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From: pingali@.cs.umass.edu (Sridhar Pingali)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Thought, practice...
Message-ID: <1991May17.180354.22885@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 17 May 91 18:03:54 GMT
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
Reply-To: pingali@.cs.umass.edu (Sridhar Pingali)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Lines: 70
Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov



There is the experience of thoughts arising and
passing away and there is the question "Who is the 
knower"? There is no "knower". There is only "knowing".
Thoughts are transient and fleeting - that is a fact.
That fact can only be seen with awareness - mindfulness.
But meditation does not end there. Not only are thoughts
transient and fleeting - consciousness itself is fleeting
and transient. It is also an empty phenomenon that arises
and passes away.        

Buddhist meditation masters speak of this as a real turning
point in practice. *Everything* that arises is impermanent
and is  falling away. There is then no resting place
at all - there is nothing to be grasped, no security 
even in awareness. Only when all the foundations of a belief
in an abiding self have been undermined are we left
with the wisdom of insecurity. There is complete protection
and freedom because there is *no one* to be protected. When
Buddhists say "anatman" - they mean just that.  

The reason we speak of thoughts is that the mind gets 
attached to thoughts so easily - they can very quickly
overwhelm us. Freedom comes from the *seeing* of the
truth not from *doing* anything or trying to manipulate
the mind into a different state. The power of the
mind states of anger, fear, lust etc. is such that we can
actually feel the movement towards strong attachment
when they arise. The Buddha was not satisfied with the
exalted states of meditation that he attained to while
studying with Alara Kalama and Addaka Ramaputta - because
after all that, his mind was still subject to defilements.
Those states did not represent complete freedom. His 
aim was to attain to total, completely unconditioned
freedom. A billion eons of bliss is not enough. The
Buddha asked whether greed, hatred and delusion can
be *utterly* uprooted from the mind. We too should
be asking the same question. All kinds of transcendental
experiences are possible in meditation - rivers of
light and floods of love, states of grace, oneness and
bliss. But are these states permanent? Is there total
freedom from all craving and all defilements *now*, now,
now? We can *believe* whatever we want to - that we
are always free, in a Self, in Atman = Brahman, in
theories about anatman, etc, etc. - but of what use
are these beliefs? And, anybody who sits on a zafu
long enough has insights. This is not enough either -
in the words of Stephen Mitchell, we have to get rid
of *all* our karmic gunk. For this we really need
to go deep within ourselves and become completely
transparent. All this requires great effort, 
sustained mindfulness and continuous practice.

None of this is to deny the blessings that come from
practising under an enlightened being. Innumerable
people who have had the great good fortune to come 
into the presence of Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi have
testified to this fact. That is the greatest aid that
one could have on the path.  But even so -
nobody can *give* you freedom. If the Buddhas could
set us free, I imagine they would have done so already.
Buddha Dharma doesn't have much to say about any 
underlying, undifferentiated oneness - Shakyamuni Buddha's
Enlightenment 2500 years ago is not taking away our
pain right here, right now. It is upto us to practice
or not.

Peace,
Sridhar