Toward the Unconditioned¹

All of you listening to the Dhamma here, reflect for a while... even a child can make you angry, isn't that so? Even a child can trick you. He could trick you into crying, laughing - he could trick you into all sorts of things. Even old people get duped by these things. For a deluded person who doesn't know the truth of conditions, they are always shaping the mind into countless reactions, such as love, hate, pleasure and pain. They shape our minds like this because we are enslaved by them. We are slaves of tanhā, craving. Craving gives all the orders, and we simply obey.

I hear people complaining... ''Oh, I'm so miserable. Night and day I have to go to the fields, I have no time at home. In the middle of the day I have to work in the hot sun with no shade. No matter how cold it is I can't stay at home, I have to go to work. I'm so oppressed.''

If I ask them, ''Why don't you just leave home and become a monk?'' they say, ''I can't leave, I have responsibilities.'' Tanhā pulls them back. Sometimes when you're doing the plowing you might be bursting to urinate so much you just have to do it while you're plowing, like the buffaloes! This is how much craving enslaves them.

When I ask, ''How are you going? Haven't you got time to come to the monastery?'' they say, ''Oh, I'm really in deep.'' I don't know what it is they're stuck in so deeply! These are just conditions, concoctions. The Buddha taught to see appearances as such, to see conditions as they are. This is seeing the Dhamma, seeing things as they really are. If you really see these two things then you must throw them out, let them go.

No matter what you may receive it has no real substance. At first it may seem good, but it will eventually go bad. It will make you love and make you hate, make you laugh and cry, make you go whichever way it pulls you. Why is this? Because the mind is undeveloped. Conditions become conditioning factors of the mind, making it big and small, happy and sad.

In the time of our forefathers, when a person died they would invite the monks to go and recite the recollections on impermanence:

All conditions are impermanent. The body and the mind are both impermanent. They are impermanent because they do not remain fixed and unchanging. All things that are born must necessarily change, they are transient - especially our body. What is there that doesn't change within this body? Hair, nails, teeth, skin... are they still the same as they used to be? The condition of the body is constantly changing, so it is impermanent. Is the body stable? Is the mind stable? Think about it. How many times is there arising and ceasing even in one day? Both body and mind are constantly arising and ceasing, conditions are in a state of constant turmoil.

The reason you can't see these things in line with the truth is because you keep believing the untrue. It's like being guided by a blind man. How can you travel in safety? A blind man will only lead you into forests and thickets. How could he lead you to safety when he can't see? In the same way our mind is deluded by conditions, creating suffering in the search for happiness, creating difficulty in the search for ease. Such a mind only makes for difficulty and suffering. Really we want to get rid of suffering and difficulty, but instead we create those very things. All we can do is complain. We create bad causes, and the reason we do is because we don't know the truth of appearances and conditions.

Conditions are impermanent, both the mind-attended ones and the non-mind-attended. In practice, the non-mind-attended conditions are non-existent. What is there that is not mind-attended? Even your own toilet, which you would think would be non-mind-attended... try letting someone smash it with a sledge hammer! He would probably have to contend with the ''authorities.'' The mind attends everything, even feces and urine. Except for the person who sees clearly the way things are, there are no such things as non-mind-attended conditions.

Footnotes

...¹

Given on a lunar observance night (Uposatha) at Wat Pah Pong, 1976

...uposatha²

Uposatha (or observance) days, are the days on which practicing Buddhists usually go to the monastery to practice meditation, listen to a Dhamma talk and keep the eight uposatha precepts - to refrain from killing, stealing, all sexual activity, lying, taking intoxicants, eating food after midday, enjoying entertainments and dressing up, and sitting or sleeping on luxurious seats or beds.

...kusala³

Kusala: wholesome or skillful actions or mental states.

...pariyatti⁴

Pariyatti, the teachings as laid down in the scriptures, or as passed down from one person to another in some form; the ''theoretical'' aspect of Buddhism. Pariyatti is often mentioned in reference to two other aspects of Buddhism - patipatti, the practice, and pativedha, the realization. Thus: Study - Practice - Realization.

... reality⁵

Sammuti sacca, a difficult term to translate. It refers to the dualistic, or nominal reality, the reality of names, determinations or conventions. For instance, a cup is not intrinsically a cup, it is only determined to be so.

... sukho⁶

''Cessation is true happiness,'' or ''the calming of conditions is true happiness.''

... consciousness⁷

The five khandhas.

...tipitaka⁸

The Buddhist Pāli Canon.

...abhidhamma⁹

The third of the ''Three Baskets,'' the Tipitaka, being the section on the higher philosophy of Buddhism.

...¹⁰

A Pāli phrase said at the end the traditional giving of the precepts.

...sīlabbata-parāmāsa¹¹

Self-view, doubt, and attachment to rites and practices.