consciousness. The solution for this is that as soon as you are aware that such a thought has arisen, you must let it go; pass off. This is where relief, happiness and peace are. Not only the thoughts that make one angry causes suffering this way but also those concerned with worry, fear, physical pain and sorrow. Even with these the only way to prevent suffering occur is ‘letting go’ of these as soon as you become aware that they have arisen.
We have been paying attention to unwholesome and therefore unpleasant thoughts so far. What about the pleasant thoughts? Don’t these bring happiness? Yes they do. But the reality is that you can’t prolong this happiness which is what you want. A pleasant thought also arise and pass away in a moment. Of course this would arise again and again but eventually it will fade away: not what you want. What you want is to intensify and enjoy the happiness more and more as much as you require. But this does not happen. Instead it loses its strength and withers after a short while. This makes you unhappy; unsatisfactory; causing suffering ultimately.
Suffering and discriminative consciousness
It is now clear that suffering occurs in the mind and not in the physical body. This can be shown as follows. Suppose you have got an injury, say you have got your finger caught between the door and its frame of a car. Obviously this is unbearably painful. Now you are suffering a lot. Just at this instant somebody knocks at the door. You forget about the finger and you don’t feel the pain. As long as you think of the injury it pains but once the mind is distracted from it the pain is not felt. The injury is still there but the body doesn’t feel it. Only our mind feels the pain. You can harbor only one thought at a time in the mind. This fact also plays in relieving the pain. The thought of pain is replaced by the disturbing thought in this particular case and the suffering vanishes. Not only physical injury and sickness but all forms of suffering, worry, anger, sorrow, aging, fear, birth and death occur in the mind. The source of suffering is in the mind. The Lord Buddha realized this through wisdom developed by insight. He showed that in whatever form it comes, it comes from the database of the mind or the discriminative consciousness. What a person can do is to let go of a thought, when he is aware of arising of it and any new sensory inputs coming from outside through the sense doors should also be allowed to let go at the sensation stage so that it cannot reach the discriminative consciousness and get registered and recorded. This process happens involuntarily sometimes in daily life. When you travel in a vehicle you see the scenery at the sides. People, trees, houses, animals and other vehicles pass by. But you might not remember most of these later because your mind has not recorded or sent the images of these objects into discriminative consciousness. If you walk in the street both these processes might take place. If you meet a friend, thoughts from the discriminative consciousness will arise and you will recognize and welcome the person. If you meet someone whom you dislike you will try to avoid him or her. Apart from them you would see many other people whom you don’t know. None of them will get registered in your discriminative consciousness and you’ll not recollect them, their images having been stopped at the sensation level. This is what you must be doing, stopping the process getting to the discriminative consciousness level.
Life and discriminative consciousness
But isn’t discriminative consciousness necessary to live the worldly life? Yes it is, without which we cannot survive. It makes judgments and provides you with the necessary intelligence and the knowledge gathered from studying and learning skills from birth, to get on with life. Take for instance a little child. When someone knocks at the door she goes to the door. She has nothing on her body, just the way she has been playing inside the house. She has no idea of this because it is not in her discriminative consciousness. Then the mother comes along and gets her into knickers. This now gets registered in her discriminative consciousness and the next time the knock is heard she will not forget to wear something before going to answer.
The judgment of the discriminative consciousness however, does not help you to see things as they really are; only to see them as they appear to be. Because of this you are deceived becoming blind to realize reality. This is ignorance. This makes you crave or attached to worldly things – the cause of suffering.
The core of Buddha’s teaching
Suffering can never be eliminated as long as discriminative consciousness prevails. Thus discriminative consciousness has to be eradicated to end suffering and attain Nirvana. You must realize this fact and while using the discriminative consciousness to live the life without being a slave to it, must try to achieve the Eternal Bliss. This is the way to happiness; the way to live life happily.
This is the ultimate of what the Buddha taught. All the writings, books, sermons, speeches, discussions and explanations on Buddha Dhamma revolves round this core of Buddha’s teaching. This is a simple yet a complicated revelation to understand; simple for the wise, complicated for those blind with ignorance. Simply it is that all suffering originates in the mind. Suffering is all from the mind and of the mind. You don’t need a Buddha who knows everything in the universe in and out to tell you that birth, living, sickness, old age and death are all suffering. Any ordinary person can understand it. But where exactly it occurs and how it could be wiped out completely forever was taught by the Buddha. The solution is simple because all you have to do is ‘let go’ of any thoughts arising once you are aware of them. Yet easier said than done! As far as the arising of thoughts from the discriminative consciousness is concerned we have no control over it. Only thing we can do is to be mindful and when you know that a new thought has arisen you let it go. But being persons who have been living a life relying on and controlled by thoughts coming from the discriminative consciousness since birth this exercise is not an easy task. Yet it is not something that cannot be done. With the right effort you can achieve this ability gradually. It is a skill you have to develop.
The meditation based on the Noble Eightfold Path as described in my 1st article does exactly this. You follow the procedure of the meditation technique. If you hear a sound, you take it as just a sound and let it go. You don’t try to think of it again or follow it to know what conditions gave rise to it. If you get a smell or feel the touch of something say a nice breeze or a body pain you deal with these in the same manner. Since the eyes and mouth are closed there are no inputs from these. This way all the five external sensory inputs are shut out and nothing goes to the discriminative consciousness. And when you are aware of the arising of thoughts coming from the discriminative consciousness you let these also go. However, these thoughts will keep coming on and on. When you progress in your meditation a moment comes enlightening you on the fact that arising of these thoughts is the real culprit which doesn’t allow you to be calm, peaceful and happy; the factor that really bothers you, confuses you, make matters unclear affecting mindfulness – the reason causing suffering. It is the hindrance to go along the Noble Eightfold Path and an obstacle to attain Nirvana. When these thoughts are allowed to go by, the mind becomes pure, gaining its originality, with no attachment, closing the door to suffering and achieving Nirvana the Noble Bliss.
To sum up, the value and the reality of this truth can be realized from the following story.
A young and a very intelligent man once came to see the Buddha and pleaded Him to teach the Dhamma. The Buddha was occupied with begging alms in a street but with deep compassion to the youth, preached the Dhamma in a nut shell. Thus He said,
“Young man if you see something, do not carry it in your mind.
If you hear something, do not carry it in your mind.
If you smell something do not carry it in your mind.
If you taste something do not carry it in your mind.
If you feel something on your body do not carry it in your mind.
If you get some thought do not think of it again.
The young man contemplated this for a moment and attained Arhantship then and there.
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