Toward the Unconditioned¹

Whenever we create good actions goodness arises in the mind. It arises from its cause. This is called kusala³. If we understand causes in this way, we can create those causes and the results will naturally follow.

But people don't usually create the right causes. They want goodness so much, and yet they don't work to bring it about. All they get are bad results, embroiling the mind in suffering. All people want these days is money. They think that if they just get enough money everything will be alright; so they spend all their time looking for money, they don't look for goodness. This is like wanting meat, but not wanting salt to preserve it: you just leave the meat around the house to rot. Those who want money should know not only how to find it, but also how to look after it. If you want meat, you can't expect to buy it and then just leave it laying around in the house. It'll just go rotten. This kind of thinking is wrong. The result of wrong thinking is turmoil and confusion. The Buddha taught the Dhamma so that people would put it into practice, in order to know it and see it, and to be one with it, to make the mind Dhamma. When the mind is Dhamma it will attain happiness and contentment. The restlessness of samsāra is in this world, and the cessation of suffering is also in this world.

The practice of Dhamma is therefore for leading the mind to the transcendence of suffering. The body can't transcend suffering - having been born it must experience pain and sickness, aging and death. Only the mind can transcend clinging and grasping. All the teachings of the Buddha, which we call pariyatti⁴, are a skillful means to this end. For instance, the Buddha taught about upādinnaka-sankhārā and anupādinnaka-sankhārā - mind-attended conditions and non-mind-attended conditions. Non-mind-attended conditions are usually defined as such things as trees, mountains, rivers and so on - inanimate things. Mind-attended conditions are defined as animate things - animals, human beings and so on. Most students of Dhamma take this definition for granted, but if you consider the matter deeply, how the human mind gets so caught up in sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, and mental states, you might see that really there isn't anything which is not mind-attended. As long as there is craving in the mind everything becomes mind-attended.

Studying the Dhamma without practicing it, we will be unaware of its deeper meanings. For instance, we might think that the pillars of this meeting hall, the tables, benches and all inanimate things are ''not mind-attended.'' We only look at one side of things. But just try getting a hammer and smashing some of these things and you'll see whether they're mind-attended or not!

It's our own mind, clinging to the tables, chairs and all of our possessions, which attends these things. Even when one little cup breaks it hurts, because our mind is ''attending'' that cup. Be they trees, mountains or whatever, whatever we feel to be ours, they have a mind attending them - if not their own then someone else's. These are all ''mind-attended conditions,'' not ''non-mind-attended.''

It's the same for our body. Normally we would say that the body is mind-attended. The ''mind'' which attends the body is none other than upādāna, clinging, latching onto the body and clinging to it as being ''me'' and ''mine.''

Just as a blind man cannot conceive of colors - no matter where he looks, no colors can be seen - just so for the mind blocked by craving and delusion, all objects of consciousness become mind-attended. For the mind tainted with craving and obstructed by delusion, everything becomes mind-attended... tables, chairs, animals and everything else. If we understand that there is an intrinsic self, the mind attaches to everything. All of nature becomes mind-attended, there is always clinging and attachment.

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.